Beyond Addiction Course
Beyond Addiction: A 15-Week Study & Skill-Building Course
If you love someone struggling with alcohol or drug use, you may have spent countless hours worrying, wondering what to say, trying to help, or questioning what you could be doing differently.
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change offers a different perspective. Rather than focusing on blame, shame, or trying to control someone else's choices, this approach invites us to better understand substance use, learn practical skills, care for ourselves, and discover ways to support change while maintaining our own well-being.
And you don't have to figure it out alone.
Join us for a 15-week guided journey through the book Beyond Addiction, where we will learn together, reflect together, practice new skills, and connect with others who understand what it is like to love someone through the struggle of substance use.
Course Details
- Registration is required.
- Begins Thursday, January 14th, 2027.
- 6:30–8:00pm ET | 5:30–7:00pm CT | 4:30–6:00pm MT | 3:30–5:00pm PT
- 15 consecutive weekly sessions, every Thursday.
- Each session is 90 minutes, live via Zoom.
- Limited to 15 participants. Registration now to secure your spot.
- $100 deposit required at registration
What You Can Expect
- 15 live facilitated sessions - Discussion, reflection, teaching, & practical application.
- Weekly downloadable slides - Revisit the material and concepts.
- Weekly follow-up & reflection email - Recap, key takeaways, & journaling prompt.
- Practical resources & worksheets - Help you move from learning to practicing.
- Supportive community - No expectation to share, just to come as you are.
- Private Facebook support group - For connection between sessions.
- One private 60-minute Family Recovery Coaching session - A one-on-one session with either Laurie or Paula that is specific to your situation (a $85 value).
Reading Material
Beyond Addiction: How Science and Kindness Help People Change
by Jeffrey Foote, Carrie Wilkens, Nicole Kosanke, Stephanie Higgs
The most innovative leaders in progressive addiction treatment in the US offer a groundbreaking, science-based guide to helping loved ones overcome addiction problems and compulsive behaviors.
Beyond Addiction eschews the theatrics of interventions and tough love to show family and friends how they can use kindness, positive reinforcement, and motivational and behavioral strategies to help their loved ones change. Drawing on forty collective years of research and decades of clinical experience, the authors present the best practical advice science has to offer.
Delivered with warmth, optimism, and humor, Beyond Addiction defines a new, empowered role for friends and family and a paradigm shift for the field. Learn how to tap the transformative power of relationships for positive change, guided by exercises and examples. Practice what really works in therapy and in everyday life, and discover many different treatment options along with tips for navigating the system.
And have hope: this guide is designed not only to help someone change, but to help someone want to change.
Meet Your Facilitators
Paula Browne-Stumpf - Founder, A New Perspective Coaching
- Certified ITC Facilitator
- Certified SMART Recovery Family & Friends
- Motivational Interviewing: Trained & Certified by Dr. Robert Myers & William (Bill) Miller
- CRAFT Training with Dr. Robert Myers & WE The Village Coaching
- Training with The Partnership to End Addiction
- CCAR Peer Recovery Trained
I am a Family Addiction Recovery Coach and an experienced group leader, using the Invitation to Change (ITC) and CRAFT models and skills in my own life - not just in my practice.
I came to this work as a mother, desperately searching for a way to help myself cope with my own sons’ substance use disorder. I was specifically looking for an alternative to the 12-step approach, and what I found changed everything. The compassionate, science-based techniques I learned improved my connection with my sons in a way I hadn’t thought possible and allowed me to listen with an open heart rather than react from a place of fear. Using these skills myself helped me repair the relationship with, and reconnect to, my oldest son, who had alienated himself from me for 7 years out of his own shame.
I am also in long-term recovery from Alcohol Use Disorder - 35 years sober. That journey means I understand addiction from both sides: as the person who once struggled, and as a mother who has watched her own children struggle. With 6 years of experience in group and one-to-one coaching, I want every family to have what I have.
The spirit of the Invitation to Change is connection and collaboration, rooted in science and kindness - and it’s what I try to bring into every group I lead and every family I work with.
Laurie Santiago-Hooper - Owner, Holistic Recovery Coaching
- Certified ITC Facilitator
- Certified Addiction Recovery Coach
- Trained in the CRAFT Model
- Certified Grief Educator through David Kessler's Grief Educator Program
- Trained in Holistic Wellness through the International Association of Wellness Professionals
I am a mom and sister who has personal, lived experience with loving a family member who struggles with substances and alcohol misuse. My continued searching for guidance to effectively help my child and myself led me to my first recovery training - and from that experience there was no turning back.
Over the past 6 years I have pursued education and certifications to study family involvement in the recovery process, so I can share with families and concerned loved ones that they are not powerless and can be a positive influence in their loved one’s individual, sustainable recovery path.
In my coaching practice I serve families and friends impacted by a loved one’s substance misuse and compulsive behaviors, including co-occurring mental health disorders, using the Invitation to Change (ITC) approach and CRAFT, rooted in science and kindness, to offer a roadmap toward understanding, better communication, healthy boundaries - and ultimately resulting in less stress and overwhelm.
“Beyond Addiction” Course
Join us for a 15-week guided journey through Beyond Addiction, where we will learn together, reflect together, practice new skills, and connect with others who understand what it is like to love someone through the struggle of substance use.
Thursdays starting January 14th, 2027