John Makohen
Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC

Recovery is a process. It begins when you choose to start reducing the dangerous consequences of your substance use disorder. 

Many in the United States want you to believe recovery begins when you stop using drugs or alcohol. Well, I say to those egocentric abstinence-first curmudgeons, Go F$%k Yourself! 

Your recovery is your recovery, and no one has the right to tell you the path to take or what success looks like.

However, no matter what recovery looks like to you harm reduction or abstinence and what pathways you choose to incorporate into your recovery lifestyle, it is best to create some goals, objectives to accomplish them, and a system to stay on track. 

Without a system for recovery, it is easy to get sidetracked. 

Before I lay, the benefits of following a system in recovery let me explain what a recovery system looks like. 

If you have been to inpatient or outpatient drug rehab or worked with a recovery coach, you certainly had a treatment or recovery plan. A treatment plan is nothing more than the goals you wish to accomplish and the objectives you will use to achieve these goals. Your recovery plan should follow the SMART Goal framework.

The SMART Goal Framework

–  Specific

A specific goal has meaning and depth, so you wouldn’t work towards the goal of harm reduction. Instead, you’d create goals specific to reducing consequences and harm from your substance use. For example, a goal to reduce the harm from your heroin use disorder could be to ––Save a wake-up/money for each morning, so you don’t wake up panicked and dope-sick. 

When you wake up without a fix or money to cop your first fix of the day, you panic. Most often, when the looming threat of dope-sickness caution is thrown to the wind. You take unhealthy chances to make money, i.e., unprotected sex, armed robbery, or mugging a person on the street. 

Another goal or living area you might want to work on in recovery is spirituality. The intention to be more spiritual is too vague. Instead, brainstorm specific goals that focus on spirituality, such as ––to live in a state of grace each day.

Before I lay, the benefits of following a system in recovery let me explain what a recovery system looks like. 

If you have been to inpatient or outpatient drug rehab or worked with a recovery coach, you certainly had a treatment or recovery plan. A treatment plan is nothing more than the goals you wish to accomplish and the objectives you will use to achieve these goals. Recovery plans follow the SMART goal framework. 

–  Measurable

A measurable goal has some metric attached to it. You have to find a way to track it. Measurable goals help you see, hear, and feel your achievement when reaching your goal. 

When you set out to stop using heroin or other drugs, you might have worried about weight gain. Face it, you will gain weight. I always struggled with my weight. When I considered getting sober, my first argument was getting fat. It didn’t matter that a life of homelessness and heroin addiction was killing me as long as I looked good. Yeah, I know its a matter of opinion, but I totally did heroin chic, sunken cheeks and ribs poking out.

In my system of recovery, I could’ve listed, to stay in shape, as a goal. But it is too general, not specific, and it isn’t measurable. A measurable goal would be ––to maintain a healthy weight of 154 pounds.

–  Attainable

Your system of recovery requires you to not break your goals down into smaller, more attainable goals. If you are overzealous when setting goals, it won’t make sense to you or your recovery coach. 

For example, the overall goal of recovery is a more rewarding life free from the compulsion to use substances. Now, this cannot be achieved overnight. You can stop using it immediately if you choose, but the rewards from this decision are going to take some time.

Pull out your journal and do some soul searching and define what a rewarding life is to you. Do you want more money, health, happiness, family, freedom to travel, education, a better career, and to be of service to others? Understanding of your addiction, to be more spiritual, fit to run marathons, or just happy living life by life’s terms. All of this is available to you in life. Now break these goals down into specific tasks with objectives to attain each one and start living. 

–  Relevant

Goals you set within your system of recovery are relevant to you. It isn’t your recovery coach sponsor, therapist, or loved one who isn’t responsible for setting up your recovery system. It’s your recovery, so make it relevant to you. 

What do you want out of life? Less harm from susbtance use, total freedom from active use, to live a life of reward and happiness? Your final outcome depends on how relevant the goals of your system of recovery are to you. 

– Timely

The best intentions are stamped with time. If you want the best results of a recovery plan, you’ll need to bind your successful outcomes with a time-stamp.it’s best to use your system as a way to measure your daily progress. After your morning journaling session, review your recovery plan and the three priority goals planned out the night before. Each day’s nighttime journaling session should reflect upon your daily progress. You should also plan your next day’s top three goals.

When you use journaling as a tool to maintain your system of recovery, you create the habit of injecting recovery focussed activities, goals, and objectives into your daily routine. Taking daily action to stay focused on positive change is crucial to creating a lifestyle immersed in recovery.

Train your subconscious to solve for X

Lastly, your night routine, you can begin to train your subconscious mind to get to work solving problems, planning for the day, and finding answers to questions troubling you. 

Creating a system of recovery filled with SMART goals is necessary to develop the highest version of yourself.

Now that you understand how to create the goals for your recovery plan, let’s have a look at the benefits of a system of recovery.

“We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.” ––Helen Keller

•  Patience

A prerequisite of drug addiction is impatience ––We want what we want when we want it!

Learning to work a system for recovery requires patience. A system or recovery process forces you to slow down. 

When you first make the decision to quit using heroin or other drugs, you jumped in and got busy. Reaching out and connecting with multiple pathways of recovery, but your inner change, triggers, and cravings cause emotional turmoil. At times, you couldn’t understand why the hell you will still craving 180 days into your recovery plan. It’s normal to crave, have drug dreams, or grieve your past lifestyle for years after you stop using. 

When you have a recovery system, you learn to take it slowly. Over time you’ll begin to notice all the little changes taking place within your life. Every change, no matter how big or small, is significant to your process of change. Celebrate the little wins and victories.

Keep in mind, “Patience is a virtue.”

“Self-care is never a selfish act–it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”  ––Parker Palmer

•  Self-esteem

When you made the decision to reduce harm or abstain from alcohol and other drugs; ultimately, you most likely weren’t the epitome of confidence and pride. You were filled with self-doubt, loathing, and hatred. Setting goals and working a system of recovery is the first step towards regaining your confidence.

When you have goals to strive for each morning, you have direction. When you work towards completing your daily goals, you’ll feel accomplished. 

Striving to reach your goals creates an understanding of your strengths and capabilities. You will use these skills to reach your full potential.

If you fall short of a goal, you’ll have a better understanding of where you need to better educate yourself, strive harder, or plan smarter.

Every step you take towards achieving your recovery goals ignites a sense of pride. 

“It’s not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something.” ―Winston S. Churchill

•  Purpose

When you were using, you lacked purpose. I guess this isn’t entirely true. You had one goal to never run out of drugs. However, a mission such as this doesn’t empower or encourage you to live the most meaningful life possible to you. 

Purpose gives meaning to life.

Without purpose you’ll have n need to work a system for recovery. Purpose provides the necessary motivation, excitement, and gratitude you begin each new day with.

Your goals give you the reason to act towards the life you now know you can achieve. 

The more purpose you have in life, the more connected you will be to yourself, your mentors, friends, loved ones, and recovery community.

Without purpose it’s futile.

Do you recall what we determined is the opposite of addiction?
No, it is not sobriety.
It is a connection.
A connection to social ties in the community. Your purpose in recovery is to become the greatest version of yourself. You’ll need to use your strengths, accomplishments, and skills to achieve this goal.

