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Executive Recovery Coach

Long-Term Recovery

In many cases, those with long-term sobriety continue to struggle with the trauma that was a factor in your addiction. You may also find you have feelings of malaise, of being “stuck”, or perhaps experience inexplicable anger or the inability to connect as deeply as you would like with a spouse or others. Deeper work is about shifting implicit memories and mending deep-seated feelings and beliefs that need integration into the greater whole of the personality.

To schedule an appointment, or get more information.

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The Ten-Year Mark

A number of studies in the past two decades have focused on the distinct aspects of people who have reached a state of what is referred to in the literature as ‘long-term sobriety” (individuals who have been sober for ten or more years in succession). Each of the researchers address different questions about the characteristics of long-term sobriety using different methodologies. Although premises and approaches vary, one consistent observation appears to bear out across all the research: the ten-year mark appears to be a watershed. Those who continue to work through this period and beyond continue to grow.

This process is ongoing, and while attaining and maintaining long-term sobriety is an outcome of sorts, it’s more of a milestone on a life-long journey that has no definitive endpoint.

The Need For Deeper Work

In fact, descriptions of recovery in the literature, from the long-term sober perspective, are filled with recounting of amazement, gratitude, and a powerful sense of connection to grace. If this resonates with you, as it has for me in my own work, you’ve prepared yourself for the deeper work that will bring you to an even richer and more fulfilling experience of your sobriety.

One of the benefits or outcomes of long-term 12-step work is a general dismantling of the ego defenses that can be an obstacle to getting at and engaging in this deeper work. By bringing our thinking mind, or cognitive processes, into body-felt experience, you have the opportunity to uncover and shift deeply buried feelings, changing the way you experience them but not be able to easily explain. Some of the tools we will use in this work are powerlessness, acceptance, and humility—all of which create profound leverage in advancing your work, your understanding, and your experience.

If you feel you are ready to engage in this kind of deep work, get in touch to set up a time to discuss how working together can bring you to an even more engaged level of sobriety and recovery.