How should a therapist treat someone in active addiction?

Are they supposed to be assholes even if you're sober at the appointments?

(Not currently drinking/using to be clear, just questioning the past few months)

My ex T told me if I started drinking again to tell her bedivere therapy wouldn't work if I was drinking. She would have refered me out to someone who deals with addiction if I had of.
It wouldn't have effect her response to me.

She's on a co-occurring disorders team haha

In what way was she an arsehole? Obviously therapists are not supposed to be arseholes, you already know that, but many of them seem predisposed.

She was acting all fed up with me. One session I asked her if she thought I was hopeless and she said no, and the next session she asked "why do you even come here?" "do you really think you want to--or even can-- get better?" with a real short tone. Then there was a whole fiasco one day that was kinda crazy and I wound up in the ED and my T just walked in, said nothing but "the team petitioned for an IEA" (again, sounding really angry) and left. At no point do I remember her saying anything that was helpful. She said I need to work on emotional regulation but didn't give any guidance as to where I was supposed to begin with that.

Then after two weeks away (and two weeks clean!) instead of our appointment she gives me a ride home from my pdoc appointment that was pretty much at the same time as our usual appointment, and she acts all friendly like "okay, now that you're not a mess, I'll be nice."

Sounds like she has bad personal boundaries/self-care.

I don't deal with drug or alcohol addiction. But if I ever hurt myself again, even though I promised L I wouldn't, she would not be mad at me or take out her frustration on me. Those are her own feelings, if she even were to feel that way. Instead, she would be compassionate, caring, empathetic, and do her best to get me the care I needed.

Have you tried talking to her about it? I'm wondering if it could be that she felt she wasn't helping you enough and was taking that out on you? This wasn't related to addiction at the time, but once, my former T was suddenly pushing me to go in the hospital. And I wasn't even doing that badly at the time, not compared to how I'd been (depression) a couple months before that. It just seemed to come out of the blue.

I questioned her about it the next session, and she admitted that she thought she might have gotten too close to me and wasn't seeing things clearly with me. and wasn't able to be objective. So she went too far in the other direction, like overcorrecting. I wonder if that could be happening here? Not that it excuses how she was talking to you.

Another thought is that whatever she was doing wasn't helping, so she tried doing the tough love thing. Or trying a reverse psychology thing on you, so you'd be like, "Oh, you don't think I can get better? I'll show you!" I imagine that might work on some people (it wouldn't on me). But if she was trying some technique on you or was having self-doubt (not sure she'd admit that, if she's even aware of it), it could help for you to understand that she wasn't just being a jerk for no reason. Do you have a regular appointment with her coming up? Maybe you could try asking what was going on there and saying it wasn't helpful to you. (I've also told my current therapist when things he's doing aren't helpful.)

I haven't really had a chance to ask her since I haven't seen her since the IEA other than the ride home--and I don't do well as a passenger so it wasn't exactly a chance to bring things up--and the weeks before I was too out of it (either sick from withdrawal or still probably somewhat influenced by something).

I see her tomorrow, and I'll definitely discuss it with her (though I have something else a little more important to bring up that might take up the whole 45 min).

I've told therapist I don't even know why I come. But they've never asked me. I've had plenty of Drs and therapists give up on me. One said with out her help I'd be dead in a ditch or on welfare with several kids. I was 14 at the time. She said several other things to me that were uncalled for. I guess I just triggered her. But no being an *** isn't therapeutic and damaging.

That did NOT go as planned lol. I could never in a million years have predicted how that would have gone.

She ended up sending me to the doctor's office in the building to get checked for scabies because she asked "how are you?" and I said "other than feeling like bugs are crawling all over me, pretty damn fine." Then she texted my pdoc, who got in contact with the medical doc, who, looks at THIS SCHIZOPHRENIC SUBSTANCE USER ON AMANTADINE WHICH IS KNOWN TO CAUSE FORMICATION and thinks "scabies!"

so uh, maybe next week.

Ugh, that sounds really frustrating... Hope your next session is more useful.

I wasn't even going to show up because I feel like parasitic fecal matter (only contagious if I screw her or share needles with her), but I decided to. Mistake. She was busy writing something then on a phone call, so I just sat in her office talking to my peer specialist about yoga and where I'd like to travel to. Although at one point she (peer support) mentioned that I should go on "like a paleo or a Mediterranean diet" when right now literally all I'm eating is peanut butter and spinach (I know, I know).