When we discover we are more
than a "person in recovery"
The further we get in recovery, the further we learn that we are multi-faceted.
We are more than people in recovery.
This week
from Dare to be Dry and from Circle of Chairs share candidly about what it means to be more than a person in recovery.From
:Family and friends have asked me why I continue to identify as an alcoholic and addict in some recovery spaces after living over a decade in recovery.
“Don’t you graduate from recovery?”
“You’ve held off this long, one wouldn’t hurt. Would it?”
“How long do you have to do those meetings anyways?”
Photo by Jonatan Pie on Unsplash
Especially some of my spiritual friends who are set on the idea that we can become new creations. Though I don’t disagree with them (I believe that we can be made new), I also think for those of us in recovery, it’s important to remember where we’ve come from. Though we are new, we also carry with us whispers of the past.
The broken roads we’ve walked. The people we’ve hurt or who have hurt us. They can linger like the faint smell of perfume that used to trail wherever my grandmother went.
We need to remember.
My addiction to alcohol and other drugs that started long before my fourteenth birthday, took me down some dark and winding paths—many that, most days, I’d like to forget. And it is precisely this journey that leads me to call myself by certain names in certain places. But importantly, I’ve learned on this broken road that this is not the whole of who I am. My identity is more than alcoholic or addict or survivor—or, as I like to say in all spaces: a woman in addiction recovery.
Who I am is more than what I have done, or how I have been undone.
And yet, while it is a part of my story, it’s not the only chapter.
This new place, the one on the other side of the hard times, is where I also identify as so many other things: mother, wife, sister, builder, wannabe comedian (ask my husband), writer, dessert baker and destroyer, hiker, novice meditator, shower singer, neighbor-lover, Christian—and woman in recovery. All of who I am and who I am becoming was born after some pretty intense struggle and out of the identity of “alcoholic and addict,” but thankfully, I have not stayed confined to those labels.
I have allowed all of myself to move and grow and breathe as my Higher Power, my God, designs. And importantly, I’ve learned through the love of broken people that my brokenness can be beautiful, too.1
Photo by Joel Fulgencio on Unsplash
Who are you inside and outside of recovery circles?
How can we show up and support our loved ones and friends to discover passions, purpose, and more for their lives?
Comment below with what you’ve learned about your identity inside or outside of recovery.
From
:I was once asked, “how long will you have to protect your sobriety like this?” The question came from my husband. He still drinks, though not the way I did. He did not mean this to be hurtful. It came from a place of curiosity after I told him how much my home group sobriety support meetings mean to me. I often feel like he is not sure how to best support me now that I have changed. And that is it right there. I have changed. And if I have my way, I will keep on changing. Because that means I am growing. But, through it all, I’m still me. I’m just evolving into the person I was meant to be.
When I hit one year of sobriety, I gifted myself this necklace.
Meaning “joining with gold”, kintsugi is a kind of centuries-old art that is more than an aesthetic. For the Japanese, it’s part of a broader philosophy of embracing the beauty of human flaws.2
In kintsugi, the artist accentuates the fault lines by using gold to fill the cracks. The damage is not hidden - it is enhanced. It shines even brighter once the gold is imbued. By doing this, the eye is drawn toward where the work was broken, creating a golden vein. What was once deemed a flaw, becomes a focal point. The wound also tells the story of the piece, chronicling its past experience.
This necklace represents all of us in recovery. I wear it proudly.
It took me some time to say out loud, “I am an addict.” For years, decades even, I was addicted to ignoring what I knew deep down in me. I always had a voice, as far back as I can remember, that whispered things to me. Things I was afraid to speak, do or live into. So, I drank at those voices to quiet them down. And I functioned very well this way. For a long time.
There is a saying amongst those in recovery. It works if you work it. I do protect my sobriety and consider it work but it is the only work I have ever come across that yields this kind of result. The only work that delivers me freedom from something that held my whole Self back. The ROI, the return on this investment, when I put in the work, is astounding.
I am so much more than a person in recovery. I can say out loud to anyone, “I am an addict.” An addict who is living a full life recovering all the parts of her. I am the 9-year-old little girl who had her head in a book, yearning to someday be a writer. I am the woman who crossed a stage to receive her law school diploma believing she could make a big impact for people. I am the mom who is privileged to parent two humans who continue to teach me the biggest lessons on how to live into life. I am a sister, daughter and wife to people whose company I cherish. I am a friend who offers her heart and tears because I believe we are all here to share in joy and sorrow. They are companions.
Just like the necklace I wear around my neck; I will showcase the parts of me that were broken and shattered. The parts I healed and the parts I am still picking up and tending to. Because I believe in redemption. I believe that the God of my understanding wants me to recover out loud.
So, to answer my husband’s question. I will keep on protecting my sobriety as long as it keeps giving me ALL of this. Because it is the gold that transformed me. The gold that fills in my cracks and makes me whole.
This is an excerpt from Caroline’s first book, Downstairs Church: Finding Hope in the Grit of Addiction and Trauma Recovery.
 | A guest post by
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Great points. For me, pursuing recovery after a lot of years is a lifestyle and a commitment to continuous improvement. I've been part of one 12 Step group for about 45 years. In almost every meeting, someone says, 'gee, I've read this a thousand times but I didn't see it quite this way before'. We are students of recovery in many ways and, I believe, that makes us better people in every respect.
Friends, your words are very timely as I have felt a huge shift in my sobriety in the last 9 months or so. Coincidentally around the time that my son was born. Either way, I really started getting curious about the "where to now?" and the "what next?" in my journey. My recovery is woven into the fabric of everything I do in my life, and yet some days I don't even think about it. But, I never forget where I came from. I honor and cherish all the parts of Kezia who brought me to the 42 year old woman I am today. Thank you both for helping me feel seen 💗