- Has your drinking started to affect the people that you love?
- Has your substance abuse started to create havoc within your work or family life?
- Have you been arrested for an impaired charge?
- Has your substance use created pain within your relationships?
- Hi, my name is Gilles Brideau and I’m a psychotherapist, hypnotist and coach.
In this section on substance abuse, this is really the primary root of most of my career in working with people. I became interested in addictions counseling in the early 1990s when I was studying, doing my undergrad. How addiction has affected my life personally, is that I have a family member with a substance use problem. I really wanted to discover, in doing my studies, why is it that they had a problem, and that I didn’t. Questions during my undergraduate work revolved around answering those questions. The reason why I asked the question, is we had similar parents, similar background, same schools, same primary school, same secondary school. We both played hockey growing up. I really wanted to discover what kind of were the key factors in terms of what, in essence, made people tip. What would propel someone to go more towards one behavior rather than another.
That journey has led me to here, in terms of helping people. I understand both, a little bit more from the addictive side but I also learned and also understand more from the family component and how frustrating that could be, living with someone with an addictions issue. In this section we’re going to cover a little bit about my approach in deal with substance abuse. In in the videos that are covered, there’s a little bit about the difference between shame and guilt and how toxic shame is actually one of the key, core components of a perpetual addiction. Meaning, continuing to cycle in that pain.
We’re also going to cover a video that doesn’t seem to fit in this section, but it actually does, which is how to overcome anger and fear. Know that, with addiction work anger and fear are actually the number 1 and 2 reasons that people relapse. You want to create a counter. The greatest counter to that is gratitude. How to develop gratitude? Within Alcoholics Anonymous one of their key sayings that I’ve learnt over the years in my work and working collaboratively with self-help groups, is that gratitude is the hinge in which the sober door swings. Gratitude really plays an important part in recovery, that’s why this video is also included.
I’m going to cover CBT and what cognitive behavioral therapy is and how it’s actually evolved as one of the best practices measures in dealing with addiction. It’s just to know a little bit about CBT as a whole. I also added a review of a movie, and the importance of support, and the power of addiction. The movie is actually about the resurrection of Jake the Snake Roberts, who was a very popular wrestler in the late 1980s and early 1990s. His struggle in dealing with his addiction, and how low he had to go before he actually had the support and care of loved ones and how he managed to turn his life around. The documentary kind of covers his, it documents his journey towards wellness.
I want to add a couple videos that are going to be coming soon. One will be one narrative therapy is a really phenomenal tool I’ve used to examine the relationship between a person and their substance abuse. Most clients that I have always do narrative therapy on session 2, and they have found it extremely enlightening to look at their own relationship with substances and how it’s impacted them long term.
The other video I want to look at, it’s called the Crazy Eights, which is how this perpetual pattern of using distractions like alcohol, will lead to a person feeling more pain, more anger, more sadness, more pain, more anger, more sadness. It will also explain how people have a tendency to switch addictions from let’s say, alcohol or drugs then to switch to work, then they may switch to relationship and then they’ll switch to gambling or shopping or whatever it maybe. The video will really highlight, not only that, but of course, ways to get out of that.
That’s what you can look forward to in this section. I welcome you to peruse through this section. I hope you find some of the information beneficial. With that I wish you wellness in your recovery. Thanks for coming today.
Shame vs Guilt
Hi guys and welcome to today’s session. I am Gilles Brideau, I’m a psychotherapist, coach, and hypnotist that lives and works in Sudbury Ontario Canada.
Today I thought I’d do a little quick video on the difference between shame and guilt. Now, having worked with addiction clients for the majority of my career, this topic has often came forth as 1 of the primary kind of factors in helping people overcome addiction. I was propelled to do a short video about this just because of a client that was in yesterday. How she has a tendency to self-sabotage due to these issues. Let’s jump right in and let’s look at what really are the differences between shame and guilt.
How to Overcome Anger and Fear: Gratitude
Gratitude is a really important thing. I’ve mentioned before on my channel that I’ve been drug and alcohol counselor for over 20 years, and gratitude is kind of the foundational point. It issaid within different self-help circles that gratitude is the hinge in which the silver door swings. Gratitude plays a big part in people’s wellness, and so I thought it’d be really important to share a few minutes on that topic today. What I’m going to demonstrate is just kind of a routine that I’ve developed to kind of help exercise gratitude. The other thing that’s really important about gratitude is that it is the true counter to anger and fear, which are 2 common emotions that my clients go through, and struggle with especially in early recovery.
Dealing with Your Addiction: A Narrative Approach
Hi, and welcome to today’s video. I am Gilles Brideau. I’m a hypnotherapist coach and psychotherapist that lives and works in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
The reason we are brought together today is how to deal specifically with an addition issue. This is specific strategy I’ve been using probably for a good 15 to 18 years of working with people. It’s something I picked up along the way. I think it was at a workshop. I’ve kind of molded it and changed it a little bit to kind of fit my own personality, but I’ve found that it’s been very effective in terms of creating a client-centered approach, which is the focus is primarily on you if you’re struggling with an addition issues.
What is CBT?
Hi, guys and welcome to today’s session. My name is Gilles Brideau. I’m a therapist, hypnotist and coach that works in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
I thought I’d do a quick video today on what is CBT or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. It’s one of the things that I get asked often about from clients in terms of what exactly it is, how it can help, and what kind of issues does it help. I’m going to hopefully address some of that in a very simple way today.
Addiction, The Importance of Support and a Review
Welcome to today’s session. My name is Gilles Brideau, and I am a psychotherapist, coach, and hypnotist that lives and works in Sudbury Ontario, Canada.
The topic of today is about addictions and more specifically, I watched a movie recently about the resurrection of Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Now for those of you who don’t know, Jake “The Snake” Roberts was a professional wrestler that was extremely popular in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. This video, or this movie sorry, that was presented on Netflix really demonstrated the rise and fall, more about the fall but how he became a superstar in the World Wrestling Federation. It’s now the World Wrestling Entertainment. In the WWF, even to the point when he was the main event, they had broken attendance records for an outdoor event, or an indoor event because it was at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan.
Cycle of Addiction
Hi, and welcome to today’s session. My name is Gilles Brideau, I’m a psychotherapist, coach and hypnotist that lives and works in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada.
Today I wanted to talk a little bit about the cycle of addiction or the cycle of despair. For a lot of my clients when they come in, they’re struggling between kind of a balance of two emotions.