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.” ––Zig Ziglar

•  Focus

Your goals will help you hone in on the person you want to become. A system for recovery gives you laser focus on what tasks you need to complete to make each day better than the last. With the ability to look at your plan and strive to achieve each day’s objective, you zero in on becoming the person you set out to become. 

When you awake each morning, open your journal, and do the work you choose to do to become the person you wish to be, you gain the confidence you need to succeed. 

•  Control

With a system for recovery, you’ll set goals and make advances no matter how small you are taking your power back. For years, 12 step fellowships such as AA have told people like you that you are powerless, and the only way you can overcome your addiction is by turning your will over to a higher power. 

C’mon life doesn’t work this way.

You can have faith in God, but seriously, God isn’t going to get you sober or keep you alive. It’s up to you do make the changes in your life, if you want to see progress.  

When you take the time to write down your goals, the objectives to help you get there, and do the work it takes to achieve these goals, you begin to take control back from your addiction.

Unleash your badass self with your personal system of recovery

Now you’re ready to create a system of recovery to help you release your badass self back into the world. 

Grab your journal and write about your values, skills, strengths, and weaknesses. Don’t take to long remembering your past failures and shortcomings, instead focus on how your strengths and abilities can help you achieve the goals you desire. 

You can have the life of your dreams. Free from compulsion, obsession, and addiction. Rewrite your story, create a recovery plan, and act upon it. Strive to be a better person each day. Before you know, you’ll harness your strength and unleash your badass self. It’s up to you to decide the life you want to pursue. 

What are you waiting for?

Featured Blop Posts from the Arise Recovery Coaching Addiction Recovery Blog

John Makohen Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC

Some people rely on the old tried and true ecovery quotes and never bother to look elswhere for quotes to help gain perspective on life, self rleiance, friendship or spirtiuality.

When Emerson sat down to write probably didn’t intend for his words to become recovery quotes of believe how influential he would become for many of us in the world’s recovering community.

Nonetheless, the impact his writings have to provide strength and insight in the understanding of how you can become the “master of your destiny and captain of your fate.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) has the honor of founding America’s transcendentalist philosophical movement. He is still considered one of America’s most intellectual thinkers. Emerson mentored Henry David Thoreau. Emerson’s influence on Thoreau led to his greatest essay Civil Disobedience which further influenced other great men such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King.

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s legacy is found within these timeless recovery quotes which can spark wisdom, self-reliance, and spirituality.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Recovery Quotes: “Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself.”

Recovery quotes such as this one you find, Emerson encouraging you to become self-sufficient and reliant. In your active addiction, you isolated from all that is good in your life, blindly followed where heroin and other drugs led you and felt resentment, shame, and guilt towards yourself and others.

In recovery, you learn to trust yourself in finding the happiness you seek. Once you have chosen a path that leads to the fulfillment of your past drug-seeking behaviors, actions, and attitudes dissolve. 

Recovery is choosing to follow the beat of your own drum. Fortify your position on a path leading to good moral character, and believing the fact that heroin controlled the decisions you made. Emerson advocates for you to follow your inner voice instead of the path which leads down the road leading to isolation.

It would be best if you never chose, count on, or rely on another person, God, or thing to provide you with the happiness you seek- 

“Nothing can bring your happiness but your (drug-free) self.”

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.”    – Ralph Waldo Emerson

The recovery movement has never been more prosperous than it is today. In the past, there was only one pathway for recovery. Inpatient drug treatment, AA/NA, and a sponsor.

It worked for many and still does. However, many of us couldn’t conform to such rigorous demands of powerlessness and believing a God would remove our insanity and desire to use drugs at any cost. 

Today, there are many pathways for recovery leading to the same place – fulfillment in a life of recovery. You can forge your own path, and no one can tell you it is wrong. 

Emerson’s recovery quote gives you the courage to blaze your own path using the tools and skills you have borrowed from others upon your journey in recovery.

 “Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising up every time we fail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Some people want you to believe relapse is part of recovery.

I don’t buy it.

Relapse has its place. It happens. What happens more often is a simple lapse back to unwanted thoughts, behaviors, or drug-use. You might wanna call it a slip, a pause, or bump in the road. But it doesn’t have to become a full-blown relapse!

It doesn’t always lead back to a life of active addiction. Heavy hitters in hardcore AA rooms want you to believe you have to go back to square one, start over, and DO NOT PASS GO. Backward ass thinking like this creates fear, self-stigma, and shame.

I’m not sure how the hell this helps.
So don’t buy into this crap. If you experience a lapse, get back on your feet, dust the cobwebs out of your head, and pick up where you left off.

Take some time and recognize what went wrong and how you can better prepare yourself to face this difficult situation next time.

Keeping Emerson’s recovery quote in mind will help you find the courage to pick yourself up and get back into your system of recovery if you suffer a lapse in thinking, acting, or using.

A lapse is temporary and doesn’t have to lead to a full-blown relapse. Pick yourself up. Learn from the slip. And find happiness in life that you seek.

“Dare to live the life you have dreamed for yourself. Go forward and make your dreams come true.”    – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Heroin and other drugs promised to take away your pain, erase your unwanted feelings, and let your creativity soar to new heights. In the beginning, getting gone on drugs was ecstasy. Nothing, not a cathartic sneeze or heart-stopping orgasm could compare to the rush you felt after releasing the plunger for a 5 bag shot into the main vein,

However, it didn’t take long for those highs to fade away. Once physical dependence reigned, the fear of withdrawal kept you coming back several times a day.

Find the strength to break this routine and grow into the person you have only known in your dreams. Find a group of peers who you can relate with, whose recovery you admire and ask for the guidance and support to live the life of your dreams.

“The only person you are destined to become is the person you decide to be.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

When it comes to addiction, the choice to pick up is not always on. White-knuckling and sure willpower doesn’t stand a chance when the bile from your stomach is burning a hole through your throat. 

We’ve all been addicted to something –drugs, booze, cigarettes, sex, porn, shopping, another person, Facebook, Instagram, the internet, gambling, masturbation –so we can all relate to the mental anxiety of addiction on some level. Of course, some people struggle with addiction more than others. 

But you can make a decision to clear the table, reduce the harm and consequences of your actions, and start making small changes. Consciously decide what steps to take and why. Mindfully life in the moment and choose to become the person you desire to be.

More Ralph Waldo Emerson Recovery Quotes: “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

The first time I got sober, I feared what I would do once the cravings ceased to exist. What would life be like without needs and triggers, drug-seeking behaviors, and my constant diatribes about the ‘good ole days’?

After three years of abstinence, I felt I had reached my destination. I let my anger, resentment, and pig-headed stubbornness drive me from the rooms of AA and NA. My hubris didn’t allow me to get phone numbers to reach peers whose recovery I favored. I was gonna do this recovery thing on my own.

It took about 3 years from that day for my relapse to reach its peak one morning when I couldn’t find any pills. I swore to myself I’d never stick a needle full of heroin in my arm again. I had no remorse regret or shame the morning I worked up the fix. I knew the demon I was about to unleash. All that mattered was feeling better.

This time around, I have a better understanding of the word recovery. I have a system for recovery. I work each morning. My recovery is a process. It is not perfection, but progress. Progression towards becoming the best version of myself.

The system is working to be 1% – 5% better than you went to bed the night before. Therefore a destination can never be reached. You (and me) can always improve your life. Once you reach a goal, amend it, change it, outdo it. There is always room for improvement.

