Thanks to the Mackie Foundation and Martin Geddes Charitable Trust, we can support you emotionally while you take the next step in your recovery journey.

At TLC, we understand how important emotional support is when you have difficulties with drugs or alcohol or are supporting a family member who is struggling with addiction. While practical interventions like alcohol recovery groups are important first steps, it’s equally important to process your emotions and look after your mental wellbeing while in recovery. Counselling can help you break free from some of the psychological connections you might have with drugs or alcohol.  

Our counselling is for people who have already taken practical steps to address addiction issues and feel they need additional support for continued growth and development. It does not matter how long you’ve been in recovery for, only that you are not currently in active addiction. 

We can also offer integrated counselling support for family, carers, or partners that have been impacted by your journey towards recovery from addiction.

Working with a counsellor can help you understand and process things like why your difficulties developed and how they’ve impacted your life and wellbeing. We can support you to identify triggers and take positive steps to improve your health and wellbeing and sustain your recovery. 

Your counselling sessions will be led by what is important to you but some of the things people often find it helpful to discuss are: 

• Exploring how your difficulties developed and what will help you maintain your recovery 
• How to adopt healthy coping strategies 
• Feelings of grief, guilt, or shame 
• Loneliness or isolation 
• How to rebuild relationships with friends and family or form new support networks 

If you are a family member or carer of someone in recovery, it may be helpful to talk through your feelings about how you have been affected, and how you can make space for yourself. As a relationships charity, we always emphasise the importance of building and maintaining circles of support, and we’ll encourage you to seek strength from the people you’re close to. 

The programme has been made possible by the Martin Geddes Charitable Trust, who are funding TLC to support people in recovery from alcohol addiction, and The Mackie Foundation, who are funding counselling for people in recovery from alcohol and substances. 

Counselling is open to people who want to refer themselves, or you can be referred by a professional. To apply, head to the Book or Refer section of our website, and select “Counselling for people in recovery from addiction to drugs/alcohol” from the drop-down list.