Addiction & Recovery Therapy · California

We’re Not Going to Fight With Your Addiction. We Want to Understand What’s Underneath It.

Are you exhausted by the effort of trying to stop—and the pain that comes back when you do? Have you made changes, gone to treatment, or built time in recovery, only to find that something still feels unresolved?

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You may understand the consequences of your addiction all too well. What you may not understand is why you keep reaching for something that is hurting you, even when you want your life to be different.

Perhaps alcohol or drugs help quiet your thoughts, soften loneliness, or make it possible to sleep. Perhaps they give you a break from memories, anxiety, or a feeling you cannot bear to sit with. The relief is real, even when it is brief and comes at a growing cost.

When Stopping Doesn’t Resolve the Pain

You may have recently left a treatment center and feel uncertain about returning to everyday life. Without the structure and support you had there, familiar relationships, pressures, and feelings can become overwhelming.

Or you may have years in recovery and still struggle with shame, disconnection, or the sense that you are simply enduring life without the thing that once made it bearable.

At Sessions Therapy, we offer addiction and recovery therapy focused on the trauma and pain beneath these patterns. Wherever you are starting, we want to help you build a life that feels more possible to inhabit.

There Is a Reason You Have Needed Relief

Our approach is informed by Gabor Maté’s emphasis on understanding the pain beneath addiction. We are interested in what happened to you, what you have been carrying, and what using has helped you get through.

For many people, that includes childhood trauma: abuse, neglect, instability, or growing up without reliable comfort and protection. For others, it includes later trauma, grief, isolation, chronic stress, or other pain that has felt relentless.

You May Have Learned to Get Through Things Alone

You do not need a single defining event or a clear memory of trauma to explore this connection. You may have learned early that your feelings were too much, your needs would not be met, or closeness was unsafe. You may have become skilled at functioning while keeping distress out of sight.

Something that offered relief can become something you depend on. Over time, addiction can create its own problems, adding secrecy, conflict, financial pressure, and further isolation to the pain that was already there.

Understanding this history does not erase the consequences. It gives us somewhere useful to begin.

Addiction has multiple contributing factors, and we will not assume we already know your story. Our focus is on understanding the role trauma and ongoing pain play in your experience—and helping you address them.

You can take responsibility for change while receiving care for what has made change so difficult.

Treating the Pain Can Help Addiction Loosen Its Grip

We’re not going to fight with your addiction. We want to understand what it has been doing for you and treat the underlying problems that keep it necessary.

That means paying attention both to the relief you seek and to the costs you want to stop living with.

Together, we work toward making the feelings, memories, and situations you have been escaping more manageable, so you have more choice in how you respond.

What We Do in Therapy

We begin with what is happening now: your substance use, your recovery goals, your daily life, and the support available to you. We ask what happens before an urge, what changes when you use, and what feels hardest when you do not.

You and your therapist may work on:

  1. Recognizing the experiences and feelings that trigger urges.
  2. Developing ways to handle distress and stay connected to the present.
  3. Addressing shame, self-criticism, and painful beliefs about yourself.
  4. Processing traumatic experiences at a pace you can participate in.
  5. Building relationships, boundaries, and routines that support your recovery.
  6. Finding room for pleasure, connection, and purpose.

Depending on your needs and your therapist’s training, treatment may include EMDR, parts work informed by Internal Family Systems, and somatic approaches. Your therapist will explain what they recommend and how it relates to what you want help with.

We do not begin by asking you to tell every painful detail. We develop a plan together, attend to your current safety and support, and check how the work is affecting you. Trauma treatment can happen alongside addiction care; the timing and pace should fit your circumstances.

Support at Any Stage of Recovery

We welcome people who are questioning their use, actively using, beginning recovery, returning after a recurrence of use, or maintaining long-term recovery. We also work with people transitioning out of residential or intensive treatment who want ongoing therapy for underlying trauma.

You do not need to adopt a particular recovery philosophy to work with us.

If 12-step meetings, Refuge Recovery, Recovery Dharma, SMART Recovery, medication, or another approach is helping you, we support your continuing with it. Our focus is trauma treatment, and we want that work to complement the care and community you find useful.

With your permission, we can coordinate with your treatment team. If you need medical withdrawal management, more intensive addiction treatment, or medication support, we will help you identify appropriate care alongside or before outpatient trauma work.

Questions About Addiction & Recovery Therapy

Do I have to be sober before I start?

You can reach out while you are still using or unsure about stopping. We will talk honestly about your goals, current risks, and what kind of support would help. You do not have to meet an arbitrary sobriety milestone to have that conversation. Whether and when we begin trauma processing depends on your ability to participate safely and the support you need.

Will talking about trauma make me want to use more?

It makes sense to worry about losing a way of coping before you have enough support. We take that concern seriously. We work collaboratively, build ways to manage distress, and adjust the pace when needed. You can tell us when something feels overwhelming. We want therapy to strengthen your capacity to face your life, and we will regularly check whether the plan is helping.

I’ve already been to treatment. How would this be different?

Treatment may have helped you interrupt substance use, establish routines, and find support. Our work can build on that foundation by addressing trauma, painful beliefs, and relationship patterns that remain. You do not have to start over or abandon what worked. We want to understand what is still difficult and help you take the next step.

Recovery Can Include Relief From What You’ve Been Carrying

You may want more than the ability to resist an urge. You may want to feel at home in your body, trust other people, sleep more easily, or face a difficult day without needing to disappear from it.

You do not have to know exactly what is underneath your addiction before you reach out.

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Let’s find the right fit.

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