Over the past 9 weeks I have been facilitating a weekly group therapy program for people recovering from addiction - drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex - often all of the above.
Going into this group I was conscious of the importance of my role in the group and the power of the language that I would use throughout the 12 week duration - I am mindful to never use words like "clean" and "dirty" when referring to people who engage in substance use or those that are in recovery.
The word "dirty" suggests that drug users are bad, grubby, unclean people - an unfair assumption and one that doesn't accurately capture the despair and chronic struggle that people in active addiction live with - even more complex when paired with a co-morbidity of mental illness and the word "dirty" is often an assumption that couldn't be further from the truth - where as the word "clean" suggests a person of good and proper character and perhaps a person above others - not a person who is fighting and clawing every fucking day of their life to not pick up and use again.
Throughout this past 9 weeks as a group we have laughed, we have cried and we have shared raw human emotions that only those in recovery and the families that support them could know.
One thing continually comes back to me as I prepare to deliver the final few sessions of this group and that is that there is a road to recovery and that above all else - that road is built on trust - a trust that is so hard to give when it has been broken along with your heart by years of lies - lies to loved ones, lies to the system and lies to oneself - but we cannot ever give up hope because that hope and that trust is what continues to pave that road to recovery that is there if you want it.
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