A compassionate, body-based approach to addiction and recovery
If you’re struggling with alcohol, drugs, or another addictive or compulsive behaviour, you probably already know the things you’re “supposed” to do.
Stop.
Make better choices.
Use more willpower.
Think about the consequences.
The difficulty is that addiction rarely works at the level of logic alone.
You can know something is hurting you and still find yourself returning to it.
You can genuinely want to stop in the morning and feel completely different by the afternoon.
You can promise yourself, and the people you love, that this time will be different, only to find yourself back in the same place again.
That can bring an enormous amount of shame.
In my work offering Somatic Addiction Recovery in Brisbane, I’m interested in something deeper than simply asking, “Why can’t you stop?”
I’m interested in understanding what the addiction has been doing for you.
Because somewhere along the way, it probably did something.
It helped.
Even if eventually the thing that helped became another source of suffering.
Addiction often begins with relief
For many people, addiction isn’t simply about pleasure.
It’s about relief.
• Relief from anxiety • relief from loneliness • relief from shame • relief from memories • relief from emotional pain • relief from boredom or emptiness • relief from a body that never seems to completely settle.
Alcohol might quieten something.
Drugs might change how you feel inside.
Gambling might create excitement and focus.
Pornography, food, gaming, scrolling, or other compulsive behaviours might offer escape, soothing, stimulation, or simply somewhere else to go for a while.
None of this means addiction is harmless.
It can damage our health, finances, relationships, families and sense of who we are.
But I believe we can acknowledge the harm while still being curious about why the behaviour became important in the first place.
For me, that curiosity is an important part of addiction recovery.
What happens before the urge?
Often we focus almost entirely on the addictive behaviour itself.
Did you drink?
Did you use?
Did you gamble?
How much?
How often?
Those questions can matter, but somatic therapy also invites us to become interested in what happens before the behaviour.
Perhaps there is a tightening in your chest.
Restlessness in your legs.
A sinking feeling in your stomach.
An argument with your partner.
A difficult day at work.
Loneliness when you walk into an empty house.
Or maybe you don’t notice anything at all.
There is simply an urge and then the familiar movement towards whatever provides relief.
Part of somatic addiction therapy can involve slowing this process down enough to begin noticing: • what you feel in your body • what emotions are present • what situations trigger the strongest urges • what happens in relationships • what you tend to do next • what you might actually be needing.
We aren’t looking for another reason to judge you.
We’re trying to understand the pattern.
Addiction and disconnection from the body
Many people struggling with addiction have learned, for very understandable reasons, not to feel too much.
If being present means encountering anxiety, trauma, shame, loneliness, anger, grief or uncomfortable physical sensations, getting away from those experiences can become incredibly appealing.
Over time, we can lose contact with the quieter signals our bodies are giving us.
We might not notice that we’re becoming overwhelmed until we’re already there.
We may not recognise loneliness until the urge to use appears.
We may not realise how tense we’ve become until we desperately need something to bring us down.
This is where Somatic Trauma Therapy for Addiction Brisbane becomes so relevant; addiction and unprocessed trauma are so often tangled together in the body.
This is one reason my approach to Somatic Addiction Recovery in Brisbane includes the body.
Not because the body holds some magical answer.
But because our sensations, emotions, impulses and reactions can tell us something about what is happening before the behaviour takes over.
A different relationship with urges
The aim isn’t to become perfectly calm.
And it isn’t to eliminate every uncomfortable feeling.
Recovery involves living.
And living includes • anxiety • frustration • disappointment • loneliness • boredom • grief • conflict • uncertainty.
So rather than trying to create a life where you never experience discomfort, our work can involve gradually increasing your capacity to stay with yourself when discomfort appears.
Sometimes that might mean noticing an urge without immediately acting on it.
Sometimes it means recognising that you’re becoming overwhelmed earlier than you normally would.
Sometimes it means contacting somebody instead of disappearing into yourself.
Sometimes it simply means learning that a sensation can rise, change and eventually pass.
These may sound like small things.
But recovery is often built through many small moments.
How I work with addiction
There isn’t one method that works for everybody.
My approach is somatic, relational and Gestalt-informed, which means we pay attention to what is happening in your thoughts, emotions, body, relationships and life as a whole. This Somatic Approach to Addiction Recovery Brisbane is less about a fixed technique and more about staying curious with you.
Depending on what you need, our work may include: • Somatic Therapy, exploring bodily sensations, impulses and patterns • Gestalt Therapy, developing awareness of how you relate to yourself and others in the present moment • mindfulness practices, learning to notice thoughts, feelings and urges without immediately reacting • TRE, or Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises • the Safe and Sound Protocol, which may support physiological regulation • parts-informed work, becoming curious about the different parts of you that may want very different things.
These aren’t techniques I simply apply to you.
We work together to discover what is actually useful for you.
