Refuge Recovery and Recovery Dharma: What Happened?
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- Опубліковано 7 січ 2023
- Learn how Recovery Dharma was created to escape controversy surrounding its predecessor program, Refuge Recovery. In this video, I go over the history in broad strokes, then fill in the details I think are most important to people participating in Recovery Dharma.
May we all live at ease 🙏🏻
Recovery Dharma: recoverydharma.org/
Refuge Recovery: www.refugerecovery.org/
LINKS MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO
LA Mag summary of the scandal and interview with Noah Levine:
www.lamag.com/citythinkblog/n...
Jezebel articles about Noah, Refuge Recovery, and the controversy:
jezebel.com/a-murky-scandal-i...
jezebel.com/leaked-internal-r...
Jer’s interview with RR co-founder Gary Sanders about the collective creation of the book:
• History of the Refuge ...
Jer’s blog post about RR sanghas discussing the switch if Noah retook RR:
simianuprising.com/2019/06/17/...
Join statement from RR/RD about the lawsuit settlement and creation of RD:
recoverydharma.org/joint-stat...
Refcon 5 video where Noah and Amy present their cases regarding the split:
• RefCon 5: State of the...
Refuge recovery saved me and RefConX was amazing!
We carry the baggage if we choose. I appreciate the transparency of RR about what happened. We let go and move on and commit to dharma, Buddha, and more greatly the sangha!
It’s been 5 years just went to Refcon 10! It was awesome!! Noah is taking his name off the book for the 2nd edition of the refuge recovery book! I’m really grateful for my refuge recovery sahnga but I understand and respect it’s not for everyone :) all peace and love
I would like to add my personal, direct experience of both of these groups and books. I am a process addiction and relationship addiction individual. I struggled in The Refuge Recovery meetings because they were so focused on substance addiction that I often felt uncomfortable when I shared. But the joy that brought me to the room itself was the uniting of all of us as human beings who suffer by attaching just something on the healthy in order to avoid facing the suffering inherent in reality. There was a lessening of the "us against them" syndrome.
When the meeting started shifting to using the Recovery Dharma book all my discomfort dissipated. Each of us as individuals were able to focus on our personal recovery from whatever our addictive-obsessive behavior was and there was no seemingly narrow or more acceptable focus.
I am very grateful for ALL recovery, but especially Recovery Dharma🙏
I am a process guy and have been through the transition too but found no significant difference. In fact, all the local RD meetings evaporated during Covid except one on Zoom where they were never connected with the other meetings anyway. My experience is reflective of why there are so many issue specific fellowships, which of course is 12 Step and frankly how unless people have the same issue there is little interest in understanding it. I would love to see an integrative approach where people actually understand not just specific issues whether that's substance use or something else, but after exploring much of the recovery world innan area especially rich with meetings I have found it is simply unrealistic, it's just what is.
Dharma recovery has really helped me a lot! A couple years ago when I first got clean I brought it to the halfway house i was living in and the house started having a meeting once a week forllowing the guidelines in the book - we all really enjoyed it and found it spoke to us. I wish there was more of it here in CT!
I met noah while all this was happening. Along with some of his close acquaintances. It was blown way out of proportion for sure he's a good dude
I don't know or care either way at this point, but I do believe these programs should be decentralized. The RD model is just better bc of that. That is what works and what has kept AA/NA alive.
I’ve come to this video a year after it was released, but am grateful for coming across it and having the subject disentangled. I started AA just before the pandemic and had noticed a lot of similarities with Buddhism, and didn’t accept that I was the first to notice. One day at lunch, I searched a bit about the subject, and read about Refuge Recovery. I was fascinated to find something that very clearly found a lot of the same similarities that I had noticed.
At the end of lunch, I left my studio, which is next to my town’s public library. On the free giveaway book cart at the library was the RR book, right there for my taking, only 20 minutes after learning about it. The schism of RR and RD was unfolding at the time, and it made my relationship to the book difficult. Also, certain factions at my AA home group disapproved of anyone working with literature that was not AA in origin. I fully appreciate AA, and respect the process and what it has done for so many people, but i realized it wasn’t for me. I managed 1.5 years sober, and returned to drinking. I won’t go into details here, but it was worthwhile at the time, and I benefitted greatly from the experience, but i recognize it is time again to be sober. I am uncomfortable returning to AA, which is the only option where I live.