Work, Play, and Love harder.

   Download a FREE workbook to identify your high-risk situations and triggers that will blindside your recovery goals by creating the urge to use heroin or other drugs.

“Without ambition, one starts nothing. Without work, one finishes nothing. The prize will not be sent to you. You have to win it.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you want the best out of your life, you have to know your why. You have to see the reason you get out of bed each morning with a purpose and childlike excitement.

To engineer the best possible outcomes and fulfillment in recovery, you need a plan designed around your guiding principles, values, and why.

Once you understand why you are doing something, the work you do becomes meaningful, purposeful, and achievable.

How to find your WHY?

Take out a sheet of paper. 

Write down the word Recovery. 

Now ask yourself –– Why am I in recovery, or What do I want from recovery and WHy?

Write the answer down. But you are not done. Ask yourself what you’ll achieve and why? Then write your answer done.

Do this again for 5 more times. By the time you get to the 7th answer, you’ll have found the profound reason why recovery is so important, meaningful, and monumental in your life.

“Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson

In recovry quotes such as this one of Emerson’s he tells us to live each day like its the best of the year. You have not reached the recovery community by luck. You have made decisions to make changes, work harder, and work through the pain of past emotional, physical, or sexual trauma.

You have grieved your past. Your addiction. Your drugs. Now you find yourself living life for the first time without the burden of craving and fear. Celebrate this day and live each day like it is the best day of your life. After all, it is a gift of recovery.

Remember, your worst day sober is always better than your best day high. You might not believe this to be correct, but when you have the freedom to choose with the physical constraints from heroin, nothing will stop you from celebrating life.

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Did you seek solace in heroin or other drugs? Did you think you could fill the void or uncomfortable feeling spreading from your soul in the dropper of a syringe?  Once you understood heroin or other drugs were not the answer to your salvation, you sought after recovery. 

During my first go with living clean and sober, all I had available to me was Inpatient >discharge > go to meetings and find a sponsor. It didn’t work for me. I couldn’t get past the powerless part of the 12-steps nor was about to understand the God concept. Many times I was told I’d come around and accept the meetings God of ‘their” understanding. It didn’t work. I ran for the hills, and a bag of dope found me – not the same day, but soon enough.

At Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC, YOU are in RECOVERY when YOU say YOU are! And we support multiple pathways of recovery. So whatever works for you is perfect. If you stay sober, strive for a life of happiness and fulfillment, then you are a success. You don’t have to walk in time to the beat of anyone else drum. “You’re the master of your fate and the captain of your destiny. “ All you have to do is take action. 

 “Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.” ― Ralph Waldo Emerson

You know this is true. You’ve tried tie and time again to use without consequence. You’ve hoped to one day enjoy heroin and other drugs like it was the first time. You’ve chased that dream, and it only led down the same road. 

Once you’ve learned this lesson, it’s time to move on to the next experience in life. 

Overcome it. Live it. And move on. Believe in yourself, and start knocking down your goals with intent and purpose.

More Ralph Waldo Emerson Recovery Quotes: “Shallow men believe in luck or in circumstance. Strong men believe in cause and effect.”

There is no such thing as luck. We create all of our victories and losses. The work we do or don’t do the actions we take or don’t take, and the words we say or don’t say all determine the result or consequence. Luck has nothing to do with it.

The only time luck applies when you’re standing in Thunderdome looking Dr. Dealgood in the eye and watching as he spins the wheel. “Break a deal. Spin the wheel.”

“Make your own Bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Journal. Journal. And journal some more.
Write down the phrases and quotes from great thinkers, recovery warriors, philosophers, and your heroes.

Create a great book full of beautiful stories and passages to help you get through a long hard day, to celebrate and beautiful happy day, or to give you the wisdom to make the right choices in life.
Your journal can become the most excellent tool in your recovery toolbox.

Treat it kindly.

The empty pages love to feel the warmth and love when you put pen to paper and write. Fill your journal with your own self-reflection.
Also, jot down the words of others who encourage and empower you to keep on keeping on.

“Unless you try to do something beyond what you have already mastered, you will never grow.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Are you ready to kick heroin and other drugs to the curb? And try to live a life free from self-limiting belief, doubt, worry, or fear? Recovery is all of this and more, but you have to do something that will make you uncomfortable. The men in women in the rooms who have found a way to live life one day at a time all took a step to try something different. You can do it, too.

Yeah, it’s easy waking up in the morning, doing a shot, hustling money, and getting off again. We felt like masters, but in fact, we were puppets. Once the drug started directing our lives, our will, choices, and actions were controlled by fear. 

Make a decision to slow down, to change at the thought, to wait an extra hour or two before you work up that fix. Push yourself to be 1% better today than you were yesterday, and see where you are in 6 months. 

Change takes practice. 

But you have to decide to try something new because there is always something in your life that can be better.

I have always hidden behind social anxiety, so I make excuses to meet old friends or make new ones. But my recovery cannot grow without constant change. I’m tearing down the barrier and confronting my self-limiting belief about social ineptitude.

What can you do differently to ignite change?

“The only way to have a friend is to be one.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

How many times do you leave your office in Downtown Manhattan and see the same homeless kid, flying a sign, begging for a dollar or two, to get a meal, a cheap room, or a bag of heroin?

And how many times do you look and shrug, turn up your collar to the cold, and walk on by him?

Are you a friend? Do you know what it means to be there for someone unconditionally? When I was homeless, I had a crew I would live and die for. I am sure I had their backs, but not so sure who had mine. It didn’t change who I was, though. I could never see another friend dope-sick, especially when I had a bundle or two in my pocket. I hated that feeling and wouldn’t wish it on my worse enemy. 

Don’t get me wrong I didn’t run around handing out dope as if it grew on trees, but if you crashed next to me at night and I could help, I would. 

Fast forward 8 years, and my recovery flourishes, and I still return to the streets in search of homeless friends. I visit with them. I get them a cup of coffee and food, help with storage unit costs if one friend is alcohol sick, I get him that can of 4 Loco or a beer. And yes, even money for a bag of junk or two. I know when I was there, I had friends who did this for me. The money doesn’t only solve the immediate problem of heroin withdrawal. It plants a seed of hope. It demonstrates my love and kindness. I show my friends if I can change they can too. (Ha, my husband doesn’t agree with me on this one.)

But are you a friend? Can someone count on you to pick up the phone, to listen without judgment, to spend time silently together, enjoying a moment without feeling uncomfortable? I am not perfect. I fail at friendship often. I take for granted friendships and stay at home, believing I am too tired to meet-up with someone for a cup of coffee. 

It doesn’t take much energy. Still, I convince myself how tiring it will be to navigate the hustle and bustle of New York City after a long day of banging away at this keyboard, interviewing professionals, or researching my next assignment. I often hide behind social-anxiety. I’ve lived with it for 45 years and made it this far who knows maybe if I try something new I’ll master it. (see quote 13)

I resolve to stop making excuses, so I will be a better friend and to enjoy the company of others more.

Learn to be a friend, and you’ll never be alone.

“You cannot do a kindness too soon, for you never know how soon it will be too late.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

How many times do you leave your office in Downtown Manhattan and see the same homeless kid, flying a sign, begging for a dollar or two, to get a meal, a cheap room, or a bag of heroin?

And how many times do you look and shrug, turn up your collar to the cold, and walk on by him?

