Volunteering: a cornerstone of recovery

Community service can be a valued element of a recovery lifestyle. The value of volunteering is readily apparent in the words of those whom it has assisted during recovery, as the following representative examples from clients attest:

“Volunteering helps me stay grounded in the community.”

“I was able to network and get a job.”

I learned the importance of responsibility.”

“Volunteering made me believe that I can work a full-time job.”

“By volunteering I am able to give back and feel good about myself.”

“I met new people and developed friendships that are now part of my clean and sober support.”

These statements from clients reveal that community service is a “product” that addiction counselors can “sell” to clients to help them achieve forward movement in their life and strengthen their personal recovery program. What follows is a list of selling points.

Getting one’s foot in the door

After applying for a job, a client may simply sit on his/her hands, waiting for an offer. This is more likely to happen with clients who feel drained by the idea of putting any additional effort into a job search, especially if they believe that they have run out of options. This static state is euphemistically referred to as “playing the waiting game.” As time passes, however, emotional distress and social pressures can quickly fuel the temptation to use, or to give up on further efforts at securing employment.

Volunteering helps to offset that sense of stagnation. And in many cases it helps the individual get a foot in the door at an institution broadly aligned with his/her value system—volunteering time at an animal shelter, or refereeing youth sports, or reading to children at a local library.

Although a volunteer stint hardly constitutes a silver bullet for ending unemployment, volunteering can deliver dividends by increasing one’s chances of obtaining a job. It also can help clients close an unemployment gap in their work history, build stronger employment referrals, and develop credible job references, all of which create inroads into the job market.

Bidding for personal/professional development

The demands of volunteer work simulate those found in many jobs, affording volunteers a better sense of what it actually would be like to return to work. Clients are exposed to role models for new behaviors, new ways of thinking and new ways of modulating emotions. Additional benefits include learning how to manage time properly, and prioritizing one’s personal schedule outside of treatment to accommodate a volunteer schedule.

Clients thereby learn how to adapt socially to a recovery-oriented lifestyle, in the process growing accustomed to talking with a diverse crowd of people, some of whom may never have had a history of addiction. This exposure can help clients develop a more expansive and versatile set of social skills, as well as a broader support system. This can translate into a real eye-opener for some clients in terms of illuminating the extent of personal problem areas that need to be tackled.

Volunteer settings offer the potential to address emotional and personal difficulties in completing assignments, interacting with customers and co-workers, and taking direction, all of which may have been previously overlooked. As one client put it, “being told what to do” generated emotions that triggered an urge to “act out” and use. This discovery made the client aware of the need to learn additional recovery tools, and in a volunteer setting he actively worked on this difficulty.

Personal adjustments necessitated by the accountability that comes with a volunteer position were helpful in accurately assessing the client’s ability to function within a work setting. In other words, a client can determine his/her readiness for work based on volunteer experience, using it to gauge job suitability and readiness. This process can produce a greater sense of regaining control of one’s life.

Accessing untapped potential

Volunteering can help clients explore different fields of interest to find out which one offers the most appropriate fit. It can be a low-risk trial of a variety of fields. Community service may provide a new basis for envisioning or revamping ideas about job and career possibilities.

Another effect of this is that the client may become more confident in his/her ability to work a certain job. It may even lead the client to migrate out of his/her employment comfort zone. A byproduct of taking on the risk of trying something different is that it may help discourage the client from becoming resigned to a particular line of work—usually what the client was doing before entering treatment—out of complacency, familiarity or predictability.

Overcoming internal roadblocks

Clients can overestimate their health-related impediments, to the point of considering them a life sentence of unemployment. Unhealthy self-esteem, fear of failure and other internal barriers provide additional reasons for why clients might view the labor market as inaccessible, and in turn appear unmotivated to get a job. While volunteering is certainly not a panacea for physical and emotional conditions perceived as a handicap to employment, the experience of volunteering can put to rest shortsighted expectations that otherwise might push clients away from seriously considering employment.

With less intense feelings of self-skepticism and paralyzing feelings of doubt about their job performance, clients can use community service experiences to build up a sense of pride, worth and self-efficacy. In this way, clients can rationally test their belief about their own inability to work without having to deal with all the pressures of a full-time job. Clients who have written off the idea of ever landing a job can build themselves up through volunteering, and then be slowly encouraged to consider full-time work and long-term employment.

Expanding horizons

In many cases, clients rely solely on family members or friends and acquaintances to provide them with employment. Some clients settle for dead-end job tracks devoid of a sense of meaning, value, accomplishment or reward. Other clients are plagued with a sense of “learned helplessness” after finding out that their personal referral sources have dried up, leaving them uncertain about what steps to take and how to complete them in securing employment.

In any case, receiving a job handout is generally considered less meaningful than independently doing the work, which pushes clients to regard the job as more desirable and worth holding onto.

Moreover, maintaining contact with job “connections” tied to their addiction can be a conduit to the resumption of drug use. These associations can serve to keep the craving for drug use alive.

In configuring a plan for job action, understanding the client’s passions, interests and values is where the benefits of volunteering can be leveraged. For some clients, this involves clearly explaining the benefits of volunteering, as well as creating a step-by-step plan with a clear line of sight for the client to see how volunteering constitutes a path toward eventual long-term, sustainable employment.

The net effect of expanding a client’s employment horizons through community service can reduce the likelihood of relapse, positively affect job aspirations, and break the pattern of cycling in and out of dead-end jobs that hold little potential for bringing about economic stability. Volunteering can thus further aid in the recovery process and help anchor clients to it.

Conclusion

Community service promotes a holistic recovery process, as it explicitly puts the client in a relationship with the community on a number of levels, including:

·        Giving back to and strengthening the fabric of the community.

·        Gaining knowledge and skills from experiential work.

·        Broadening a sense of community, a sober support base, and personal networks.

·        Achieving a secure foothold for stable employment at the agency where the volunteering takes place.

Community service can be an enriching experience that expands social support and improves communication, a sense of optimism and self-esteem, interpersonal skills, a sense of purpose, and a sense of valued social role and belonging to a community.^1,2,3,4,5 Volunteering can serve as a cornerstone of a client’s recovery, strengthening one’s personal recovery program.

Izaak L. Williams, a Moore Research Fellow, is a Hawaii State Certified Substance Abuse Counselor (CSAC) at Ho‘omau Ke Ola on the island of Oahu. His e-mail address is izaakw@hawaii.edu. The author would like to acknowledge a former colleague, Lorrain Burgess, for her efforts to encourage and support client involvement in volunteer activity.

References

1. Pagano ME, Zeltner BB, Jaber J, et al. Helping others and long-term sobriety: who should I help to stay sober? Alcohol Treat Q 2009 Jan;27:38-50.

2. Zemore SE, Kaskutas LA, Ammon LN. In 12-Step groups, helping helps the helper. Addiction 2004 Aug;99:1015-23.

3. Davidson L, White WL, Sells D, et al. Enabling or engaging? The role of recovery support services in addiction recovery. Alcohol Treat Q 2010;28:391-416.

4. White W. The mobilization of community resources to support long-term addiction recovery. J Subst Abuse Treat 2009 Mar;36:146-58.

5. White W, Cloud A. Recovery capital: a primer for addictions professionals. Counselor 2008;9:22-7.