The Best Addiction And Trauma Recovery Support Comes From Those Who Have Lived Experience!

There’s a Holistic Addiction Rehab in Melbourne called Your Recovery House that I follow on social media. The co-founder Steph Easton is a recovering drug addict and trauma survivor, and most of her staff have some form of lived experience with addiction, trauma and recovery. As a former addict and trauma survivor myself, I spent years dreaming about doing things in a better way to what the ‘system’ offers. Because I know, all too well, just how useless the system is at actually helping people!

The system is riddled with far too many people who have a ‘piece of paper’, but no actual life experience with addiction and trauma. Now, of course, I’m not saying that people who are in active addiction or trauma are in a healthy position to help others. But, I am absolutely saying that those who have healed and gotten on top of their addictions and trauma are in a far better position to truly help people over those who have nothing more than the text and theories they’ve memorised out of a book!

I’ve noticed quite a few people giving Steph a hard time on social media, asking what her qualifications are, and condemning her holistic approach. And I can guarantee you that none of those people have ever suffered with addiction or severe trauma themselves, or have had to deal first hand with a loved one going through such tribulations! Because those of us who have, already know that those who approach addiction/trauma recovery from the parameters of the current system cannot actually help addicts/trauma victims rise out of the depths of hell! The system has no idea how to do that because they have never walked that path. It’s like going to University to learn about business from a teacher who is an employee and has never actually owned a business. All they know is theory, and that theory cannot be successfully put into practice for every business, because what makes a business successful is very individualised and specific to that individual business. It can only be learnt from having an actual business! The same applies in overcoming trauma and addiction. There are certain things you can only learn by going through something yourself, and it is those ‘off script’ experiences that hold the key to true healing for others!

It honestly makes my blood boil when I see ignorant academics throw shade at someone who has literally been to hell and back, survived and is now thriving in truly helping others to do the same! I’ve copped the same sort of asinine ignorance from these types of people, and I can truly say that they are nothing short of dangerous to the mental health and well-being of those who are in active addiction/trauma! I can think of two ‘professionals’ that spoke to me in the most damaging way when I was in active addiction, and their comments tipped my already fragile mental state into further despair. Such careless comments can push people towards suicide! What made it worse was that because they had no actual lived experience, neither of them even realised just how damaging their comments  were. And that is why I say people without lived experience can be incredibly dangerous towards those in active addiction/trauma. Addicts and trauma victims need people who understand, who have walked that same path. Because only someone with lived experience can know all of the pitfalls that are mentally and emotionally challenging and down right dangerous in the fight for their survival!

I spent twenty-five years walking the path to recovery ON MY OWN, because the system has absolutely no idea how to help people like me, and I can guarantee that Steph and all of the others that have truly recovered have had to do the same. I know that me saying all of this is going to trigger the ‘professionals’, but I don’t give a shit! Their ego is not my concern! Helping others by sharing the wisdom from my lengthy and arduous journey is all I care about!

EVERYONE I know who has TRULY turned their life around has done so, not through the ‘system’ alone, but by going on their own journey through the realms of holistic and alternative options with

some (small) combination of traditional therapy. And because there have been no alternative centres in place until recent times, it was a journey we had to do on our own. Fumbling in the dark. Trying everything we possibly could took guts, determination, and a hell of a lot of trial and error. Which is why so many in addiction never make it out. They don’t have the know-how or emotional capacity to wade through all of that. That is why it is so bloody important that places like Your Recovery House, and individual coaches like me exist – to help those who don’t know how to find their way through an approach that isn’t supported by the ‘system’. Yes, I’ve got some qualifications to ‘tick’ some of the boxes, and from what I can see Steph has some staff with ‘qualifications’ as well. BUT that knowledge is NOT where the true help comes from! 

So, to those who think that having a piece of paper makes someone unequivocally qualified to help people with addiction and trauma, I ask you this: why do we have more addicts than ever before, and why is the mental health system so overrun with patients that there's a waiting list to get help thats a mile long??? Perhaps instead of condemning those with lived experience you could pull your head out of the academic astigmatic sand, and see that people with lived experience could actually enhance the knowledge and give some real context to those who have never seen past the final page on their textbooks!

#addiction #trauma #livedexperience #truehealing #holistichealing