All this to say, I am looking at alternatives, and the RR book keeps presenting itself to me, and I appreciate your explanation of the relationship, the separation of the quality of the RR book from the personality of Noah, so that I can be comfortable working from that book.
"Through prayer and meditation we sought to..." but no one in AA meditates!!
Thank you, this is helpful. I'm grateful to have found Recovery Dharma! I'll just throw it out there that a lot of folks in the US can probably find Refuge Recovery at their public library if they want to read it but prefer not to buy a copy.
Hello friend Jer. Thank you for this thoughtful commentary. When I first saw your video on a Facebook page, I confess I was tempted not to watch. As you said, these were difficult times, and I've been glad to see them recede. The RR meeting I started back in 2016 or 2017 was subject to the division/confusion that was so strong at the height of it all. When it came time for our group to choose, a number of people left as it became clear that our movement was toward Recovery Dharma. I continue with RD even now and I've never looked back! ( I agree with you, however, the the RR book is really great.) I really appreciate you offering some mild-mannered clarity to all of this!
Thanks for the breakdown.
I’m not a fan of the recovery dharma book but went to a couple good meetings, and glad it exists for people.
Also, Noah is a great person and RR is beautiful.
Hi Jer. This is an excellent video. You have created great benefit by making and sharing this. RD and particularly the Out of The Mud Sangha have galvanized my recovery. As a number of people in our meetings have said, "RD showed me not only that I could get and stay sober, but actually ENJOY getting clean and sober." As a survivor of sexual assault and rape, I could not have attended RR meetings after buying the RR book and finding out about Noah. It's unfortunate that he couldn't just own up to his behavior, but to quote an overused quip, "De-nial ain't just a river in India." 😂 He certainly isn't the first, nor the last, to let the "guru" as rock star devotion go to his head and then cause great harm. The ending of your video in particular is very healing and the heart of what all of us are seeking, it is worth repeating: "may we all feel safe and loved regardless of where we find solace, may we be free from the suffering that we impose on ourselves and from the suffering that we let others inflict on us, may we be happy, may we celebrate our success and the success of others, and may we live at ease and find acceptance for all things as they are, for other people and their messiness and ourselves and our messiness."
I love Jer's meditations on zoom Recovery Dharma groups. I really can't comment about Refuge Recovery....though I have the book. I have the Recovery Dharma book. I really don't know why, but the title of RECOVERY DHARMA drew me to it. I've been going to meetings ever since. I like how it addresses many additions and cross-addictions and habits.
May All Beings Live Happily 🙏
There are a lot of things I don't like about AA, but the tradition of anonymity is crucial. What I am witnessing here is the complete opposite.
Noah became a figurehead through his own actions, which is partly what the 9th and 11th traditions are designed to avoid. When there’s a leader, and that leader messes up this badly, reckoning and accountability are necessary. Otherwise your organization rots or collapses.
Wow so disheartening about Noah. I had no idea and I just barely got over the scandal with Shambhala! These Buddhist teachers really need to get their act together. I am so over it. Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments. So appreciate your hard work and commitment to Buddhism and Recovery, Blessings 🤗.
Thanks so much for this! Here in Huntsville AL we get questions sometimes, not a lot, but this video is a great resource. And the end is the video is the best part because of the sweetness factor! Very wise words Jer! I hope you are loving Mexico City!
I just happened to stumble upon this today, really appreciate it! I was aware of some of this, but am a whole lot more informed now. Om mani padme hum.
Greatful for your effort to share your experience🙏 love RD - my personal preference💕
What an insightful video, thanks :-) Favourite part is at 18:14 😅
Thank you for this informative video
I am new to Recovery Dharma. 3 online meetings. I have done many programs. This one is what I have prayed about. I would like to know how to attend your meetings. Thank u-thank u-thank u.
Just go to recoverydharma.org and look for the meeting list. There’s hundreds of online meetings on Zoom, just click the link at the indicated time. Good luck 🙏🏻☸️
Hope you are well!
