Achieving Real Recovery Through Faith

Achieving Real Recovery Through Faith

What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol? This conversation between Tim Westbrook and Dr. Don Middleton puts faith, medicine, and hard-won experience centre stage for anyone wrestling with addiction and self-worth. Dr. Middleton, an addiction physician with more than 30 years in family medicine and 11 years in recovery himself, talks frankly about surrender, shame, and the illusion of control.

He shares how his drinking led to turning himself in as an impaired physician and spending five years under strict monitoring, which he now compares to bowling with bumpers: intrusive at first, then simply part of the path that keeps you out of the gutter. You’ll hear him describe alcohol not as "the problem" but as "my really crummy answer to my problem", stressing the need to find healthier medicine: prayer, meditation, self-care, and serving others.

Service is a recurring theme; his sponsees know they’ll be asked, "Who’d you serve today?" whenever they’re struggling. Faith runs throughout the discussion, especially around his book and programme, *The Dunamis Effect: When Your Higher Power Is Jesus*. He explains "dunamis" as potential power and argues that churches, doctors, and counsellors all have a role in supporting recovery through a bio-psycho-social-spiritual approach.

There’s practical talk too: morning routines, the dangers of modern cannabis and fentanyl, medication-assisted treatment, and why physical health, hormones, sleep and nutrition matter for long-term sobriety. Relapse is framed as part of disease, not a moral failure, with emphasis on learning from it rather than drowning in shame. Perhaps the most moving moments come when Dr. Middleton tackles worthiness head-on: "You’re worthy.

You just don’t agree with it yet." If you’re curious how faith, structure, and genuine humility can support real recovery, this episode might be exactly what you need to hear today.