I saw a fascinating blog post on the Recovery Review website this weekend, entitled Expanding The Culture of Recovery by Bill Stauffer from the US. Bill is in long-term recovery from addiction. His post expands on the ideas of William White who first framed addiction and recovery as cultures in his book Pathways from the Culture of Addiction to the Culture of Recovery: A Travel Guide for Addiction Professionals. I have a copy of this book proudly sitting on my bookshelves.
In this blog post, I want to highlight some sections from Bill Stauffer’s post which I think are extremely important if we are to radically change the way that we help people recover from addiction and related problems. I recommend that you check out Bill’s original post. [NB. I have broken up some of Bill’s longer paragraphs, for ease of reading.]
‘For those of us who have taken this journey, the process are often life altering. We are not the same as we were before, we have become better versions of ourselves, often in ways that were entirely invisible to us in the before times. I have heard people call the assertion of this experience, the “better than well” concept as elitist or even stigmatizing of persons who embrace the culture of addiction. Far be it from the case, it is in fact a celebration of a new life.
From a personal perspective, in my addiction I was on the trajectory of a short painful existence that failed to utilize my own capacities and not generative to my community in ways that provided me a sense of meaning and mattering. I do not wish that on anyone, nor look down on those who live as I once did. I want them to experience their full capacities too. That is what another associated recovery concept is of “meet people where they are at but do not leave them there.”
The truth be told I celebrated addiction while in its grips. Better living through chemistry, taking what I could get and not thinking about anything beyond the moment I was in or considering the costs to myself and my community beyond that instant. The hedonistic culture of “if it feels good, do it.” I embraced the whole thing. My sense of belonging and identity was oriented towards using drugs and the shared values, rituals and relationships that reinforced it.
It nearly killed me and removed much of what I loved about my life in the process. The short and simple cartoon Nuggets that has been viewed over 31 million times depicts what happened to me and what happens to millions of others for whom use shifts from non-problematic into the world of pain that is addiction. All this to say that I understand the push back against recovery as culture by those who embrace drug culture, because I once did the same thing.
There is deep irony that for me, and perhaps for many of us I found my true identity and began to learn my capacities as a human on the path of recovery, a road I had avoided and rejected in my prior state. As White noted in his book, this is the culture of recovery. It includes belonging and purpose through mutual support, service and connection grounded in pro-recovery behaviors, relationships, and shared values.
It is also true that there are subcultures of recovery. There is no two identical pathways to recovery, so while there are shared experiences, there are also facets that are unique to each person or to recovery tribes, those who follow the same form of mutual aid, medication supported route or faith-based experiences among many others. Yet despite the variation as we would see in any culture, there are common facets. They include:
- Recovery Values: Shared beliefs in things like integrity, transparency and service to others.
- Recovery Carriers: Individuals who embody the culture of recovery and attract others to it, not defined by status or credentials but by their ability to inspire and connect with others.
- Recovery Spaces: Places that people can go to spend time with others who live in the culture of recovery to share with each other and support the transmission of recovery with each other or initiates.
- Recovery Concepts: A foundation of shared values, beliefs, and practices that aim to support individuals in achieving and maintaining long-term sobriety.
- Recovery Arts: All mediums of creative expression that validate the culture of recovery.
We know from an examination of our history that people typically recover in the context of community. It flourishes in environments where individuals feel a sense of belonging and purpose. In spaces of mattering. Places where people can share their gifts of recovery, what they have learned through transformation and earned wisdom about life, relationships, and personal growth, which can be shared with the wider community. The modeling of “shedding skins” to shed old patterns and embrace new ways of being.
Our primary method of supporting recovery over the last 55 years has been a service orientation. Fees provided to identified experts to support the resolution of addiction and to introduce people to the concepts, spaces and community members on similar journeys but stopping short of strengthening that vital web of recovery community.
It is a critical but incomplete interventional strategy. While we have seen some recognition that expanding cultures of recovery benefits broader society in intrinsic ways, we have done far too little to consider these processes and how to support them more effectively and methodically.
Broadly focused, strengthening culture should include:
- Cultural planning: Governments engage with recovery community to plan, identify and magnify a community’s cultural resources, integrating them into broader planning and decision-making processes. This supports environments where culture can flourish and contribute to a sense of place, quality of life, and prosperity. [NB. Governments don’t seem capable of doing this. Communities need to do this themselves using an Asset-Based Community Development approach (ABCD). I will discuss this point later.]
- Arts and cultural education: Expanding access to arts that engage and validate the recovery community.
- Supporting culturally specific organizations: Prioritizing funding and support for organizations led by and staffed with members of the recovery community, ensuring that efforts enhance their voices and traditions.
- Cultural infrastructure: Investment in recovery cultural infrastructure, such as the collection of accessible history, centers of expression, and community centers, is essential for communities to flourish.
- Creative placemaking initiatives: Projects that engage recovering, artists, and designers to support local efforts to use the arts and cultural projects as catalysts for social cohesion, livability, and community / economic development.
- Cultural exchange programs: Governments and organizations fund recovery programs that facilitate the exchange of artists, scholars, and community members regionally to foster understanding and collaboration between regions.
- Partnerships and collaborations: Collaboration among recovery institutions, businesses, and government agencies to leverage resources and expertise, enabling a broader reach and greater impact of cultural initiatives.
One of the challenges we face is recovery and recovery community being commodified in ways that does not augment the needs of the community but reduces us to a stereotype or agenda to meet the interests of other groups. I spoke about this last year in my piece, Authentic Vs. Astroturfed Recovery Events & Recovery Marketing.
I noted that “increasingly we must acknowledge and recognize that in the midst of authentic community-oriented recovery celebrations there are also inauthentic processes that use recovery as a prop to promote a myriad of other agendas. Processes that are not authentic and rising from community organically, but what looks more like astroturfing. Events that are top down, with predetermined agendas to promote a product or particular institutional messages not built upon the foundation of authentic community needs or goals.” It robs community of its own vitality.’
Really interesting reading from Bill Stauffer. I was really amazed to see this blog post on Saturday, as I had been spending a good deal of time that day thinking about the culture of recovery and creating recovery landscapes. An amazing coincidence. Thanks for a great article, Bill.
The above photograph is taken from one of Bill’s posts in 2023. You can read more about recovery carriers in my post What is a Recovery Carrier?: Bill White.