023: Addiction Expert Insights: Handling Substance Misuse in Family Law

March 10, 2025

Substance misuse and abuse is a complex topic, especially in a divorce situation in which children are involved. Today’s guest helps to unravel complexities surrounding addiction issues to help families navigate these complex situations while keeping children’s well-being at the forefront.

On this episode of Children First Family Law, Krista sits down with Lorraine Bockman, a licensed clinical social worker and addiction counselor who has worked in the mental health and addiction field for more than 30 years. Lorraine works in private practice in the Denver area, is recognized as a Master Addiction Counselor (MAC) with the National Association of Addiction Counselors (NAAC), and is part of the Association for Addiction Professionals. She has served as a program director, manager, staff developer, and clinician in public and private institutions and has specialized training as a telemental health therapist, interventionist, expert witness, and substance abuse professional.

Krista’s conversation with Lorraine covers several important topics related to substance misuse and addiction issues, including the differences between clinical and forensic substance evaluations. Lorraine explains how a Substance Use Evaluation (SUE) works, the disease elements behind substance use, and the cognitive distortions common in this arena of mental health.  Krista and Lorraine also explore the impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) on children, including the effects of divorce but also the effects of addiction, both of which deeply impact kids’ futures. They highlight, though, that there is a lot of reason for hope through stories of people who have chosen to heal and change, acknowledging that while some individuals can overcome these challenges, not everyone does.

For an insightful take on the ripple effects substance use can have on families and children, don’t miss Lorraine Bockman’s expertise on this complicated topic.

In this episode, you will hear:

  • Lorraine Bockman’s extensive background working with children and families, which ultimately led her to addiction work
  • The difference between clinical and forensic evaluations
  • When a Substance  Use Evaluation (SUE) is most useful
  • The impact high-conflict relationships can have on substance use evaluations
  • A consultation in a child custody case versus a complete evaluation
  • Taking care not to put a parent in the role of “watchdog” over the other parent
  • How Lorraine creates connections with her clients and her experiences helping clients before they hit “rock bottom”
  • The behavior stages of change related recovery from addictions
  • Lorraine’s use of the term “courage” related to substance abuse recovery and the biology underlying a propensity for addiction
  • Cognitive distortions and their impact on recovery, such as black-and-white thinking
  • Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), including addiction and divorce, and how they impact attachment in children
  • Measuring relapse
  • The hope Lorraine has to help people get better

Resources from this Episode

All states have different laws; be sure you are checking out your state laws specifically surrounding divorce. Krista is a licensed attorney in Colorado and Wyoming but is not providing through this podcast legal advice. Please be sure to seek independent legal counsel in your area for your specific situation. 

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Expert Insights: Guidance from an Addiction Counselor Podcast Transcript

Lorraine Bockman  00:00

Throughout my career, I’ve seen how substance use impacts individuals, children, family members, all of those kinds of folks. And so it isn’t, as you said, I think when we started, it’s not a simple, easy kind of, let’s put a band aid here and that’ll fix it. It’s really much more complicated than that.

 

Intro/Outro  00:21

Welcome to the Children First Family Law podcast, our host, Krista Nash is an attorney, mediator, parenting coordinator and child advocate with a heart to facilitate conversations about how to help children flourish amidst the broken area of family law. As a child advocate in demand for her expertise throughout Colorado and as a speaker on these issues at a national level. Krista is passionate about facilitating and creatively finding solutions to approach family law matters in a way that truly focuses on the best interests of kids. Please remember, this podcast is provided to you for information purposes only. No one on this podcast is representing you or giving you legal advice as always. Please enjoy this episode and be sure to like, subscribe and share the podcast with others you think would benefit from this content.

 

Krista Nash  01:10

Welcome to today’s episode of the podcast. I’m so glad you’re all here and listening. I am really grateful today to have with us Lorraine Bockman and I will just give a little bit of bio so that you all know all the wonderful things in which she has worked. Lorraine here works in Colorado and is a licensed clinical social worker and a licensed addictions counselor. She has been recognized also as a Master Addiction Counselor with NAAC and Lorraine help me. What does that stand for? 

Lorraine Bockman  01:39

Again, National Association of Addiction Counselors, basically. 

