The suggestion that there are multiple and diverse pathways of long-term addiction recovery has evolved from a heretical statement to a central tenet of an international recovery advocacy movement. As tens of thousands of people representing diverse recovery experiences stand in unison in September's recovery celebration events, it is perhaps time to explore and then put aside past divisions within and between communities of recovery.
In 2006, Tom Horvath, President of SMART Recovery, penned a brief article in which he coined the termrecoveryism. He used the term to depict assertions that a particular approach to addiction recovery was superior to all others - that there really is only ONE effective approach to addiction recovery. Horvath rightly called our attention to a special form of bigotry sometimes exhibited by people who are grateful for their own brand of recovery. There are those in secular, spiritual, and religious pathways of recovery who have claimed ultimate eminence for their particular ideas and methods and viewed alternatives as inherently inferior. Radical abstentionists and radical medicationists continue acrimonious debates marked by more heat than illumination. Those who enter recovery with and without specialized addiction treatment have each claimed a form of superiority, as have those who maintain recovery with and without participation in recovery mutual aid groups. Each of these approaches is in turn subject to internal dissension about how that approach should best be pursued. > > >> Read More
