Red Line Resilience provides a unique approach to drug, alcohol and mental health counseling for firefighters and first responders, incorporating the many underlying issues that increase our desire to ‘self medicate’. I like to ask, in the words of Dr. Gabor Mate’, ‘why the pain, not why the addiction?” We know that substance abuse is often the way we manage pain that feels unmanageable.
A coping skill if you will. The pain and ‘dis-ease’, and dis-comfort could stem from an underlying mental health disorder, unresolved feelings related to depression, anxiety, unresolved grief and loss and often trauma, which leads to PTSI/PTSD if left untreated.
For first responders, what they see, hear and experience on a daily basis is often times too much for any one to bare. Together, we will create a path to well being, meeting your personal needs, whatever you decide those needs are.
This work is simple, it is not easy. Whether you are a firefighter, police office, EMT, physician or nurse, together “we got this.”
This path is not one you need to walk alone, after all, No one fights alone. In the line of duty, there is back up, and engine company, a crew, a platoon, or a team to support you.
Often in times of dis-ease, we tend to isolate and withdraw from the ones we love, our spouses, our kids and our friends. The entire family suffers.
Addiction, depression, shame, anxiety and trauma all thrive in silence and isolation. By creating a solid and experienced team around you, you can begin to heal.
We have treated numerous local firefighters and a variety of first responders from the Monterey Peninsula to Santa Cruz. We will soon be starting a Recovery Support Group specific to all first responders.
Many firefighters we have treated, describe their substance use as a way to cope with years of stress, anxiety, flashbacks, trauma and unresolved grief and loss.
A way to cope with what they deal with on a daily basis.
Firefighters by nature, are a group of people that often do not talk about the pain and trauma endured on on the job each and every day. The old way of managing this was to ‘suck it up’, ‘shake it off’ or ‘we knew what we signed up for’. We know today, this does not work. The number of suicides among firefighters and other first responders now out number line of duty deaths. If there is a proven method to minimize the traumatic impact of the job, why not take advantage of it.
Here we allow first responders to slow down, take a look at the past, and make different choices, allowing them to live a full and happy life on and off the job, moving forward. A way to show up as the parent, son, daughter, brother or sister that they want to be.
Recovery from the grips of trauma and dis-ease is not only possible, it is probable, by reviving hope and inspiring change.
Working as a First Responder, the daily experience of grief, loss, trauma, fear and the constant adrenaline rush gets to be too much. The being in ‘fight or flight’ mode for long periods of time is more than the body can handle, there must be an outlet.
For some, such as our first responders, physicians, and veterans, the pain is deep, ongoing and ‘in their face’ on a daily basis. It never seems to end. It is what they do. As the saying goes, “you can’t unsee the things you’ve seen.”
My Approach
I offer a variety of services, and offer them on a sliding scale based on your personal situation. Together we can determine what the road forward will look like.
In-office sessions
Phone sessions
Video sessions
Day Long Intensives
Individual, Couples and Family Sessions
So, what do you think?
After all, your life is waiting, and it wants you back.
I'm ready. Are you?