Krista Nash  01:41

Okay, great. So she also is part of the Association for Addiction Professionals, and has worked in the mental health and addictions field for more than 30 years. She currently works in private practice in the Denver area, specializing in addictions and related issues. She has previous experience also working as a program director, manager, staff, developer and clinician with a variety of public and private nonprofit agencies in the Denver area. And has additional specialized training as a telemental health therapist, interventionist, expert witness and a substance abuse professional under the Department of Transportation guidelines. She is also past chairperson and board member of a variety of legislative efforts that have been made in Colorado. And she’s a current member of Denver’s Metro Interdisciplinary Committee, MDIC, and a professional member of the Colorado State Board of Social Work Examiners. I know Lorraine from having worked with her in the family law community on cases in which I’ve had the need to have some expertise in substance use. And so I am very grateful to have you with us today. Lorraine, thanks for doing this.

 

Lorraine Bockman  02:50

Thanks. I’m coming to you from my private practice, not from any other kind of related entity. 

 

Krista Nash  02:57

Yes, absolutely. Thank you for pointing that out and clarifying that. I always say the same thing too. I’m not offering you any legal advice. We’re just having a conversation. So thanks for clarifying that. So you have a lots of information, and I’ve been explaining, as we were preparing for this, that this podcast now has had, I think, four different episodes involving issues of addiction and substance use from both the individual story side, really from both sides of that equation coming to family court, one with someone who was trying to be protective, the other that was trying to get over some substance use. And then I’ve done two episodes that have been more about some typical approaches to Substance Use Evaluations and different ways of approaching addiction issues in family courts, and then also some more recent work with Dr Tabashnik on things that we’re seeing maybe emerging more recently. So I know Lorraine, you think about these things all the time, so let me just turn it over to you, because I really had hoped that you would be somebody would help synthesize some of this for us, recognizing how hard all these topics are and how delicate a balance we’re dealing with in terms of human need and children’s issues and all of those things in the family court. So tell me, sort of what are your initial thoughts about this. I want to know how you got into this work, but you know, you can start sort of wherever you feel comfortable in terms of sharing your perspective.

 

Lorraine Bockman  04:21

Well, so pretty much all the work that I have done has been substance use related. I did kind of take a detour, perhaps in the 90s, and do a little I started out working in with kids, and so I took a detour into the Department of Social Services system, as it was then, but it’s all been, you know, for the most part, primary substance use. And so I have a wide variety of backgrounds. I’ve done work in the hospital emergency rooms, and I’ve done DUI groups, and I’ve worked with kids in the DYS system as it was back then. And you know, so a lot of that background comes into play. And then I started working with adults, and, you know, kind of got into that sort of realm of addiction work. And I’ve been in private practice for quite a long time. And so I think, you know, you and I met through doing substance use evaluations, right? Because you’re working in the family courts, and so that’s kind of how I got involved. I got interested in the forensic side of Social Work and addiction work, and have kind of done some, a lot of learning and exploring in terms of what that should look like for substance use professionals. And, you know, there’s not a lot of standardized kind of realm out there. There’s not a lot of writing and all of that, you know, it’s much more CFI-PREkind of focused, and so it’s been, I’ve kind of adapted, you know,

 

Krista Nash  05:53

just to remind our listeners that CFI-PRE are the Child and Family Investigators and the Parental Responsibility Evaluators who are for those beyond Colorado, those are typically just parenting plan evaluations. But honestly, even when I would get appointed as a CFI, they’ll say, if there really is a serious substance issue, you need to tell the court, and you need to get somebody who actually knows what they’re doing, which is somebody like you, right? 

 

Lorraine Bockman  06:17

So, right, yeah. So I do that side of the world, but I also still have a therapy practice, and I work in that side of the world too. And I, you know, throughout my career, I’ve seen how substance use impacts individuals, children, family members, all of those kinds of folks. And so it isn’t, as you said, I think when we started, it’s not a simple, easy kind of let’s put a band aid here, and that’ll fix it. It’s really much more complicated than that. Yeah, exactly.

 

Krista Nash  06:48

And I mean, I think as I’ve gotten more experienced, it ends up being, you realize the nuance of these cases, right? They’re not the same. Now, when you’re working in this area, are you doing all different types of addictive behaviors, or is it just substances?

