Understanding Addiction and
Recovery
Recovery Metaphors
Part 4
• Tonight – More Metaphors that describe
addiction and recovery
• Metaphors about growth and purifying
a) Step 4-7 – recognize that I have character
defects and garbage from my past; and if I
don’t deal with it, I won’t stay clean
b) As one gets healthy, they realize that they
can’t be a good parent or spouse unless
they get rid of things that hinder love in
their life – self-centred attitudes/actions
c) They also realize that they need to get rid
of some activities and people
1. Pruning
a) Farmer prunes 2 types of branches
i. Dead branches
• Old behaviours
ii. Sucker branches - Branches that use a
lot of resources but don’t bear any fruit
• Activities/people that take a lot of
time/energy but don’t create benefit
b) Nature’s way – storms – blows off the dead
branches; allows sunlight to get through
• Stormy circumstances can help you see
the need to get rid of some things in
your life
c) Another type of pruning - Cut roots
i. To the tree, it feels like their feet have
been knocked out from under them. It
pushes the tree to build an even stronger
foundation
ii. Roots will go deeper and thicker
d) Key point – if Recovery was smooth sailing all
the time, most of us wouldn’t grow
• As much as we don’t like them, we need
difficult times in life.
e) A similar example – tobacco
• Grows in sand but needs a time of no rain
– forces roots to push down into ground –
gets minerals it wouldn’t get otherwise
• There
will be
dry
times
2. Refining metal
a) Melt metal in fire – intense heat
b) Dross (impurities) rise to the surface
c) “Hot” times expose our impurities
3. The making of something beautiful from
something quite ugly
a) Oyster - A grain of sand – an irritant.
Oyster secretes a lubricant
b) Diamond - Intense heat and pressure
c) Note: Pressure and pain - a recurring theme
i. Complex Trauma – all pain is bad; it never
leads to anything good
ii. Healthy – some pain is bad but some is
good. All pain can lead to something good
iii. Most people don’t willingly change. They
only change when they have no other
option
d) Butterfly
• To a butterfly – cocoon; metamorphosis –
feels like death – the old way of life has to die
• Fear – death will be the end of everything.
But it leads to a better life
• Conclusion
a) Recovery = Growth, change
b) No growth or change does not equal
standing still. It equals gradually
regressing to old behaviours. This often
results in relapse
c) Growth/change can be painful. But we
need to play the tape to the end. If we
submit to the process, the end result will
always be a better life and greater beauty