Substance Use Recovery: A Personal Account from the Front Lines

Substance Use Recovery: A Personal Account from the Front Lines
July 23 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Free
Brian Dean Williams brings years of frontline experience supporting individuals with mental health and substance use challenges. Like many in this field, his early career took a personal toll—leading him to face his own struggles with substance use as a way of coping with stress and moral injury.
In this session, Brian offers a heartfelt and honest account of that journey: the challenges he faced, how his work intersected with his personal struggles, and the path he took toward healing. His story is one of resilience, insight, and hope—for himself and for other frontline workers navigating similar experiences.
In the second half of the session, Brian will share practical strategies that have supported not only his own recovery but also the well-being of dozens of frontline workers he’s guided through therapy, clinical supervision, workshops, and retreats. He’ll introduce a compassionate framework to understand the full spectrum of substance use and offer tools to respond skillfully—whether supporting ourselves or others.
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
- Recognize the unique risks that frontline service workers face in developing problematic substance use
- Identify early warning signs that may indicate personal struggles with substance use
- Develop a deeper understanding of the spectrum of substance use and learn how to respond skillfully and compassionately—both to themselves and others
- Become familiar with practical resources and evidence-informed models for addressing problematic substance use
About the presenter
Brian Dean Williams is a registered clinical counsellor and approved clinical supervisor. Brian has worked on the frontlines for 28 years with folks struggling with mental health, substance use, housing, and marginalization. He has worked in the downtown eastside in Vancouver, and in small First Nations (Indigenous) communities. Brian’s main modalities are narrative therapy and Buddhist psychology, although he also draws from other collaborative forms of counselling and community work. He has taught at Correctional Services of Canada, Raincity Housing, Vancouver Coastal Health, the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation, and many more. Brian lives on the traditional unceded territories of the shíshálh Nation with his wife and three kids, where he loves mountain biking, playing hockey / basketball, and singing with his community. www.briandeanwilliams.com