The recovery community is dominated by a notion that addiction is a spiritual malady that must be repressed and controlled throughout life with rigorous study, meeting attendance, sponsorship, and more. While I will not try to convince otherwise someone for whom a 12 step program works in restoring a healthy and meaningful existence, this approach is not for everyone. Some balk at the requirements, both real and perceived, of a 12 step program and never get past the door. Others make extended, sincere efforts to engage but find themselves unable to make lasting progress within the 12 steps. For individuals in this situation, the near universally held belief that ______ Anonymous groups are the only path to recovery can be crushingly demoralizing. The thought may arise, "If this path is the only hope then perhaps for me there is no hope."
I found myself in this devastated situation having engaged the 12 steps through sincere and extended efforts but no closer to lasting sobriety that allowed me to live life healthfully as I chose and without harming those I love. Extended efforts to find another path thankfully led me to Centered Recovery. In talking with Reed before intake, I became hopeful for the first time in years that I could conquer my addiction. Further, I understood that the program would not focus on putting one's trust in an external power but rather in recognizing thoughts, emotions, and behaviors and through understanding oneself achieving a state of greater control.
The gift of Centered Recovery comes in learning that recovery can be built from within by understanding thoughts and emotions are not you. A thought to drink or use, no matter how deviously clever, or an emotion, regardless of how cripplingly powerful, need not govern one's actions or alter one's equanimity. Our society reinforces a belief that thoughts and emotions are the essence of who we are and predetermine how we will act in the world. Centered has taught me a different way of understanding that frees me from destructive cycles of action that I had come to think inevitable.
Learning through the lens of Centered, a person is exposed to a view of the self and our actions in the world that is shockingly simple. The baseline perspective is indeed so uncomplicated that it can be hard to digest. From the beginning, I began to sense the program was providing structure to understanding of the self and my actions that I intuitively knew as a child but let go of under the influence of societal teachings and my own thought and emotion heavy path in adulthood. I was reminded of what I had known and given a framework to consider and discuss it.
Consistently, I have observed at Centered clients struggling to grasp the message but over time having it click in their understanding. Not only does this allow cessation of harmful substance use but often bears other beautiful gifts such as the removal of painful burdens such as anxiety, anger, resentment, paranoia, and other psychological pain. Clients report resolution of problem behaviors, mental health difficulties, and frustrations in their lives that seem not directly related to addiction and that they had no hope would be addressed when they first walked through the door at Centered Recovery.
Such transformation would be beneficial for many in our society even without issues of substance abuse. However, it is often only reaching a rock bottom that opens the mind to the need for change. A further gift in this approach to sobriety and heightened equanimity is that it does not require daily struggle to maintain. The understanding is both simple and profound and once internalized universally applicable in living a healthier life. read more
