Recovery Isn't One Size Fits All

In Season 3, Episode 6 of Talking T-ea, “Recovery Isn’t One Size Fits All,” Juelz explores how recovery communities are changing and why there is no single “right” path toward a healthier life. This episode discusses the differences between sobriety, healing, and recovery; harm reduction; shame versus accountability; and the importance of building a recovery plan that meets your individual needs.

Whether your recovery includes a twelve-step program, therapy, harm reduction, medication, faith, community support, or a combination of approaches, your journey is valid. Recovery is not about comparing your progress to someone else’s—it is about making choices that move you toward healing, stability, and a better quality of life.

“Recovery is not a competition. It’s a commitment to living a healthier life.”

If you would like to share your recovery story or join Juelz for a future episode, email talkingtea.juelzpodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 1:09

Welcome back to Talking Tea. I'm your host, Jules. And today we're diving into a conversation that I've honestly been nervous to have. Not because I'm ashamed anymore, but because I know recovery can be a very emotional topic. People have strong beliefs, people have different experiences, people have found different things that saved their lives. And I want to make something clear from the very beginning. This episode is not about telling anyone they're recovering the wrong way. This is just about sharing my story. Because if my story helps even one person realize they're not alone, then it's worth having this conversation. Today's episode is called Recovery Isn't One Size Fits All. Today's episode, we're going to be talking about how recovery communities are changing, the difference between sobriety healing and recovery. Harm reduction, shame versus accountability, and building a recovery plan that actually works for you. So grab your coffee, grab your tea, and let's have this conversation. So I want to talk about recovery communities are um changing. When I first came into recovery, I honestly thought there was only one way to recover. One path, one program, one definition, one finish line. As time went on, I started meeting people from different walks of life. Some were in 12-step fellowships, some had recovery coaches, some saw therapists, some used medication-assisted treatment, some practiced harm reduction, some found healing through church, others found healing through meditation, some found fitness, school, community service, art, music, nature. The more people I met, the more I realized something. That recovery isn't becoming smaller, it's becoming actually bigger. A lot of people I find are trying to find recovery for themselves, and there are more resources than ever before. And that's beautiful because addiction doesn't look the same for everyone. You know, I've always thought, you know, to myself that us as human beings, we all have addictive personalities, and it doesn't always have to be addiction towards drugs. You know, some people have addiction towards like food, some people have addiction towards sex, some people have addictions, you know, towards relationships. So addiction doesn't always look the same for everybody, but can mean the same for what it is. So recovery probably um won't either. I don't believe every path is right for every person, but I do believe people deserve support while trying to build healthier lives. And that's just the thing about, you know, trying to build a healthier life and being in recovery and like addiction not looking the same for everybody, you know, like we all want to build healthier lives, whether we don't want to harm ourselves by having, you know, meaningless sex or by doing spending too much by going out to stores when we know we shouldn't, when we try to take control of our financial status and stabilities. Um, you know, it's just uh that addiction part is can get very messy. Sobriety versus healing versus recovery. People use these words interchangeably. For me, um, they're very different. Sobriety is about what I don't do. I don't use methamphetamine. That drug almost destroyed my life. It hurt me, it hurt people around me. It stole years from me. Choosing not to use meth, that's sobriety for me. So looking at this can mean a lot of things in a lot of ways, sobriety to people. Like I, you know, was saying that addiction part can look so different for everybody. So, you know, sobriety from not spending, you know, sobriety from not having sex, sobriety from, you know, not hurting myself. Um, I don't know. I just really think sobriety and recovery can be really universal. Healing is something deeper. So healing means learning boundaries, healing means forgiving myself, healing means working through trauma, healing means letting go of shame. Healing means understanding why I looked for escape in the first place because drugs weren't my only problem. It was my thinking, my pain, my self-hatred, my lack of boundaries. Those things existed before drugs. The drugs just became my solution. This healing uh part, you know, we really um find help in others, you