Does it bother you, sicken you, piss you off to see this kid day in and out, begging? It should. Do you know you don’t have to give him money? He would appreciate a kind hello, a word acknowledging him, or a brief conversation, too

I got sober on the streets of NYC. Recovery is possible, anywhere. When the elements align, the change will happen. I didn’t go to some fancy rehab and countless AA meetings after I was discharged, I tried this traditional pathway before it wasn’t for me. I didn’t live in a sober-living and attend intensive out-patient, either. 

My change was ignited by busy New Yorkers who worked in what some might call the evilest place in the world – NYC’s and the world’s financial center Wall Street. I panhandled on the corner of Pine and 100 Broadway, for years. It was my spot. Over time, I built a network of kind friends from all walks of life. Yeah, there were haters like the girl who hated her life so much she made it a point to the cross the street to kick my cup as far as she could. I angered her. But each day, the conversations I had with the people who stopped to hand me a dollar or a cup of coffee, lunch, or socks gave me hope. 

And any amount of hope can go a long way. 

If I didn’t show up to my spot for a couple of days, people looked for me, worried about me, and wondered where I had been. It is in their kindness that I found my way back for another go at life in recovery. 

Before you decide to hold back kindness for one another time when it is more convenient to you, think again at how powerful a change you could make today, right now, at this moment, and do it.

“You become what you think about all day long.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Recovery is a process for change. It is required to rewire how you perceive yourself. In the past, my thoughts limited me, crippled me, and kept me stuck in a cycle for self-hatred, destruction, belief. 

The story I told myself didn’t have a happy ending because I was a mistake, worthless, and undeserving of another’s love. There weren’t many happy thoughts rattling around in my brain. 

It all changed. At first, it was gradual, but it exploded, and exponential change occurred. I’m stuck, and my thoughts block my path for advancement. Self-doubt is vicious. The cycle is self-limiting beliefs that cloud my judgment and prevent my upward movement. 

I know I can change work through this plateau with positive thoughts, journaling, and affirmation. 

Why do I believe this? 

Because I am no longer sitting on a street corner in NYC, begging people for money and waiting to die alone with a needle buried in my arm. 

You, too, can spike a change in your life by spending time meditating, journaling, and thinking about where it is you want to be in the next year, 3 years, and 5 years. Get focused on your journey, see yourself becoming the person you want to grow, and start the cycle all over. It all starts in your thoughts.

Build confidence for change, happiness, and recovery one thought at a time. 

How can you use these quotes to create the best possible version of yourself? 

At Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC, I am a massive fan of recovery journaling, gratitude journaling, and ‘kickstarting your future you’ journaling. You don’t need a fancy journal, but if you want one, check out my favorites Moleskine. 

Pick a quote, write it down, meditate upon it, and then put pen to paper. I like just to let my pen go where it wants to go. In your journal, you are the master, so there isn’t a wrong way to journal, hmmm, just like there is no wrong way to recover.  

Each of these quotes can guide you on your path to transcendence.  

You can find guidance and hope for your life in recovery, your dealings with others, your career, and your relationship to your recovery community by meditating on each of these quotes.

Please share this blog post of Timeless Recovery Quotes From Ralph Waldo Emerson, On Self-Reliance, Friendship, and Spirituality on social media.

Have a wonderful day.

Read More on The Arise Recovery Coaching Addiction Blog

Continuing reading from the
Arise Recovery Coaching Addiction Blog

John Makohen
Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC

Without prior knowledge, preparation, or forethought, these 3 events instigated cataclysmic change.

Recovery snuck up on me. 

1 – A taste of recovery

Before I escaped back to the nomadic life of trekking New York City’s streets for dope and coke, I tasted the sweetness of living life in recovery. 

I also had a puny plan for recovery, but it worked for 6 years until a table saw ripped through my hand. 

Like all events, the accident could’ve gone two ways. I could have reached out for support from the recovery community or said fuck it and start getting high. 

I was not so wise and blinded by hubris. I refused to lean into the recovery community. I would go it alone.  At the time, recovery meant distraction and exhaustive. I substituted work for dope. 

My injury forced me to sit quietly with myself. I had not yet learned how to be my best friend, so the demons of my past mixed with the old familiar scene of morphine being worked into my vein created intense cravings.

I never picked up the phone, so my ego defeated me.

Several weeks after the surgeries to repair my hand, I stepped onto the road of active use. First alcohol and marijuana, then Vicodin and cocaine, eventually methadone pills, but we all know what happens when the pills run out. It’s inevitable the pills WILL run out, but heroin is always a phone call away. Once I released the dope into my veins, I couldn’t rear back on the reigns. I was off to the races. 

In a little more than a year, I was back on the streets of New York City drinking methadone to chase the dope-sickness away and whoring, boosting, or begging for my next fix.

But 

A seed was planted

No matter how hopeless and desperate life became, I knew I could live without heroin or other drugs. I did in county jail, prison, during parole, and for 3 years without supervision. And that shit meant something. It planted the seed that recovery is possible. The seed created hope for something better. It didn’t matter how faint the glimmer was. It was there. 

Download a FREE workbook to identify your high-risk situations and triggers that will blindside your recovery goals by creating the urge to use heroin or other drugs.

2 – Harm reduction

I returned to the streets of NYC to get on a methadone maintenance treatment program.

Not to get sober, but to hold off the demon dope-sickness. If you hustled, you could get on methadone maintenance within 24 hours.

One morning I set out to get on a program, so I landed at LESC. I made it to the assessment by 8:00 AM. It took about 3 hours to complete the biopsychosocial.

It took brutal honesty, but it was easy because I felt safe, not judged. I could say anything I wanted and not worry about a condescending look or lecture.

After the assessment, I was given an appointment card to provide blood and urine samples. If I returned by 9:00 AM the next morning with the card signed, I could get medicated. Without a guarantee to make money, dope-sickness loomed over me, si I got the blood work done and was medicated 24 hours later. 

During my 6 year retreat from street junky life, needle exchange programs sprouted throughout the city, so using clean kits and new sterile syringes each time I fixed was guaranteed.

Another new element began to pop-up in various locations throughout Manhattan. Not only did several needle exchange programs offer the use of the restroom to inject heroin or drugs safely, but drop-in centers and other community organizations also began to provide safe, monitored spaces for drug injection.

Safe injection sites didn’t only offer safety and reduce harm, but these organizations worked to shatter stigma, especially self-stigma and shame.

3. Shattering stigma

Do you know what it is like to use a public restroom to shoot up a speedball? 

When I was in getting high, I didn’t think it bothered me, but it did.

The stigma and shame crippled me. 

It didn’t matter how quick I fixed. I had to remove layers of clothes, work up the shot, bounce of the walls from the coke, and wait for the dope to wash over me with the courage to walk out the fucking door.  It’s humiliating walking facing a crowd of angry tourists holding their insides in, especially when the cocaine psychosis is riding at full peak. It sucked. My paranoia mixed with my homeless chic convinced me everyone knew what the fuck I was doing in the toilet.

My appearance concerned me. I did my best to fit in with the masses, but some things don’t wash off. I told myself stigma didn’t bother me. Ha, I also believed I looked good weighing 119 pounds, face sunken in, and eyes pinned.

It’s frustrating trying to warm up your vein so it will pop with people pounding on the restroom door.

