The Many R’s of Recovery

Written by:

By David Anderson, Ph.D., Former Executive Director at The Meadows

We experienced yet another heart-warming Patient Commencement Celebration last Wednesday morning, as seven soon-to-be-leaving patients expressed their thanks and appreciation to the Meadows staff, the community and their peers for helping them along their journey through life-saving treatment, recovery and transformation.

At the end of the commencement, as we always do, we formed a big circle, observed a few moments of quiet Reflection, and then said The Serenity Prayer. At the end of the prayer, as we always do, each patient and staff member extended his or her right foot and Repeated loudly, “R, R, R!”

As we were walking out I overheard a couple of newer people who were in the audience say “I have no idea what R! R! R! means!”

The Building Blocks of Recovery

Well, for those wondering, the letters stand for Reality, Respect, and Responsibility—three crucially important building blocks of true Recovery (and all in keeping with our underlying Meadows Model).

These are three great “R” words.

But we have other “R” words, too:

Reality.
Respect.
Responsibility.
Recovery.
Revelation.
Resiliency.
Renew.
Regulation.
Reflection.
Realization.
Repetition.
Rites of passage (like commencements and graduations)

On the coins that we provide to graduating members of our military, in addition to Recovery, we have three more R words: Reveal, Resiliency, and Renew.

And if you spend any time in our Brain Center, you soon come to Realize that a basic component of our Meadows program is nervous system Regulation.

Each of these “R” words comes with a story, a commitment, and a history here at The Meadows; each are worked into the warp and weave of our programming.

And here are even more: as we head into the three major months of summer, many of us will be taking vacations and Recharging and Recreating.

So the next time you need to Refresh or Recommit to Recovery, do the Meadows hokey-pokey, put your right foot out, and say, “R! R! R!”

Happy Summer,
Happy Recharging,
R! R! R!

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