Helping Substance abuse clients
re-establish healthy relationships
Jaketra Bryant,LPC,MA
About the speaker…….

Jaketra Bryant, Licensed Professional counselor and Relationship Expert, is in private
practice and contracts services with Georgia State University athletic department and
Counseling and Testing Center. She has over nine years of experience in the mental
health field. She has extensive experience working with individuals who struggle to find
their direction and meaning for one’s life. Prior to starting her own counseling program,
she worked with the legal system at maximum security state prisons and jails
counseling inmates/prisoners. After completing her undergraduate degree in
Psychology/Biology Pre-medicine coupled with her Masters in Counseling she now
strives to help the total person mind and body heal. Jaketra has established her own
assessment tool looking at the 4 core areas that impacts a person’s ability to function
healthy. Her assessment tool is currently used at local Universities in Georgia and with
Pro-level athletes. She has taught several workshops on topics to end the silence of
mental health and open the door to cultural issues and has received outstanding
reviews.
Learning Objectives

Barriers- to establishing healthy
relationships

Prepare therapist to assess the
complications of establishing a
healthy relationship while in
recovery. Learning objective
strategies to assist the client with
identifying those barriers within their
past usage that one would need to be
attentive to.

Balance- to a lasting healthy relationship

Discuss the stigma with having a
relationship while in recovery

Demonstrate the importance of
evaluating barriers, and setting
boundaries in order to have balance
between maintenance of recovery
and a healthy relationship.

Discuss suggestions therapist may
give clients to have a healthy
relationship.
Boundaries- a must in relationships

Discuss the requirements “the must”
of setting boundaries in order to
maintain one’s sober lifestyle.
Demonstrate activities that teach
boundary settings in relationships
and how to intertwine barriers and
boundaries.
SAMHSA
SAMHSA stated that these four major dimensions support a life of recovery:

Health—overcoming or managing one’s disease(s) or symptoms—for example,
abstaining from use of alcohol, illicit drugs, and non-prescribed medications if
one has an addiction problem—and, for everyone in recovery, making
informed, healthy choices that support physical and emotional well-being

Home—having a stable and safe place to live

Purpose—conducting meaningful daily activities, such as a job, school
volunteerism, family caretaking, or creative endeavors, and the
independence, income, and resources to participate in society

Community—having relationships and social networks that provide support,
friendship, love, and hope
Barriers………
Barriers: a circumstance or obstacle that keeps people or things apart or
prevents communication or progress
Why’s….

Barriers keep clients away from the same old patterns

Barriers or knowing one’s barriers help clients build insight with their
own struggles

Barriers can be the clients “panic zone”

Barriers can go against the recovery

Barriers help recognize the risk of certain behaviors
Barriers……..Assessing the clients

Recovery oriented service system/ recovery oriented care
1.
Clients participation in recovery and planning
2.
Identifying and addressing barriers to recovery
3.
Assist clients in knowing what to expect while in recovery
The recovery oriented care practice recognizes that recovery is not necessarily
about a cure but about having opportunities for choices and living a meaningful,
satisfying and purposeful life, and being a valued member of the community.
Recovery oriented care model
Assessing the client for barriers
The Recovery oriented care model is a person centered approach. It has a heavy
focus on getting the client involved with methods to reach goals and maintain
recovery. The Recovery model strives to make plans individualized, provide
education and is strength based.
When I hear those key features I find great opportunity to teach clients how to
sustain recovery and avoid placing themselves in compromising situations.
How to assess your client’s barriers with using an integrated
approach and the recovery oriented care model
VEAT approach
1.
V verbalize those consequences associated with barriers
2.
E educate the client on why recognizing barriers are actually important when
it comes to this change in lifestyle.
3.
A ask the client to identify their own barriers that they see may cause their
recovery to be difficult
4.
T teach the client how to overcome those barriers identified during their
assessment.
Boundaries….a must to recovery
Boundaries are an essential part of recovery.
Boundaries: something that indicates bounds or limits
Activity one: Boundary drawing, materials white paper, colored pencils or
markers/crayons
Procedure..1) Begin the session with defining what boundaries are: a)here are
boundary/limitations used in every aspect of life, including but not limited to
Relationships, work, time etc. b) There are three types of boundaries (draw out
an example of each of these boundaries.
Overly RIGID… This person has shut herself off to the world around
her/him saying “NO” to the bad things but also “NO” to the good things
in life. This person feels isolated and lonely, at the expense of feeling in
control.
NO
NO
NO
NO
NO
OVERLY WEAK boundaries….. This is where the person cannot say “NO” to anyone. Instead
they say “YES” so often that they begin to feel overwhelmed, out of control and unhappy
about their lives. They are afraid of saying “NO” because they don’t want to hurt anyone’s
feelings or make anyone made.
HEALTHY boundaries. This is where the person says “YES” to the things that make
him/her feel GOOD about herself and “NO” to the things that make her feel bad
about herself; regardless if it makes others happy or not
No
Yes
No to the bad
No
Yes to the good
Yes
Continued…..
Ask the client what does he/she boundary look like and draw it out…
Discuss the drawing and have him/her identify what each color/symbol means to
them.
Have the client do a second drawing. This one will be what the client would like
her boundaries to look like. Discuss what will it take to get to this place and
specific actions that the client can take to obtain the confidence to establish
these boundaries in her life.
Resource: Art therapy: Sharing directives; boundary drawings
Activity
Activity two: Boundary setting
Hand-out
Balance……
Barriers +
Boundaries = Balance
Barriers are recognized to set the boundary to maintain balance in recovery
A person in sobriety looks like the picture above. Once they have committed to a
life without drugs and/or alcohol it now becomes a strength and determination
battle. The strength to set the necessary boundaries and the determination or
will power to sustain their recovery.
Applying the recovery oriented care model to balance
Key points to maintain balance
1.
Supports and empowers individuals to make their own choices about how they
want to lead their lives and acknowledges choices need to be meaningful and
creatively explored.
2.
Ensures that there is balance between duty of care and support for individuals
to take positive risks and make the most of new opportunities.
3.
Involves listening to, learning from and acting upon communications from the
individuals and their carers about what is important to the individual
Hot Topic: avoiding relationships in
recovery

The first year no romance zone

Get to know thyself

Rule 101 avoid relationships with other people in recovery
Healthy relationships, Healthy recovery
Dating a Recovering Addict: Match-Maker or Deal Breaker….A past problem with
drugs or alcohol shouldn’t automatically care you away by David Sack, MD
David Sack wrote an interesting point stating, Most recovering addicts aren’t
strangers to therapy and, as a result, have spent a lot of time working on
themselves and their relationship. They have learned critical relationship skills,
including how to identify, process, and communicate their emotions and to set
personal boundaries while respecting the lines drawn by others. Recovery addicts
don’t expect perfection in their partners, having learned firsthand that it doesn’t
exist. And they have committed-in recovery and in life-to honesty and integrity
and making decisions in accordance with their values.