know. I do believe in um, you know, recovery programs, 12-step programs, you know, having that unity and building a support network to um, you know, helping yourself to learn these things of boundaries and how to forgive yourself and like learning how to work through trauma, you know, and learning how to let go of shame is like we have to rely on others who've been through and worked through so that we can get through. And so that's very, you know, for me, thinking about recovery and thinking about healing and thinking about um sobriety, you know, like yes, I did start with a 12-step program. And yes, I did start, you know, intensely with my recovery. I was absent from everything. Um, like if you've been listening to my podcast, you know my story. So I'm almost four years um in recovery. Now I've had some relapses off my drug of choice, which is meth, a couple times. But like that intensity of recovery for me to be abstinent for the first year was really, really, really um extra component for me because you know, yes, in the past I did like drink alcohol and use. Um, for me, when I look back at that and how it's changed for me. Um, basically, you know, at that time when I was drinking, I had a drink because, oh yeah, you know, then I'm like a drink won't hurt, you know, in my mind, I'm like a drink won't hurt, but I was still trying to learn how to work through my trauma. I was still learning how to not hate myself. I was still learning how to, you know, not feel so shameful about the stuff that I did. And so that deepness I still had that I was still working on. I didn't allow myself to actually go through that by just drinking. And um, in the end, you know, I wasn't done working on myself. So it led to, you know, using the pipe, using that meth. And so, yes, in my past with drinking, I did turn to using. And so, you know, that's where that relapse came into play for me. Um, now recovery for me is the lifelong journey of becoming healthier. It's learning, it's growing, it's taking responsibility, it's building relationships, it's finding purpose, it's being honest, helping others. Um, recovery isn't just about removing drugs, it's about rebuilding a life I no longer want to escape from. So it's just like I was explaining about that, you know, in the beginning for me, intensely working this program through these 12 steps and through this abstinence. Um, for me, taking those couple drinks in that time, it was dangerous because, you know, every time that I use meth, I take my life, you know, I um take away those things that I'm I was given in my recovery. You know, I take away that employment, I take away that self-love, I take away, you know, all that stuff that I work on, that wreckage for my past, it actually like comes back and like it really is haunting um and daunting. But um this recovery, you know, finding this purpose and taking responsibility and being honest um so that I can help others. And through this 12 steps, yes, I stayed abstinent. And yes, I learned how, you know, to work through my trauma, and I'm still like working to this day. And as y'all know, you know, I'm working towards my um my journey with my psychology degree. And so, you know, just learning how to be honest and trying to find a life that's healthier with my journey, um becoming honest to people. So this is where this part for recovery for me has changed a little bit. And um now this is the hardest part of today's episode because um this is where my story became different for some people around me. When I first started, you know, the goal is to be completely abstinence, no alcohol, no marijuana, no drugs, nothing. Um, I even used marijuana briefly in the beginning because it did help me to reduce my cravings for the meth. And so this brings in that um, you know, journey of harm reduction. And this is true for some people, you know, some people use medicated assistant treatment, which is a form of harm reduction, to, you know, like get them off of the worser drugs. Eventually, I stopped using marijuana. I committed myself to working this program. I found the sponsor, I sponsored others, I worked the steps, and honestly, those steps have changed my life. You know, they taught me accountability, humility, making amends, looking honestly at myself. I will always be grateful for that. Um, like I said, I did have some relapse a couple times. Um it's important. A relapse didn't erase everything that I had learned. It didn't erase my progress, it didn't erase the work that I'd done. It was a little setback, but it wasn't the end of my story. As my recovery continued, life started changing. I went back to college, I made some friends. Sometimes we'd go seeing karaoke, sometimes we'd go out after class, I'd have one drink, then I'd go home. Nothing happened, no drug dealer, no trap house, no disappearing for days, just one drink. And then back to my normal life. That created a lot of internal conflict for me because I was still practicing, um practicing and participating in a recovery program where complete abstinence from all mind-altering substances was expected. Um, you know, and so I feel guilt, I felt guilty, I felt dishonest. Not because I