“One Size Fits All” Stamped Across Your Life 🧵

Matt opens by inviting you to imagine the phrase “one size fits all” stamped across your entire existence:

• 🧩 one-size-fits-all recovery
• 💊 one-size-fits-all medical treatment
• 🥗 one-size-fits-all diet
• 🙏 one-size-fits-all spirituality
• 💞 one-size-fits-all relationships

Then we zoom out to a planet of 8 billion different nervous systems, traumas, genes, cultures, and souls — and ask what happens when we try to force everyone into a single mold. You can almost hear the seams ripping.

In addiction and recovery, this fantasy isn’t just unrealistic — it’s actively harmful. When we insist there is only one acceptable way to heal, we erase people who don’t fit, shame those who need something different, and abandon those who tried “the approved path” and still suffered.

The One-Path Recovery Doctrine ⚖️

Many of us were handed a story that sounded like this:

• If you have an addiction, there is only one way to get better.
• You must abstain from all psychoactive substances forever.
• You must work a 12-step program forever.
• You must identify as an addict or alcoholic forever.
• If you don’t, the only alternatives are jails, institutions, or death.

Matt honors that this story has saved lives — and also names that it has harmed people who couldn’t or didn’t follow it. Questioning it often meant being labeled “in denial,” “unwilling,” or even “dangerous,” especially if you suggested that medications, moderation, or spiritual use of certain substances had any place in healing.

A Different Lens on Recovery 🔍

Matt shares the story of a journalist who kicked cocaine and heroin, only to later discover that the science of addiction didn’t match the dogma he’d been taught. Research shows that many people recover:

• without formal treatment or self-help groups,
• often not by quitting instantly and forever,
• but by gradually changing their use until it no longer wrecks their lives.

Recovery, seen through this lens, is less like a one-time event and more like a process of positive change unfolding over time.

The Chicago Recovery Alliance: A Revolutionary Definition 🌈

Matt introduces the Chicago Recovery Alliance, harm reduction pioneers who offered a simple, radical definition of recovery:

“Any positive change.”

From this perspective:

• Switching from dirty to clean needles counts. 💉➡️✨
• Going from a bottle of Scotch a day to one glass counts.
• Going from daily drinking to weekends-only counts.
• Starting methadone or buprenorphine and stopping overdoses absolutely counts. 🛟

These may not be final destinations — but they’re real steps toward life, health, and possibility.

The Crucial Truth: When We Expand Our Definitions, We Save Lives ❤️‍🔥

When we only celebrate “perfect” abstinence, we invisibilize millions of people who are actively healing. They’re reducing harm, stabilizing their nervous systems, and moving their lives in a healthier direction — but their progress is dismissed because it doesn’t look pure enough.

Widening the definition of recovery does not water it down. It makes it more accurate, humane, and neurologically honest — and it reduces shame, increases hope, and saves lives.

Simple Answers to Complex Pain 🧠

Why did the one-path doctrine become so dominant? Matt points out that it offers something the human nervous system craves: certainty. If one program, one book, and one identity are “the answer,” then we don’t have to face the messy reality of individual differences.

Asking questions like “What if your trauma, genetics, culture, or spirituality are different?” is uncomfortable. The one-size narrative erases that discomfort by offering a single template — and blaming the individual if they don’t fit.

The Ego’s Favorite Addiction: Being Right 😤

When someone’s status and identity are tied to “I did it this way,” it becomes tempting to assume that their way must be the way. If another person’s path looks different — medication, moderation, non-12-step support, or spiritual practices — it can feel threatening.

Instead of getting curious, the ego wants to protect itself by judging, shaming, or dismissing the other person’s experience.

Ideological Possession: When the Tool Starts Using You 🧊

When a recovery framework becomes more important than the humans it’s supposed to serve, we’ve crossed into what Matt calls ideological possession.

The key shift is this:

• You stop asking, “Is this helping people?”
• You start asking, “Are people obeying the rules?”

At that point, the program is no longer a bridge to freedom. It becomes a gate that decides who is “in” and who is “out.”

So of Course: One-Size-Fits-All Recovery Doesn’t Work 🧨

Once you see how diversity shows up in medicine, diet, spirituality, and relationships, it becomes obvious that recovery can’t be one-size-fits-all either.

Here’s How the Machine Works 🏭

Matt explains that one reason the one-path approach still appears dominant is that massive corporate rehab centers built their business models around it. They spend millions on:

• SEO and Google ads,
• “warm” sales calls that poke your pain,
• and then run the same cookie-cutter program for nearly everyone.

When it doesn’t work, the script is, “You weren’t ready. You didn’t want it badly enough.” Then they’re happy to take you back — and bill your insurance again.

The truth: you didn’t fail. The system failed to honor your uniqueness. 💔➡️💡

Designing Your Own Path 🛤️

Matt sums it up in one line: There are many roads to freedom — and you get to design yours. Your healing might include:

• traditional 12-step plus therapy and abstinence,
• medication-assisted treatment and harm reduction,
• holistic tools like nutrient repair and somatic work,
• deep spiritual practice and life redesign,
• or some beautiful hybrid no rehab brochure could have predicted. ✨

The 5 Pillars of Strategic Recovery™ — Your Personalized Freedom Architecture 🏛️

Matt revisits the 5 Pillars and frames them as the architecture you can use to design a custom path:

• Biochemical – brain, body, nutrients, hormones, sleep, nervous system.
• Psychological – beliefs, mindset, emotional patterns, coping tools.
• Social – relationships, community, boundaries, attachment patterns.
• Environmental – surroundings, routines, triggers, cues.
• Spiritual – meaning, purpose, connection to something bigger.

