Young adults in recovery face a fundamentally different road than their older counterparts—and treating them the same way can mean missing what actually drives change.

This presentation explores the distinct clinical and developmental factors that shape recovery work with young adults, including:

• Motivation differences — It can be more challenging to instill motivation in young adults due to where they are in life.

• Consequence gaps — how fewer accumulated life consequences can shape readiness and insight

• Impulsivity in teens — the added clinical complexity when working with adolescent clients

• The social cost of sobriety — navigating peer pressure and social media in a world where everyone else appears to still be partying. This often leads to the thought, "Why can't I be normal?"

• The challenge of acceptance — why surrendering to powerlessness over the disease, recovery's most essential first step, can be especially hard to reach at a younger age

• Identity and grief — helping clients mourn who they were in order to become who they're becoming, a loss that often lands harder in young adulthood

• Shame, guilt, and the addiction cycle — understanding shame and guilt as core drivers of addictive behavior, not just byproducts of it

• Family systems under pressure — how well-meaning but frightened parents, often hyper-vigilant and unsure how to help, can unintentionally deepen shame through overcorrection and excessive punishment—fueling the very cycle they're trying to stop

• Boundaries without shame — practical strategies for helping families and clinicians hold healthy, firm boundaries that don't enable unhealthy behavior, while minimizing the shame and guilt that so often drive relapse

Clinicians, group facilitators, treatment professionals, and family members will leave with a deeper understanding of how to meet young adults where they actually are—and how to support recovery without inadvertently reinforcing the shame that fuels the disease.

I am an Associate Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist with a Bachelor’s in Psychology from UC Santa Cruz and a Master’s in Counseling Psychology from Santa Clara University. My therapeutic approach is rooted in a person-centered perspective, meaning I believe the relationship between therapist and client is central in supporting the therapeutic process. During my internship with the Santa Clara County drug courts, I worked extensively with individuals navigating anxiety, depression, addiction, and trauma. This experience reinforced for me the importance of approaching every client with empathy, compassion, and non-judgment. In addition, I integrate evidence-based practices such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) to help clients recognize unhelpful thought patterns and build tools for emotional regulation.