What If You’re Not Broken? Exploring Conscious Recovery I Love Being Sober

Tim Westbrook and TJ Woodward dive into the power of Conscious Recovery and explore the root causes of addiction. Learn about TJ’s journey in recovery and the powerful spiritual principles he uses to help people change their false beliefs and embrace their infinite potential, instead of viewing themselves as broken people that need to be “fixed”.
Tim wouldn’t know what his life would look like in the midst of the pandemic if he weren’t clean and sober. Addiction, suicide, and mental illness is up by 600% and fewer people are coming into recovery. White collar workers are working from home while still continuing to drink, which means that they aren’t getting into the trouble they normally would and their addiction is getting worse without it being obvious. The impact of the shelter in place policies has created a secondary effect on people and we probably won’t know until this time next year what level the impact is. Being sober is the very foundation for the success that TJ Woodward has enjoyed in his life. Many people have asked TJ how he can know whether he still has a problem with addiction when he got sober at the age of 20. His answer is that he loves his life and being sober so much so having a drink wouldn’t enhance his life in any way so it’s not even a question for him. When your life is so good, it’s not worth the risk of having one drink and going down that path. As long as you continue being grateful and stay connected to other people in recovery, you will know that that life is not what you want. An extensive clinical study revealed that people who had higher levels of anxiety about Covid had higher levels of anxiety before Covid. We don’t change our habits based on what we don’t want, we change our habits based on what we do want. Recovery becomes about “what life do I want?” Whatever you put energy into grows, so if you put energy into what you don’t want, you’re putting it into the wrong place. TJ grew up in the 90’s and recalls coming into the world pretty happy, but that quickly changed into fear and wrongness which changed his worldview. He shut down at an early age, feeling damaged and broken until he discovered drugs and alcohol. One of the narratives that we hear in recovery is that someone has to hit bottom before embracing recovery. For TJ that meant feeling empty and grasping for something or someone just to feel better or feel less. At the age of 13,TJ started experimenting with drugs and alcohol, but he didn’t realize it was a problem until a couple years later. We don’t call drinking or using drugs an addiction as long as it’s working, we call it “fun.” There was no intervention for TJ. The last year of his addiction was particularly damaging internally and his sense of emptiness and disconnection pushed him further. Luckily for TJ, he had a sober friend who planted the seed in his mind that led him to his own recovery. Abusing drugs and alcohol isoften an attempt to fill a sense of emptiness, but it never works. For TJ, what he was really missing was a sense of spiritual wholeness. Relapse is often accepted as part of recovery. TJ was so disconnected that once he discovered recovery he was willing to do whatever it takes. At the time TJ got sober in 1986, the idea of treatment was becoming widespread for the first time. In the beginning, TJ didn’t know that he would be working to help others in recovery, he was in his late 30’s when he went back to school and focused on spiritual counselling, which he now brings to the people he helps. There was no classic addiction in TJ’s family. There is a common narrative that addiction is passed on and if the addiction isn’t present in your family, maybe you don’t actually have a problem. The issue is that addiction takes many forms and doesn’t always manifest as drug or alcohol abuse. TJ took on the generational trauma from his parents and internalized it. Most of the treatment in recovery focuses o