Move Beyond Shame and Pain in Your Addictions so You Can Thrive Again
An addiction counselor uses the MAP Method™ to help her clients create the life of their dreams
Carolyn Staples is a Coach with over eighteen years of experience as an addiction counselor. She helps people recovering from their drug/alcohol addictions break free from their past to create new, fulfilling futures.
On behalf of the MAP Coaching Institute, I interviewed Carolyn to find out more about how she discovered MAP and integrated it into her transformational work with her clients in recovery.
Here are the highlights of our interview, with my questions in the headers and Carolyn’s answers (edited for conciseness) below each question.
How did you find out about MAP?
In 2018, I was hired as an addiction counselor at the Montana State Prison to evaluate and treat men who suffered from substance use disorder. I observed that many of these men had gone through numerous treatment programs. However, once released, most of them relapsed and were sent back to prison.
Then I realized they had a high level of trauma that was never addressed because it was dangerous to trigger it while in prison. I couldn’t use any of the techniques I learned because of this safety concern.
How can I help them process their trauma in a very safe and gentle way, without them needing to talk too much about it and trigger more trauma in the process?
I recognized the majority of the men I worked with suffered from severe and complex trauma that had never been addressed. They coped with their trauma by using substances. I knew to really help them, I needed to address their trauma, but I knew it was not safe to do so in the environment they were living in. I kept wondering what I could do to help them. I put it out to the universe and asked for a safe, gentle method that was fast and effective and would not retraumatize people.
I was astonished and delighted when, about a week later, I found Colette’s* video on YouTube sharing about MAP and its certification program. I started learning the MAP method immediately after confirming with Colette that this would help with addiction recovery.
*Colette Streicher is the Founder of the MAP Method.
Did you try MAP on some of the prisoners?
“I have no one to go out (of prison) to.”
Yes. During that time, one of the prisoners in my treatment group, Chris, had cancer and a diseased gallbladder and needed surgery to treat both his conditions. For security reasons, people who need surgery are never told when they will receive the treatment they need. They are put on a list and can wait for several months. The men in my groups were required to complete a 90-day treatment program before they would be considered for release from prison. The group met daily for 2.5 hours.
I felt terrible seeing Chris struggling to sit through the groups. He was in horrible pain and was suffering from suicidal ideation. He stated several times he didn’t know what to do for work once he was released and that he had no support. Everyone in his family had died. He confided, “I have no one to go out (of prison) to.”
After group one day, I asked Chris if he would be interested in trying something new I had learned to see if it would alleviate his pain. I could only spend thirty minutes with him and chose to utilize the MAP method by focusing on his gallbladder and other areas of pain. Chris felt tingly sensations in his body and had no pain after thirty minutes. He said, “This is the first time in weeks that I haven’t had pain!”. As I was leaving that night, he stopped me and said, “I just want you to know that pain has not come back.” So I thought: Well, that’s amazing!
The pain didn’t return for over a week!
I gave him three short sessions in total and asked him, “Chris, I can’t help but notice you’ve become a lot more positive and engaging in our group sessions. Do you think this has anything to do with the MAP sessions we’ve done?” He said, “Definitely!”.
He said he began to remember things that used to bring him joy and that he loved doing but had forgotten about. He also began to think about some good friends who were positive and supportive he could contact. He became one of the most optimistic members of the group and was encouraging to others.
“I don’t know what the hell you just did, but that worked.”
There was another guy I worked with in prison who was struggling with an issue that I could see would cause him to relapse. I briefly explained what the MAP Method™ was and asked if he would be interested in trying it. He said, “Honestly, I don’t believe it will work.” I said, “Well, you don’t have to believe it will work. You just need to be open to trying it.”. He said, “Okay. I’ll try it because I trust you.”
So, I worked with him using MAP, and afterward, he said, “I don’t know what the hell you just did, but that worked. I can’t believe it. I feel great!”.
We had worked on an issue that was causing him a great deal of pain. He cried a little bit during the session but felt relieved afterward and saw the issue in a different light.
I have been thrilled to see how well the MAP Method™ has worked in treating people’s triggers in my field of treating substance use disorders.
Who do you work with at your current private coaching practice?
I mostly work with people who are in recovery and are not actively using drugs or alcohol. I also work with people with family members who have been alcoholics or drug addicts and are still actively using or in recovery.
When people have been drinking or using drugs for years, their lives become very narrow — it’s all about that next drink or that next fix. They don’t think about their future, and they become lost.
She had a miserable sobriety for one year and desperately needed help to treat her addiction
I was working with a woman in her forties who was diagnosed with a severe alcohol use disorder. She had been drinking every day for two decades and was facing a third DUI (Driving under the influence) charge when I met her.
