Episode 1 - Intro

Welcome to the Recovery Arts Journal Podcast!  This is an intro to the platform and a brief summary of what to expect.  We are a community of artists and makers in recovery sharing our art, experience, strength, and hope.  We will discuss topics such as recovery stories, what has worked for us, Alcoholics Anonymous, Celebrate Recovery, Higher Power/ Jesus, Family, Community, The 12 steps, Mindfulness, and all things recovery and faith.

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Transcript

Podcast Episode 1 Transcript

Hello, welcome to episode one of the recovery arts journal podcast. My name is Steven. I will be your host. I wanted to say welcome and thank you for tuning in being our pilot episode. I did want to help you better understand what the recovery arts journal is and what our goal is behind the podcast.

First off recoveryartsjournal.com is a website where you can find tools and resources. As well as merchandise to help in your recovery. Our goal here with the recovery arts journal is the arts and community. A key in recovery is community, but it's also learning to express, uh, how we perceive the world and what we think about it and understand our feelings on the inside.

And I, myself in recovery from alcohol have found. That in addition to attending various groups, um, art has been to help aid in your recovery. There's articles there will be tutorials in the future. There are testimonies where people have come through recovery and have found the other side of it. They have found tools such as reading, writing as well as drawing or painting.

Anything in the creative realm to help in their recovery. One thing in early recovery is finding ways to fill that time, that void in the day that now exists, that would have been spent acting out in any sort of, um, addiction, hurt habit, hang-up that you might be dealing with. Um, so to fill that. Myself, having dealt with alcohol and, and being an alcoholic.

I found that drawing and wood carving has been a great way for me to fill that time it takes hours, gives me a sense of completion and satisfaction in what I create with my hands. And then when I share that with other people they feel, or they impart to me a sense of, uh, of enjoyment. Out of the work that I create and that makes me happy.

And, uh, that makes me want to create more. And that is what the recovery arts journal is about. It's about artists connecting with artists, people in recovery, connecting with other people in recovery, talking about books and drawing and painting and carving and the creative process behind everything. Uh, it could even be dance.

Anything that is really creative is what the recovery arts journal is trying to cater to. A community is very important in recovery community is this bedrock that you find in groups like AA or NA or celebrate recovery, uh, aside from just the 12 steps where we share our experience, strength and hope.

We also develop these relationships with people that we find our friends and do time, and we can call these people and we play games like chess and. The prisoner of CATAN and, and we have bonfires with these people and, and they become part of our life. And these are things that we were disconnected from in where we are trying to head or where we are heading is.

We are producing a YouTube channel and in the YouTube channel, we want to have further discussions about recovery. We want to expand into providing, um, art tutorials to help people, uh, explore their art and art as it relates to their recovery, maybe you learn how to paint from the recovery arts journal, YouTube channel, as well as rumble.

Also, we would like to expand into teaching things like writing and just having these resources available to you to help aid in your recovery. We are not a replacement for whatever your doctor recommends. We are not a medical organization. We hope to find, or to help aid you finding solutions to develop that community to further strengthen your recovery.

Now, there are many different recovery groups that I am going to ask you to. Be involved with celebrate recovery is a Christian based 12 step program. It uses the same exact 12 steps as alcoholics anonymous, narcotics anonymous, be part of whatever 12 step group you want, but you need to find that community in your life to find success in recovery.

You might be able to get sober without this community, but to find true joy and happiness and, and, uh, reformation to your life, that community is gonna help you. So I encourage you to, to seek out those groups. If that's not your flavor, you can definitely go to smart recovery. They are more of a cognitive behavioral type recovery program.

Um, there's, there's many different ways to do. And there are certain ways that work for us. And if that's not you not going to be something that works for you, there are many ways to get sober, but I'm providing a resource here. One thing that has been foundational in my recovery has been my faith. I have a very traditional faith in Jesus Christ, and I spent a long time trying to understand how to live this life.

I'm a far from perfect person, but what I did find is that prayer was answered. I did go through an experience of alcoholism and addiction to alcohol. And on the other side of that, I found a way to actually apply my Christian faith to my life through the 12 steps of alcoholic anonymous through the 12 steps of celebrate recovery.

Um, these programs did come out of the Oxford group. The Oxford group were priests, and they came up with a way to apply the faith to your life on a day to day basis. I see that as an answer to prayer for me, I don't think God made me an alcoholic, but God uses all things to his glory and I receive that.

So again, this is recovery arts journal podcast, recovery arts, journal.com. Please follow us on Facebook and on Instagram. And we hope to see you again. You've been listening to the recovery arts journal podcast brought to you by recoveryartsjournal.com. This episode has been recorded in Rochester, New York, under the Embury.

If you would like to connect with us, please do so at our website recoveryartsjournal.com or on Facebook and Instagram. Have a good day. Take a one day at a time.