Addiction Counseling for High Achieving Men

For men who are doing many things right – and quietly struggling with habits they can’t seem to shake

We are not Surprised by Your Story

You work hard. You provide. You show up. From the outside, life looks solid – maybe even enviable. And yet, when the pressure builds, you find yourself reaching for things that don’t actually give relief.

Scrolling when you should be present. Drinking more than you intended. Pornography that leaves you feeling hollow instead of satisfied. Food, spending, gambling, overwork, or late nights that slowly erode peace.

These aren’t moral failures. They’re coping strategies – ones that once helped you survive something difficult, but no longer serve the man you’re called to become.

At Lion Counseling, we help men stop fighting themselves – and start addressing what’s really driving these patterns.

We don’t shame, we don’t label you with a diagnosis, and we know your struggles aren’t your true identity.

When Strong Men Fall Into Unhelpful Habits

Most men we work with aren’t reckless or irresponsible. They’re disciplined, capable, and deeply committed to their families, faith, and responsibilities.

But strength has a shadow.

When stress, unresolved pain, disappointment, loneliness, or shame go unaddressed, the nervous system looks for relief wherever it can find it. Over time, that relief turns into habit – and habit into a quiet captivity.

Scripture names this pattern clearly:

“I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do— this I keep on doing.” (Romans 7:19)

White-knuckling rarely works for long.

Trying harder usually just adds more pressure.

Lasting change requires going deeper.

A Faith-Forward Approach to Freedom

We believe healing is not about erasing desire – it’s about restoring order.

Addictive patterns distort good longings:

  • Comfort becomes escape

  • Connection becomes consumption

  • Rest becomes avoidance

Our work integrates evidence-based psychology with a Christian understanding of the human person – body, mind, and soul. Freedom isn’t found in self-contempt or endless self-control. It’s found in truth, healing, and grace applied at the deepest level.

One Team. One Mission. Real Change.

Lion Counseling is a team-based practice designed to meet men where they actually are – not where they think they should be.

Some men need deep emotional healing.
Some need targeted addiction expertise.
Some need structure, discipline, and forward movement.

We help discern the right path – so you don’t waste time, energy, or hope.

A Three-Path Framework for Getting Back on Track

Path 1 – Deep Healing & Emotional Resolution

Getting to the True Source of the Problem – Not Just the Behavior

EMDR Therapy with Mark Odland

You’ve likely already tried to control the behavior itself—through discipline, resolve, or willpower. And yet the pull keeps returning, especially when stress is high or you’re depleted.

That’s because the habit isn’t the real problem.
It’s a response.

In our work together, we focus on what your mind and body learned to do to cope. As a Certified EMDR Therapist, I help you identify and heal the underlying experiences that quietly drive these patterns—often long before they became destructive.

For many high-achieving men, those roots include:

  • Years of sustained pressure without real rest

  • Early experiences that shaped shame or desire

  • Losses or disappointments you were expected to move past

  • Emotional isolation hidden behind productivity

EMDR works by resolving how these experiences are stored in the nervous system—not just how you think about them. As healing occurs, the need for old coping strategies often weakens on its own.

From a Christian perspective, this isn’t about trying harder or suppressing desire. It’s about restoration—bringing what has been disordered back into right relationship.

If you want to address the why beneath your habits—not just manage behavior—this is often the most direct path forward.

Path 2 – Stability, Sobriety & Mental Discipline

Structured Support for Breaking Stubborn Patterns

Addiction Counseling with Zack Carter

If you’ve tried to stop on your own and keep finding yourself pulled back, you may need more than insight – you may need structure, clarity, and a proven plan.

Zack Carter specializes in helping men break free from patterns that feel entrenched, confusing, or discouraging. He works with a wide range of unwanted behaviors, but is especially known for his focused work with pornography addiction, using research-proven and forward-thinking methods.

Zack combines practical, EMDR-informed addiction protocols with strong CBT foundations to help you understand your triggers, interrupt relapse cycles, and rebuild momentum when resolve alone isn’t enough.

For many men, this work includes:

  • Identifying patterns that lead to acting out

  • Learning how stress, emotion, and habit interact

  • Replacing shame with clarity and responsibility

  • Building skills that support consistency over time

From a faith-forward perspective, Zack’s approach emphasizes truth, accountability, and grace—helping you move forward without defining yourself by your struggle.

If you’re ready for a clear path out of repeated cycles – and want support that is both compassionate and practical—this is often the right next step.

Path 3: Performance, Identity & Embodied Leadership

Replacing Old Patterns With a Stronger Way of Life

Coaching & Accountability with Marcus Thigpen

If you know what needs to change but struggle to sustain it, the issue may not be insight—it may be momentum.

Some habits don’t loosen through analysis alone. They lose power when they’re replaced with structure, purpose, and disciplined action.

