STICK WITH THE WINNERS! –
December 16, 2025 – I’m a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with advanced training in clinical psychology and business. Drawing on years of individual and family therapy—and my own experience navigating addiction and loss— today my daughter Lyle (who is also a therapist) help families and individuals who are in the trenches with family addiction. We help families and individuals who are in the trenches with family addiction. We have a monthly membership and also an Instagram platform @helpwithfamilyaddiction.
Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your sobriety date?A. My first Al-Anon meeting was in March 2003. Over the course of my 16-year-marriage I lost myself to my fears, focusing on everything I could not control and unable to take accountability for my own enabling behavior and lack of self-care. I was that my marriage was blowing up because of my husband‘s drinking. My kids at the time we were young and there was a lot of drama in my family. My husband had been on two years of dialysis from his type one diabetes and that combined with addiction was dynamite.
Q. Is there anything special in your sobriety toolkit that helps keep you sober?A. Absolutely! My daily practice of self-care and my relationship with my higher power. I have an app on my phone called hourly chime. I’ve been using it for years and there is no work involved. When I hear that little Tibetan bowl chime I say a prayer of gratitude, do a body check and automatically feel like I’ve given myself an emotional hug.
Q. Do you think addiction is an illness, disease, a choice, or a wicked twist of fate?A. My experience is that addiction is an illness and a response to trauma, progressively growing into an untamed disease. I do not believe it’s a choice. That’s said, it is a choice whether we want to be willing to be willing to get better.