Knock, knock, knock -“Hurry up, junky,” someone chants. Another voice chimes in with, “There’s nothing worse than a homeless junky using the toilet before you.” “Fix-up somewhere else, dirtbag!”

Forever grateful for all those who fight to reduce the harm we are blind too!

I’m grateful for those who took it upon themselves to offer us homeless New Yorkers safe places to shoot heroin and other drugs. Their efforts helped me overcome self-stigma and shame. It was a game-changer knowing there was a safe place to go, to not be judged, and where people on the other side of the door cared for my wellbeing.

Workers monitored the time spent in the bathroom, not because other kids need to fix-up, but to make sure you were breathing, safe, alive. 

I always had clean kits and sterile syringes when I used the drop-ins toilets to fix.

The most crucial benefit of safe injection sites was knowing I didn’t have to walk out of the restroom into a sea of judgmental faces looking back at me in anger. 

A safe place to shoot drugs started to break down the wall of self-consciousness, self-hate, and to have conversations with recovery advocates not pushing in-patient treatment down my throat.

It made all the difference in the world for me to exit a restroom and see peers hanging around, smiling, chatting, staying warm while waiting to fix. These people fed us, gave us toiletries, laundry services, Hep C testing… We wanted to show up and escape the reality of life on the streets. 

You might fear safe injection sites, but it’s unwarranted fear. Recovery sneaks up on you in safe injection sites.

I have shot dope in many places, literally wherever I wanted, a public toilet, a park bench, on a set of church steps, subway cars, hospitals, while walking down the street and most of these times, I was alone with no one to help me in the event of an overdose.

A safe-injection site means you, your son, daughter, or loved one will stay alive in the event of an accidental overdose.

Having a chance to find recovery another day is proof enough to claim safe-injection sites work.

Harm reduction works. 

It screams you’re worthy of love, support, and dignity. 

The folks who work harm reduction for little to no pay go to work each day and fight society’s ignorance, stigma, and fear of addiction. 

Harm reduction saved my life. It kept me alive long enough for the seed of recovery planted long ago to grow.

Embrace harm reduction today. 

Recovery sneaks up on you.

This week I spent a fantastic week with my recovery community at THE National Recovery Conference: MPRC 2019. During his closing, recovery historian and advocate William White, spoke about recovery sneaking up on you. When he said this, my ears perked up. It is true. The last monkey wrench diverting my plan of dying with a needle in my arm, on the streets of New York City was recovery – getting in my way.

I’ve been working on a memoir for quite some time. Every time I think I’m on THE final edit, I found a significant part missing.

How I Got Sober?

I found it’s easy to recollect all the stories from my past, but I could never put my finger on when the change happened. On the day I said fuck it, I don’t want to get high today.

I’ve journaled hour after hour reflecting on how I got sober. I have recently found that no matter how amazing my life has become, recovery was never my intended outcome.

When I got on methadone, I didn’t try to facilitate healing. Methadone meant survival. Like all with heroin use disorders, I feared and hated dope-sickness.

Even though I know the sickness comes in the morning, I can’t save a wake-up. I can’t rest knowing I have a 5 bag shot sitting around. Methadone kept me from being scared to wake up.

But recovery, hell I don’t know – it just happened.

After many months of journaling, self-reflection, and meditation, I can say it was many small changes that sparked one significant change. And then to paraphrase William White, the momentum kicked-in and great shit started happening.

In part, my previous taste of engaging with others from the recovery community helped.

Ultimately,  the efforts, support, and compassion of volunteers advocating for harm reduction shattered my self-stigma and shame.

I started defeating my self-limiting beliefs, disputing negative self-talk, and stopped spending all of my time with street junkies seeking the best dope in NYC 5 boroughs.

It was a gradual process.

Instead of spending all of my time hustling to shoot drugs, I only did one big speedball at the end of the day. My toxicology reports from my PG (methadone program) tell the story:

• Toxicity levels decreased,
• Questionable toxicology reports ended,
• Engaging individual briefs became the norm.

One morning, my counselor told me, during a session that I had not screened positive for any illicit drugs in 3 weeks. I laughed and didn’t believe him.

*Sidenote: In recovery, you WILL learn how to take a compliment.

He went on to tell me how excited he was to see I had broken my previous 7-day record by 14 days and counting. He let me see the screen of recent toxicology reports, and I couldn’t remember the last time I shot drugs. As soon as I left, I celebrated the best way I knew how, I copped a bundle of dope, a gram of coke, and got gone.

However, a new seed was planted, and the time between my shots of heroin and cocaine grew further apart, and now I can say through the help of so many others I have had a system for recovery for 8 years.

Today I understand recovery is a process and not a destination, and I am enjoying the ride.

Yes, indeed, Mr. William White, recovery WILL sneak up on you, especially with multiple pathways guiding the way.

What is your plan for recovery today?

You are in recovery when you say you are.
Many times you don’t know when your change was initiated.
It might have been a passing thought.
A night when you felt death was knocking at your door.
Maybe when you were watching a loved one dying, pleading for the Narcan to work, hoping one more blast will be enough to work magic and reverse the accidental overdose. Ugh, 3 hits of Narcan in each nostril and still no breath. Hopefully, the fourth time is the one.

It might have happened one night when you begged your higher power to let you find the money to cop a bundle of dope, take the sickness away, and you promised to stop in the morning.

Or maybe you are like me, and recovery just snuck up on you and bit you in the ass. You didn’t want it, but now you have it, and you’re not going to let it go.
Only you know when your changes started to take place.

Recovery sneaks up on you

Recovery sneaks up on you when you stop forcing yourself to conform to what others believe recovery means and start living life in alignment with your definition of recovery.

Recovery sneaks up on you when you stop listening to what others feel is best for you and start leaning into those who want to help you get what you desire and deserve.

Recovery sneaks up on you when you start reducing the harm and consequences of your substance use.

Recovery sneaks up on you when you start learning to love, trust and value yourself and others. When you shatter how stigma, especially self-stigma block your path to happiness and fulfillment.

Arise recovery coaching in NYC wants to guide your path into a life (of your definition) of long-term recovery.

What makes Arise recovery coaching in NYC different from traditional treatment is:

• You’re in recovery when you say you are.
• Arise Recovery Coaching is an outcome-based coaching system.
• You decide the outcomes you wish to achieve, and we will navigate you towards those goals.
• I will hold you accountable to your goals.
• Support and advocate for your process of change.
• Your uniqueness and individuality will be your guiding light in recovery.

I look forward to the chance to speak with you about reducing harm from your substance use, what recovery means to you, and how we can work together and find a place of happiness and fulfillment for you to live in and grow.

John Makohen
Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC

The Addiction Recovery Coaching Blog

Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC will help you forge your plan to find freedom from heroin and other drugs.

Arise Recovery Coaching in NYC will help you forge your plan to find freedom from heroin and other drugs.

Read more blog posts featured on, The Arise Addiction Recovery Coaching Blog

Roadblocks to recovery are barriers blocking your way from achieving fulfillment in a lifestyle for recovery. 

You know that recovery is not easy.

It takes work.

It takes just as much work to free yourself from the chaos heroin addiction has caused in your life as it took to create it.

The only quick fix is abstinence, but even then, staying sober can be next to impossible if you don’t pursue an action plan for recovery. When you have to deal with homelessness, criminal charges, or physical and mental health issues, staying sober can be daunting.

