According to the Journal of Clinical Medicine, recovery capital typically encompasses five domains. The five domains of recovery capital include human, social, financial, cultural, and community capital. Each domain is important, but the social, cultural, and community domains of recovery capital highlight the significance of connection in recovery. Therefore, expanding your awareness of your recovery community can help you maintain recovery. Through a recovery community, you can find the healing that engagement in a community of supportive peers can offer.
At Driftwood Recovery, we believe engaging in a recovery community is vital to building a strong foundation for sustained recovery. In an active recovery community, you can find the compassion, support, and accountability you need to thrive. Thus, through an attachment approach to care, you have learned the value of connection and community for healing. With a recovery community in alumni, you can continue to learn from and be supported by the compassion, understanding, and guidance you and your peers find in each other.
However, you may still have questions about what an active recovery community looks like. How can you engage with your recovery community to get the most out of your recovery?
What Is a Recovery Community?
A recovery community gives you the opportunity to connect with others who have shared experiences. Through shared experiences, you and your peers can learn how to build strategies and maintain coping skills for sustained recovery. As the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) states, recovery support found in a recovery community recognizes that treatment alone may not sustain recovery. Therefore, access to a recovery community can give you the whole person care you need to thrive in every part of your life.
Yet, what does a recovery community look like? Beyond a network of peers, what makes something a recovery community? A recovery community makes it easier for you to engage with and stay connected in your recovery with a wide range of services and resources. As noted in Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, the recovery support services you can find in a recovery community include:
- Recovery high schools (RHS): Educational support to stay in or return to school to complete your high school degree
- Collegiate recovery programs (CRPs): Educational support to stay in and complete your degree in college
- Recovery homes: Community-style residences designed to support community reintegration and maintain a sober lifestyle
- Sober social events: Designed to introduce you to ways to socialize in events and activities without substances
- Recovery coaches: Trained peers mentor newer recovery members through shared experiences and supportive services
- Offer psychological, social, emotional, spiritual, employment, and financial resources
- Weekly alumni meetings: Allows you to stay connected with other community members to support social well-being
- Recovery community centers (RCCs): Typically a peer-operated local resource designed to help you build recovery capital
- Advocacy training
- Social services, employment training, skills training, and educational agencies
- Mutual help or peer-support meetings
- Social activities for peers, family, and friends
- Community involvement: Engaging in and giving back to your community supports community integration and fosters a sense of purpose
- Volunteer work
- Hiking group
- Book club
Therefore, the different services and resources offered highlight a recovery community as a valuable source of connection and, thus, healing.
The Importance of a Recovery Community for SUD
Fostering connection and community are invaluable to well-being in general. Through community, you can find your sense of belonging and build resilience to life stressors through mutual support from others. Thus, a recovery community is important to every domain of wellness on your recovery journey. Some of the ways a recovery community can help you heal from substance use disorder (SUD) and other conditions include:
- Support relapse prevention
- Foster healthy connections
- Reduce isolation in recovery
- Decrease feelings of loneliness
- Empower choices that support a recovery life
- Support building accountability and motivation
Thus, understanding the principles of community engagement can showcase the value of a recovery community as a part of your recovery.
Understanding the Core Principles of Community Engagement
According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), community engagement is the process of developing relationships that enable communities to work together to address health-related issues and promote well-being. Although community engagement can take many forms, the core principles that can be supported in a recovery community include:
- Transparency
- Trust
- Diversity
- Inclusion
- Collaboration
- Shared purpose
- Openness
- Learning
- Making a difference in the community
- Sustained engagement
Within the core principles of community engagement, you can find healing and reconciliation to support the development of meaningful and trusting relationships. Through relationships built on trust and meaning, you can support sustained recovery.
The Value of Giving Back for Sustained Recovery
A recovery community gives you the space and resources to give back to your recovery community and the community in which you live. The process of giving back through community engagement helps you find purpose and meaning for motivation to sustain recovery. Listed below are some of the ways giving back supports maintaining your recovery:
- Promotes belonging and purpose
- Builds self-esteem and self-worth
- Fosters connection with others
- Distracts from cravings or triggers
- Fosters gratitude, compassion, and empathy
- Promotes personal growth and responsibility
- Expands your perspective
The sense of fulfillment that comes with engagement in your recovery community puts the value of healing the whole of your parts at the center of sustained recovery.
Finding a Recovery Community at Driftwood Recovery
At Driftwood Recovery, we believe a strong and vibrant alumni program can support your reintegration into daily life and sustain recovery. A peer network rooted in building connections fosters a recovery community in which healing is a whole-person process. Thus, the power of community empowers you to find and build upon the strength, hope, encouragement, and accountability you need to overcome the challenges to thrive. As a result, we are committed to making resources and services like weekly meetings, milestone dinners, and peer mentorship accessible across every stage of recovery.
Difficulties with addiction often lead to conflicts that fracture your relationships. Addiction can leave you feeling lonely and isolated from others. Without a support system, sustaining recovery is more difficult. You lack those important supportive connections that cheer on your successes and uplift you through challenges. However, with a recovery community, you can find, repair, and learn how to maintain those meaningful connections. Moreover, a recovery community gives you access to support services and resources that can help you heal and reintegrate into your community. Therefore, at Driftwood Recovery, we are committed to providing a vibrant alumni program to find purpose in life and recovery. Call (512) 759-8330 to learn how you can engage in your recovery community.