Addiction Treatment vs Personal Recovery: Is there a difference?Addiction Treatment vs Personal Recovery: Is there a difference?
I Love Being Sober
Tim Westbrook and Rick Hubbard talk about Rick’s path from financial success and collapse into long-term sobriety and a career in behavioural health. The conversation focuses on why addiction treatment work differs from personal recovery and how clear boundaries and ongoing spiritual growth support a stable sober life.
1:06:02•10 Jul 2020
Drawing the Line Between Addiction Treatment and Personal Recovery
Episode Overview
- Working in addiction treatment is not a substitute for maintaining a personal recovery programme.
- Humbling, simple work and time in sober living can provide a strong foundation for long-term sobriety.
- Clear boundaries between professional roles and recovery fellowships help avoid blurring treatment with personal service work.
- Co-occurring conditions and complex family histories often require more than just 12-step support within treatment settings.
- Covid-19 and isolation have increased anxiety and substance use, making intentional spiritual and social connection even more important.
“"My work on the other hand is not fulfilling the need that I have in my personal recovery. It does not. I can live under the illusion that it does, but it does not."”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between host Tim Westbrook and guest Rick Hubbard pulls that question apart by looking closely at the gap between addiction treatment and personal recovery. You’ll hear Rick trace his path from successful banker with "a house on the golf course, country club membership" to being "on my knees, homeless, hopeless, helpless" at 45.
Treatment gets him clean the first time, but he’s quickly back "off to the races" until a second stay in rehab and a firm warning from the district attorney – "you get this right or you’re going to prison" – finally push him into long-term sobriety. From there, the episode focuses on Rick’s transition into behavioural health work and why he believes treatment work and recovery work must be kept separate.
He explains that sharing his experience, strength and hope at work "is not my recovery" and warns that many well-meaning professionals "forget about their own personal condition" when they assume their job replaces a personal programme.
Tim and Rick talk about simple, humbling work as a powerful foundation – including Rick "finding God in a ditch in Abilene, Texas" while digging holes for $5.15 an hour – and how that kind of reset can help people build a new life without trying to be "the king of the world" straight away.
The episode also touches on Covid-19, isolation, and the strain on both treatment systems and individual recovery, with Rick describing a month of strict distancing from his Covid-positive wife and being forced "to go inward" and deepen his spiritual practice. Anyone working in treatment or building a sober life will get plenty to reflect on here, especially around keeping recovery personal rather than confusing it with a job. How clearly are you drawing that line in your own life?
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