Explanation of Roadblocks to recovery

Roadblocks to recovery are barriers which keep you from pursuing your chosen path for happiness and fulfillment in a lifestyle for recovery.

Roadblocks to recovery relate to many situations in your life.

Hell, recovery can be a roadblock in, and of, itself because you know how easy it is to resist change. Positive change is never easy. Most would say positive change sucks.

Some groups will tell you to admit you are powerless and turn your will over to god. I tried and that didn’t work for me.

It’s not easy to admit you are powerless, especially when you don’t feel powerless. If you’re reading this and you’re still strung-out on heroin then you are not weak. You are a suvivor. You have survived heroin addiction, and there is nothing easy about living to tell your tale. 

Roadblocks in recovery are anything standing in the way of you and the left you want.

Have a look at how personal relationships, personality traits, and your lifestyle act as roadblock to recovery:

Once the chemical dependency has been removed from the equation, you have to make the effort to work through the barriers keeping you from creating the life that you want.

Understand what cravings and urges trigger you to want to use heroin or other drugs.

Your new life in recovery will require work. It doesn’t have to be difficult, but the odds are set against you. However, the impressive part is that recovery can be simple when you’re considering the following: 

• Not overthinking it
• Working through past trauma
• Surrounding yourself with positive support
• Building a system to work your plan for life in recovery
• And doing something every day to enhance your life in recovery

If you make these 5 positive changes you will be on your way to finding the happiness you deserve from a life you create.

Pretty easy, right? 

Then tell me; What is stopping you?

Roadblocks to recovery relating to your motivation to change:

• Failure

Anxiety and worry that you will not be able to stay sober, creates stress. Past efforts to stop using heroin have ended badly. You’re tired of letting people down, relapse, after relapse has created self-doubt and success, doesn’t seem likely so you panic. Convincing yourself that you are worthless or don’t deserve to live a life of happiness.

One way to overcome the feeling of failure is to forgive yourself. Accept your past actions and understand that, as you heal, you will not have to make these same mistakes again. Once you forgive yourself, you will no longer be subjected to the cold, harsh feelings that guilt and regret have created deep inside of you.

• Motivation as a roadblock to recovery

Your motivation to change fluctuates daily, from positive to negative. Sometimes you can feel that your motivation to change has reversed on itself. You go to bed at night happy to be sober and convince yourself that tomorrow your day will be fantastic, but when you wake up the universe throws a monkey wrench at you. Nothing goes right. You bump your knee rushing to the bathroom, hit your head on the vanity mirror after brushing your teeth, and there aren’t enough coffee beans to make your morning coffee.

At first, you tell yourself these are little things and not to worry, but the day just keeps getting worse. Your motivation to plow through the day, creating positive change seems futile. Each new problem depletes your motivation and by mid-morning your reaching for the phone, and it isn’t to call your recovery coach.  Positive change takes a lot of work and courage. To stay atop of your recovery, you have to be persistent.

 • Minimization

When you minimize your addiction to heroin, you are experiencing one of many forms of denial. Minimization is when you have convinced yourself that your problem isn’t as bad as it seems. You got this. You can handle doing dope, and all of the issues you experience are not because of heroin. All of your questions are easily explained.

• Pleasing someone else

Recovery cannot be fully achieved if you are doing it for someone else; such as a loved one, family member, job requirement, parole officer, or other court mandate. I am not saying that other people cannot be great motivators. However, for you to achieve happiness in recovery, you have to make the decision to change out of love for yourself.  You cannot change for someone else. Change has to be desired by you, for it to be meaningful.

Roadblocks to recovery blocking positive peer support networks

• Uniqueness

Do you feel unique? Your addiction has led you down long garden paths, which became dark alleys, time and time again. You have tried to relate to others, but no one can relate to you, and all you have experienced because of your heroin use disorder. The dark downward spiral has caused you to isolate yourself from others. No one would understand what you had to do to keep from getting sick. You feel if you told anyone the ways you made money, you will be shunned, chastised, made fun of, and unaccepted.

It is true.

You might have had to do worse things than other people who use heroin, and circumstances will always be different. The only reason you did these things was that you didn’t have money to pay your drug dealer. When you have money, it’s easy to keep from withdrawal.

However, once the money is gone, everyone gets creative to keep from experience the sickness of heroin withdrawal.

Some ways your uniqueness can block your path to recovery:

• Does your feeling of uniqueness prevent you from taking meetings seriously? Instead of listening and paying attention to the person sharing, you are busy comparing how much worse your life is than others in the room.
• Do you only hear what you want to hear and criticize the positive messages being relayed to you while at AA, NA, or SMART recovery meetings?
• Do you question how a sober support network can help you? Do you let your uniqueness block you from having positive experiences with new peers seeking the same goals of recovery as yourself?

Establishing peer connections with others in recovery allows you to enjoy positive experiences, lean on others for support, and get answers to all the questions you will have about learning to live a more fulfilling life in recovery.

Keeping yourself isolated from others who want to help you succeed is not beneficial to your recovery.

Isolation, as a roadblock to recovery

Addiction is isolating from others.  During his research in learning how to help people struggling with substance abuse disorders, Johann Hari uncovered a fundamental truth;  Recovery is reversing the isolation that addiction has forced you to live with, by reconnecting to family, loved ones and community, and forming new connections with addiction recovery services.

Your addiction thrives in isolation. All the roadblocks to recovery, mentioned in this post, aim to keep you isolated from the truth. Loneliness has become your norm. It’s easier to be alone than fight and argue with someone about having that fifth beer at lunch or eating a box of cookies before dinner.  When you are alone, there is no one to support your positive change, hold you accountable for negative behaviors, or guide you through a personal inventory of your behaviors – numbing you to the world.

• People, places, and things

It’s always difficult to change when our friends, acquaintances, lovers, and spouses have not changed. When you come into your recovery, it is suggested to excuse yourself from spending time and meeting up with past acquaintances who you used heroin or other opiate drugs with because these friends can cause temptation. In early recovery, you will have many attractions which you cannot control, but you can change your friends, the places you frequent, and pastimes you enjoy.

Recover out loud.

However, it is not always easy to excuse yourself from associating with your family and loved ones. Just becasue you got sober and are changing old habits doesn’t mean everyone you knew is going to change with you. Let others who are still using know how you need support to make this change.  Learning to live with your spouse and family without using heroin or other drugs takes time.

Learn how to talk with your family and loved ones about the changes you are making. Ask friends and family members to not use in front of you. 

Sometimes just hearing a conversation about drinking or drugging creates cravings, so ask friends to refrain from talking about alcohol or drugs when you are around. When you reconnect with your family, loved ones, especially colleagues, it’s best to let all know you have chosen to live drug-free. The results are less offers to smoke a joint at lunch, happy hour invites, and information about the quality of heroin on the streets.

What happens when you recover out loud?

Trey Laird, CEO of The Lighthouse Sober Living in New Canaan, Ct shares this nugget of advice with new residents at his sober living or recovery coaching program: ” The more people who know you are in recovery, the fewer people you will have to drink and do drugs with.

• Social Ineptitude

Do you feel you have problems trying to relate to people? Social anxiety will work as a roadblock to recovery because it will keep you from building rapport with a positive peer network.