TRE and addiction recovery
TRE, or Tension and Trauma Releasing Exercises, uses a series of exercises designed to invite the body’s natural shaking or tremoring response.
For some people, TRE can offer a gentle way of becoming more familiar with physical sensation and tension, in a similar spirit to the work of a Somatic Experiencing Therapist Brisbane, slow, body-led, and never forced.
But with addiction work, I think pacing is particularly important.
If substances or compulsive behaviours have helped you escape overwhelming internal experiences, suddenly feeling more isn’t necessarily helpful.
We can go slowly.
The aim is not to force emotional release or push through discomfort.
It is to develop greater choice around how you respond to what you feel.
Safe and Sound Protocol
I’m also a provider of the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP).
The SSP is a listening-based approach using specially filtered music, designed to support physiological regulation and sensitivity to cues of safety.
For some people, regulation is an important part of addiction recovery.
If alcohol, drugs, or compulsive behaviours have become one of the primary ways you settle yourself, stimulate yourself, escape, or change how you feel, recovery can involve developing other ways of meeting those states.
I don’t see the SSP as a cure for addiction.
It is one possible support within a much broader therapeutic process.
Mindfulness that doesn’t require you to be good at mindfulness
You don’t need to meditate for an hour.
You don’t need to empty your mind.
And you certainly don’t need to become perfectly calm.
The mindfulness practices I use are generally much simpler.
• What are you noticing right now? • Where do you feel it? • Can you stay with it for one breath? • What happens if you don’t immediately try to change it? • What do you notice about the urge?
Sometimes that small moment of awareness creates a little space.
And occasionally, inside that space, another choice becomes possible.
Addiction happens in a life, not in isolation
I don’t believe addiction exists solely inside an individual.
We are shaped by our relationships, families, communities and experiences.
Trauma can matter.
So can loneliness.
So can poverty, grief, shame, relationship difficulties, isolation, work, family dynamics and the environments we have had to survive within.
This matters because recovery can easily become another version of:
“I need to fix myself.”
I’m more interested in understanding you in context.
What happened?
What is happening now?
What are you trying to manage?
What relationships support you?
Where do you feel alone?
What might need to change around you, as well as within you?
You don’t have to arrive ready to change everything
You might be completely committed to stopping.
You might have stopped already and be trying to understand how to stay there.
You might be working with a rehabilitation or recovery program and want additional therapeutic support.
Or you might still be unsure.
Part of you might desperately want things to change while another part still doesn’t want to give up the thing that has helped you cope.
That ambivalence is something we can talk about too.
You don’t need to pretend it isn’t there.
Somatic Addiction Recovery in Brisbane and online
I offer Somatic Addiction Recovery in Brisbane, as well as Online Somatic Addiction Therapy Brisbane and beyond, for people who prefer to work remotely.
My approach may be particularly suitable if you are interested in understanding the relationship between addiction and • trauma • anxiety • emotional regulation • shame • relationships • bodily sensations • disconnection from yourself.
I work collaboratively and at a pace that feels manageable.
The goal isn’t to reduce you to an addiction or diagnosis.
It is to understand the whole person sitting in front of me.
Somatic therapy can complement other addiction treatment
Somatic therapy is not a substitute for medical detoxification, emergency care, residential rehabilitation or specialist alcohol and other drug treatment when those services are needed.
Withdrawal from some substances, particularly alcohol and benzodiazepines, can be medically dangerous and should not be attempted without appropriate medical advice.
I’m very comfortable with my work being one part of a broader recovery team.
You may already have a GP, psychologist, psychiatrist, addiction specialist, rehabilitation service, sponsor, peer-support community or other people involved in your recovery.
Recovery doesn’t have to belong to one approach.
What matters is finding the combination of support that helps you move towards the life you want.
Coming back into relationship with yourself
Addiction can gradually make life smaller.
More time thinking about the next drink, the next drug, the next bet, the next escape.
More secrecy.
More shame.
More promises to yourself.
More distance from the people you love.
And sometimes more distance from yourself.
Recovery can be about stopping something that is causing harm.
But I think it can also become something much larger than that.
It can be a gradual process of discovering what you feel.
What you need.
What matters to you.
What your body has been trying to communicate.
And how you might stay present with yourself, and with other people, when life becomes difficult.
Perhaps recovery isn’t only about what you are leaving behind.
It is also about what you are slowly coming back to.
Book a Free 30-Minute Consultation with myself Ewan Nicholson…
If you’re looking for Somatic Addiction Recovery in Brisbane and would like to see whether my approach feels right for you, I offer a free 30-minute consultation.
There’s no pressure or expectation to begin therapy.
We can talk about what has been happening, where you’re at with your relationship to alcohol, drugs or other compulsive behaviours, and what kind of support you’re looking for.
You don’t need to have everything figured out before you contact me.
We can begin with where you are.