Recovery isn't the destination. It became the landscape in which I learnt how to think.
Where am I?
Every Recovery Paper begins with the same question.
Not:
Where do I wish I were?
Not:
Where was I before addiction?
Not:
Where does someone else think I should be?
Simply:
Where am I now?
Everything else follows from that.
What are The Recovery Papers?
The Recovery Papers are a growing collection of practical essays exploring recovery, psychology, neuroscience, mindfulness and philosophy—not as abstract ideas, but as ways of understanding everyday life.
Although many papers begin with addiction, they are ultimately about something much broader:
How do human beings learn to orient themselves in a complicated world?
Recovery simply became the landscape where those questions first became impossible to ignore.
This is not self-help.
It isn’t therapy.
It isn’t twelve-step literature.
It isn’t academic psychology.
Nor is it motivational writing.
These papers are observations.
Working papers.
Ideas tested against real life.
Sometimes they confirm what we thought.
Sometimes they force us to think differently.
Orientation comes before change.
Most advice begins by telling us what to do.
The Recovery Papers begin somewhere else.
Before changing direction...
Before making decisions...
Before fixing anything...
First ask:
Where am I?
Without orientation, progress is mostly movement.
With orientation, even standing still can become progress.
Who is this for?
For anyone recovering from addiction.
For families trying to understand it.
For therapists and recovery professionals.
For anyone interested in psychology, philosophy and how the mind works.
Above all...
For curious people.
What you’ll find here
• Practical Recovery Papers
• Psychology and neuroscience
• Mindfulness and orientation
• Reflections from recovery work
• Original illustrations
• Ongoing conversations with readers
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