Do We Have a Vision of Recovery?

What’s it all about? R-E-C-O-V-E-R-Y!

This rallying cry, originally formulated to promote community among disparate addiction professionals, often sounds more aspirational than descriptive. Especially when the ensuing conversation inevitably relapses into a focus on triage (everything from Narcan to the “revolving door”).

Saving lives is a non-negotiable value. But what are those lives (heroically) saved via Narcan for? Too often, that’s for someone else to figure out. To be real, our limited focus on survival alone isn’t best serving our patients/clients/participants. Can we move the needle from surviving to thriving? Empower professionals to embrace a recovery-first mindset whatever the circumstances of their invaluable service?

“Recovery is a process of change,” says the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), “through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach their full potential.” Coined some 15 years ago by a diverse group of stakeholders – including people “in recovery” – this definition is surprisingly provocative.

For some, it’s too liberated from the doom-and-gloom view of addiction as a sordid business relieved only by the offender’s tortured redemption. For others, the definition improperly normalizes addiction (or “substance use disorder”) as if addiction were an abnormal condition and not a daily occurrence in the lives of millions of Americans.

Predating SAMHSA by decades, Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc. tries to integrate the visionary with the stigmatizing in its reference to “trudging the road of happy destiny”: that “trudging” conjuring the (supposed) forced labor of staying sober; that “happy destiny,” surely a kind of reward for building spiritual capital across a lifetime. Hmmn. Gotta love ’em for trying!

So far, so challenging. How is an overworked, hopelessly under-resourced, professional to navigate this landscape? Beyond medical stabilization and preliminary therapeutic support, what can she offer patients/clients/participants who are horrified at the prospect of days, months, years without unfettered use of their drug “of choice.” (No pathway of recovery is going to recommend a return to the level of use that results in hospitalization.)

Fortunately, there’s the Kathleen O’Connell and Phillip Valentine, RCP “Stages of Recovery” model – a roadmap for the recovery journey across a lifetime. Introduced in the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery‘s Recovery Coach Academy training for addiction recovery coaches, this framework envisions how – in broad terms – an individual, and the professionals who work with her, might expect the future to look.

With headings such as “deepening” and “connectedness,” the roadmap identifies stage-appropriate milestones and tasks for building spiritual capital. Not content to terminate the journey at “integration” from O’Connell’s work, Valentine developed a fifth stage, “fulfilment,” to capture the experience of long-term recovery. He posits living in gratitude, acceptance and serenity, as hallmarks of this ongoing stage.

Throughout the model, we are reminded that “recovery is a process, not an event,” and that tasks may be repeated as necessary at any time. Everyone’s recovery will look different. The beauty of the Stages of Recovery model is that it invites us into a framework for understanding the journey in real time.

Introducing this model in the field can be a communications challenge. (I’ve been training it for ten years – I have an opinion!) For people new to recovery, much of the experience described in the stages hasn’t happened yet. It’s not easy to identify. For professionals, many never get to see their former clients in the later stages or learn from the journey.

As the cartographer of old might say: “Recovery” is terra incognita to so many of us.

But wait – there’s good news! The limits of experience are the beginnings of creativity. What we might call “the vision thing.”

What all of us need and want: a vision of recovery.

A vision that’s realistic and achievable. A roadmap. A roadmap of recovery. A roadmap for thriving across a lifetime.

What more creative way to explore the largely unknown than through psychodrama? Described by one writer as “Freud meets Strindberg,” psychodrama was developed a century ago by Jacob Moreno. The famed “Moreno Stage” – now in Highland, NY – is still in use. For psychodramatists, it’s a sacred space.

Psychodrama is an experiential modality which liberates participants to explore alternative relationship dynamics – people, places, things – without the constraints of previously embedded story. (“Who would you be without your story,” Brené Brown asks.)

Here, the work of psychodramatists, Jennifer Salimbene and Regina Sewell, is key. Building on their success last year with an innovative embodied Stages of Change (Prochaska & DiClemente) program, Reg and Jen have partnered with me (sociometrician), to bring you a weekend retreat where we’ll experience these recovery stages creatively and with spontaneity, insights, and fun.  Join us on Saturday 6 & Sunday 7 September (9-4.30pm daily).  Earn CEs from ABE & RTR-S Psychodrama; NYS mental health counselor credits through WNY-R-AHEC (+$25); NYS social work credits through Prepared Training (+$25); CARC/CRPA & CARC Electives through NYCB.  OASAS approval pending

Who knows what we’ll discover together! Designed for anyone who works with anyone in any stage of recovery, and/or for you, as you build your recovery life.

Recovery? There’s a map for that! Come join us – on the Moreno Stage!

Registration is open through September 1 at https://tinyurl.com/SoR-registration-Sep-2025.