Please welcome TJ Woodward, who shares his recovery story and what has been helpful to him.
Please introduce yourself to those who don’t know you. What made you decide to work in the addiction field?
Thank you, Cathy. I am in recovery myself. I ended up getting sober pretty young, 54 days before my 21st birthday, ironically. That took me on a path of my awakening, my journey toward reconnecting with myself.
I’ve been working in the addiction treatment field for a decade, offering spiritual care. For me, it is a perfect blending of the spiritual path that I’ve experienced. I also use those principles and methods to help people break their addictive cycle. The answer is that at some point, I knew it was my calling to help other people because of my transformation.
I love your line, “For me, drugs and alcohol were a brilliant strategy that worked well–until they stopped serving me.” Can you share what drove you to use drugs and alcohol and what motivated you to seek recovery?
You’re touching on the fundamental part of conscious recovery. That is, I look at drug or alcohol use not as a problem, but as a solution or a strategy to something that feels broken within. In my own life, that was what I was experiencing, so much disconnection.
I remember when I was a young child and being so open-hearted, so in awe of the world, so connected with myself and others. Then, around the age of seven, I remember a sense of closing off, of shutting down, as if I were building a wall around my heart.
I walked around that way from seven until 13 or 14 when I discovered drugs and alcohol. It helped me at the time. It helped bring some relief, which allowed me to feel kind of comfortable in my own skin.
The issue, of course, is that it’s not a long-term solution. It was a very short-term solution. Then it started causing problems in my life. So that’s the reason that I view addiction through the lens of a solution.
For one thing, it’s much more empowering if someone can get to the place where they recognize, wow, alcohol or drugs is something that did work for a period of time, but now it isn’t serving me so well. That is more empowering. We can start asking: if it’s not working well, what are some of our other options?
You state in Conscious Recovery, “You want to shift your addictive behavior, but you don’t believe you are powerless over it; you don’t want to call yourself an addict, and you don’t understand the need to.”
Please explain your philosophy on how a spiritual approach can help a person break free from addictive behavior. How can people find recovery through other options?
There’s a lot of focus in the addiction treatment and recovery world on looking for what’s broken. I come in with a slightly different approach. That is the spiritual approach. Rather than looking at what’s broken, can we find that spiritual wholeness that’s underneath?
A lot of times, what’s driving addictive behavior is unresolved trauma. There is a sense of spiritual disconnection and shame. Some of the modalities of treatment end up adding more shame because we’re looking at the person as broken in some way.
I don’t intend conscious recovery to be a stand on its own method. It is something that can help people add to whatever they’re already doing. I recognize there is a physical aspect of addiction and recovery, as well as mental and emotional.
I’m offering this other possibility here. The reason that I wrote that in the book is because I have worked with so many people, especially younger people, who don’t want to identify. They don’t want to label themselves as an addict or alcoholic. They feel labeling themselves brings more shame. We can look at it more through the lens of it being a strategy that’s no longer working.
This gives the person more power. It’s a different approach to not viewing ourselves as powerless. What happens when we start to embrace our power? What happens when we look at addiction as a kind of low-level search for connection or love?
We can recognize that alcohol and drugs are not serving the person. If they can get to that for themselves, then we can start looking at what it would take to break free from relying on outside solutions.
Can you explain how trauma and the fight or flight response play a role in addiction? What message do you have for those using substances to help them cope with trauma in a better way?
Absolutely. It helps to look at a broader definition of trauma. We tend to think of it as something like the loss of a parent, being in a car accident, or physical or sexual abuse. And that, of course, is trauma.
There’s also a broader definition. Do we come into this world as what I call a spiritual being? Young children are still very in touch with their emotions. They’re very present. They still can feel very deeply and allow that to pass through them.
We get taught things that are counter to our spiritual wholeness. This could include competition, scarcity, or not feeling good enough. Don Miguel Ruiz, in his book, The Four Agreements, called those events the domestication of the human. I love that because when we domesticate a horse, we call it “breaking” them or “breaking their spirit”.
What we know about trauma is that it gets locked in the body. Young people, especially, don’t always have the tools or support to have an authentic place to share how their experiences impacted them. What ends up happening is that there’s a fight-or-flight response. There’s also a freeze response.
I find that one actually to be so common, especially in younger people, not knowing what to do with the trauma. It ends up getting buried and internalized. As a young person, they end up taking on an identity that there must be something wrong with them.
Often, a young person will blame themselves for the trauma. We hear over and over again that there are children and young people who believe it’s their fault their parents got divorced. They might then bring about a sense of brokenness or shame.
Those who are walking around with that kind of shame, that kind of disconnection, ultimately are going to try to find something to bring relief. As we work through the trauma, we create a safe space for authentic sharing. We can begin to dislodge that and then not need some external experience to bring relief.
If a parent walked up to ask for your advice to help their child and you only had a few minutes to give them your best tip, what would it be?
What happens so often is that what’s driving the addictive behavior is the disconnection, the trauma, and the shame. What we know about shame is that it thrives in silence and secrecy. Often, parents may not want to re-experience those feelings themselves. There’s an idea, well, you know, she seems better.
He seems like he’s worked through it. Why would I bring it up? Why would I re-traumatize? The number one thing is a safe container, a place for your child to be able to be authentic. If it’s a counselor, if it’s a support group, ultimately, the way we work with shame is we create a safe space to begin to talk about what the person who has an addiction is experiencing.
That may or may not be the parent. Sometimes it’s about recognizing that as a parent. Maybe you’re not the person who can reach your young person at this point.
Bring in support. Bring in a counselor that the young person can trust. I remember in my own life, when I was in my addiction from age 13 to 20, I wasn’t very open to talking with my parents.
I did have some people in my life that I trusted. I was able to open up to them. One helpful tip would be to bring in some support for the young person. Bring in someone they can relate to. The key here is for them to have a safe place to open up and process what’s happened.
TJ Woodward is a revolutionary recovery specialist, bestselling author, inspirational speaker, and awakening coach who has helped countless people through his simple yet powerful teachings. He has offered spiritual care at top-tier, high-end treatment programs for over a decade and has created full-scale spiritual care programs at several treatment facilities.
TJ is the creator of The Conscious Recovery MethodTM, which is a groundbreaking and effective approach to viewing and treating addiction. He also serves as the senior minister and spiritual director of Agape Bay Area in Oakland, which is the first satellite community of The Agape International Spiritual Center in LA.
TJ published his first book, Conscious BEING: Awakening to Your True Nature, in 2015, and his second, Conscious Recovery: A Fresh Perspective on Addiction, in December 2017. Additionally, he is the creator and host of the Awakened Living TV and Awakened Living Radio shows. Learn more about TJ at www.tjwoodward.com.
Image by John Westrock
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