 

Lorraine Bockman  07:05

So my primary work is with substances. I do say, do some process addictions. You know, I can generally say what I say specifically, for example, for sexual addictions and for eating disorders. I often will say there’s a specialty and a specialty, and it’s not mine. So if you know those come up in my work, I refer them out well,

 

Krista Nash  07:28

As I was introducing this topic and explaining sort of where we’ve been, you know, I know we are, we’re talking a little bit. I want to cover kind of what your perspective is on Substance Use Evaluations generally, and kind of what you when you get appointed, kind of, how does that work? What happens? Maybe we should just start there briefly, and then I want to get into the meat of it more, which is really how we approach the human and the children and all those things. But maybe just give a brief set, since you’re in the seat of doing those, if you get appointed, what is the process that you use? And, kind of, how long does it take, and what does that serve for? Because, and I’ll just say, too, part of what I sometimes see is people will go get these evaluations that are just self reported. So I guess I want to understand that too, like the dynamic between self reporting and something more thorough, that’s, you know, a broader what are the differences between those two things?

 

Lorraine Bockman  08:18

Sure, so I would characterize them as clinical evaluations versus forensic evaluations. Okay, and you know this again, this characterization is kind of taken from the parenting time. You know, the custody evaluations to borrow the old term, you know process, which is a forensic a clinical evaluation is one where they’re really looking for treatment recommendations as a part of the process, right? So the process is really kind of interviewing the individual. Maybe they’ll do some, you know, testing, maybe they’ll do a drug test, but it’s really mostly self report, as you said, and the purpose of that type of evaluation is really to get clinical recommendations for treatment. You know, the individual is saying, or someone is providing them outside motivation to say, I need to do something here, right? And so the person goes to get this assessment, and then they have some treatment recommendations that they can choose to follow or not. A forensic evaluation is really an investigation. It’s looking to answer a question for the court, or multiple questions for the court. 

 

You know, in the case of family law, it’s looking to answer the question about, How is this person functioning, and how is their functioning with the children being impacted, and so that investigation is bigger than just an interview with the individual who’s being evaluated. It’s important to look at all other sources of collateral information in a forensic investigation. So you’re talking in a family law case, you’re talking to the other party. In this case, you’re talking to professionals who are involved. You’re talking to, you know, maybe you get some personal references. Maybe you’re looking at records. So perhaps you look at medical records and legal records and previous treatment records, if there are any, and maybe you talk to a therapist or the doctor and all of those kinds of things. And then also, as a part of that investigation, you do some what I call pen and paper testing, right? Think psychological testing, but about substance use. So you’re talking about, you know, pen and paper testing that looks at what the level of substance use and or addiction is, and those tests are, you know, ideally, they’re standardized and reliable and valid, and all the things that you know you look for in good clinical testing. And then at some point, I sit down and write my report, right, and I put all the things together. And then, you know, as you’re putting things together and putting it on paper, it talks to you, and you are like, Oh, okay, so here’s what we have. And then I identify the concerns that are kind of prevalent in the case, and you can make some recommendations based on what is best on two fronts, one for the individual to either get some healthy coping skills, or, you know, obtain sobriety, or, you know, whatever, stay away from relapse, or, you know, all of those things. And then you’re also looking for again, because you’re responding to the court’s question, you’re also looking for monitoring in order to keep the children safe. If that’s appropriate, right? Like, if both of those things are appropriate, then those are in their recommendations.

 

Krista Nash  11:43

So how long does it generally take to do a Substance Use Evaluation, to do that kind of work? Everybody’s different, right? 

 

Lorraine Bockman  11:49

Like, I think if you talk to people all across the US or all across the world, you know, I think different folks are doing different pacing, right? Some people are doing super, super in depth kinds of stuff, and looking at, you know, childhood stuff, and how’s that impacting? 

Krista Nash  12:08

And you know, me, the adults, childhood, yeah, that’s impacting, okay, yeah,

 

Lorraine Bockman  12:12

Yeah. What’s all the history, what’s all the background? And how is that impacting what’s happening today? Some people don’t go that far in and so, you know, I think probably a good forensic evaluation, maybe is, you know, 60 days, six months. I think probably I’ve had some take a year that was more based on ability to pay than actually based on the investigation. But, yeah, you know, it’s always a problem. Yeah, that can go on.

 

Krista Nash  12:40

So this might be a silly question, if it is, just tell me, but I’m curious if, do you think that substance use evaluations are most useful or most needed, or, I’m not quite sure the right question, but when someone is denying they have a problem, or other spaces in which you know, if somebody comes to you and they don’t realize the extent of their problem, even if they’re like, What kind are you usually seeing in those kind of categories?

