ADDICTION RECOVERY COACHING: Why this model of ADDICTION Recovery is needed in Australia.

ADDICTION RECOVERY COACHING: Why this model of ADDICTION Recovery is needed in Australia.

September 2014

 Part of recovery and avoiding relapse involves gaining new life skills and having a new vision for your life. One way to work through specific issues and keep on learning and growing is to work with a Certified Recovery Coach. Sponsors in 12-step programs focus on the steps and traditions to help people stay clean and sober. Recovery coaches are not necessarily affiliated with a 12-step program and focus on the present and future in helping clients make lifestyle changes and move forward to meet their goals and increase their life satisfaction.

Recovery from any addiction requires a massive recalibration in thinking and behaviour. For years, life has been organised around using alcohol, drugs, or other addictive disorders like gambling and food addictions, sex addictions etc, to avoid feelings.  To be suddenly expected to stop and confront those feelings and all the damage left in the wake of past  destructive behaviour can be tremendously difficult. Individuals wanting to recover from addiction, need HOPE! It helps to have support from someone who is compassionate and understanding, someone who will hold you accountable, tell you the truth and support you through the process of building a new life.

Maria Pau and her team are leading experts and trainers in Coaching With Substance (CWS), a leader and pioneer in the field of Recovery Coaching in Australia. Maria and her highly trained team put you, not your challenges with drugs, at the centre of the coaching process. As the founder of the first recovery coaching training school, Pau trains people to coach the recovery process and also work with private clients seeking quality and sustained recovery from all types of addiction and other mental health and co-occurring issues.

Recovery Coaching was originally developed for people already in recovery to enjoy their lives more, because people who enjoy life are more likely to stick with recovery.  So a recovery life coach helps you find your strengths and apply them to create a better life.

Though she’s remained abstinent for many years, Pau still considers herself a woman in recovery from addiction and co-dependency. She’s used her deep and integrated understanding of change to develop the philosophical basis for her coaching program.

“Everyone asks the drinker or the drug addict, why don’t you just walk away? Can’t you see it’s hurting you?” says Pau. “What they don’t understand is that using drugs, alcohol or gambling is the only way we know to cope and it’s hard to give that up.

Recovery from addiction and co-dependency is different for every person, but traditional approaches use a one-size-fits-all acute care model: go to treatment for 30 days and then don’t use ever again.  As a Treatment Centre owner for 14 years, I can tell you most people are not able to do that. The majority relapse within the first 90 days and are sent to treatment again. That’s an expensive and ineffective approach. From my long history of addiction myself and working with hundreds of people over many years I have come to accept that people facing addiction need ongoing support, not punishment or repeated treatment.

Recovery Coaching is an excellent change agent because coaching is based on a partnership model; there’s equal power between the coach and the client and the client chooses their own goals for recovery. In dialog with the coach, the client develops recovery goals, and comes up with a plan and strategies for success. The coach is there to facilitate and support that person’s change and works with them for as long as the client wants coaching support.

Addiction Recovery coaching was birthed to provide experience-based support for individuals and families across the stages of long-term recovery – spanning pre-recovery priming, recovery initiation and stabilisation, recovery maintenance, and enhanced quality of personal and family life in long-term recovery. No other existing helping role offers that type and span of support.

It has been discovered that, when coaching approaches are introduced to recovering people looking to build and develop change in their lives, they work. This should be no surprise. It is widely accepted and known that coaching as a relationship technology and approach works when proficiently practiced. Experienced based support, the main emergence of recovery coaching has been in the peer-to-peer support environment and movement which has existed for some time in mutual-aid organisations, as well as in developing recovery communities.

 THE KEY CONCEPTS AND APPROACHES

Recovery comes from the person recovering. The key principle on which recovery coaches rest their practice is that recovery is something that is generated by the person looking for, or in recovery. This deep respect for an individual’s ability and resourcefulness in finding their own path to recovery lies at the heart of recovery coaching.

Recovery coaching is systemic. Recovery coaching recognises that recovery develops and takes place in series of relationships in a system or network. The coach works with their client to develop the client’s understanding of this system, its assets and debits and the risks it poses to their recovery.

