I don’t know if anyone else will relate to this, but I’m going to say it anyway.
For years, I struggled to find a recovery path that actually fit. I went to 12-step groups. I tried moderation management. I tried abstinence. I even tried pretending I didn’t have a problem. Nothing really stuck—not in a way that reached the core of what was going on.
I didn’t lack willpower. I didn’t lack self-awareness. But everything I tried felt like it was managing symptoms without touching the root. And deep down, I kept circling around this quiet knowing that something essential was being missed.
Eventually, I stopped trying to force myself into someone else’s mold and started listening more deeply—to myself, to my experience, to what had always been true underneath the noise. That’s how Nondual Recovery began.
It wasn’t something I set out to create. It grew out of necessity. It came from a place of exhaustion and sincerity. I started writing about it—at first just for myself, and then for others. The book I’ve been working on, Nondual Recovery, will be finished and published later this year. But honestly, I wrote it first and foremost as a way to figure out what I needed to hear. A map I wish someone had handed me.
It helped me reshape my own path—not as a set of rules, but as a return to something I already knew but had forgotten: that I’m not broken. That healing isn’t about fixing myself. That what I was trying to escape or control was never separate from who I am.
Nondual Recovery worked for me—not because it’s a magic bullet, but because it allowed me to finally bring my recovery and my spirituality into the same room. For the first time, they weren’t at odds. I didn’t have to choose between being recovering and being whole. Between belonging and being honest. Between structure and freedom.
I know it might sound abstract or even a little woo-woo to some. A lot of folks don’t have a clue what “nondual spirituality” is all about. And when they hear that my approach marries nonduality with Integral theory, their eyebrows go up. That’s okay. I’m not trying to convert anyone. This isn’t a doctrine—it’s a living experiment. One that continues to unfold, day by day.
What I can say is this: when I stopped chasing healing and started noticing what was already here—when I saw that the feeling of separation I kept trying to soothe was never real to begin with—something shifted. Not overnight. But unmistakably.
There are still moments when I fall back into old habits, or question myself, or feel that tug of avoidance. It’s not a catastrophe; it’s just a moment in time. But now I meet those moments with more compassion, less shame. I’m learning that presence itself is healing. That I don’t need to fight my cravings or exile parts of myself to get better. I just need to see clearly. To be here.
So yeah, this is where I am. Writing a book I didn’t expect to write. Walking a path I had to invent because none of the existing ones quite fit. And feeling, for the first time in a long time, like I’m actually home.
If any of this speaks to you, you’re not alone. And maybe you don’t need to be fixed either. Maybe you just need to remember who you already are.
