Integrity Recovery
Integrity Recovery™, was born out of the realization, for its authors, that many people can put down the bottle or quit taking drugs or stop gambling for a while, especially if they are in trouble at home or with the law, but for an individual to truly embrace a recovery from a dependency they must learn to reclaim their integrity as an individual. Integrity means soundness or wholeness. To recover integrity, is to become sound again, to get well across the ten levels of integrity in body, mind, and spirit.
Integrity Recovery™ is the cornerstone curriculum of the treatment approach we use to work with clients experiencing any form of addiction, as well as issues of depression, anxiety, anger, grief, relationship difficulties, or just those desiring personal self-growth.
Integrity is defined as being "whole," "sound" or "a sense of balance." Integrity is lost within an individual when key aspects of the self - body, mind, or spirit - are out of balance and become disconnected or un-integrated within the individual's awareness. This can happen at any point in life. Lack of integrity or loss of integrity is often the result of coping habits we get into in response to simple day-to-day stressors. But it can be more pronounced when early life experiences result in our developing coping habits that include alcohol or drug abuse or gambling, defense mechanisms to cope with any kind of abuse or trauma (including emotional), abandonment or neglect, or lack of good parenting.
We view a return to integrity as being essential for recovery from addiction or from the results of negative life stressors. We use a structured curriculum in the form of an Integrity Recovery™ Workbook to guide our clients through 10 levels of increasingly meaningful work to bring them back into connection with all aspects of themselves.
The 10 levels include: 1. Awareness; 2. Honesty; 3. Shifting Reality; 4. Reflection; 5. Courage; 6. Action; 7. Forgiveness; 8. Authenticity; 9. Connection; and finally 10. Integrity.
This work allows each client to regain a meaningful sense of integrity or balance (as well as self-respect.) By focusing on body, mind, and spirit across each of the ten levels, and by both receiving and providing compassionate support in a group or individual setting, our clients gain a balanced sense of wellness and overall resiliency.
Simply put, "anybody can fake it for a while," but "to make it,"
means developing integrity, overall soundness as a person.
We recognize, as agents of behavioral change, that recovery is a developmental process.
Recovery happens in fits and starts
Fundamental change, then, means commitment and a safe context, where fundamental processes, such as becoming honest, changing thinking patterns, and committing to emerging levels of recovery can take place. Integrity Recovery™ is grounded in the research of cognitive-behavioral theory and treatment showing that individuals in treatment, particularly for addiction, anxiety, and depressive disorders respond well to this form of treatment intervention. (SAMHSA 2005).
The ten levels that clients must pass through are: Awareness, Honesty, Shifting Reality, Authenticity, Commitment, Action, Reflection, Connection, Forgiveness, and Integrity.
The Integrity Recovery™ Curriculum is designed to be completed in one year. Clients are issued Integrity Recovery Workbooks, have assignments between meetings, and are judged by their peers in order to progress through the levels of integrity in a Rite of Passage exercise. The length of the curriculum encourages the client to stay with their treatment program even after they graduate from the program.
Available in English, currently in its second edition, Integrity Recovery is authored by Daniel Blackwood and Jerry Rooney, with guidance from the staff of The Evolution Group, Inc. as well as input from many others including past clients.
A new Spanish oral tradition version of Integrity Recovery, "Sanidad," is available now. Another new edition, "Walking with Integrity" for the Native American population is due out soon.
Integrity Recovery™ Groups are structured for clients who are working with this written material and to provide opportunity for them to present Rite of Passages in a therapeutic environment.
