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Progressive Recovery

Progressive Recovery is a constant reworking of the 12 steps and resources for those in recovery for substance abuse.

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A Greater and Greater World of Recovery

The increasing number of addictions of all types is nothing less than heartbreaking, especially when it strikes all too close to home with friends or loved ones. At the same time, we who are in recovery know that is not the whole story. We see the sobriety that can come as well as the healing that is possible. In some cases, the degree of healing is overwhelmingly positive. Sometimes we may be in awestruck by just how much can be made right in ourselves, in others, and in the world.

Recently, we discovered that MysticMag had done a global search and compiled a massive list of treatment programs and resources worldwide. It is nothing less than stunning to see the sheer scale of the reach of recovery that has come to pass. Granted, it is in response to a stunning need, and yet how can one not be encouraged. Not just for the formal programs and services, but everywhere a group or a need arises, those in recovery appear to extend the hand and support the recovering communities. More impressive still is the emergence of subgroups of every imaginable kind to work with and for each and every unique set of circumstances.

It is in this spirit that we started this piece with the quote from our friend, Al C. “While my gratitude goes to AA, my allegiance is to recovery.” With this frame of reference, Al captures what some have called the “language of the heart,” and others refer to as “the everlasting spirit of recovery.” 

One of the great realities of recovery is that we must do it for ourselves, because no one can do it for us. And yet, we do not have to recovery alone. The beauty of this reality is that it means the number of approaches and solutions are as diverse and numbered as those who find their way into a long-term recovery. Perhaps we have tapped into an infinity of means to healing and wholeness.

At Progressive Recovery, we continue to collect and distribute content that is freely received and freely given. The includes our own compiled list of resources we have found to be useful.  Our only request is that you contribute to the effort by passing on what you find that is useful. After all, you too are a demonstration of an allegiance to recovery. 

One moment, one breath, one step, one day at a time. We are in this together. 

Open, Unguarded and Alive in Recovery

We have long admired the story of Brene Brown’s recovery, which she told in a powerful blog you can read here. That breakthrough in her life opened up a remarkable world beyond recovery, one in which she has become a notable contributor to the larger world. You can explore that by searching most anywhere with her name. It is a remarkable body of work made possible by her recovery, which is in all ways a progressive one.

Central to Brene’s work in the world are ideas around vulnerability and authenticity, which are powerful themes in the rooms of recovery. More importantly, her work has taken the direction embedded in the Twelve Steps and embellished greatly through Progressive Recovery.

We find a psychic change and the transformation of our lives by looking at the ways we are blocked off. This is the central tenet in inventory practices in recovery. We don’t look for the solution, we look within ourselves for where we are unable to find the solution. It is those blockages and their release that puts us on the launching pad of life beyond sobriety.

In the spirit of that vulnerability and authenticity, Brene published this blog: Hard Season’s and Wild Hearts. It is a most powerful tale of how even in long-term recovery, we must over and over again break through the parts of us that become defended and armored. Here is her story, which of course, is mirror to our stories.

Beyond Stigma

 
 

Video Courtesy of The University of Alabama at Birmingham

For a number of years, our friend Al has been contributing to the deepening of Progressive Recovery through his personal journey in recovery. He’s become a peer support specialist, and an exceptional voice for advancing recovery in any number of ways. Especially he can speak to the stigma of addiction through his own experience, strength and hope. After all, when we bring things into the light, the shadows of shame and stigma fall away. We are each better for that healing, so too is our world bettered.

“While my gratitude goes to AA, my allegiance is to recovery.” - Al. C.

 

A Progressive Understanding of the Way of the Twelve Steps

As our recovery lengthens and deepens, many of us find we likewise deepen our understanding and practice of the Twelve Steps. Of course that would be the case. With each day, each step, each year through which our recovery advances, it’s very reasonable to expect our approaches to recovery to evolve. Not surprisingly, the challenges we face in living sober often become different. Here’s a little summary of our understanding of a progressive practice of the Twelve Steps.

Initially, we rightly focus on our bad behavior, our glaring personality problems, and the breakdowns in our lives including any number of relationship difficulties. So too are we dealing with our guilt and our shame, which are entangled with those problems that brought us into recovery. Needless to say, we are hard pressed to make progress without first getting done with the drink, the drug, or the addiction. For some time this works exceptionally well for many of us.

However, it is not uncommon for us to continue to be dogged by challenges in our behavior, relationships and lives. If we persist in applying the practices of recovery, we are likely to begin to see that there are underlying patterns. At some point, someone may direct us to familiar language. “Many of have tried to hold on to our old ideas, and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.” And, “Invariably we find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self that have placed us in a position to be harmed.” At this moment we have an opportunity to look at the Twelve Steps much differently. That is what our Emotional Sober … For Life graphic depicts.

We begin to see that our behavior and the lives that we live are in fact created or driven by how we see and interpret the world. If we think others are here to meet our needs, we invariably find relationship problems. If we discover underlying traumas, both large and small, we begin to see those wounds influencing everything to which we are oriented. If we believe in our heart of hearts that we are deficient or inadequate, we realize we are living small as a self-protective strategy.

In short, we find that our beliefs and perceptions are leading us astray, or that unhealed inner wounds block us off from possibility and potential. Much to our surprise, we may realize that much of that upon which we have focused are symptoms, that beneath these are the “causes and conditions” that the Big Book proposes are the root of our alcoholism or addiction.

It is then, that we may seek a therapist to deepen our psycho-spiritual investigations. Or we may find we need a sponsor or mentor who can take us in new directions with our recovery. Or we may turn to other spiritual or religious practices and disciplines in order to get at these underlying factors.

One of the most beautiful learnings in years of recovery is that there are many ways to be healed, and many ways to advance our recovery. The first requirement seems always to be that we must realize we need more of a solution. Not that our recovery work to date has failed, instead it brings us to new degrees of recovery.

Therein lies our encouragement. (Imagine that … to be en-couraged!) So too does our experience, strength and hope confirm that recovery is not a resting place or safe haven, though it may provide both. Instead it is a launching pad. What we are called to is a psychic change. Once old ideas and decisions based on self are revealed, and once inner healing comes, our selves, our lives, and our worlds change.

“You can trust recovery. You can trust the process.”

~ Sam D.

I'm Alright

 

"I had to tell the truth to myself about myself.” ~Michael Canfield

After we completed the release of our Strengths-Based Recovery virtual workshops, click here to view all three, a friend pointed us to Michael’s video at Green Renaissance, a site that explores our shared humanity through powerful reflections.

Michael’s recovery story spoke so loudly to finding and expressing our strengths, and beyond that, to finding our spiritual footing despite sometimes terrible and ugly histories.

We think his story is not just the tale of getting clean and sober, but a hopeful reflection for all of us on how to walk ourselves. It sounds like emotional sobriety to us.

Enjoy his story, and his experience, strength and hope. Nothing but the best, friends.

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