Components of a Recovery Team

Every addict needs the following elements in his or her life to foster his or her recovery.

1.  A Place of Truth:  This is the place where we can be completely honest without being judged, a safe place.  The shame of our addiction is in the details.  We need to be able to share that last ten percent.  We need to know we are fully known and still have acceptance and hope.

2.  Authentic Community:  These are the relationships where we can be ourselves, where people may not know all the details but where they know the basics of our story and are willing to walk with us in our good and bad days.  These are relationships where our openness is reciprocated.

3.  Emotional Space:  We need a place where we can do more than just report our feelings but where we can feel and express them honestly.  Usually we need to be invited to feel and express our emotions.  If we do not have this space and do not make use of it, if we stuff our feelings, they will become a barrier to ongoing recovery, and we will feel the need to self-medicate again.

4.  Sacred Space:  We must do the work of wrestling with God.  Something has not been working in our relationship with Him, or we would not be struggling with an addiction, trying to fill an empty space in our souls that He should be satisfying.  Somehow, we still need the ongoing process of transformation from our old self to our new self in Christ to take place in this area of our experience.  We need a safe place to cry out to God with our so far unanswered questions.  We need Him to come and radically restructure our relationship with Him so that His Love and Truth displace the fear and lies that have been keeping us in bondage to the old man, who for us is our addict.

5.  Expert Voice:  We need good, reality-based information about our addiction from sources that have shown themselves to be trustworthy and effective.

6.  Coach/Mentor/Sponsor:  We need someone to whom we can directly relate who embodies our hope for ongoing recovery, someone who is in recovery and who has been through many of the same struggles we have and is a bit further down the road of healing than we are, someone who is demonstrating that recovery is possible.

7.  A Team Leader:  We must take the responsibility for being the leader of our recovery team.  Our recovery is our responsibility and belongs to no one else.  Whenever someone else has to work harder at making our recovery work than we are working, something is out of whack!  Recovery is something we cannot do for ourselves or by ourselves, but it does requires us to do the work that demonstrates our faith in the One who is absolutely committed to providing us with healing, who has come that we might have life abundantly.  Faith without works is dead!  

From Dr. Mark Laaser of Faithful and True Ministries, Author of Healing the Wounds of Sexual Addiction