The foundations of recovery
- Marvello V
- 3 days ago
- 4 min read
Updated: 1 day ago
What does recovery look like for me? No drugs, no smoking: marijuana or tobacco; and no drinking alcohol since July 18, 2001—25 years in recovery. The question that is often asked is, “How did you do it?” Two things: my relationship with God, and the support of my wife, Tina.
For me, my recovery aligns with my relationship with God. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the God of the Bible. I accepted Jesus in my heart before I started recovery. And it was the prompting of the Holy Spirit that got me started on recovery. First, it was discovering that my partner at the time was having an affair. It wasn’t a shock, because I had suspected it for months, but it was confirmation of a truth I needed to hear. In that moment, the Holy Spirit said to me, “Now that you know the truth, you don’t have to do drugs anymore.” That day was May 15, 2001, and I stopped cold turkey using drugs and smoking.
I didn’t think I had a problem with alcohol, so I “kept that”. On July 17, 2001, I was drinking Chinese wine with my brother and for whatever reason, I realized that I’m a blackout drunk and if that happens I could easily smoke marijuana or do drugs. Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me again, “Give me a year of sobriety. If nothing changes, then you can go back to whatever you’re doing.” I remember thinking to myself, I think I can white-knuckle a year of recovery. So, I committed to one year clean and sober.
About 3-months later, near the end of October 2001, I met Tina Marie. We married 8-months later on June 8, 2002. Tina has been with me my entire recovery. She’s been my greatest support in life and I credit her for the life I’ve lived with her and get to live today. Tina has never judged me, she’s allowed me to focus on myself so much so that I promoted several times during my State career, self-published several books, started the God-theFather blog, the Marvello V YouTube channel, and started a new career in the recovery field. I couldn’t be where I am in life without Tina.
So, my relationship with God and the support of my wife have been the foundation of my recovery. I’d be remiss to not include the recovery community in general, because I’ve stayed connected to groups and opened myself up to learn about different recovery pathways. At one point, I co-led a peer support group for 7 years using the Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) model.
Now, I want to share with you what I believe are the foundations for anyone’s recovery. It’s like a lessons-learned from over 25 years of recovery. The foundational supports for recovery are:
Community: find your people
Recovery path that works for you: multiple pathways of recovery
Find an activity to replace the addiction/alcoholism: we’re busy people
Know that recovery/life won’t always be easy and fun
Community
This looks different for everyone. There are a group of people that have shared interests, perspectives, and life goals that align with you. You just have to find them. With the advent of virtual meeting platforms, like Zoom or Teams, you can literally find a community from wherever you live. And of course, there’s the tried and true in-person groups.
Check out your local library for social events, scour the internet for virtual communities, ask people you know about communities they’re aware of.
Multiple pathways of recovery
Other than AA, and all the related Anonymous groups, there’s Celebrate Recovery, SMART (Self-management and Recovery Training), Dharma (Buddhist based recovery), Wellbriety (Indigenous based recovery), Sober Faction (recovery for The Satanic Temple), Recovery Café Network, Young People in Recovery, and many activity-based recovery pathways. The point is you have options in the world of recovery.
Find a sober activity to replace your substance use activity
As addicts/alcoholics, we’re busy people. We spent a lot of time and energy trying to get high or drunk. We spent our resources, i.e. budgeted for, our drug and alcohol use. That energy doesn’t go away. The psychology term is transference, where you replace one activity for another. There’s nothing wrong with “getting hooked” (addicted) to a sober activity. The energy we spent as addicts/alcoholics needs to go somewhere. Why not toward something positive, sober and/or healthy?
Recovery is not always easy and fun
This seems so obvious, but I don’t know how many times I’ve heard people early in recovery act as if life is supposed to be simpler because they’re not using drugs or drinking alcohol. That’s just not true. Life is life. Whether you’re an addict or in recovery, life will continue to be challenging, difficult, and hard at times. The difference is you get to be present for those times. You’re no longer hiding behind the fog of drugs or alcohol. You get to face life as the real you. The you you were always meant to be: the sober you.
Hopefully, this information is helpful to you. Let me know what you think!
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