 

Lorraine Bockman  13:04

Well, I would say that the cases that get involved this far are high conflict, and that’s the underlying driver, right? But I would say that it is, of course, appropriate in a case where someone has not recognized their substance use as a problem. That is a good time for an evaluation, where, if someone is struggling to understand the extent of their impact, perhaps is another good time to, you know, maybe have an evaluation. I think times that I’ve seen it be, I don’t want to say unnecessary, but more on the unnecessary side, let’s say are times when someone is acknowledging that there’s a problem, or there’s been a problem, and maybe they’re even in the process of doing something about it, but the conflict is so high that there’s been a struggle to acknowledge any movement.

 

Krista Nash  14:00

Oh, I see. Okay. So just to say that a different way, sure, from my So, for example. So one potential use of this kind of service of getting somebody like you involved in, if it’s just a substance use evaluation type work, would be if the person is like, I have no problem. This is not a problem. I don’t have a problem at all. Another might be the person’s like, I do have a problem, but this other parent is not acknowledging that I actually have done things that are working, and I want to make sure that what I’m doing is appropriate, or everyone’s you know, that that’s the level that we’re going into. So there might not be a denial of a problem, but whether or not the person is sufficiently moving in the right direction, right

 

Lorraine Bockman  14:39

I think that family member has a lot of history, and probably there’s been a significant level of dishonesty, you know, through the process, and so they have reason to mistrust. I’m not discounting that at all. I just think that that’s a grayer area, necessarily, 

Krista Nash  14:57

The trust stuff sometimes, like I had one, where. Where, like, the little kid was blowing into the interlock device. I don’t even know if that was true, but that was what everybody was concerned about. You know, I don’t think that’s necessarily. I don’t even know if that’s possible anymore. Do they have facial recognition on those? I don’t know. That’s the device that’s on cars some of them do. I think it was a voluntary device. It was like something that was more like, bought off the street somewhere, you know, was it was like something that the person’s parents had put on, like the grandparents had put on, and so the kids telling his mom that he’s the one that has blown in this thing like 100 times or something, you know. But I think it’s interesting when you think about in high conflict cases, the need for this incremental trust building, and when you have these addiction issues, of course, that protective parents would say, especially when the kids are really little, right? I don’t trust you. What’s going to happen if you mess this up, right? So I appreciate saying you understand that?

 

Lorraine Bockman  15:51

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. I think that sometimes when it’s more challenging is when someone is acknowledging the extent of the problem. They’re actively working on recovery in some form or fashion. And again, the conflict is so high. I think those cases could be maybe a consultation kind of thing rather than a full suit. But again, the conflict ends up being challenging in those cases.

 

Krista Nash  16:20

Yeah, I agree. Sometimes we jump. I mean, I’m learning as CLR, and maybe this will help us move sort of in this direction of how we do this in a nuanced way. I’m learning that in a variety of our typical approaches that we use, whether it’s the custody evaluations, which I don’t even want to call it custody. I know I just interviewed Fran Fontana, who is like, I worked so hard to not use the word custody in legislator, but you know, when you look at what people are searching for, that’s what they’re searching for, like they actually still use it. So we all respect that. I don’t like the word because it sounds like you’re talking about an ownership of something. It is what parents generally use out in the world, you know. And it’s kind of just the nomenclature that gets used. But you know, I think that there are ways to approach these things that are short of these massive, many months approaches, you know, like we can do, for example, psychological evaluations without the full pre when you have a CLR involved, right? Like when you have a best interest attorney, I can make that jump to the parenting time recommendations. Now, it’s an important caveat with the Substance Use Evaluations that you can’t make those parenting time so many people who can’t do it, like there’s so many people who cannot do it. Therapists can’t make parenting time recommendations. Substance Use Evaluators cannot make parenting time evaluations, which is sometimes why you get multiple experts involved with CFI, PRP, SUE, all the acronym people. But I’m finding that,  like that you said, you know, maybe an evaluation is done that is short of, that’s more of a consultation. So tell me about that. I mean, what kind of ways would you be brought on to a case, like, what would that look like? How is that different, you know, than the full Sue report? 

Lorraine Bockman  17:55

So a CLR or an attorney might call me and say, look, I’ve got this person, and this is what they’re doing. And you know, both parties agree that there’s an issue, and both parties agree so far that, you know, things are proceeding the way that they should be. What do we do next? You