Marcus Thigpen helps men rebuild their lives by channeling energy into something stronger. Having overcome significant personal challenges to become a standout athlete at Indiana University and compete professionally in the NFL and CFL, Marcus brings lived credibility to the work of perseverance and change.

His support focuses on:

  • Building daily structure that supports sobriety

  • Developing physical, mental, and spiritual discipline

  • Replacing destructive habits with life-giving routines

  • Maintaining progress through accountability and consistency

From a faith-forward perspective, Marcus helps men pursue growth not by “white-knuckling,” but by becoming the kind of man whose life no longer has room for old patterns.

If you’re ready to move forward with strength, discipline, and direction, this path often provides the momentum needed to sustain real change.

“Many men move between these pathways over time, depending on where they are in their journey.”

Who This Work is For
Men who desire faithfulness and legacy more than comfort

Carry the Weight of Inherited Leadership

Carry responsibility that was handed to you — not chosen — and feel the pressure to protect what others built before you.

Feel Trapped by Expectations

Feel caught between honoring family, legacy, or reputation and wanting the freedom to define your own direction.

Want Clarity Without Losing Integrity

Want to lead well without becoming hardened, resentful, or disconnected from who you are beneath the role.

Experience Strain in Key Relationships

Notice that pressure from leadership and legacy is quietly affecting your marriage, family, or closest relationships

Why Legacy Owners and Successors Need Specialized Therapy

Legacy owners and successors face pressures that differ fundamentally from those of self-made executives. Leadership is often inherited, expectations are rarely spoken, and walking away is seldom a real option. Responsibility is assumed – not negotiated.

Many men in these roles grow up learning to endure, perform, and preserve what was built before them. Over time, the very traits that sustain the legacy – discipline, decisiveness, emotional restraint, and loyalty – can quietly create internal strain. Identity becomes entangled with obligation. Relationships absorb unspoken pressure. And success, while visible to others, can feel increasingly isolating.

Specialized therapy for legacy owners and successors provides a confidential space to address these deeper dynamics. Rather than focusing only on stress management or surface-level balance, this work helps men examine how inherited responsibility shapes their emotional patterns, leadership style, and sense of self. The goal is not to abandon legacy, but to carry it forward with clarity, integrity, and emotional resilience.

At Lion Counseling, we work with legacy owners and successors in Duluth, Minnesota, and across the United States to help them navigate succession, responsibility, and identity—so leadership does not come at the cost of personal fulfillment or meaningful connection.

Why Executives Need Specialized Therapy

The Benefits of Therapy for Entrepreneurs and Business Owners

At Lion Counseling, our work with entrepreneurs and business owners is shaped by decades of clinical experience with high-responsibility men – and by firsthand experience building and leading businesses. This work is designed to address the internal pressure that accumulates when leadership, identity, and livelihood are tightly intertwined.

Rather than focusing on surface-level stress management, we help owners address the deeper emotional and behavioral patterns that quietly shape decision-making, leadership style, and sustainability over time.

Business owners who engage in this work often experience benefits such as:

Greater Clarity Under Pressure

Developing a clearer understanding of how past experiences, high-stakes decisions, and prolonged responsibility influence reactions, judgment, and leadership – especially when the margin for error is thin.

Stronger Relationships Without Weakening Leadership

Learning how to stay present, grounded, and emotionally available at home and at work without losing authority, decisiveness, or respect—reducing the cost leadership often extracts from marriage and family.

Reduced Burnout and Internal Strain

Addressing the beliefs and habits that drive over-responsibility, emotional suppression, or constant urgency – so leadership becomes sustainable rather than draining.

A More Grounded Sense of Identity Beyond the Business

Separating who you are from what you’ve built, allowing success to support your life rather than consume it, and reducing the fear that slowing down means losing momentum or relevance.

Renewed Focus, Direction, and Confidence

Clearing the mental and emotional noise that builds over years of ownership, enabling steadier leadership, better decisions, and a stronger sense of purpose behind the work you’re doing.

Clinical Leadership & Direction

Lion Counseling is led by Mark Odland, a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified EMDR Therapist with more than 15 years of experience and over 15,000 sessions helping men carry responsibility well. Based in Duluth, Minnesota, Mark and his team serve men across the United States.

Mark’s work is grounded in a deep understanding of how pressure, leadership, and unprocessed stress shape behavior over time. As a business owner and founder himself, he understands what it means to carry risk, make difficult decisions, and hold together a life that others depend on—often without a place to offload the weight. Over time, that pressure can quietly fuel unhelpful habits and coping patterns.

As the founder of Lion Counseling, Mark serves as the guiding voice and clinical architect of the practice. He sets the depth, standards, and direction of care, ensuring that all work—whether through EMDR therapy, addiction counseling, or coaching—is aligned with a shared commitment to integrity, restoration, and lasting change. Even when clients work primarily with other members of the team, their care is shaped by the framework, discernment, and values that guide the practice as a whole.

