Recovery as Purgatory? What? Recovery is not a good place to be? Blasphemy, you say? Perhaps. Reality? For sure.

Men - and women, too, - who come to Addiction Busters often tell me that they are in “ Recovery.” Or that they have been in recovery for two years. Maybe five. Perhaps even ten. My thought is always, “Wow. If you have been in recovery for that long, you need a new program. Yours isn’t working for you. As Dylan said it so eloquently, “ You ain’t goin’ nowhere”.

Just what is this mystical, magical, world known as Recovery? This unique place-and-time where we appear to be healing but may, in fact, be doing very little? What do we try to do here? Recover lost jobs, money, possessions, self-esteem? Rekindle relationships long extinguished? Regain solid chemical health that many of us never really possessed? To re-hone skills and tools that were never particularly sharp to begin with? I am not sure what it is we are trying to do. And therein lies the mystery of recovery.