Sally McQuillen - Loving and Losing a Wild Child, Addiction, Rehab and Dangerous Choices

Episode 187 - Sally McQuillen - Loving and Losing a Wild Child, Addiction, Rehab and Dangerous Choices

Sally McQuillen, LCSW, CADC, is a psychotherapist in private practice specializing in addiction, grief, and trauma recovery. 

She provides ongoing support for addiction recovery, as well as support for those recovering from the impact of a loved one’s addiction. She sees adults seeking relief from mood symptoms, helps them navigate their personal and professional relationships and lead more fulfilling lives. She works with clients to find peace and healing from trauma and loss. Her goal is to bring light into the lives of her clients intuitively pulling from different therapeutic models and resources to support their specific needs.

Book: Reaching for Beautiful - A Memoir of Loving and Losing a Wild Child

A luminous story of how love triumphs over pain, love transcends fear, and love never dies; this debut memoir from a mother grieving her young-adult son’s death is a must-read for any parent who has lost a child, is raising a child from the edge of their seat, or whose family struggles with addiction.

When Sally’s twenty-one-year-old son died in a boat accident, her greatest fear is realized. Christopher was often drawn to risk and struggled with addiction. In this riveting memoir, Sally captures the wild ride of his jam-packed life and her deep love for him while reflecting on her own childhood and family’s legacy of alcoholism. 

Sally shares insights about what it’s like to experience the emotional aftershocks of acute grief, filtered through the lens of her personal experience as a mother and her professional vantage point as a psychotherapist. Even if they have not been touched by loss in this way, readers may see themselves in Sally’s bittersweet illusion of trying to keep her son safe, in how she is challenged to let go of her fear, guilt, and regret in order to forgive herself, and in the ways grief teaches her about the power of love.

https://www.sallymcquillen.com/

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https://dadspace.ca

music provided by Blue Dot Sessions

Song: The Big Ten https://app.sessions.blue/browse/track/258270