What does your recovery look like to you?

This is a question we need to be approaching all of our clients with first and foremost. Posing this question allows us to understand them better, identify where they’re at, and demonstrate genuine curiosity and commitment to the person as an individual. Isn’t that what we’re striving for as coaches?

When a person thinks of the word recovery, to each of us the word brings a different meaning; a different outlook. As a society, while treatment certainly has its place and helps initiate recovery, treatment alone does not sustain recovery. With the shortage of “beds” and insurance coverage, we in the recovery coaching community would best serve others by soliciting from our recoverees what recovery looks like from their lens. Maybe they’re horrified by the word; maybe they’re having a hard time with acceptance; maybe we need to remove that barrier before we can proceed with forward movement?

As Phil Valentine suggest in his blog post, by soliciting the information from the individual we’re meeting them where they are at and not imposing societal expectations, beliefs, or judgements on them; we’re creating a relationship of trust (a friend).

 

To read Phil Valentines’ blog post click here.

Recovery Coach Training reaches beyond the surface

My volunteer work with the Pregnancy Resource Center has brought some clients in need of more than just pregnancy, parenting issues. I am so blessed to have had the training this past winter/spring giving me better insight in how to be a resource, encourager.

God has blessed us all with love and your continued training and support.

God’s grace and blessings, as always –

Helen

Interview with Malden Overcoming Addiction (MOA) – Discussing Recovery Coaching

I’m so happy to have been invited to Malden Overcoming Addiction TV Series this past Tuesday. I had a few jitters but not too bad. Still need some work on my facial expressions though!

Always a gift to be around the dedicated people of Malden Overcoming Addiction who Volunteer tirelessly to help others find recovery. Did I mention they Volunteer tirelessly! Thank you for the opportunity! It was and is a privilege.

If you’d like to donate to Malden Overcoming Addiction, they can certainly use any donation as they aim to open a Recovery Center in Malden, MA.

View Video Here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zQ439FSCMU&feature=youtu.be 

Visit Malden Overcoming Addiction HERE

 

Whitefield, NH Graduates Eight Recovery Coaches

 

Recovery Coaches in Whitefield, NH

March 23, 2018

Congratulations RCA Whitefield, NH. The North Country has not been forgotten about – we now have eight new Recovery Warriors, from a variety of organizations, ready to serve and advocate for the North Country. Thank you for sharing your experiences and passions with me. You all truly are an inspiration. Have fun with your Hakka dancing.
Thank you co – trainer Chuck Wild.

True Self Care – not just for those in recovery

I sure do love this ❤️

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”

-Brianna Wiest, in Thought Catalog

New Years Eve Happenings plus more great info!

Click HERE for our weekly newsletter listing upcoming NYE events and trainings for 2018.

http://mailchi.mp/fd4ba5c65c32/upcoming-trainings-470279?e=23c70e8413

 

Also note The Dry Dock @  781 Union Ave, Laconia,  will be open 55 hours starting Friday at 5 through Sunday at midnight  Saturday will be a DJ from Boston  from 8 to 11:30. Sunday a local guy from 8 through midnight. Other activities include pool table,  foose ball, food, dancing, and fellowship 55 hours meetings.      Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/drydock603/

Xmas Tree in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building Recognizing People in Recovery

Time Sensitive: Stories due Dec 8th details below!

Dear Friends:

This year, the Office of National Drug Control Policy will be decorating a Christmas Tree in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building that recognizes the millions of Americans who are impacted by substance use, celebrating recovery and commemorating those we have lost to substance use. All members of the White House staff will have the opportunity to learn some of your stories.

Please allow us to share your story or the story of your family in one of two ways:

– Celebrating Recovery: Send us a photo (shoulders up preferred) of yourself or of an important person in your life who is celebrating recovery. This Please also reply with information regarding:
—- Their First Name
—- Home State
—- Current Age
—- Years of Recovery
—- What the individual is proud of/ celebrating this year
Please note, by sharing stories, names, and photos, you are representing that you have obtained the consent from that person to have these details shared publicly.

– Remembering Those We Have Lost: Send us a photo (shoulders up preferred) of a loved one who isn’t with you because of addiction and substance use. Please also reply with:
—- Their First Name
—- Home State
—- Birth and Passing Years
—- A sentence about how you most want them to be remembered
—- Any other information you wish to share

We encourage you to share this with your networks, and appreciate your time in recognizing the people who matter most.

Please share your submissions to OIPL@ondcp.eop.gov no later than Friday, December 10.

Peter Gaumond
Senior Policy Analyst
Office of National Drug Control Policy
Executive Office of the President

New Motivational Interviewing Training Rolled out in Malden

I’m so honored to work with the people I work with, and this group from Malden is helping people find recovery through the drug courts and without any recovery center of funding. This group of people are all volunteering their time, weekly, to help others. Team MOA, you are a role model for what humanity is. Thank you!

MOA Motivational Interviewing Training Malden, MA 2017

MOA Motivational Interviewing Training Malden, MA 2017