Rite to Freedom Addiction Definitions and Decision Making
To ensure transparency and integrity within our residential assessment process it’s important for us to define addiction as we see it. This is not intended as a definitive definition of addiction. It is addiction as we understand it through our own experience. For us there are two main areas of potentially harmful addiction, or an addiction that the stability of our lives is dependent upon:
Chemical (taking a substance to provide a ‘hit’): alcohol, narcotics, prescriptions, etc.
Behavioural (changing our body chemistry to provide a ‘hit’): relationships, pornography, work, activity, food, love, sex, exercise etc.
In order to attend a residential you must have at least six months of chemical or behavioural ‘clean time’ from your addiction of choice.
This means being free from the abusive/addictive/dependent use of chemicals, which includes alcohol, drugs and prescriptions and the abusive use of any behavioural addiction. We require a minimum of six months because we know from experience that having some stability and sobriety in your recovery will support you to engage more effectively and safely in the work. We are very sensitive to where you are in your life and make every effort to ensure that you are ready to engage with what we are offering and support you all the way.
It’s really important that you feel grounded and stable in your recovery and that you can evidence this. R2F offers a deepening of our healing process. We all need to feel, and want you to feel, that you are ready for this next, courageous step in your recovery and life.
We welcome applications from people who identify as having chemical and behavioural addictions. Behavioural addictions are harder to define in terms of ‘clean time’. We treat each residential application on a case by case basis.
Ultimately our decision making process is based on maintaining the emotional, physical and psychological safety of everyone on site. We aim to put a group together that can support each other fully as they move into the next phase of their lives. It is a rite of passage.
We reserve the right to make exceptions to the above parameters if we see that it serves the individual and group as a whole.
We strive for the best decision for all involved. This is a complex and time-consuming process that we approach with great care and attention. And we’re human. We can make mistakes which for us are always learning opportunities. We will always be accountable and work to improve what we do, both as individuals and as an organisation. We welcome constructive, compassionate feedback.
As we often have more applications than places, if you meet our recovery criteria, our decision is based on the best potential group we can put together from all the applications. We will look for those we feel are ready and will benefit the most from the residential. It comes down to those who are the most compatible and ready for the intensity of the programme and joining the new Recovery Tribe.
If you aren’t offered a place it will be a ‘not yet’ rather than a ‘no’. We’ll offer you suggestions that may support your recovery and any future applications you may make to R2F. We really encourage you to reapply if you don’t get a place first time round.
We are on a growing, learning, healing journey together, staff and participants alike. If what we offer is right for you, your time and place will come when the time is right. Keep the faith.
With the greatest respect for your journey and recovery
The R2F team