Addressing questions that matter

“When did you begin your recovery?”

Ray asked me this with a slight smile on his face, like he knew he had dropped it down a deep well.

I’d never been asked this before, and it felt like an important idea to consider.

The temptation was for a fast, stock answer, such as when I broke my arm on a bender, or when I actively began working on my recovery.

Ray, a friend and highly experienced addiction medicine doctor, had a gaze I knew all too well.

It begged me to dig deeper.

“I don’t know,” I sputtered.

And I still don’t know.

Was it when my family said they were concerned about my drinking, or was it when I lost a job for getting drunk at work?

Maybe it was one of the countless times in my life when I said under my breath “I’ve really got to get my s#!* together?”

I don’t know. And I may never know when the important seedlings of a desire for recovery first took root.

I know now if I’d met the right person at any one of these points, my entry into sobriety would have been much sooner than 1991.

This is what recovery coaches do.

They meet you where you are without judgment and ask questions that really matter. Questions without a hint of judgment, queries that stir a deep desire for change.

As this want for change wells up from inside, it has the power of personal choice and self agency.

Studies now show the addition of a good recovery coach improves the chances of lasting recovery by more than 20 per cent.

There’s good reason for that.

Among other things, addiction is a disease of disconnection. Recovery coaches are connectors. 

They connect clients with their own goals and what might represent as an obstacle to meeting them. They connect clients with necessary services required for a robust recovery. They connect them with like-minded supports.

A good recovery coach will help a client build strong recovery capital (the foundational elements that make lasting recovery possible).

As a certified recovery coach trainer, and a recovery coach, I can say with certainty this approach to recovery works in a way that few things do.

People with addiction obtain recovery when these elements are in place.

But it’s important to recognize when that change is possible.       

I’ve been without a drink or drug for 30 years now.

And I still can’t tell you when my recovery really began.