Support is the second stage of recovery. The truth of course is, Support is so necessary for sustaining Abstinence that, these two stages of recovery are practically simultaneous. Support on the Recovery Pyramid corresponds to the Safety and Shelter Needs on Maslows Pyramid. In recovery these needs are called Support. Long-term Abstinence without Support is extremely unlikely, in fact it is virtually impossible to remain substance free without some support system. Support systems vary widely in intensity and frequency. Early Abstinence is a time for more Support.
Support needs can vary a great deal. Some people may need an initial Support system which includes around the clock medical observation. This is rare but, using a residential substance treatment program as an initial Support system is pretty common these days. The rule is it is far better to have too much Support as opposed to not enough. Not having enough Support after all can be fatal! Halfway houses are Support. These examples are temporary Support. No one is going spend the rest of her life under medical observation. No one is going to live out his days in a residential treatment center. The same goes for living in a halfway house, nobody does that forever! Long-term Support is essential but such intense Support systems as the preceding are not practical lifelong answers to this need.
Guys like me (Counselors or Therapists) typically recommend AA and NA as Support. We do this for a number of pretty good reasons. For one thing AA and NA are ubiquitous, if you need a meeting most likely you can find one. Major cities have thousands of meetings each week, small cities have dozens, and even small towns will support one or meetings on a regular basis. Another reason we recommend AA and NA is these are Support systems that know how to actually be supportive. It would be great if family members and our old running buddies could be a Support system. They cannot. The reason they cannot is they do not know how to be supportive, they are great at enabling but no good at all as a Support system. The final reason for using AA and NA as Support is they are probably going to be essential to meeting the needs on the upper levels of the Hierarchy of Recovery. Therefore it makes sense to use them as Support, after all you are going to wind up using them anyway.
Recall that the first two levels on Maslows Pyramid encompassed the survival needs. The first two levels on the Recovery Pyramid encompass the needs which must be met in order for recovery to survive. Most people do not want to live at the level of mere survival, they want more. Just surviving kind of sucks! It is the same with recovery. Survival level recovery kind of sucks too! Don't settle for it. Your recovery deserves to be on a loftier level. We'll look at the first of these higher level recovery needs next time.
Russell P. Mai, LCDC, AAC
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