Social acceptance and belonging is coded into your human behavior. Even though you on to be accepted and fit-into social circles, your self-doubt and irrational beliefs about yourself can create a barrier which keeps you from actively seeking to connect with others.

Other times you might feel that you cannot relate to others who did not use heroin. Do you have an elitist view of your heroin use disorder? It is common for substance users to create discrimination or feelings of superiority based solely upon the drugs of choice.

Acceptance and belonging

During the ’90s, my circle of street junkies felt we were better than those with crack cocaine disorders. We convinced yourself that we were a better class of drug addict.

There weren’t any facts to support my views of other persons who had different substance use disorders. I convinced myself that I could not attend a treatment facility which offered help to both heroin addicts and crack cocaine users simultaneously.

I also believed that crack addiction was far worse than heroin addiction. I refused to attend several treatment facilities based on my discrimination of crack cocaine users, but looking back on this decision, I would now attribute my refusal to denial, social ineptitude, and readiness to change.

• Vulnerability

Vulnerability is a giant roadblock to recovery. Opening the door and letting another into your life makes you vulnerable. Breaking down the barrier, and allowing yourself and others inside can result in amazing changes in recovery.

However, taking that step is scary.

Learning to let down your defenses, taking off your mask, and standing naked in front of others for the first time since you became addicted to heroin will align you with the positive changes which recovery promises. It doesn’t mean it is an easy task.

One way to help you become more vulnerable in your early recovery is to keep in mind people are not as judgemental as you think.

Believing you are being judged by others is negative self-talk working to undermine the positive changes you are about to make when you allow yourself to be vulnerable.

Roadblocks to recovery pertaining to personality

• Fear of admitting defeat

Do you find it hard to ask others for help? One of my biggest problems in the past was defeating myself because I was scared to ask someone for help. Failing on my own was more comfortable to digest than admitting I couldn’t do something to another person. I still had to deal with failure, but I found it easier to create an excuse for why I couldn’t complete a task or find a solution to my problem.

Learning to lean on others, ask for guidance, and support was hard for me because I feared how others would perceive me. Once I started asking others for help and support, I found out that people were happy to help me and not once did I have to deal with being made fun of for not being able to figure out the problem on my own. I believe the main reason for my fear of asking for help was due to the negative story I told myself.

• Negative self-talk

What story do you tell yourself?

For years, I told myself I was a mistake, stupid, and never good enough. Whenever something went wrong in my life, I was able to blame it on one of these reasons. I had heard these phrases by my family when I was young. I used to believe that I was told this over and over by my sister and cousin. I am not sure how often these two told me this, but in my head these words defined me.

I heard this several times, but I reinforced it by repeating it to myself tens of thousands of times over the years. I let my negative self-talk snowball into my reality.

Learning to ignore the negative words you tell yourself every day will take work, but it is a possible task. I speak from experience.

You have to dispute the negative voice in your head. The more you question the negative words you choose to tell yourself the easier it becomes to dispute the effect your negative self-talk has upon your thoughts, beliefs, and perceptions of self.

• Avoidance

Avoidance is another form of denial. Instead of meeting your problems head-on its easier t ignore the challenge.

When you start working on personal development, you will uncover hidden truths and lies you have been hiding deep inside for years. Sometimes drawing up the anchor and sailing away back into the dark waters of your addiction seems safer.

It is vital to dive deep inside and learn to love yourself, all your perfections and imperfections, faults, and strengths, forgive yourself, accept and reconcile your past, and apologize and make amends for your history when you can.

Before you can make amends to others, it is best to make amends with and forgive yourself. You can love another entirely until you have learned to love and respect yourself.

• Authority

People tend to not like to be told what to do, especially when it concerns making a personal change.

Pain and grief block the way of change.

When you imagine a person is forcing you to make these changes, you tend to resist the person. Asking your recovery coach or sponsor to assess our behavior can create animosity, fear, and arguments.

Keep in mind, you are not being judged or asked to do something unreasonable. Most often the person you asked to help you through your process of recovery has faced these circumstances and has worked through behavioral changes oneself.

Barriers blocking your recovery show up in your lifestyle choices 

Routine and Structure

Recovery is a whole system upgrade and change and at first, a person might find that their routine has too much free time available, no schedule, or structure.

If a person’s living situation is not optimal to support recovery:

• Lack of adequate housing
• Homelessness
• Unemployment
• Disability
• Support
•Isolations

Self-Deception

Admitting you have a heroin use disorder is straightforward, especially when you wake up sick, cannot concentrate after 5 hours without another fix, always think of using, and many more facts about your use.

But accepting that it is a problem is an entirely different entity.

It is not easy to uproot and change, especially when you feel that there is no need to change. Even though you wake up in heroin withdrawal if you do not feel the negative results of your heroin use, such as financial, relationship, and career strain accepting that your drug use is a problem gets clouded. 

You convince yourself into believing you do not have a problem. You compare yourself to homeless street junkies fixing up shots of heroin on park benches and winos drinking out of a brown bag in the Bowery.

Breaking through the denial of self-deception and accepting your relationship with heroin is creating chaos in your life is key to working through the roadblocks to recovery.

Deserving recovery

Do you feel you have no direction in life?

Your heroin use and isolation have destroyed your relationships with family, friends, loved ones, and colleagues. Not only do you feel alone, you believe you cannot rebuild the relationships heroin has destroyed.

You have spent all your money, savings, home, and personal possessions to support your ever-growing habit.

The devastation to your lie has left you with little hope for repairing the past. You are alone without any reward at the end of your path. The life you created is dismal.

Overcoming the idea that you are not worthy of recovery creates the desire, want, and need to change. No one has ever said, Change will be easy.  Forgiveness is a crucial step in defeating feelings of unworthiness. Quiet the negative self-talk and dispute your negative attitude to reach new drug-free highs in recovery.

Overcome these barriers to recovery to create the ultimate version of you with heroin or other drugs

Choosing to stop using drugs and alcohol is a tough decision.

Roadblocks to recovery, which cause hardship and stress are lurking around any corner. Difficulties and hurdles set up by yourself, old networks of friends, and other barriers creating turmoil and resistance to change. However, when you choose to change help is available.

Find peer support and guidance in support group meetings, inpatient and outpatient programs, recovery apps, and your recovery community. Peer support helps you understand your addiction, work through denial, and set-up a recovery team to hold you accountable to the changes you chose to make.

Investing in recovery coaching services is crucial to holding to your path for recovery. A recovery coach will help you build a recovery team.

Your recovery team will guide you through difficult decisions and roadblocks to recovery as each arises.

What is Harm Reduction?

Harm reduction meets the “addict” where they are at.  It’s an attempt to reduce the harm of a substance use disorder or other behavior which creates a risk to a person’s life and public health.  Advocates of harm reduction understand and accept a person’s readiness to change. Due to this acceptance, harm reduction reduces the likelihood of possible adverse outcomes to the individual and public health.

Opposition to harm reduction feels that in this acceptance a message of approval of the behavior is sent to these same individuals.  Of course, there are always pro and cons to any theory, but opposition to harm reduction creates fear and perpetuates stigma.

Those who oppose harm reduction still exhibit fear and are ignorant of individual pathways in recovery. These organizations believe that “forced total abstinence” is the only way in which a person will heal from a substance use disorder.