There is no single “correct” combo of tools in these pillars. What matters is whether your life force is coming back online and your capacity for love, presence, and contribution is expanding. 🌟

The Common Denominators (What Almost Everyone Needs) 🔐

Even though paths differ, Matt lays out meta-rules that show up almost everywhere:

• It won’t be perfectly easy; emotional storms are part of being human. ⛈️
• It usually takes longer than you want; brains move in seasons, not 30-day sprints. 🌱
• You’ll “mess up” at least once; slips are data, not moral failure.
• Habits and routines will make or break you. 📆
• Your nervous system needs support — biologically and emotionally.
• You can’t do it entirely alone; humans heal in connection. 🤝
• Your identity and worldview will shift.
• It is worth the struggle. 💪

Deprogramming from the One-Path Matrix 🧽

Matt invites you to lovingly question any internalized messages like “If I don’t recover this one way, I’m doomed” or “My path only counts if it looks like theirs.” Deprogramming doesn’t mean you abandon what works — it means you stop treating it as the only way.

Medications & Staying Alive Long Enough to Heal 🛟

Matt addresses the myth that methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone are “just swapping addictions.” In reality, these medications are among the only treatments proven to slash overdose deaths.

People stabilized on the right dose aren’t “high all the time” — they’re able to work, parent, create, and connect without chasing the next fix. Harm reduction is not about abandoning abstinence; it’s about saying, “You deserve to stay alive long enough to heal.”

An Example: Redefining Recovery on Your Own Terms (Sara’s Story) 🌸

Matt shares the story of Sara, who drank heavily for years and didn’t resonate with 12-step or pure willpower. Instead, she:

• starts naltrexone with a doctor,
• uses harm reduction and tracks gradual progress,
• does nutrient repair and gut support,
• starts trauma therapy,
• joins a non-12-step support group,
• builds a nightly calming ritual. 🌙

Six months later she’s drinking far less, sleeping better, feeling more in control, rebuilding trust, and actually liking herself. Under old doctrine, some would say she’s “not really in recovery.” Under Strategic Recovery — and any sane human standard — she absolutely is.

Life After Addiction: You Don’t Owe Anyone a Script 📜

You don’t owe anyone a lifetime of meetings, a specific label, a perfect streak, or a rehearsed narrative about your past.

You are allowed to stop counting days if it stresses you, drop labels that no longer feel true, change your relationship with substances over time, and decide that your “recovery story” is not the central headline of your life anymore.

Addiction is something you went through — not who you are. 🌱

For People Who Love AA or NA 💙

If AA or NA saved your life and still nourishes you, nothing in this episode is meant to take that away. This is not an attack on what works — it’s an invitation to release the one-true-way mentality that keeps others from finding what works for them.

Your path is beautiful. So is the fact that other humans are wired differently.

Exercises: Designing Your Own Strategic Recovery Path ✍️

Matt invites you to journal on a few prompts:

• Which parts of the one-path narrative have I secretly internalized?
• Where have I already made “any positive change” that I haven’t given myself credit for? 🌈
• Looking at the 5 Pillars, which one needs the most love right now?
• If I could design my own path with zero shame or dogma, what would it look like?

Short Guided Reframe (You Can Close Your Eyes If It’s Safe) 🌬️

In the episode, Matt guides you through a brief visualization: imagining the “one-size-fits-all” label peeling off your chest and dissolving, while a new phrase appears over your heart: “Many roads. One soul.” You picture your path as a living, adaptable map instead of a rigid track.

Affirmations for Multi-Path Freedom 💖

Matt shares affirmations such as:

• Every positive change I make counts.
• My nervous system, history, and soul are unique — and my path can honor that.
• I release shame-based rules that were never designed for me.
• I am not a label. I am a living, evolving human being.
• There are many roads to freedom, and I am allowed to find mine.

Closing: Many Roads, One Direction 🌅

Matt closes by reminding you that while there are many different routes, they all point in the same ultimate direction: less suffering, more presence, more love, more freedom.

Recovery is not about earning purity points. It’s about reclaiming your life force, your dignity, your creativity, and your capacity to give and receive love.

You were never meant to squeeze your soul into someone else’s mold. You were meant to build a path that fits you — and to walk it with courage, curiosity, and compassion. 🚶‍♀️🚶‍♂️

If this episode resonated with you, these resources can deepen your understanding of harm reduction, “any positive change,” and the many pathways people take to lasting freedom. All links open in a new tab. ✨

• 🌈
  Chicago Recovery Alliance — Any Positive Change
  AnyPositiveChange.org

  The originators of the “any positive change” definition of recovery and pioneers in harm reduction.

• 📄
  Harm Reduction Protocol (Chicago Recovery Alliance)
  50-page Harm Reduction Protocol PDF

  A detailed look at how harm reduction is practiced on the ground — practical, compassionate, and science-informed.

• ⚖️
  Principles of Harm Reduction
  harmreduction.org/about-us/principles-of-harm-reduction

  A concise overview of the core values and principles behind harm reduction work around the world.

• 🔥
  The Dark Ages of Addiction Treatment — And the Coming Renaissance of Recovery (Ep. 23)
  getstrategicrecovery.com/dark-ages-of-addiction-treatment-renaissance-of-recovery

  A deep dive into how the current treatment system fails — and what the new paradigm of recovery can look like.

• 🌍
  The 3 Pathways of Addiction Recovery: A Complete Guide
  getstrategicrecovery.com/addiction-recovery-pathways-clinical-community-self-directed

  Strategic Recovery’s guide to clinical, community, and self-directed pathways — and how to combine them.

• 💫
  “People recover from addiction. They also go on to do good things.”
  STAT News article

  A hopeful, data-backed look at life after addiction — including purpose, contribution, and thriving.