Addiction/Codependency

The power of free choice is a unique human capability. It is the crux of what addictions and consciousness work is all about. The loss of access to free choice is what determines whether or not one has become addicted.

My specialty in addiction and co-dependency was born out of a very difficult time in my personal life. Life circumstances became my internship, my academic and clinical competence in the field came after.

In my early thirties, and recently divorced from my European husband, I found myself penniless, naïve, isolated in a different culture and without a support system, I decided to stay in America and pursue a specialty in system’s theory and consciousness.

That’s where I met and fell in love with my teacher! A charming, very loving Scottish alcoholic that was in recovery and proceeded to relapse. As he was very progressed in the disease : he had delirium tremens, was drinking the perfume of my roommates and was taking his car for days while having black outs. I tried to help, to control his drinking and make sense out of his cunning lies.

Pleading with his AA sponsor to do something for him and met with “he has to reach bottom”… I was ashamed, out of control, hanging on to shreds of self-esteem and getting very sick. I oscillated between hate for the alcoholic and compassion, and was consumed by the chaos, totally losing access to my needs and aspirations. My only goal was to get him sober; I assumed things would be good after that. I was practicing another addiction without knowing : “co-dependency”

The disease of alcoholism,like any other addiction, started to penetrate my mind, heart, body and bury my spirit. I was too ashamed to reach out to my family in Europe and in denial of the severity of the problem! After all, I had already a license in psychology from Europe and I knew that I was intelligent and had helped countless persons. All what I had studied about the disease was book knowledge and the notion of co-dependency and family disease was just emerging. Co-dependency became the subject of a new doctoral thesis and of a deep personal renewal and quest to live a life grounded in a pragmatic spiritual perspective.

Tel: +1-415-456-5502   California, USA