You catch Recovery from those you surround yourself with. So building up a team who are contagious is important. People who personify recovery with all that they are, say, breath, and do will mean you’re more likely to catch it!
If you don’t know people or resources that could part of your team, a Recovery Coach is a great place to start. Whether you engage a private coach, or connect with one at a Community Recovery Center, they can be a fantastic way to build a few connections quite quickly. Work with your coach to figure out who you want on your recovery team. You might think you don’t know, but trust your coach and your intuition to come up with some first team members. Addiction can be defined as a biopsychosocial phenomenon – so find people who are contagious in any or all three of those categories is important. For many, Recovery is also spiritual process. So finding contagious spiritual people may also serve your Recovery. Work with coach to see who might round out your team at any point in your Recovery. You can always make more additions, or trades later. And remember – not everyone has to be on your team forever. It’s OK to take whatever Recovery you need to catch from them and then find more Recovery from someone else.
Once you’ve made some first decisions about who you need on your Recovery Team, your coach can connect you, or empower you to make the connection yourself! You might want a medical team member who can help you with detoxing, working on a methadone based recovery plan, or dealing with an chronic problem that is causing you pain (like some overdue dental work, or a skin ulcer). You might need legal help, or a mental health coach. Maybe your finances are causing you suffering, or you need a new place to live. Maybe you’ve never meditated and want to try, or you need a gym, or an art group, or a yoga community. One great resource to finding more team members is a community support group. There’s a lot of differences between groups – such as between SMART Recovery & Dharma Recovery, or between different ‘chapters/flavours’ of the same group (12 STEP –AA or NA). Your Coach can help you understand the differences, and choose one to try – or maybe two! Its OK to catch Recovery from more than one Community.
In fact – catching Recovery from different sources is quite important. Because addiction is so strong and cunning, you will need to “catch recovery” repeatedly. Recovery team members who are at a similar stage of recovery often share the exact thing you need in your recovery, from the same point of understanding –and it can be highly contagious although it may not be as deep or last as long. People with technical expertise can provide longer lasting results though if we have not yet learned to trust, we might give up before it effective. People with their own deep recovery can provide a constant source of contagious Recovery – some of it is useful right away, and if we’re fortunate, we’ll come to understand more of it later and its like catching Recovery multiple times from one dose! And we need all of these different exposures to Recovery over and over – its contagious – but until we build up enough Recovery, the results don’t last long. And that’s why we have different team members!
So, to get the most recovery that you are able, in the way you need it, from people you trust, build a Recovery Team. Work together, not all team members will be in agreement all the time, so work with your Coach – You are the Captain and get to decide.
But what ever you do – go out there and get exposed!
