Long Term Recovery Outcomes, and Spirituality, with Dan Stephens

How is recovery like Barbecue Sauce, and what does this have to do with 9th century Church Fathers? And what’s the deal with the first 3-5 years of recovery anyway? In today’s episode, Rhys Pasimio and Shea Layton team up to interview CSAT counselor Dan Stephens, the founder of Restored Life Counseling, and developer of the long term Recovery Outcomes research project. A traditionally held understanding within addictions recovery work is that a good, solid, successful recovery process takes 3-5 years. While many can intuitively and anecdotally say this is true, empirical research is limited…so Dan is working to supply it. Rhys, Dan, and Shea take an hour to unpack questions like what is recovery anyway? How long does it take? What are the essential priorities to address within the first three years? How is early recovery like and unlike spiritual growth?  All coming from different Christian traditions, we conceptualize addiction as coming out of deep desires that can only ultimately be fulfilled by God…but get turned towards other things, often with devastating results. We talk about how desire itself is not bad, , and many of the things we desire are good…but we desire them in wrong ways.  Shea says, “We see everything according to our cravings.” As we conceive of recovery as a whole-life transformation to be more in the likeness of Christ, Dan says we can measure sobriety success by asking, “What is the measurable participation in restoration?” Shea reflects on wisdom of the church fathers like St. Maximus the Confessor, and reminds us that, “You can’t over come [sin or addiction] just by hating it. You have to see the beauty, like Christ [would].”  We talk about how mere abstinence is a good start, but a very incomplete process. True transformation and healing happen when we struggle to attain the good and the beautiful, to find our purpose, and live our values, and fill our lives with good things, the ultimate of which is God. This podcast relies on the partnership of listeners - especially with dollars! Please visit www.patreon.com/outercircle to learn how to partner with the vision of this show! Rhys Pasimio can be found through www.patreon.com/outercircle and on instagram at @newpattrencounseling and is always happy to dialogue with listeners bringing honest questions! Dan Stephens can be found at https://restored.life/dan-stephens/. You can sign up for the Recover Outcomes Study here - https://restored.life/recovery-outcomes-study/!  Shea Layton can be found at https://thaddeusthought.com/, on Youtube at Thaddeus Creative at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7dOEppqqpE1_5u4vjNmrLA, and on various social media platforms as @jacfalcon.  Please do reach out! We’d love to hear from you!