A New Vision for Adventist Recovery Ministries

By David Sedlacek, PhD, LCSW, CFLE

Adventist Recovery Ministries (ARMin) began in 2010 when SDA Regeneration officially went under the auspices of the North American Division Health Ministries Department. Our vision was to expand the view of addiction from simply alcohol and drugs to any obsession, compulsion or addiction that had a crippling effect on human beings. This vision included multiple behavioral addictions such as food, gambling, media, sex, to name a few. Other “drugs” of choice include processes and activities that are out of balance in a person’s life. The powerful pull of addictive behaviors relative to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life” (1 John 2:16) can all be referred to as “besetting sins” or “addictions.”

From the Christian standpoint, addiction can broadly be defined as a search for God’s love that has gone astray. Ever since the sin of our first parents in the Garden of Eden, there has been a disconnection between us and God, one another, and even an internal disconnection within a person. This core longing for intimate connection has never gone away, but it has gone astray in each of us when we look at anything apart from God to meet our needs. In a very real sense, we are all addicts to something or someone.

In 2023, we began thinking more broadly by asking ourselves “what am I recovering from?” Is recovery only from addiction(s) or is it also recovery from the causes of addiction such as trauma? If the underlying pain a person experiences as the result of trauma is not healed, addictions will continue as attempts to medicate the pain related to trauma. So, Adventist Recovery Ministries partnered with the International Center for Trauma Education and Care at Andrews University to integrate trauma education and treatment into the vision of ARMin.

Trauma is a painful or life-threatening event that is outside the normal range of daily human experience. Bessel van der Kolk says trauma is specifically an event that overwhelms the central nervous system, altering the way we process and recall memories. “Trauma is not the story of something that happened back then,” he adds. “It’s the current imprint of that pain, horror, and fear living inside people.” There are “big T” traumas such as those associated with war, natural disasters, sexual abuse, or witnessing a serious accident. But there are also “small t” traumas that are not as noticeable but have great impact cumulatively such as bullying, shaming, abrupt moves, emotional or physical neglect, or unexpected losses. Some trauma is acute resulting from a single incident, while other trauma is chronic connected to prolonged abuse of some type such as living with an addicted parent.

There are varying types of trauma, including trauma experienced in one’s own home environment, trauma in the communities in which many of us live, environmental trauma, generational trauma and secondary trauma.

Household Trauma

Trauma often occurs in a person’s family of origin. Most people do not intend to harm their children but are simply living out the trauma of their own past. Types of household trauma include physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, emotional and physical neglect, being a child of divorced parents, living with domestic violence, having a mentally ill parent, living with a parent who is addicted, or having a parent in prison.

Community Trauma

Discrimination of any kind involves traumatizing the recipient of discrimination. Many persons live in neighborhoods where there are food deserts, sub-standard housing, gun violence, gang activity, and inadequate job opportunities to name a few. The experience of immigration is traumatizing for many persons who are genuinely seeking asylum from violence in their home country. They risk abuse even as they attempt to escape it. The journey to a “better life” is often filled with risk. Upon arrival at their destination, children are sometimes separated from their parents. Families are looked down upon and treated as a burden. They are often transported to places with inadequate resources to help them and prevented from working to earn a living for themselves. Community trauma occurs in most “minority” groups including those who are Black, Hispanic, Asian, and First Generation.

Environmental Trauma

The environment around us is something that we cannot control. The results of natural disasters are often very traumatic because lives can turned upside down in a minute, or loved ones lost in the process. Natural disasters are increasing in frequency and can include flooding and mudslides, wildfires and smoke, tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis, excessive heat and drought, and sea level rise.

Losing everything as the result of environmental trauma takes away a person’s sense of safety and security. Feelings and emotions can include anxiety, depression, anger, and grief.

Generational Trauma

Deuteronomy 5:9 instructs us that the iniquity of the parents is visited upon the children to the third and fourth generation. The children of Israel were enslaved for 430 years. As a result, they found it difficult to trust Moses (Exodus 6:9) and even to trust God despite the miracles He performed to deliver them from bondage in Egypt.

Modern-day slavery of any kind (racial or sexual, for example) has similar results. We have learned that victims of generational trauma have the experience of trauma wired into their brains resulting in changes to their DNA that get passed down to subsequent generations. Healing then requires that we not only look to understand our own story, but also those of our ancestors. Doing so can begin the process of healing, allowing us to not only see ourselves accurately and change any negative thinking we have about ourselves, but also to open our hearts to feelings that have been deeply buried. We can embrace the truth that sets us free (John 8:32) and develop a healthy awareness of ourselves as dearly beloved children of God (Luke 3:22).

Secondary Trauma

Those who are caregivers (pastors, chaplains, social workers, physicians, nurses, psychologists) or first responders (firefighters, police, paramedics, emergency medical technicians) can suffer what is called secondary trauma from listening to or helping those who suffer any form of primary trauma. It is important that caregivers and first responders have a safe place to debrief and process their experience of seeing or hearing about the pain suffered by others. If they do not take care of themselves, they will internalize the trauma of others, experience burnout, and cease to be of help to others.

Our New Vision: A Broader Mission

When we listened carefully to the stories of the addicts we were helping and the trauma they experienced, we felt compelled in 2024 to begin meeting other needs that often flowed from trauma and addiction. Losses need to be grieved. Frequent losses include loss of a loved one, loss of health, loss of a job, loss of a home, loss of a pet, loss of a relationship, loss of a dream, loss of identity, loss of financial stability, loss of autonomy, loss of trust, and loss of a sense of safety. Experiencing loss and learning how to grieve in healthy ways are essential to a recovery process.

Many of us have been taught to not allow ourselves to feel. When this happens, we become well developed cognitively– but poorly developed emotionally. Since our character is composed of both thoughts and feelings, we need to allow ourselves to be well-rounded by giving ourselves permission to feel all our feelings, both positive and negative. Grief is a normal response to loss, although grief that is not processed can have seriously negative effects. That is why the decision was made to include a grief program called SEASONS under the umbrella of Adventist Recovery Ministries.

Sadly, far too many people who struggle with trauma, addiction, and unresolved grief take the unfortunate step of attempting suicide. And too many of them succeed. Because of this, Adventist Recovery Ministries, in conjunction with the Center for Trauma Education and Care is teaming up with Soul Shop, a state-of-the-art suicide prevention education program with a Christian perspective, to minister to those who are contemplating suicide. Services for family members of those who have chosen suicide will also be made available.

Our goal has been to provide comprehensive Christ-centered services so that we heed the mission in Luke 4:18 to which we are called as Jesus was “the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, and he has anointed me to be hope for the poor, healing for the brokenhearted, and new eyes for the blind, and to preach to prisoners, ‘You are set free!’ I have come to share the message of Jubilee, for the time of God’s great acceptance has begun” (TPT). We want to serve the members of our beloved church and beyond by making our churches safe places of growth and healing for those who have suffered from the effects of sin – for ALL OF US! None are exempt from sin’s effects, but all are covered by Jesus’ blood if we open ourselves to receive it.