We can stay in recovery through the revolution

Recovery for the Revolution is just about this: how can we start and stay on our paths of recovery, whatever they may look like for us, while we go through major shifts and transitions socially, politically, environmentally, economically, and spiritually, and how we can bring about ways of being through our recovery that free us from the systems of oppression. As we see again and again how the system disavows Black lives and gaslights us when we push back. As we are reminded that the things that are claimed to protect us, like police or our government, will not. As we wonder when the lies and oppression of this system will end.

The days, weeks, months, and years ahead are going to be filled with the shifts and challenges of the revolution being called for in the United States and the globe at large. We as individuals are going to face harsh reminders of the system as it oppresses us and rude awakenings for those who still believe this system serves more than its white capitalist overlords. We collectively are going to be reflecting on what kind of world and what kind of lives we wish to live in.

We need to be well. We must take care of ourselves. We must support each other through the shifts that are happening as we reckon with the unaddressed legacy of colonization, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy and ableism that make people feel they cannot be in this planet and numb out/potentially risk death using substances and other coping mechanisms that are damaging to ourselves and others.

We can do this, and it’s going to take more than being afraid of naming the revolution as we live through it because it could make white people in your white-centered recovery spaces uncomfortable because they’re afraid of addressing their internalized racism (particularly thinking of where people talking to white people here). It’s going to take more than the 12 step dogma that tells people in recovery, especially folks of marginalized identities that anger is unhealthy and that it’s just an excuse to drink, that the problem lies with them, while providing no support on how to reckon with the very real, continuous force of oppression in our lives and how rightful it is we feel angry, and what that anger and grief is telling us we want for our lives (check out Love and Rage by @lamarodowens for more!). This revolution we are facing is rooted in that prioritization of whiteness over the very real daily threat on Black lives and Indigenous people for centuries, and how we can no longer live in this horrid historical legacy for the good of our well-being individually and collectively.

We can do this in community, we can do this in caring for each other, we can do this by helping each other hold space for how we feel and learning how to affirm and honor that. We can do that by helping each other move through the activation in our bodies from the trauma of the forces of oppression. We can do this by sharing the resources we have and making sure that those who systematically have been kept from having resources receive them, and questioning and calling for the redistribution of the fake scarcity of resources we supposedly have on such an abundant planet because a few hoard most of the resources. We can do this in building each other up and holding space as we face the great unknown of revolution. We can do this by naming what is happening, by taking care of ourselves, by helping each other, by letting white people take on the burden of challenging the white supremacy that holds this system up. We can do this by learning about how the histories and systems of oppression live within our bodies and are being called for healing. We can do this in moving about radically differently than we have been told to do so for centuries.

We need you here. You can do this. You’re not alone, and we need your beautiful, brilliant self to be well and to be here for the beautiful world we can center in love, in ease, in healing and wellness.