Addiction and Compulsivity

Addiction is rarely about the substance or the behaviour. It is almost always about what lies beneath.

Beneath addictions

Addiction and compulsive behaviours can take hold gradually, often beginning as a way of managing feelings that seem too overwhelming to face directly. What starts as relief, escape, or a way of numbing pain can develop into a pattern that begins to control your life, eroding relationships, self-worth, and the sense of being in charge of your own choices. By the time someone seeks help, the behaviour itself is often only part of the picture. Underneath it, there is usually a more complex emotional story that needs to be heard.

My approach

I have an integrative therapeutic approach that seeks to understand the emotional roots of the compulsive behaviour, to understand the patterns and triggers that sustain it, and to develop healthier ways of meeting the needs it has been serving. The work is not about abstinence alone. It is about building a life in which the addictive behaviour is no longer needed in the way it once was.

I do not treat addiction as simply a problem of willpower or self-control. The patterns of compulsive use, the inability to derive satisfaction from previously valued activities, the emotional withdrawal from relationships, the erosion of professional standards: these are not failures of character or intelligence. They are the predictable consequences of what these substances and behaviours do to the brain’s systems for reward, mood, and decision-making. Understanding that mechanism is where meaningful change begins.

What I Work With

  • Compulsive sexual behaviour and sexual addiction

  • Pornography addiction and compulsive use of online sexual content

  • Problematic drug and alcohol use

  • Chemsex- the use of GHB/GBL, crystal methamphetamine, and mephedrone in sexual contexts

Addiction in the Queer Community

Research consistently shows that LGBTQIA+ individuals, and gay and bisexual men in particular, are disproportionately affected by substance use and sexual compulsivity (Stonewall, 2018; Hillyard et al., 2024). The reasons for this are complex, rooted in the dynamics of minority stress, internalised shame, social exclusion, and the particular cultures of connection and escape that have developed within Queer communities. Addiction in this context cannot be meaningfully addressed without understanding these wider forces.

Chemsex sits at the intersection of substance use, sexual behaviour, mental health, and community belonging, and it requires a therapist who understands all of these dimensions rather than treating them in isolation. For a broader exploration of how I work with the LGBTQIA+ community, please visit my LGBTQ+ affirmitive therapy page.

Chemsex

If chemsex is part of your life, or has been, you may already recognise some of what brings people to therapy: the difficulty stopping when you said you would, the days afterwards spent in low mood and emotional numbness, the struggle to function at work or be present with people you care about, or the growing sense that sex without chems has lost something. Perhaps the gap between who you are during a session and who you are the rest of the week is getting harder to reconcile. I have specialist training in understanding and working with chemsex. Crystal methamphetamine, GHB/GBL, and mephedrone each affect the brain differently, but in combination they push the brain’s reward, arousal, and emotional systems to simultaneous extremes. Over time, this can reshape how the brain experiences pleasure, making ordinary sources of satisfaction, including sex itself, feel insufficient.

Many men describe the loss of a sexual life that works without chems as one of the most distressing consequences. It is important to know that this is a well-understood neurological effect, not a sign that something is fundamentally wrong with you, and that it is reversible with time, abstinence, and therapeutic support. None of this is written to pathologise chemsex or to judge the men who engage in it. Whether you are looking to stop entirely, to reduce harm, or simply to understand your relationship with chemsex more clearly, I offer a space that is informed, non-judgemental, and grounded in a real understanding of what these substances do and why the patterns they create are so difficult to break through willpower alone.