Confidentiality and Discretion

For hard-working men, privacy is not optional – it is essential. Many of the men we work with hold positions where exposure, misinterpretation, or unnecessary documentation could carry real professional, financial, or relational consequences.

At Lion Counseling, discretion is built into how we practice. We operate outside of insurance networks, allowing men to engage in meaningful work without diagnostic labels, third-party records, or unnecessary visibility.

Clients can trust that their work remains confidential, focused, and handled with professional seriousness.

Common Questions from Men about Addiction Counseling

Therapy for entrepreneurs and business owners is designed to address the unique internal pressures that come with ownership – risk, responsibility, decision fatigue, and the weight of being the one others depend on. Unlike traditional therapy, which often focuses on symptom relief or emotional processing in isolation, this work is grounded in the realities of leadership, accountability, and sustained performance.

Rather than asking owners to step out of their leadership role, this approach works within it. The focus is on identifying and addressing the internal patterns – emotional load, stress responses, habits, and unresolved experiences – that quietly shape judgment, behavior, and resilience under pressure.

At Lion Counseling, this work is practical, discreet, and intentional. We help business owners gain clarity, reduce internal strain, and lead with steadiness and integrity – without labels, unnecessary diagnosis, or one-size-fits-all solutions.

Burnout for entrepreneurs and business owners is rarely caused by workload alone. More often, it comes from carrying sustained responsibility without margin—being accountable for people, payroll, outcomes, and decisions that don’t shut off when the workday ends.

Therapy helps by addressing both the external demands of ownership and the internal patterns that develop under prolonged pressure. Over time, many owners adopt survival strategies—emotional containment, over-control, constant urgency, or unhealthy coping habits—that keep the business running but slowly drain clarity, patience, and resilience.

At Lion Counseling, we help owners move beyond simply “managing stress.” The work focuses on reducing internal strain, restoring steadiness under pressure, and helping leadership decisions come from intention rather than exhaustion. Whether through foundational emotional work, behavioral structure, or performance-focused support, therapy helps owners carry responsibility without being consumed by it.

Confidentiality is foundational to our work with entrepreneurs and business owners. Many of the men we serve carry responsibilities where privacy is not optional—reputation, livelihood, employee stability, and family well-being can all be affected by unnecessary exposure or misinterpretation.

At Lion Counseling, discretion is built into how we practice. We operate outside of insurance networks, which allows clients to engage in meaningful work without diagnostic labels, third-party reporting, or administrative records beyond what is ethically and legally required.

Sessions are handled with professional seriousness and respect for the realities of ownership. Whether discussing leadership strain, decision fatigue, habit change, or personal pressure, clients can trust that their work remains confidential, focused, and contained. Initial consultations and ongoing care are approached with the same standard of discretion.

Yes. Many entrepreneurs and business owners find that the same traits that help them build and run a company – decisiveness, endurance, emotional control, and self-reliance – can quietly strain their closest relationships over time.

Ownership pressure doesn’t stay at the office. Decision fatigue, constant responsibility, and the habit of staying “on” often follow owners home, even when they intend to compartmentalize. Over time, this can lead to emotional distance, irritability, or a sense that work is crowding out connection with a spouse, children, or close friends.

Therapy helps by identifying the internal patterns that develop under sustained leadership pressure and creating space for more intentional ways of relating – without undermining authority or strength. At Lion Counseling, we work with business owners to improve communication, restore emotional presence, and reduce relational strain so leadership responsibility does not come at the cost of marriage, family, or meaningful connection.

This type of therapy may be a good fit if you carry responsibility that feels heavier than it appears from the outside. Many entrepreneurs seek support not because something is “wrong,” but because the pressure of ownership—risk, decision-making, and constant accountability – has begun to affect clarity, consistency, or connection.

It is often a fit for owners who feel internally strained despite external success, notice the same stress or leadership patterns repeating across seasons, or sense that the cost of carrying the business is showing up in ways they didn’t intend – at work, at home, or internally.

An initial consultation is designed to clarify fit, goals, and direction – not to commit you to a particular model or depth of work. Together, we determine whether this approach is appropriate and which path would offer the greatest leverage based on where pressure is showing up right now.

Next Steps

Lion Counseling works with men who are ready to engage thoughtfully and take responsibility for their growth. If you believe this work may be a fit, the next step is a brief consultation to clarify your goals and determine whether working together makes sense.

Use the contact form below to get started. A member of our team will reach out within one business day to schedule your free consultation and walk you through what comes next.

If you’d prefer to reach us directly, you’re welcome to call (561) 463-5466 or email: contact@escapethecagenow.com