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oldveteran · 03-29-2009, 03:33 PM

Hi: I'll try to keep this short. I've been visiting here for a few days and am really impressed at the variety of recovery ideas.

I have 19+ years clean & sober myself and am currently working in a transitional housing program with most of our residents coming out of a 28 day treatment program.

I have been going over my own experiences in recovery and observing residents recovery (I've been there 11 years) and was wondering how important "skills" has been to your recovery.

By this I mean social skills-able to talk in a small group about something other than recovery, problems solving skills-not becoming overwhelmed by one big problem or several problems to the extent that using seems like the best solution,

Also how important has it been to you to see yourself as a "human being" again. By that I guess I mean "I'm a man and can handle what comes at me and am accepted by men in the regular world as a man" (not as necessarily someone to be treated with kid gloves because of my "problem").

Have you used a mentor? not a sponsor, but say a person in the business world whom you respect and admire.

Anyway the reason I'm asking all this is that for myself I did have mentors and a few "skills" to help me in my sobriety and it was very very important to be treated equally by men in the non-recovery world because I believe addiction took away my manhood for many years. The residents I work with seem to have a pretty good grasp on a recovery program like AA/NA when they get here but I don't see a lot of coping skills. I believe that most of us have either forgotten those skills or never learned them to begin with due to poor or no role models.

What do you think? does any of this make sense to you? Would helping people in early recovery to learn some of this stuff increase their chance of survival? I believe it did for me and because our residents are "transitioning" into the community from here it seems this would be some good tools to send them out with. Comments Please.

03-29-2009, 03:33 PM	#1 (permalink)
oldveteran Member Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Walla Walla WA Posts: 3	Question for oldsters and newsters Hi: I'll try to keep this short. I've been visiting here for a few days and am really impressed at the variety of recovery ideas. I have 19+ years clean & sober myself and am currently working in a transitional housing program with most of our residents coming out of a 28 day treatment program. I have been going over my own experiences in recovery and observing residents recovery (I've been there 11 years) and was wondering how important "skills" has been to your recovery. By this I mean social skills-able to talk in a small group about something other than recovery, problems solving skills-not becoming overwhelmed by one big problem or several problems to the extent that using seems like the best solution, Also how important has it been to you to see yourself as a "human being" again. By that I guess I mean "I'm a man and can handle what comes at me and am accepted by men in the regular world as a man" (not as necessarily someone to be treated with kid gloves because of my "problem"). Have you used a mentor? not a sponsor, but say a person in the business world whom you respect and admire. Anyway the reason I'm asking all this is that for myself I did have mentors and a few "skills" to help me in my sobriety and it was very very important to be treated equally by men in the non-recovery world because I believe addiction took away my manhood for many years. The residents I work with seem to have a pretty good grasp on a recovery program like AA/NA when they get here but I don't see a lot of coping skills. I believe that most of us have either forgotten those skills or never learned them to begin with due to poor or no role models. What do you think? does any of this make sense to you? Would helping people in early recovery to learn some of this stuff increase their chance of survival? I believe it did for me and because our residents are "transitioning" into the community from here it seems this would be some good tools to send them out with. Comments Please.