Addiction Counselling in Melbourne

3.3% of Australians — 647,900 people — had a substance use disorder in the past 12 months, and 19.6% (3.9 million) have experienced one at some point in their lifetime (ABS National Study of Mental Health and Wellbeing 2020–22). These figures cover substance use disorders only — they don’t include the many more Australians whose relationship with alcohol, drugs, gambling, pornography, work, or other behaviours has become compulsive, distressing, and damaging without meeting the clinical threshold for a formal diagnosis. If you recognise yourself in this picture, you are not rare. And you are not without options.

What is addiction, really?

Addiction is almost always serving a function. It might be numbing emotional pain, managing anxiety, providing a sense of control, filling a relational void, or creating a predictable experience in an otherwise unpredictable internal world. This doesn’t excuse addiction or minimise the damage it causes — to the person caught in it, and to the people around them. But it does mean that treating it purely as a problem of willpower or moral failure tends to miss the point entirely. The behaviour makes sense, in its own painful way. Understanding what it is doing, and why, is the starting point for real change.

Addiction can take many forms. In my practice in Carlton, Melbourne, I work with:

• Alcohol — by far the most common substance addiction in Australia, and one of the most socially normalised
• Cannabis, stimulants, and other drugs — including prescribed medications that have become problematic
• Gambling — including online sports betting, which has grown sharply in Australia in recent years
• Sex and pornography — pornography addiction now has its own dedicated section, see Pornography Addiction
• Work and achievement — compulsive busyness that functions as avoidance
• Food — where eating becomes a primary way of managing difficult emotions (also see Eating Disorders)

What does addiction counselling involve?

I work with people at all stages of their relationship with an addictive behaviour:

• Still using, but concerned — you haven’t decided to stop, but you know the pattern is causing problems. Therapy can help you understand what the behaviour is doing for you, and whether you want to change it.
• Recently stopped — the immediate crisis is over, but the underlying drivers are still present. This is a particularly important time for therapeutic support, because the thing that was managing the distress is no longer available.
• In ongoing recovery — seeking deeper understanding of what drove the addiction and how to build a life that doesn’t require it.

My approach is Lacanian psychoanalytic and psychodynamic. I am not primarily a harm-reduction or abstinence counsellor, though I work with both frameworks as clinically appropriate. I am interested in understanding what is underneath the addictive behaviour: the depression, anxiety, trauma, or relational difficulties that addiction so frequently masks. Treating only the addictive behaviour without addressing those underlying drivers tends to produce limited and temporary results.

Dual diagnosis — addiction alongside a co-occurring mental health condition — is the norm rather than the exception. In Australia, people with substance use disorders are significantly more likely to also experience depression, anxiety, or PTSD. I hold both in view. Where medically supervised withdrawal is indicated, I work collaboratively with GPs and refer to specialist services where needed.

Addiction also has a profound family impact. Partners, children, and parents of people with addictions often carry significant distress of their own. I work with family members as well — not just as adjuncts to the identified patient, but as people who deserve support in their own right.

I see clients online via secure video call across Melbourne and Australia, and in person at 96 Elgin Street, Carlton in inner Melbourne. Sessions are self-funded at $120. No referral is needed. Book a session or message me on WhatsApp.