Community in Recovery

As a therapist in the substance use community I find myself very blessed to work in a field that pairs like peanut butter and jelly. It’s got a familiar punch of sweet, sticky and sometimes is a little messy. For me, this field wouldn’t be what it is without the people that work in it and the clients we serve. To me, it’s all about community. 

Earlier this week in group, I brought up the topic of trauma bonding and how this effects our relationships later in life. The group was lightly talkative and shared their past experiences growing up, most of them being of abusive parents and some of recent domestic violence. I am always grateful to our client’s for sharing with one another about their struggles and triumphs. They are there for eachother in a way that I believe feeds into healing within the community. 

Community exists in so many ways and the recovery community is an animal that rears and roars in its own fashion. The animal needs both love and stability from the outside which I have come to see are the therapists, the techs, the yoga instructors and operations team. They all have such super intuition when it comes to the part of life in which we start a new leaf on an age old tree. They don’t judge and listen with a supportive ear and shoulder ready to help those that cross into the threshold of sobriety. 

Going to rehab is painted in a way that seems scary and sometimes feels foreign. There’s a soft stigma surrounding people admitting to going or even heavily taking it into consideration. My hope is one day this isn’t the case and that people come to find healing sooner than what feels like the last train home. It surely isn’t the last stop on the journey to making major life changes but is just the beginning of something that many people find they were missing all along. Whether it was learning more about themselves in therapy sessions or experiencing the full blown effect of beginning to break a life long cycle, clients take away something into their newly formed life. 

So as I reflect every week from how I feel I did as a clinician in this field, I come away often with the thought that it really isn’t just my work alone. It’s the pieces of preservatives in the jam and peanut oil that make the spread buttery and not chunky. It’s the diagonal cut from the corners that make the sandwich that much more palatable. So I grab my napkin and place it on my lap, prepared to sink my teeth into the sticky, gooey mess that is a top notch creation of the week we had. 

Bon Appetit.