Online Counselling for Alcohol issues
For Men in Vancouver and Across Canada

Change your relationship with alcohol, become your best self, and build a life worth not overdrinking for.

Alcohol Used to Be The Solution,
But Now It’s Becoming the Problem.

  • You swear to yourself that you’re not going to drink today, but when 5:00 pm rolls around, you find yourself reaching for a bottle.

  • You’ve tried everything you know to deal with your drinking – quitting, cutting back, and trying to control it – but nothing seems to work.  

  • You’ve googled “Do I have a drinking problem?” and “Am I an alcoholic?” and been surprised and dismayed by what you’ve found out. 

  • You’re tired of seeing the look of disappointment in your family members’ eyes, and the look of shame in your own. 

  • While in the past alcohol used to make everything better, now it seems like it’s making everything worse. 

And even though you know you have to do something about your use of alcohol, deep down, you’re not sure you can live without it. 

If any of that resonates, you’re in the right place. 

I provide comprehensive online counselling services designed to help you to permanently change your relationship with alcohol, whether your goal is abstinence or moderation. 

Three things set my services apart: 

  • Addressing Root Causes, Not Just Symptoms

    I’ll help you to change your consumption of alcohol, but perhaps more importantly, I’ll help you to reduce your need and desire to drink in the first place.  In this way, I’ll help you to deal with the root causes of your drinking, not just the symptoms, and help you to achieve real and enduring change.  

  • More Than Just Counselling, But a Proven Program

    I offer a comprehensive, multifaceted and proven program to help you change your relationship with alcohol.  More than just counselling, my services include consultations with addictions physicians around medications to reduce cravings, referral to peer support groups, and extensive use of other resources, including books, articles, podcasts, and videos.

  • Science and Evidence-Based

    I strongly believe in doing what research proves works.  My work is based on the Community Reinforcement Approach (CRA), the clinical modality that has the single highest success rate of any therapy in helping individuals change their relationship with alcohol.  

How it works

Here’s what we’ll do in our work together:

  • I believe that a problem well-defined is half solved.

    We’ll carefully review your drinking history, along with other life events which you feel have shaped you or which are related to your drinking.

  • If you drink to the point where it’s causing problems for you, you’re not drinking because you like the taste of alcohol.

    You’re drinking because alcohol is meeting certain needs in you – needs that are normal, understandable and important. We’ll help you to better understand the needs which you might be using alcohol to meet.

  • We’ll explore the reasons why you want to change your relationship with alcohol—that is, your assessment of the benefits of changing and the costs of not. In addition, we’ll help you to further strengthen your “why” for change, recognizing that the more important and meaningful it is for you, the more it will help you to change.

  • We’ll help you determine which consumption goal you wish to work towards – abstinence or moderation. I’ll help you to make this decision most effectively and support you in whatever goal you choose.

  • A number of medications have proven effective in helping to reduce cravings to drink. If desired, I will refer you to specialized addictions physicians for consultations around whether these medications might be useful for you.

  • We’ll stop the pain that drinking is causing you by helping you to cease or reduce your consumption of alcohol, depending on your goal. We’ll help you to develop strategies to effectively manage cravings, deal with triggers, and refuse drinks.

  • But we won’t stop there. We’ll help you to reduce your need to drink in the first place.

    Specifically, we’ll take the underlying needs you are seeking to meet through alcohol, and help you find other and better ways of meeting these needs that don’t involve drinking.

  • We’ll also help to reduce your desire to drink. What is it that helps someone not want to drink? Only one thing: having a life they consider so good that they wouldn’t be willing to risk or compromise it by overdrinking.

    Whatever your definition of a life worth not overdrinking for, we’ll help you build it.

  • As Johann Hari said in his famous TED talk:

    “The opposite of addiction is not sobriety. The opposite of addiction is connection.”

    We’ll help you get hooked up with peer support groups that can assist you in your quest to achieve abstinence or moderation – one of the single most effective steps you can take to change your relationship with alcohol.

  • I strongly believe that what’s not measured, can’t be improved.

    To measure your progress, we’ll track your consumption of alcohol, the level of your cravings, and the thoughts and feelings you are having about drinking.

  • And finally, I strongly believe that one of my primary goals is to help you to become your own therapist and to work myself out of the job. I will help you to identify how you might continue to maintain your desired relationship with alcohol after our work together ends.

You don’t have to hit rock bottom before making a change.

You can make alcohol a smaller and less relevant part of your life, and find other ways to get the benefits you were seeking from drinking all along.

Contact me today.

Frequently Asked questions

  • I work both with men who wish to be abstinent from alcohol, as well as those who wish to explore moderated or controlled drinking. If you’re unsure which goal you wish to pursue, I’ll help you to effectively make this decision, and will support you whatever goal you choose.

  • I believe that my services represent the best level of care for the vast majority of problem drinkers. Unlike online apps, which provide little or no support from a trained therapist, I have over 25 years of alcohol counselling experience to help you achieve your goals. And unlike residential rehab programs, which require you to completely interrupt your life and which cost tens of thousands of dollars, I can assist you without you having to leave your job and family and at a fraction of the cost. That said, I will always be honest with you about whether I feel you could benefit more from a different type of program than I offer.

  • I believe that Alcohol Anonymous, and the significant sense of community it provides, can be very helpful to many individuals seeking to change their relationship with alcohol, and I often refer clients seeking abstinence to it. However, the philosophy of A.A. is relatively unconcerned with the issue of why a person drinks in the first place. I believe that the reasons why an individual takes a particular action are critical to helping them to change it. I will help you to identify the reasons why you drink, and to address these reasons in ways that don’t involve alcohol.

  • Absolutely. One of the reasons I find my work so rewarding is that I get a chance to see so many people succeed. I’ll be honest with you though: if you’re looking for a quick fix or for your drinking to change magically, I think your chances of success are low. But as with any goal in life, if you’re willing to put in the time and work, you can succeed at changing your relationship with alcohol. How do I know? Because I’ve seen it, hundreds of times.

  • While this concern is totally understandable, nothing could be further from the truth. You can have an exciting, dynamic and vibrant life with a changed relationship with alcohol. Indeed, changing your relationship with alcohol is not about depriving yourself of anything, it’s about building a life so good that you don’t need or even want to drink. Indeed, if your life’s not significantly better with a changed relationship with alcohol, then what’s the point? You might as well go back to overdrinking!