wanted to deceive people, but because I didn't know where I would fit anymore. Eventually, I chose honesty. I told people, some understood, some didn't. Some relationships changed, and that hurt. Around this uh same time, I met my boyfriend and we started living life, you know, doing concerts, road trips, shows, creating memories. For years, I didn't even have a driver's license. Recovery often felt lonely because transportation was difficult, and many people understandably avoided environments where alcohol was present to protect their sobriety. So it's just like for me, it was kind of lonely and trying to still like take myself out and be with other people. But like, you know, some people, I don't know. It's just some people in their recovery, they learn how to, you know, set boundaries for themselves and like create that healthy life for themselves and know like what they can and can't or don't want to do. So I found myself like basically telling people I was feeling guilty, like I said, and um, you know, I just was honest because like I don't drink every day, I don't drink every weekend, you know, I don't drink all the time. And like for me, this program that I was connected to, yes, it gave me my life back, yes, it gave me my school, yes, it gave me my car, yes, it gave me my license, yes, it gave me the um fact to be employable, yes, it gave me uh like, you know, a life to live and uh a life to try to be more healthier for myself. But I don't know. So this is just my personal opinion for me, myself, you know, thinking inside of that and looking at that for me and myself. I went from using marijuana so that I didn't have to use my myth, finally stopping myth, because I got to the point where I didn't need the myth and I didn't need the weed. Then I went to the point where I did relapse on the myth because you know I've celebrated 30 days because hey, this girl, like only thing I know is to celebrate, right? Let's get high. Um, and so I had to learn that working from there, you know, getting a sponsor, working these 12 steps and like wanting to help others and seeing how myself is a powerful, how myself am a powerful, powerful, I can't talk, am a powerful person. And, you know, our story can help others whether we know it or not. And we just have to keep striving to do the right thing. But that like drinking because I thought I could drink, and then going back to the plug and going back to the trap and going back to the pipe, you know, and then eventually just being like, okay, I'm gonna just take this time to work on myself. Yes, it was lonely. Yes, I wanted to be loved. Yes, I was like heartbroken for my 10-year marriage. Yes, I, you know, had this other guy that I just kept like going back and forth with because like I wanted him so bad, and he was using and all he like wanted to do was use and you know, have sex. And like for me myself, going through all my addiction and like trauma with relationships, um, for me, I thought the sex was me being loved, so I had to learn all these things, and and throughout all of this, this 12-step program and these steps did help me realize that my thinking was the problem and my drinking and my um using meth was the solution. But as time went on and I stayed clean and sober, you know, I got to the year, like I said, I was employable, I became a manager. Um, I eventually wanted to do school for music. That didn't work out for me. Uh figured going through this program and through recovery, helping and working with others is something that I'm good at. So I decided to, you know, go for psychology and look into a future for counseling and um therapy for you know LGBTQ plus youth and troubled youth, and hopefully um one day start like a nonprofit and maybe my own clinic. But um starting with the college, going out drinking, having one drink, going home, going out after work with one of my work buddies, going and having a drink after closing time, going home, you know, going out with my boyfriend, going to a concert, going to a show, having a drink or two, going home, you know. Um, for me, that drink I don't need. For that drink, it's not constant. For that drink, it's not something that, you know, like is taking me out. So this is where like my recovery had changed, and being honest, I was like feeling bad because I was kind of like not telling people, and when I'd go out, I'd be like looking over my shoulder and just like kind of like feeling guilty, you know, and I'm an adult and I shouldn't have to feel guilty about you know having a drink successfully and you know, like it not taking me out or harming me or others around me. And it was really hard for me, but as I was honest and open with people and the programs and all the stuff, like I've had this um release of just like this weight. Um, because yes, this program did teach me how to live in honesty, you know, and this is the best um system for life for me now is like just openness and honesty and willingness, you know. I have to be willing to be honest with myself and others and um open-minded, you know, to try something if it's not working out for me anymore. But this part with this box I feel with this program and