079 Eve Ruff - Helping Struggling Families with Addiction and Substance Abuse

Understanding the Human Condition

Eve Ruff is a Senior Consultant with Clere Consulting, a firm specializing in working with families presenting with a constellation of complex behavioral health and addiction issues requiring experienced and creative solutions. Eve consults with family members, evaluates collective needs, presents customized family workshops, and creates individualized intervention and treatment strategies and provider recommendations.

Today, she joins the show to discuss the work she does as a ‘family systems’ consultant, her own personal struggles with addiction and substance abuse, and what brought her from New York City to Seattle.

Key Takeaways

01:22 – Eve Ruff joins the show to discuss the work she does as a ‘family systems’ consultant and what she observed throughout the global Covid pandemic

05:58 – Eve’s struggles with substance abuse and how it impacted her career trajectory

09:21 – Growing up in New York City with a very artistic and inventive father

13:49 – Eve’s Jewish heritage

15:58 – How Eve keeps herself healthy while working with families that are torn apart by addiction

17:47 – The Teflon Raincoat

19:01 – From New York City to Seattle, Washington

22:10 – Advice Eve gives to the struggling families she works with

23:15 – Dr. Flowers thanks Eve for joining today’s show and lets listeners know where they can connect with her

Tweetable Quotes

“One of the things I saw that was particularly disturbing and hard for me as a woman was the number of women who were accustomed to being in the workforce who were now home with children and who found themselves resorting to drinking first later in the day, then earlier in the day. So something that had been an innocuous habit kind of flipped a switch and really became a problem.” (02:51) (Eve)

“I am someone where substance abuse or mental health issues are impacting a family, I go in and really come to understand the dynamics of the family - perhaps multi-generational issues that have transcended the family - and come in with tools and suggestions, not only to help someone in the family who’s struggling with substance abuse, but to help the remaining members of the family.” (03:58) (Eve)

“So, I worked for many years as a biomedical research librarian. I worked at a cancer institute in Seattle and at the National Institutes of Health. And I really came to understand cancer as a chronic, relapsing, progressive disease which, left unchecked, would most likely lead to death. So that was the framework that I worked in. And, people have this misconception about librarians. They think of us in the backroom, shrinking. I was a very public librarian.” (06:16) (Eve)

“I think because of my own personal journey of recovery, because I use a lot of the tools that I learned in treatment - meditation on a regular basis, exercise on a regular basis, good nutrition to the best of my ability given that I travel so much - I just really work to have that peripatetic balance in my life.” (17:14) (Eve)

Resources Mentioned

JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com/

JFlowers Health Institute Contact – [phone]

Subscribe on your favorite player: https://understanding-the-human-condition.captivate.fm/listen

Eve’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/eve-ruff-942b1613b/

Eve’s Cell Phone – (206)-276-4472

**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests are of their opinion and are not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

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