Achieving Wholeness And Lasting RecoveryAchieving Wholeness And Lasting Recovery
I Love Being Sober
Tim Westbrook and Christy Crabtree talk about how Internal Family Systems, trauma healing and spiritual alignment can support lasting recovery. The conversation focuses on seeing addictive urges as protectors, using breath work and curiosity, and finding meaning in pain without denying its weight.
50:33•30 Jun 2026
Achieving Wholeness: Parts Work, Spiritual Growth and Lasting Recovery
Episode Overview
- Addictive urges and self-sabotaging behaviours can be viewed as protective parts trying to relieve pain, rather than enemies to be fought.
- Becoming "self-led" means observing your reactions with curiosity and compassion instead of acting from wounded, reactive parts.
- Simple breath practices, such as a four-count inhale and eight-count exhale, can soothe the vagus nerve and help restore emotional balance.
- Spirituality is framed as alignment with your true nature and integrity, rather than adherence to religious dogma.
- Triggers and tormentors can be used as mentors, pointing towards deeper wounds that are ready for gentle attention and healing.
“The very thing that you feel broke you is the medicine that you likely have for yourself and to also offer to the world.”
What remarkable journeys have people faced head-on against addiction? This episode of *I Love Being Sober* brings together recovery, trauma work and spirituality in a way that speaks directly to anyone trying to heal at a deeper level than just "not drinking". Host Tim Westbrook sits down with licensed professional counsellor and spiritual guide Christy Crabtree, who shares how repressed childhood trauma and serious health challenges led her into Internal Family Systems (IFS) therapy and consciousness work.
She explains the idea that we’re made of “parts” – managers, firefighters and exiles – and how addictive behaviours are often firefighters trying to put out the unbearable emotional “fire”.
As she puts it, "The very thing that you feel broke you is the medicine that you likely have for yourself and to also offer to the world." You’ll hear Christy unpack spiritual growth without religious dogma, calling spirituality "alignment" with your true nature and integrity, and showing how trauma and nervous system dysregulation can shrink your awareness until all you can feel is pain.
As healing progresses, sensitivity and compassion for others grow, echoing the service focus of the 12th step. The episode also touches on practical tools: simple breath work to calm the vagus nerve, using curiosity instead of confrontation in relationships, and learning to be "self-led" rather than hijacked by reactive parts.
Christy offers gentle guidance to people carrying childhood sexual trauma and parents grieving the loss of a child, stressing that running from the pain is understandable, but that small, compassionate steps towards it can eventually reveal purpose and inner gifts. If you’re curious about how trauma, spirituality, and sober living can fit together into a more whole and meaningful life, this conversation might be the next piece in your puzzle.
What part of you might actually be trying to help, even if it doesn’t look that way right now?
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