Transformative Recovery Therapy (TRT) by Steven Gledhill for Freedom from ‘Me’dom Project
INTRODUCTION
“One of the most clinically significant breakthroughs in the modern addictions field is the recognition and legitimization of multiple pathways of long-term recovery from severe alcohol and other drug problems. These pathways can be broadly categorized into religious, spiritual, and secular frameworks of problem resolution. Interest is increasing in explicitly religious frameworks of recovery, due to the dramatic growth of recovery ministries and President (George W.) Bush’s recently implemented Access to Recovery (ATR) program.” William L. White, MA, author of “Slaying the Dragon”, and David Whiters, MSW
Transformative Recovery Therapy (TRT) is the commitment to resolving the either/or discussion regarding clinical and spiritually driven modalities for treating addictive behavior. TRT is a both/and approach, bringing together core twelve-step principles and proven cognitive behavioral principles from an unapologetically Christ-centered Biblical approach. TRT is the treatment modality developed and used by Steve Gledhill, CADC, and Recovery Therapy Counselor at Heritage Counseling Center (HCC) in Plainfield, Illinois. TRT at HCC occurs in the context of groups, individual, couples and family sessions. The recovery clients receiving at least ten ours of TRT at HCC are showing a retention rate consistently over 80 percent. Successful recovery is defined by respondents declaring that they are not currently actively participating in problematic addictive behavior and are actively engaged in a discipline of recovery.
What is Transformative Recovery Therapy (TRT)?
TRT resembles the twelve-step model of recovery in that it places its emphasis on the first three of the twelve steps. TRT refers to an ABC approach to these first three steps as an acronym for ADMIT, BELIEVE and COMMIT. The core principles of TRT are as follows:
A = Admit I am powerless to recover from self-centered thinking and behavior on my own
B = Believe that God (Jesus Christ) is in authority empowering my recovery
C = Commit my life to the will and authority of God to empower my recovery
TRT resembles a cognitive-behavioral therapeutic (CBT) since it has as its objective a transformative approach to changing how we think, and what we want. Until we change our basic intentions, it will be an unending struggle—one in which we will so often lose—to maintain recovery from addictive thinking that invariably leads to addictive behavior.
It is imperative that the Transformative Recovery therapist explore in group and/or individual sessions the means by which clients (patients) have developed distorted values and irrational belief systems as a result of past behaviors and experiences influencing thoughts, feelings and attitudes. These distorted values from irrational beliefs then influence, perhaps even control, addictive behaviors that result in undesirable consequences that in turn influence the distortion of values and irrational beliefs. In this sense, TRT incorporates Rational-Emotive Behavioral Therapy (REBT, Albert Ellis, 1959) principles as fundamental to its implementation. TRT explores how perceptions and beliefs that clients have about God and spirituality have been influenced by life experiences and consequences of behavior—there’s and the behavior of others who have impacted them over time.
Like most treatment modalities, TRT uses motivational interviewing (W. Miller, S. Rollnick, 1999) techniques to facilitate the movement of clients through the stages of change (J. Prochaska, 1977). The ABC steps to an authentic lifestyle of recovery necessitate that clients move from pre-contemplative and contemplative stages of change when they enter therapy, through the determination and action stages of change. It is the transition from determination to the action stage of change when clients progress from an attitude of, “I’m committed to the process, but what will it take?” into the attitude of “I’m committed and doing recovery, whatever it takes!”
Secularization of the Twelve-Step Model
It is generally acknowledged that the twelve-step movement is probably the most accepted and practiced form of treatment/support for addictive and compulsive patterns of behavior. The issue to be considered is that the twelve steps have become so secularized that it has neutralized its effectiveness. Programs and groups that claim to be twelve-step groups are committed to an idea of God as a secularized higher power under the banner of spirituality, but are not committed to the person of God. Therefore, if this so-called second step “power greater than myself” is based on an idea of God, then the idea is in one’s head, one’s imagination, and there is no more power than that which one can muster on his own. If one’s higher power is in the person of God, then the same God that created the universe and life, and perhaps can even raise the dead, is at work in one’s recovery.
Transformative Recovery Therapy returns to the Biblical roots of each of the twelve steps with its focus on the first three steps. Rather than some generic “creation” of a higher power, or of a generic “God” as one’s higher power according to one’s understanding, TRT identifies God as the only higher power greater than the power of those in need of recovery.
Secular 12-step treatment organizations and support groups may speak highly of spirituality but how is spirituality actually defined within the context of their therapeutic dynamic and application? The tendency is to define spirituality as human spirituality. Perhaps it is the spirit of the God within each human being that becomes the recovering person’s higher power as it is in some way activated. Is it the same God, or is it a different God for each recovering person? How is this “God”, or god, activated? Who activates this higher power? How does one know when it’s been activated? When and why was it deactivated to begin with?
TRT at its core identifies God as the person of God in the Bible. TRT identifies God in the person of the resurrected Christ. It adheres to the belief that Jesus Christ, as God, laid down his position and function as God, became a human being with a flawed human nature, was tempted by human desire to think and behave out of self-centered intentions for 33 years, ministered to the Jewish people for three years, was accused of blasphemy having claimed to be the Son of God, suffered a brutal death crucified on a cross, and arose from the dead on the third day just as he said he would. TRT also stipulates that the Spirit of God is in relationship with anyone who desires such a relationship, to empower recovering people to a new life of peace and stability.
While the secularized spirituality occurring in much of today’s addiction treatment is a contradiction in terms, spirituality rooted in a relationship with God is authentically spiritual. It is much less difficult, and much more sensible, to have faith in the person of the living God (Jesus Christ) with all power and authority than it is to consider faith in what merely is an idea of what God might be, according to one’s subjective understanding, or creation, of his “God”. It is not until one truly comes to believe in God as the authentic higher power that it is even worth it to admit that one’s methods to overcoming addiction and overall dissatisfaction are not working. It is not until the recovering person comes to believe in all that is the person of God that he can commit to recovery in the will and care of God. Otherwise, how do the twelve steps make much sense?
