Recovery, What Does It Even Mean? – How Do We Find Our Way Out of the Shadows?
- Brainz Magazine
- Sep 2
- 5 min read
Updated: Sep 11
For nearly 14 years, I've helped individuals navigate the complex landscape of addiction in order to achieve recovery. Nicknamed "The Casual Counselor", my approach is unconventional but undeniably effective.
Recovery from substances. Recovery from drinking. Gambling. Sex. Retail shopping. Doom-scrolling. These are the typical presenting issues that my clients show up with when they first come to see me, but as much as everyone believes that: insert vice: is “the problem”, they actually have it backwards. Those vices? They’re actually the solution. A solution that served them well for a great deal of time before becoming a problem of its own. Those vices? They helped my clients survive. They were tools with which those clients learned to cope with whatever was going on at home, in their heads, at their schools, in their peer relationships, and in their attempt at just living in this world.
And they worked! They worked well. They worked a little too well. By the time a client ends up in the seat next to me, the progression of their self-medicating with: insert vice: has progressed to a point where it has made their lives unmanageable, creating problems with finances, problems with relationships, and problems with employment. Problems. Just problems that go on & on & on, a veritable path of wreckage. They reach out for help, admitting that their solution has become a problem, and now it’s time to be accountable for how they’re going to cope in healthier ways.
Enter “recovery”.
Many, if not most, people believe the following: if the individual stops using: insert vice:, that life will inevitably improve in an easy fashion, and the client will go on to live a happily-ever-after story following their efforts to abstain. What clients and their families soon learn is that this is most certainly not the case. When you take away the one reliable coping mechanism from an individual who is struggling with life, what you see is someone who begins to struggle even harder. This is why having a professional helper is so vital.
One of my favorite definitions of “recovery” is: “Living a self-directed life.” Figuring out who or what you’re going to be in this life, built on your preferences and specifications, and building from that foundation upwards to a more sustainable and healthier existence. And the work? It’s incredibly hard. If it were easy, everyone would be doing it. And if people could just do it on their own, I’d be stocking shelves somewhere, and the US wouldn’t have thousands of treatment centers and specialists spread across this great land.
Clients of mine will often present with goals in mind that they want to achieve as a person in recovery. But who exactly is a “person in recovery”? Is it just someone who doesn’t use vices? Let’s face it, we all use vices. Be it sugar or caffeine or television or anything else that makes us feel better, our brains are hard-wired to lead us in the direction of that which makes us feel better when we’re otherwise feeling unwell. There ain’t no escaping vices. Whether we have what qualifies as a substance use disorder that can be diagnosed or not, we need to reconcile that we’re always going to find something to help us feel better when we don’t. We need to choose our vices wisely, whether in recovery or not.
If we set goals to “not use vices”, it’s gonna be like shooting ourselves in the foot.
Living that self-directed life? That’s where the true work begins. The work of a person in recovery. Designing and developing the ‘who’, the ‘what’, and the ‘how’ of our identity during our time on this planet. With the aid of a helper and other supports, be them educational material, evidence-based therapeutic modalities, or other people, we seek out resources that we vibe with. The ones that have meaning and purpose and value to us as individuals, if and when we can find out what those are, we’re on our way to “getting well”. This is the first step in the direction of care that is based on a solution, rather than a problem.
People who abuse vices in a problematic way are much more vast than just the story of what we call “addiction”, yet they tend to be branded with a scarlet letter of sorts, a capital “A” “addict”, “alcoholic”, etc., and it can cause tremendous ruin to their self-identity. This morphs into feelings of shame, self-doubt, wounds, crumbling self-esteem, guilt, and self-loathing. Those are the true problems that need tending to, it’s not the substances causing those feelings, it’s the way that the users are portrayed within our social paradigm.
When we work on becoming fully formed individuals, in discovering that which gives us value, meaning, purpose, and so on, that’s when it’s time to start identifying the goals. That is when the road to wherever it is we’re trying to go begins to unfold in front of us. In essence, we have it backwards. We set the goals before we even know what our identity in our “self-directed life” is going to be, rather than the other way around.
When we’re able to construct the “self-directed life” on the front end, the path to recovery begins to reveal itself, open up, and widen, providing us with a land of opportunity that most of us who have struggled with problematic substance use could never even imagine.
Treatment in this country’s approach to helping individuals with the abuse of: insert vice here:, we’ve got it backwards. First, let’s build the person. Then, let’s establish the goals. After that, let’s walk the path to our healthier self, built on the goals that will prove to be realistic, not setting the bar too high, and then we will become a person who is “in recovery”.
At least, that’s this treater’s take. Solution-focused care, building that “self-directed life,” that’s the formula for a successful recovery. And in the 14 years I’ve been taking that approach in helping my clients, it’s a formula that works well. Out of the shadows of self-hatred, into the light of self-love: witnessing it is an honor that is difficult to describe, but I’ll keep doing my best to endorse it.
Read more from Joshua Bennett-Johnson
Joshua Bennett-Johnson, Licensed Addictions Therapist
After working for 7 years in an amazing clinic, I launched into private practice in 2018. I love my job. I can say that without reservation. Watching people rebuild their lives is something that is worth more than any dollar amount.
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