Support for families affected by addiction

Yes, and that is who this is mostly for. Your support does not depend on their decisions. Waiting for them to be ready has already cost most families years, and the changes you make on your own side are real changes rather than a consolation prize.

No. This is your appointment. What you say is confidential and nothing goes back to them. If they are also a client of the practice, that makes no difference: your session is yours.

That word gets used as an accusation far too easily, usually at the person who has done the most. Paying a bill, covering for someone or letting them stay can be the thing that keeps them alive on one day and the thing that removes a consequence on another, and the honest answer is often that both are true. The work is on which is which in your situation, not on a rule about what you should never do.

It is worth thinking about carefully rather than doing off a television format. Confrontations arranged by a family under pressure often go badly and can cost the relationship that was the last remaining line of contact. If it is on your mind, bring it in and we will work through what you want to achieve and what is likely to happen, before anybody schedules anything.

Children in these households usually know a great deal more than the adults think, and what they lack is a place to put it. Depending on their age they can be seen in their own sessions, or the work can be with you on what to tell them and how. Where a child needs their own counsellor, Sophia and Aisha work with children and young people.

Yes. Partners, parents, adult siblings and adult children can be seen individually, in pairs or together. Families often disagree sharply about how to handle it, and one of the more useful things this work does is get everybody onto the same page so the person using is not receiving five different messages.

Three things, roughly. They give you somewhere to put what you are carrying, which for most people has been nowhere. They work on boundaries you can actually hold, rather than ones you announce and abandon. And they deal with the guilt, because families almost always arrive convinced that this is somehow their fault.

Family Drug Support runs a 24-hour line for families on 1300 368 186, staffed by people who have lived it. It is worth saving the number now rather than looking for it during the next bad night. If there is immediate danger, call 000.

No. Advance Minds is a registered NDIS provider and can deliver therapy funded through the CB Daily Activity part of a plan, but addiction therapy is not included in that. If you have an NDIS plan and want to understand what it does cover here, the NDIS page explains it.