Leaking. Addressing Addiction Counselor Codependency

Time to put the oxygen mask on!I have spent more than 25 years training chemical dependency counselors and they are my favorite people. For the most part, they’re either in personal addiction recovery or they are family members who have been touched by the chaos of addiction. The very passion that brings us to this work is the potential foundation for burnout and relapse if those issues are not identified and addressed throughout a counselor’s career. I plan to address codependency from early attachment disruption perspective, which results in both codependent behaviors as well as immune system damage. When I see counselors relapse or abruptly leave a career they trained to enter I always wonder about the triggers they faced that they couldn’t manage without imploding. Our clients and co-workers can put their finger on our unhealed wounds on a regular basis due to our ability to identify with them. In fact, our identification is a mixed blessing. I can draw compassion from my ability to identify. I can also step into my own blind spots and reactivity that may go unchecked without proper support and awareness. Working with a cognitively impaired, emotionally reactive and defensive population with profound trust issues is a challenge that only people with a calling will enter and remain. This book addresses the challenges and offers tools to help talented counselors remain in the addiction counseling profession. We need you. About the Author: Mary Crocker Cook, D.Min., LMFT, LPCC, LAADC, CADCII is the co-owner of Connections Counseling Associates in San Jose California, and is the Program Coordinator for the San Jose City College Alcohol and Drug Studies program she developed in 1990. Mary has authored five other texts: Awakening Hope. A Developmental Behavioral, Biological Approach to Codependency; Afraid to Let Go. For Parents of Adult Addicts and Alcoholics; Codependency and Men; Welcome to My World, and The Work Goes On. For more information visit: www.marycrockercook.com Books printed in the US and the UK.