Recovery Coaching always grounds in action and accountability. All recovery coaching sessions ground in agreed action that the client will take. The coach creates agreed accountability feedback with their client so that they have an external process by which to evaluate the consequences of actions taken, or not taken, on their own lives.

The agenda for a recovery coaching session always flows from the client.

Accessing resources. Recovery coaches can be an invaluable gateway to resources that may be practical – such as local meetings – or more general, conceptual, philosophical or educational. The emphasis is on coaching the client as they develop a relationship to and interact with these resources.

The recovery-coach relationship is consciously designed between coach and client. The emphasis is on the client’s needs and requirements. The solid and clear design of the relationship provides a strong container which, adjusted as and when the client and coach agree providing a robust and powerful place for the client to be present.

Recovery coaching is applicable across all models and approaches to recovery. As recovery coaches have no agenda other than to assist and support others to find and develop recovery, whatever that might be to the client, they work with whatever particular recovery pathway a client is developing at any given time.

Recovery Coaches are not experts in treatment nor are they offering it. Recovery coaching is an addition to the existing environment and should be seen as new combination of tools which performs a particular role and function outside of medical or therapeutic treatments but often in alliance with them.

What is its impact? People receiving recovery coaching report increased feelings of confidence in their approach to and experience of recovery, a deepening of their belief in their own existing and future capabilities and positive actions. Also reported are feelings of being respected and individuated, of not being cogs in a system or recipients of a program of treatment. There is also an increased sense of the possibility of self determination. The process and experience of being a recovery coach and receiving recovery coach training also instigates a ‘self coaching’ facility which impacts as much on the personal development of the recovery coaches as it does on the people they support.

HOW IS COACHING DIFFERENT FROM A 12 STEP SPONSOR?

Sponsors come from 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, and Gamblers Anonymous. Sponsors are not paid professionals; they benefit personally from the service they give you by staying clean and sober or abstinent themselves.

A sponsor’s job is to help their sponsee stay clean, abstinent, or sober by working through the 12 steps and using the program and fellowship effectively to stop the addictive behaviour.

Sponsors have a singleness of purpose—they stick with the steps and traditions. Often the focus is on cleaning up the past. A coach isn’t limited to using the steps and traditions and coaches don’t focus on the past. Recovery Coaching is not affiliated with any 12-step program and does not promote a particular path or way to recover. However, many recovery coaches are members of 12-step programs and have both a sponsor and a coach! A coach’s job is to challenge and support their client as they make lifestyle changes and begin to have a better quality of life.

If you or someone you love is in the grips of addiction and or co-dependency, or is in early recovery and struggling contact us TODAY PH 07 560 66315 (7days) or EMAIL info@coachingwithsubstance.org.au  

Our Website http://www.coachingwithsubstance.org.au

If you are interested in becoming a coach and part of our team call us 0403 328 311

We are Australia's leading award winning addiction treatment and rehab consultants for gambling, drugs, alcohol, sex, eating and internet addiction, along with eating behavioural disorders and co-dependency for Australasia and New Zealand.

Maria Pau is a 4x No. 1 best-selling author on the subjects of addiction and co-dependency and spiritual wellness. She is the Program Director of Coaching with Substance, the first of its kind in Australia as registered public benevolent institution, charity and not-for profit association that focuses on wellness using coaching principles of peak performance. We run a cutting edge holistic addiction treatment program and outpatient rehabilitation consultancy firm that ensures you are released from the shackles of addiction once and for all.

Primary care at CWS is personalised to treat each individual using programs that integrate mind, body and soul. CWS programs are enhanced by highly effective group coaching and therapeutic processes as well as individual coaching, spiritual insights, therapy and extensive aftercare assistance.

All clients are thoroughly assessed by a highly trained and experienced recovery coach, registered provisional psychologist, ordained Monk, mental health officer and certified naturopaths (including Ayurveda and Acupuncturist). Clients may also be referred for psychometric testing and assessment, if needed. International clients welcome.

We welcome enquiries from all English speaking people from Asia, Europe, Africa, India and South America.