She had tried to stop drinking on her own and succeeded for one year, but it was a miserable sobriety. She said she was white-knuckling it all the time — every single day, she felt angry, depressed, or anxious and was miserable because all she wanted to do was drink.
I used MAP weekly to assist her with her internal triggers for the first couple of months. She had a fairly active critic. For example, she had to drive 25 miles to see me for treatment, and sometimes, she would miss the exit. This triggered her inner critic, and by the time she got to the office, she felt significantly stressed and overwhelmed and would tearfully tell me how stupid she was to miss the exit. This was one of the many triggers we worked on.
As her coach, I noticed minute changes in her right from the first session. In the beginning, she would arrive at the office appearing anxious but would always visibly relax as the session progressed. Life seemed to get easier for her, and she became much less critical of herself.
The most remarkable thing was that she only relapsed once within the first three months of treatment with me. Typically, people who drink daily for as many years as she had will relapse several times within the first three months of treatment. Her one-time relapse was an amazing achievement for her!
“Who am I without the alcohol?”
My client is now doing really well in her recovery. She has two and a half years of sobriety, and her life has changed significantly.
Now, she’s in this new phase of rediscovering answers to these questions:
- Who am I without the alcohol? (It was part of her everyday life for over twenty years).
- What do I love?
- What do I want to create for myself?
She told me, “I want to create a life I love, but I don’t know how to do that.” So, this is where I come in to help her move beyond her past and create her desired future.
She didn’t want to feel lonely anymore. All her friends were alcoholics, so she needed new, sober friends. This new shift can be very frightening for people in recovery because they feel so different — they don’t know how to relate to people who are sober. I think that MAP has helped her with that quite a bit because she’s made some good friends who are sober and have never had a substance use disorder.
“I just dropped twenty years of anger in this chair!”
I worked with another guy in his thirties who drank every single day and had a chronic alcohol use disorder. He got into trouble when he was eighteen and has been in the legal system since then. He was on probation and didn’t want to be thrown into jail again, so he was willing to comply so he would not go to jail.
After seeing him a few times, I realized he was suffering from trauma he had never resolved. He was afraid he could never get off probation and had some resentment against the legal system. I did MAP sessions with him. After I finished the session, he had a huge grin on his face and jumped out of his chair! He said,
“Oh my God, I can’t believe what just happened. I don’t know what you did. Do you realize that I just dropped 20 years of anger in this chair? And I feel great! I feel absolutely great!”
He was giddy with laughter! Then, he didn’t come back for a while.
When I saw him again, he said he had been super busy. He didn’t graduate from high school, so he studied and got his GED (General Educational Development Test). Then, he got a business license and set up a carpentry business. He even landed a couple of big contracts in town. He was also released from probation and parole.
I was astounded. He had turned his life completely around. I saw many other similar cases over the years. It’s incredible.
What do you love about using MAP for your clients in recovery?
You don’t have to verbalize your shame
There’s a lot of shame with addiction because people tend to say and do a lot of awful things sometimes when they’re drinking and using drugs. They create a lot of anxiety and heartache for their family because their family is watching them kill themselves, and they won’t stop.
The beauty of MAP is — people can come to me for help, but they don’t have to tell me what they’ve been trying to hide away from the world. Saying it out can create so much shame for them, and initially, this can stop people from getting help.
Conversely, in talk therapy, when people start talking about their trauma, it inadvertently triggers other traumas in their lives.
How much do they need to share about their trauma in a MAP session?
Talking too much can detach you from your emotions
I noticed when people want to talk a lot, it actually detaches them from their emotions. I had one client who wanted to talk about her trauma, and I said, “Stop. Let’s work on that. I just want you to go inside and feel that. Because when you talk, you get in your head and begin thinking rather than feeling, which causes a sort of detachment”. She admitted that was what she was doing. So, I allowed her to quiet down instead.
My main focus is helping them move beyond their past so they can rediscover who they are and what they really want and create the life of their dreams.
What is your final message for our readers?
I feel so blessed that I found MAP. It’s so rewarding to help people this way.
I am very focused on helping people feel as accepted and comfortable as I possibly can because people who are suffering from addictions are generally harder on themselves than anybody else possibly could be.
Please be gentle with yourself.
Are you curious about how MAP can help you?
It’s incredible how releasing physical and emotional pain can help free people from their addictions. Shame can be a huge block that prevents them from getting help in the first place, so MAP is a gentle and effective modality that helps them feel safe in healing their pain.
Dear readers, if you or someone you know might benefit from working with Carolyn, please contact her at her website.
This article is brought to you by the MAP Coaching Institute. If you are a therapist, coach, healer, or someone passionate about personal growth and want to explore adding MAP as part of your practice, we invite you to experience the MAP Experience Masterclass at this link below:
*Disclaimer: Please note that the views expressed by our interview guests are their own.
