Support for Families Affected by Addiction

If someone you love is drinking, using drugs or gambling, support for you matters too — whether or not they want help. Addiction can affect every part of your life. You are not alone in this — and your experience matters.

Partners, parents, siblings and adult children of someone who drinks, uses drugs or gambles can get support for themselves from Rebecca Mistry. Sessions are for one person, a couple or a whole family, at The Blossom Tree Clinic, Suite 2, 6A Love Lane, Pinner HA5 3EF, or online. What sessions cost is on the fees page; the first consultation is free.

To find out how family therapy works, see Family therapy for addiction.

Personal interest and specialism

For more than fifteen years, I have worked alongside families affected by addiction and related difficulties. My experience includes roles with national treatment providers including Change Grow Live, The Forward Trust, Turning Point and Cranstoun, as well as delivering family programmes such as M-PACT, Relationships Matter and Recovering Families.

I understand how exhausting, frightening and isolating addiction can be for families. I also know that alongside the worry and frustration there can be deep love, resilience and hope. I bring both professional expertise and genuine compassion to every conversation.

How addiction can affect families

I work with partners, parents, siblings and adult children affected by addiction. In sessions, we look at their experiences and at how relationships and family patterns might change.

I also work with people in recovery who are adjusting to changes in family and relationship dynamics. Recovery can bring significant personal change, and therapy offers families a space to work on trust, boundaries and new ways of relating as old patterns begin to shift.

Family members can find themselves carrying worry, responsibility, grief and uncertainty for many years, sometimes long after the addiction itself has changed. Every family's experience is different, but some of the themes below may feel familiar.

When someone you love is struggling

Your sleep, your mood, your relationships, your ability to concentrate, make plans, or feel confident in your decisions can all be impacted. You may find yourself living from one crisis to the next, constantly worrying about what might happen next.

Support may be focused on the person experiencing the addiction, while you are left carrying the worry, managing the uncertainty, and trying to hold everything together.

Systemic family therapy looks at these patterns. Together, we can explore how addiction has affected relationships, roles and ways of coping within your family, and consider what you would like to change, for everyone involved — including you.

What we might explore together

Understanding your responses and identifying what is helping and what may be getting in the way
Developing boundaries that protect your wellbeing while maintaining important relationships
Managing difficult emotions such as anger, guilt, grief, fear, hope and exhaustion
Strengthening communication and rebuilding trust within the family
Supporting children and young people affected by a family member's addiction
Reconnecting with your own needs, values and identity beyond the addiction

“There's an unmistakable sense of Rebecca's ethical values — a belief in the goodness in people, even when they do bad things; a belief in people's and families' capacity to change, to repair and to recover.”

— Parents of a young adult in recovery from substance use

Explore specific areas

Growing Up Around Addiction

The effects of growing up in a family affected by addiction can continue into adulthood.

Parenting & Navigating Addiction

When you're worried about your child's behaviour and unsure what to do.

When Your Partner Is Drinking or Using

Living alongside addiction can be exhausting, isolating and deeply uncertain.

The Impact on Siblings

When a brother or sister's addiction leaves you feeling overlooked.

Living With Loss & Uncertainty

Grieving someone who is still here, or someone who has died through addiction.

Recovery & Relationships

Rebuilding trust, renegotiating boundaries, and finding new ways of relating.

What is an 'affected other'?

An 'affected other' is anyone whose life is impacted by someone else's substance use or addictive behaviour — a partner, parent, child, sibling, or close friend. The term recognises that addiction can affect the whole family, not just the person using.

Do I need the person using to come to therapy?

No. I can work with family members without the person using being present. Your experience and wellbeing matter independently. Systemic therapy looks at how a change in one part of a family can affect the rest.

Is it normal to feel angry, guilty, and exhausted?

These feelings make sense. Living with someone else's addiction can take an enormous emotional toll, and anger, guilt, shame, exhaustion, and grief are understandable responses to a very hard situation. Therapy offers a space to process these feelings without judgement.

How is family therapy different from Al-Anon or family support groups?

Support groups like Al-Anon offer peer connection and shared experience, which is valuable. Family therapy is a more structured, professionally facilitated process that works with your specific family dynamics, patterns, and relationships. You don't have to choose: you can do both.

Your experience matters

You don't have to wait until things get worse. A conversation is a good place to start.

Book a Free Consultation