For Families and Loved Ones

Addiction rarely stays contained to the person using. It moves through a whole household — a partner managing alone, a parent watching from outside, an adult child who has carried it since childhood, a sibling nobody thinks to ask.

If you are exhausted, ashamed of feelings you think you shouldn't have, or simply unsure whether what you're going through counts as a real problem, this page is for you specifically. Not as a support to someone else's recovery. In your own right.

This is specialised work

Supporting someone through addiction is not something most people are equipped for, however much they love the person and however hard they try. Even well-meant responses can, without anyone intending it, make things harder rather than easier — prolong a pattern, deepen it, or cause pain that could have been avoided.

That is not a criticism of anyone doing their best with an impossible situation. It is the reason your own support matters as much as theirs does, not as an afterthought to it. It also matters very much when you choose the professional who is going to help you.

You do not need anyone's permission

You can come and talk to me whether or not the person using is in treatment, in denial, or refusing all help.

Waiting for that to change first would mean the person using has to agree you deserve support before you're allowed to have it. You don't need their agreement. You are allowed to care for your own, separate, valid needs, starting now.

It is better when everyone involved is on board. It is not a requirement.

The courage it takes to go first

Sometimes one member of a family reaches out before anyone else is ready to. Doing so can put real strain on their relationship with the others, who may still be caught in the confusion, control and manipulation that so often come with active addiction, and who are not yet able to see it clearly.

That takes real courage, and it deserves to be met with every bit of support and acknowledgement it is due — not treated as disloyalty.

What you cannot do

In theory, straightforward. In practice, very hard to live by — which is exactly why support matters so much. Knowing these four things intellectually and feeling them are not the same, and it can take real work to close that gap.

About “enabling”

Enabling is real. It is also almost always understandable, born of love, fear, or sheer exhaustion, not of failure. If you recognise yourself in it, that is not evidence that any of this is your fault.

Boundaries, consequences, and why they are not punishment

Boundaries matter in any relationship, and consequences follow from any choice — that is as true of ordinary life as it is of addiction. Consequences run in both directions: we don't get to keep the good outcomes of our own choices while deciding that consequences only apply to someone else's.

Consequences are not punishment, and the two get confused constantly. Punishment breeds resentment, confusion and distance, and it rarely changes anything. A consequence follows directly from a choice, leaves room for reflection rather than demanding blame, and actually works.

I can help you think through what a boundary looks like for your situation, and how to hold it.

How we work together

Individually, as a couple, as a whole family, with the person using or without them, with children alone or with parents — whichever combination fits. What matters most is that everyone involved has a safe, confidential space to say what they actually need, sometimes for the first time in years.

If the adults involved can agree on how to proceed, that is the easiest path, and I say so clearly at the outset so nothing is assumed later. But the starting point is always what you tell me you need. My suggestions come second.

Al-Anon and family groups

Al-Anon does remarkable work, and I am glad to support that process alongside our own. It depends on you being ready for it — there can still be shame or stigma attached to walking into a support group, and that is worth respecting rather than rushing.

Groups vary a great deal from place to place, and finding one that actually feels right to you matters more than going to the nearest one. The group I refer people to is Hottentots Holland, which meets Mondays at 19:30, at St Paul's Church, 45 Andries Pretorius St, Audas Estate, Somerset West. It's a good group.

Because my work isn't only local, there's also a link to the national finder, so anyone reading this from further away can find a group closer to them.

• Al-Anon Family Groups South Africa — a meeting finder covering the whole country
• 24-hour helpline: 0861 252 666
• Did You Grow Up with a Problem Drinker? — a short pamphlet written specifically for adult children of someone who drank

Where this comes from

Addiction and dual diagnosis have been at the centre of much of my career, and family work has been part of that from the start. I worked as senior counsellor and programme manager in the dual diagnosis programme at Kenilworth Clinic (Akeso) in Cape Town, as a counsellor, group therapist and psychoeducation lecturer at Rustenburg Momentum Mental Health Care Clinic here in Stellenbosch, and as a trauma and addictions counsellor, group therapist and lecturer at Affect2U Clinic in Belgium. In each of those settings, working with the family was never an afterthought to working with the person using; it was part of the treatment itself.

At Kenilworth, part of my work was in Start 2 Stop, an established outpatient programme for people who continue with everyday life — work, parenting, all of it — while they receive treatment. That is directly relevant to how I see most people in private practice: as outpatients, alongside their real life, rather than removed from it, unless there is a specific reason an in-patient setting would serve them better.

It is also personal. After a paragliding accident in my early thirties, I went through my own dependence on prescription pain medication, and had to find my way out of it. I know from the inside what that takes, for everyone it touches, and how little shame and judgement help any of them.

That is the reason this work matters to me as much as it does.

Where this often overlaps

This page sits alongside addiction and dual diagnosis, the page written for the person using. It also runs close to divorce and separation, where addiction is sometimes part of why a relationship is ending, and to loneliness, which is often what carrying this alone actually feels like.

Practical details

Sessions are fifty minutes, in person at my practice in Stellenbosch or online by Zoom, in English or Afrikaans. Fees and other practical questions are answered on the FAQ page.

Getting in touch

Send me a message by email, WhatsApp or the contact form. You do not need the person using to know you have reached out, and you do not need to have decided anything.

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