In their attempt to discredit harm reduction practices the International Task Force on Strategic Drug Policy states;

“We oppose so-called ‘harm reduction’ strategies as endpoints that promote the false notion that there are safe or responsible ways to use drugs. That is, strategies in which the primary goal is to enable drug users to maintain addictive, destructive, and compulsive behavior by misleading users about some drug risks while ignoring others.”

Statements like these cause more harm and risk to the lives of those persons caught in the maelstrom of the current opioid epidemic.

Harm reduction and The Opioid Epidemic

Needle Exchange

Syringe exchange is a program which distributes new hypodermic instruments and other paraphernalia an injection drug user employs to prepare and inject illicit drugs. The program works by exchanging new syringes for used syringes. In addition to syringes, exchange programs distribute caps used to mix the shot, cotton, tourniquets, alcohol swabs, and sharps containers to carry used needles in until returned to the program safely. These portable easy to carry sharps containers keep an IV drug user, or other persons searching in a bag, safe from accidental needle punctures.

Needle exchange programs can be traced back to 1983 when a pharmacy in the Netherlands began distributing sterile syringes to illicit drug users. The plan was executed due to an outbreak of Hepatitis-B. 

In 1998 in a press release, Donna Shalala, Secretary of Health and Human Services for the Clinton Administration, stated:

“A meticulous scientific review has now proven that needle exchange programs can reduce the transmission of HIV and save lives without losing ground in the battle against illegal drugs.” 

In a weekly report published on, December 11, 2015, the CDC released findings of research concluding that not only do syringe exchange programs remove HIV, HCV, and Hep C contaminated syringes form a community the programs also have established a gateway for services for substance abuse treatment and other social services.

The research concludes that needle exchange not only reduces risk and harm of injecting illicit substances, but also provides a safe haven to educate and motivate persons struggling with substance abuse disorders about the benefits of recovery, wellness, and personal health.

Methadone Maintenance Treatment Programs (MMTP)

MMTP is a Drug replacement therapy which reduces risk by providing a less harmful, longer-lasting opiate for those who have severe opiate use disorders. In MMTP, Methadone is prescribed, administered, and regulated by medical staff (licensed nurses). When a program is responsible for distributing methadone, structure and stability start to replace the unhealthy chaos associated with opiate addiction.

Ultimately, the goal of harm reduction is abstinence while respecting the individual’s readiness to change. The road to recovery I followed was through MMTP. I wasn’t planning on getting sober when I first came to the program. My goal was not to wake up, dope-sick and broke on the streets. My addiction to dope and the needle never let me hold onto a shot for the morning. But methadone allowed me not to fear waking up because my dose lasted throughout the day and night.

Christopher Morris/Corbis via Getty Images
Insite

Insite in Vancouver B.C Canada, a safe injection site has not only created a safe place for heroin users to use heroin but a place where the message for recovery is talked about openly without coercion or force.

Safe injection sites

In my opinion, safe injection sites are the ultimate form of harm reduction. The most controversial, too. Recently safe havens to inject illicit substances is creating a public outcry. Opposition to new harm reduction policy and procedures is typical.

A safe injection site provides clean supplies and equipment, along with medical assistance, and education about how to safely use and discard of injection equipment. Besides these fundamentals, safe injection houses provide information convening medical and mental health and substance abuse treatment.

More importantly, employees are available to establish caring relationships with participants using the services provided by the site.  The workers employed by safe injection sites are accessible to engage participants in conversations concerning recovery and change. Frequently these conversations have more impact because the setting is non-confrontational.

Not only do workers provide safety information they are available to assist in the event of an accidental overdose.

here is an example of how Insite a safe-injection site in Vancouver immediately responds to another’s readiness for change.

One morning at Insite,  Tim Gauthier, Insite’s clinic coordinator spotted a man slumped up against the facility’s doorway. Instinct urged him to check for an accidental overdose, but the man was alive. When he was awake he asked for information about detox. Tim Gauthier states in an interview, “That’s very typical, that’s usually how those things play out,”

Insite meets the people of Vancouver with heroin use disorders where they are at and when the interest and readiness for change peeks, the person is referred to Onsite which is located on the second floor of the facility. Onsite has beds for detox and long-term recovery stairs available.

Before I chose to work a program of recovery, I was able to find the security of several organizations which offered a safe place for me to fix. I welcomed the freedom to use a restroom which was safe, clean, and free from public scrutiny.

Not only did the facility allow free use of the restroom, but they monitored the amount of time spent behind the door. Every 5 minutes, a worker would knock on the door if I did not reply, the worker was coming in armed with Narcan.

The workers made it a point to befriend each newcomer to the organization. Eventually, the facility became a place to enjoy a cup of coffee, use the internet, charge my phone, and engage in friendly conversations. I started to crave spending time discussing sociology and philosophy with social workers at the facility. Our discussions covered healthcare, HepC, and HIV testing, Prep, needle exchange, diet and nutrition, and life in general. 

Safe injection sites will save lives, increase safety to public health, and properly discard of medical waste. More importantly, these sites will provide social services in the form of empathy and care for the well-being of those persons who feel devastated and without hope.

Why Harm Reduction Works Key Takeaways

Let’s recap how harm reduction worked in my life:

Needle Exchange- provided me with sterile syringes, clean kits, education and information about HIV/AIDS, Hep B and C, overdose, social services, and most importantly accepted my readiness to change.

Methadone Maintenance (MMTP)– allowed me to follow my own path along the road to recovery without ridicule, contempt, or pressure. As I matured in my medicated assisted treatment (MAT) program, I learned that I could live life without heroin. Heroin, and more importantly the needle. Methadone helped me rewrite my definition.

Safe Injection Houses– I’ve never been in a state-run facility, but I’ve had the opportunity to take part in organizations which allowed me to use the bathroom to work up. There was always someone keeping watch on a clock outside the door, to prevent an accidental overdose. Every 4 minutes the person would call out and expect a reply immediately or else the staff would be coming in NARCAN in hand. Clean syringes and kits were readily available.

How do you feel about harm reduction now?

I am just one of the thousands who are living and breathing free from chemical dependency and trauma of our past.

I’ve outlined my personal case study of how Harm Reduction worked in my life. I’m alive and well, due to the individuals who’ve accepted to reduce harm first and treat me with respect.  

Staff at the facilities I chose to become a part of, spoke to me with respect, dignity, and care. I was treated equally. They looked past the dirt ground into my hands, uncleanliness, and repulsive smell. They didn’t stare at the bruises on my arms, the bags under my eyes and sunken-in cheeks upon my face, or my cynical toothless grin.

I wasn’t just some homeless street junky kid.  I was another human being struggling to live one more day, and that is all that mattered to them.

Instead of pressuring me into change, I was embraced for who I was at a time in my life when I couldn’t find on an ounce of love for myself.

Meeting me where I was at sparked a friendship. Over time this connection helped me connect with who I was,  what I believed, and remembered of myself without heroin.

Discussions with staff and volunteers rarely covered my plans for change. However, hearing and seeing their stories of triumph over heroin and other drugs helped me realize that I had a choice. I could choose a futile painful life or embrace change.

Harm reduction worked for me. It’s working right now in someone else’s struggle to find the road to recovery.

Now that you have a better understanding of harm reduction how can your recovery coaching clients benefit from you meeting them where they are at without pressure, attitude, and ultimatums.

Start reducing harm, so you can build long-lasting relationships which create the readiness for change.

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