Thanks for this. ❤
I'm someone who was greatly harmed in a lifelong relationship with evangelical Christianity. I'm also a childhood abuse survivor. I literally found out about this program on Reddit yesterday and Googled it and found this video. I'm devastated. Where we can turn where there are good people? What I'm hearing is it's impossible to trust even a Buddha teacher..... Do I need people to be perfect ? No, but I need them to be good . At least have goodness they can access when dealing with other humans .... To read his quotes in LA article made my skin crawl. I hear you saying that no program is safe because it contains humans. Pretty much my experience of my childhood. So devastating. There is literally nothing for people who want to not be harmed inside of a group.... Literally nothing.
Hi L. Please rewatch the video if that’s the impression you got. I talk about how Recovery Dharma is a totally different program with a big focus on safety.
@@jerclarkedotorgok, I will. I got halfway through and was so triggered I had to stop. I'm an SA survivor trying to still believe in human goodness.
Honestly great video. Both are great if your trying to get clean.
Yeah you can NOT have a program with leaders who have special status. Duh.
The Twelve Traditions wins AGAIN.
JFC. 🤦🏻♂️
It sounds like the board wanted Noah to step away so they had him Me Too’d.
I started going to Refuge Recovery 8 years ago. My previous sponsor of 4 years ended up getting into codependency, dating ex cons, hanging out more with the NA crowd. I saw a very negative change and she was running the Refuge Recovery meeting here for years. First in person, then the venue closed then online. She just let the meeting die. I would’ve taken it over if I could. It gives me hope this is a new thing. Are they popping up everywhere? Could I run one in my city?
You can start one anywhere any time. The hard part is finding a location (e.g. a church room, yoga studio, coffee shop). We have one in ultra-conservative small town South Carolina that has been passed along from one "facilitator" to another over the past year. The person who started our meeting just printed out the meeting scripts from a Recovery Dharma website. The attendance has gone up and down, but that happens in 12 step meetings, too, so don't get discouraged if it's just you in a room meditating. If you build it, they will come. 😄
I hope you are well, wise friend. ✌️
I love the first edition of RD and I credit this program for my sobriety. I do not like the new second edition and our Sangha has considered switching to Refuge. I find some of the new verbage to be controversial and discriminatory. The second edition has truly split up and hurt the Sangha I was apart of. I don't partake in this cancel culture society we live in, and RD 2.0 is "tolerance for everyone, except for those we don't agree with."
Also as a recovering addict those books are very valuable much more effective than AA or NA imho
I'm an addictions counselor and this makes me sad. I have 12 years in recovery and I'm a wholelistic counselor I started refuge at my facilities. Even if Noah isn't good the program is.
If you want the program without the association to Noah, I can say from experience that transitioning to Recovery Dharma is painless. It’s the same system, but free and open.
Refuge Recovery book is a far better book for recovery. The Recovery dharma book is good but pales by comparison. No offense intended:-)
Opinion. We all have one - your preference is for you.
@@susieb7305 Agreed as well as a recommendation as it may be a better guide for many. Best not to narrow your path.
I concur. He said it himself in the video. The recovery dharma book is not as eye opening to me. I didn’t feel the profound eureka moments.
Just went to my first RD meeting last night and felt as if id come home. I read RR and also felt i had made a momentous discovery 🤷 i think refuge is better written but i feel more comfortable getting behind RD, at the end of the day ill do ANYTHING to stay sober... I feel similar to how i do with the bassnectar scandal, sure hes a POS but it doesnt make the music he produced any less impressive.
I’m new here and although I understand Levine’s perspective, his over zealous ‘attachment’ to the or a brand seems antithetical to both Buddhist philosophy and/or 12 step principles. I’m sure this irony was immediately…
Not sure that’s accurate. I’ll leave it at that.
it’s how we do in the great usa
Thanks or explaining this. I'd like to add, the Jezebel article is terrible "journalism" it's not a good source to site.
Thanks for that interesting video. I have a question, I don't wanna be unpolite and english is not my language. You say your pronouns are they and them. Does that mean plural? In german it would be plural, i think. So if I say something about you, do I have to say "They have" or "They has"? If it is plural, do you feel like more than one person? Sorry, I am really curios. I already heard someone else say that his pronoun is they, but I did not undestand it, because in german we don't have it. ❤ Lots of love
pronouns.org/they-them 🙏🏻
Refuge recovery was better imo