this, you know, um, 12 steps for me, uh it's just like, yes, it brought me to this point, and I do these 12 steps and I do this time. And I've heard it before, like, okay, I I'm one year clean now, wet, you know? And I did 12 steps now, what? And so, like, with that feeling for me uh personally, you know, like that's that I was trapped in this box. I felt like I was trapped in this box and there's no progression from there. And so I don't know. I just had to like, you know, I had to live for me and and try to move outside of that box and progress with myself. And so I'm comfortable with where I'm at now. It is a little sad and a little like it was a little sad and it was a little lonely, but I had to learn that, you know, life does progress, people progress, people change, relationships change, recovery changes, and it's not one size fits all. I found myself asking, what does recovery look like for me now? Today I don't drink every weekend, I don't drink every day, like I said. Um, and there's even some times that I don't even drink at all, to be honest. And um, if I do go to a concert, you know, I go home and like maybe I have one drink at the concert. Um for me, that has not led me back to meth. That doesn't mean it would be safe for everyone. And I would never encourage someone else to do what I do, for sure, you know, and so um everything has different trigger, everyone has different triggers, different histories, and different risk. I'm simply sharing what my own experience has been. I've also had another relapse with meth during this journey that reminded me of something very clearly. Meth is not worth it. It never solved anything, it never made life better. That experience strengthened my commitment to staying away from the drug that caused the greatest harm in my life. Today, my focus remains on not returning to methamphenamine and continuing to build a healthier life. One of the hardest parts was changing my recovery. It was losing the people. Some people believe that because my recovery looked different, I wasn't in recovery anymore. That hurt deeply. These people um I loved, people I respected, people who had helped save my life. Seasons change. Recently I found a group called Self-Discovery and Recovery, and something clicked. Nobody told me what recovery had to look like. They simply met me where I was. That meant everything. Um, one thing someone said that really stayed with me, they talked about seasons. Sometimes we plant, sometimes we harvest, sometimes we have to pull weeds, sometimes we have to let things die so healthier things can grow. I realized I'm planting new seeds, not because my old foundation disappeared, but because my life has grown. Shame says I'm a bad person. Accountability says I made a mistake. Those are very different. For a while, my shame came from hiding. Once I told the truth, the shame started disappearing. Um, it honestly gave me freedom, accountability, Isn't punishment, it's ownership. Uh, working the 12 steps, like I said, um, taught me something that I always carry. That my thinking was often the problem, and the drugs became that solution for me. Today I'm still responsible for my actions. I'm still making amends when necessary. I'm still asking, how can I leave today better than yesterday? How can I avoid causing harm? How can I become a healthier person? That's recovery to me. Building your own recovery plan. If you're listening today, I want you to know something. Recovery isn't a competition. It isn't about who has the most clean time or whose program is better. Recovery is about building a healthier life. Maybe your path is 12 steps. Maybe it's therapy. Maybe it's it's recovering coach. Maybe it's medication-assisted treatment, maybe it's faith, maybe it's something else entirely. Whatever path you choose, be honest with yourself, find accountability, find people who genuinely want you healthy, protect yourself, keep learning, and never stop growing. If you've made it this far, thank you for trusting me enough to hear my story. Whether your recovery looks like mine or nothing like mine, I truly hope you find peace. I hope you find joy. I hope you find healing because you deserve it. Recovery isn't about being perfect, it's about continuing to choose life. It's about getting back up when you fell. It's about becoming someone you're proud to look at in the mirror. Every day I wake up grateful, grateful that myth no longer controls my life. Grateful for the people who've loved me through every season. Grateful for the lessons that recovery has taught me, and grateful that I'm still becoming. Thank you for joining me on this journey. If today's episode spoke to you, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with someone who might need to hear it. And if you have your own recovery story, whether you're 12-step recovery, smart recovery, recovery dharma, harm reduction therapy, or another path, I would love to hear from you. You can always reach me at talkingt.joulespodcast at gmail.com. Remember, recovery isn't one size fits all, but hope is for everyone. Until next time. Keep becoming, keep healing. And remember, slip slow, love hard, and stay proud. I'm out.