When caring becomes overwhelming, support can help you steady yourself.

Supporting someone you care about who uses drugs can be overwhelming. You may feel anxious about their safety, uncertain about how to help, or exhausted from trying to hold everything together. Many loved ones describe feeling caught between worry, anger, guilt, and hope—all at once.

Therapy offers a space to process these experiences while also building concrete skills—so you are not left relying only on fear, urgency, or self-sacrifice to guide your responses. The goal is to help you support your loved one in ways that are clearer, steadier, and more sustainable, without losing yourself in the process.

This work centers you—your well-being, your limits, and your capacity—while honoring the complexity of your relationship.

Why Therapy for Loved Ones?

When someone you care about is struggling with substance use, the impact often extends far beyond them. You may find yourself:

• Feeling responsible for “fixing” things or keeping your loved one safe

• Struggling to set boundaries without guilt or fear

• Experiencing chronic anxiety, sadness, or isolation

• Worrying about overdose, relapse, or legal consequences

• Feeling torn between wanting to help and needing space

• Carrying shame, secrecy, or fear of judgment

• Noticing your own health, relationships, or work suffering

Therapy provides a nonjudgmental space to make sense of these pressures and to learn ways of responding that reduce conflict, increase clarity, and protect your well-being.

A Harm Reduction and CRAFT-Informed Approach for Loved Ones

Many traditional approaches tell loved ones there is only one path forward—often framed as “tough love,” cutting off contact, or insisting on abstinence. Harm reduction and CRAFT (Community Reinforcement and Family Training) offer a more flexible, evidence-based approach that recognizes the complexity of substance use and relationships.

In therapy, we may focus on:

• Understanding substance use through a compassionate, evidence-based lens, reducing blame and increasing clarity

• Developing communication strategies that lower defensiveness and make it more likely your loved one can hear you

• Practicing boundary-setting that is clear and consistent without relying on threats, guilt, or withdrawal

• Learning how reinforcement works—including how to reduce unintentional enabling while increasing the chances of safer or healthier behavior

• Strengthening your own coping and self-care, so your life is not organized entirely around someone else’s use

• Identifying resources and supports aligned with your values and limits

This approach focuses on what you can influence—rather than what you cannot control—and supports steadiness over urgency, and skill over self-sacrifice.

(This paragraph is where the CRAFT signal is strongest, without turning clinical.)

Support for You, Too

Supporting someone who uses drugs does not mean putting your own life on hold. Therapy can help you clarify what is within your control, reduce chronic stress, and make intentional choices about how you show up in the relationship.

Caring for yourself is not a failure of loyalty. In CRAFT-informed work, it is often what allows support to be more effective, more boundaried, and more sustainable over time.

Therapy for Loved Ones in California and North Carolina

I provide individual therapy for loved ones of people affected by substance use to adults located in California and North Carolina. Sessions are offered virtually, allowing flexibility, privacy, and access regardless of location. I also offer in-person sessions in the Bay Area.

Getting Started

If you are supporting someone who uses drugs and want practical, compassionate support—without judgment or pressure—I invite you to reach out.

📧 Contact: KateRobertsLCSW@gmail.com