New News About Recovery
“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”
—Desmond Tutu.
I attend the Episcopal Recovery Conference in Asheville, North Carolina, and learn more about addiction recovery. First, I realize that the longer I am in recovery, the more I think I know and have heard it all. Today I am disabused of this thought process. I know very little. That is why it is essential to continue to attend gatherings like this.
One speaker, Chris Budnick, executive director of Healing Transitions in Raleigh, talks about how we think recovery for others should look like ours. Not true. Recovery from addiction is not a cookie-cutter process. We share our experience, strength, and hope, but we must not expect others to have the same experience, strength, and hope. Perhaps we can see this more clearly in relation to our spiritual life. We each have a spiritual connection to God, but it is different for each of us. So also is our response to recovery and our individual path to achieving it.
I learn one more lesson today. We often talk about someone not coming to recovery because they “have not hit bottom.” That means the person hasn’t reached a level of pain that allows openness to change. The speaker gave examples of others who changed because people in recovery kept telling them there was hope for freedom from addiction. Hope for an alternative life.
Mentors in recovery keep conveying that those who are farther along in recovery care about them, have some realization of what they are going through, and believe there is hope. Those caught in addiction may see glimpses of new life in the person in recovery who seems honestly to care about them.
This is one more way that those in recovery can carry the message to those still suffering: by continuing to reach out and give them hope.
Joanna. Joannaseibert.com