Recovery as a Heroic Journey

Throughout many cultures there are mythic stories of heroic adventure. Many of these stories share a common structure: the hero’s departure, transformation by great trials, and the hero’s return. When the hero returns, the trials he has faced has transformed him. He is reborn into a new consciousness and a new relationship with the world. When he returns he must reconcile with his family and community. Part of this reconciliation requires that the hero give and receive something from the community. This includes a stage of service through which the hero delivers the gift of his newfound knowledge to the community. The community has a chance to grow in wisdom because of the knowledge given back by the hero. These tales of heroic journey parallel the stories of persons going through the process of recovery from addiction. There seems to be something missing in modern day heroic recovery stories though, the heroes are not completing the journey.

The stigma of addiction—the price that even those in long-term recovery can pay in disclosing this aspect of their personal history--leads many people in recovery to remain anonymous and hide their journey of recovery from members of the larger community. Some recovering people live lives where they only associate with others who are in recovery. Does such isolation constitute a failure to fully return to the community? Have recovering people as a group fully returned to their communities or are they hiding within their communities?

If they are hiding within their communities, they have not completed the journey. They have not reconciled with the community, they have not healed wounds inflicted on the community and they have not imparted the knowledge that is so important to the wisdom of the community. They have missed a vital opportunity to remove the very stigma that keeps them in hiding.

As a treatment agency we are fighting in the community to remove the stigma associated with addiction. Whenever we talk to community groups, we talk about these stigmas and try to help people understand what addiction really is. But treatment agencies cannot be the only ones fighting to remove the stigma associated with addiction. It is tie the recovering community share the gifts of knowledge gained through their recovery, not just to others seeking recovery, but with the community as a whole.

There is a new recovery advocacy movement afoot in America that promises greater contact between recovering people and the larger community. Recovering people are creating grass roots organizations aimed at supporting recovery through advocacy, community education, and recovery resource development. The participants in this new movement, while responding to community needs, are finding in this activism a way to complete their own personal journeys. They are finding ways to return to their communities and give back what they have learned.

Two major advocacy groups are Faces & Voices of Recovery and Advocacy with Anonymity. These groups work to change public policy in regards to funding treatment and they work to fight discrimination for those in recovery. They also work to inform communities about addiction issues and work to change attitudes and stigmas that people in recovery face each day.