Drinking problem...what’s your story? with Narrative Therapist Tessa Freeman

Episode 172

My guest this week is narrative therapist Tessa Freeman.

Narrative Therapy is very much in line with our approach at Tribe Sober - because it’s about separating a person from their problem

It’s about ditching the guilt and shame along with the alcohol

I’s about enabling people to realise that they should not label themselves or see themselves as broken or the problem or powerless

Tessa and I have both had a lot of experience of working with groups and agreed that the magic of community is that we can gradually replace our addiction with connection.

In this episode

When Tessa lost her father she needed support so had some narrative therapy
This piqued her interest to such an extent that she decided to train as a narrative therapist herself
She is now a Narrative Therapist specializing in addiction
Tessa explained that (a bit like coaching) narrative therapy is based on the fact that the client is the expert and the therapist walks alongside them (rather than in front of them)
When working with alcohol dependent clients Tessa will always separate the problem from the person which will reduce any feelings of shame
We agreed that addiction can be very isolating but once we join a group we realise that we are not the only one and we feel so much better – eventually connection with the group begins to take the place of the addiction
At Tribe Sober we encourage our members to write a “Goodbye to Alcohol Letter” and you can see some examples on tribesober.com under the podcasts, blogs and more menu
Tessa also uses an analogy explaining that if two women who had been in an abusive relationship with the same man were to meet – they would have an instant bond and realise the damage that relationship had caused.
That makes me think of that beautiful quote by CS Lewis “friendship is born in the moment when one person says to another “you too? – I thought I was the only one”
When I first started working in this field 7 years ago I was amazed by the bond I could see developing so quickly between our members – complete strangers from all over the world but their common experience enables them to be vulnerable and open with each other
We talked about the shares that take place at the beginning of each of our Tribe Sober workshops – when each participant will share just how unhappy alcohol has been making them – these shares demonstrate the power of story telling….
Story telling is of course the foundation of narrative therapy and Tessa explained that we make sense of our lives by the stories we tell ourselves…. And when we share our stories we are bearing our souls and showing who we really are….and also demonstrating the power of vulnerability
We talked about the many false narratives in the public domain and Tessa gave us the example of her friend explaining that if Tessa wanted to have children she would have to have to start drinking because – as her friend put it:-
"It takes a vineyard to raise a child"
These kind of stories are so common that eventually we internalize them and look for confirmation bias to convince ourselves they are true
This way they become limiting beliefs
Which are shared by our friends and that’s how a global trend like “mommyjuice” is born
I asked Tessa to explain how she would use narrative therapy to overturn this belief that her friend was holding
The belief that it takes a vineyard to raise a child
Her approach would be to deconstruct the belief ie to stay curious about it and to challenge it
Tessa would take her friend back to a time before she drank when she didn’t hold this belief
She would ask her to think about who she is without alcohol
Tessa would help her friend to externalize her story b

Published on 2 years, 5 months ago

Podcast Episode Details

Drinking problem...what’s your story? with Narrative Therapist Tessa Freeman