S3 E2: Jim Corrington on Spirituality In Recovery

Executive Director of Outpatient Services at Meadows Behavioral Healthcare Jim Corrington has 36 years of sobriety, and it’s that personal connection paired with more than three decades of professional experience that make him an expert in the field of addiction and recovery. During graduate school, Corrington wanted to dive deeper into 12-Step terminology and ask, “What is the difference between somebody who gets well and somebody who doesn’t?” Today, his work centers on helping people find unique, tailor-made “recipes” for sobriety, giving them a better chance of reaching their recovery goals.

Podcast Transcript

Jim Corrington
So whether it’s through a religious organization or through a 12 step program, there’s human beings who are effectively helping each other, to get through life in a way that actually works. Be honest, have an open mind and be willing to follow some suggestions and life will get better than you can possibly match.

David Condos
Welcome to Beyond Theory, a podcast powered by Meadows Behavioral Healthcare. That brings you in depth conversations from the frontlines of mental health and addiction recovery. I’m Davey Condos. Building a life and recovery from addiction looks different for each individual. And each person’s path calls for a unique mix of therapy, skills, training and community support. So how does Meadows Outpatient Director, Jim Corrington help people find the recipe for recovery, that’ll make a difference for them? Let’s get out of the abstract and see how this applies in the real world. It’s time to go beyond theory.

Jim Corrington
Hello, I’m Jim Corrington. I’m the executive director of Outpatient Services for Meadows Behavioral Healthcare. And I’m very pleased to be here today with you.

David Condos
Yeah, thank you for being here. Jim. It’s great to have you. So let’s start with you telling your story kind of introducing us to you your journey. I know you have a recovery story yourself. Sure. So let’s take it from there.

Jim Corrington
Thank you. So I’m fortunate enough to be in long term successful recovery myself personally. And that’s eventually what led me into this profession. I was a baseball player. And then I was in the restaurant business. And then I got clean and sober. I was invited by a judge to go to 12 step programs. And I went, and that was a got in recovery on November 1, 1984. So coming up on 35 years in long term, successful recovery one day at a time. And about a year in recovery, I realized I had been in my own counseling, individual therapy. And I realized that I wanted to change careers. And so I went to the reserve, Maryland School of Social Work, got a master’s degree in social work. And I’ve been in the outpatient behavioral health field for the last coming up on 34 years or so. So it’s been an exciting run, have been 1000s of 12 step meetings, and I’ve been able to enjoy the company of many people who are also in successful recovery, and personally and professionally. And so it’s been quite a journey. I really enjoyed it.

David Condos
Yeah, yeah. Well, that’s great. Congratulations on all those years for sure. So I know you’ve spoken and written some about the intersection of spirituality and recovery, what what role does that play for you kind of kind of what does that look like?

Jim Corrington
So when I was in early recovery, and I was in graduate school and University of Maryland, I was very curious about some of the terminology I was hearing in 12 step programs, and I kind of wanted to get my teeth into it, and understand it better. And that I knew there was differences between religions and spirituality. And I knew the 12 steps talked a lot about God or higher power, and that people from many different religions were in 12 step programs. So I really wanted to see, what’s the difference between somebody who gets well, and somebody who doesn’t, I wanted to get my teeth into it. And there were terms like we strive for spiritual progress, not perfection, the 12 steps as having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps. We tried to carry the message to others. So I’m like, Alright, well, I’d like to see somebody that’s had a spiritual awakening versus somebody who hasn’t. And then I did a lot of reading about Carl young and his connection to the, you know, start obey, it actually started in his office. So the chain reaction really started with Carl Young’s humility and his awareness, that a spiritual transformation, a psychic change had to happen for recovery to come forward. So in graduate school, I went to my mentor, and I said, I want to do my thesis on spirituality and recovery. And he said, Well, you can’t do that. And I said, why not? And if you tell us, we can’t do something, we’ll find a way. And he said, because you can’t measure it. And so I set off, of course, on a search to find a measurement tool for spirituality. And I was in the Baltimore Washington area, and got sober in Columbia, Maryland. And I found this tool. And that was back when libraries had card had a log. Yeah. I had to strap it and you have to actually find the book on the shelf, you know. So I found this instrument called the spirituality self assessment scale, and it was written by a guy coincidentally named Charlie Whitfield and Charlie Whitfield had written the book healing the child within he and pmld. And John Bradshaw were the pioneers with inner child work. But he also was interested in spirituality and adult children of alcoholics. So all these things kind of crossover years later. But we measured for things, time in recovery, and that’s easy to measure level of stressors encountered in the past year level of contentment, and then level of spirituality. And I was observing in 12 step meetings that there was people that had quite a bit of time, that didn’t seem very happy. And there was other people who were relatively new, who seemed pretty happy. So I didn’t think it was about time, I think about what are you doing with that time. And so also, I knew that the 12 steps purportedly were about producing that psychic change. So I wanted to something to measure a small study. But what we found was that a person that’s didn’t necessarily get better just because of time, or, also, there was no direct correlation between level of stressors and the person’s contentment. But there was a direct correlation between someone’s level of spirituality as measured by this scale, and their level of contentment, regardless the amount of time they had in recovery, or the amount of stressors that were coming at them.

David Condos
And so you just kind of went out into groups. And we’re observing this Yes,

Jim Corrington
I’d ask for volunteers at 12-step, but I’m doing research and I want to be a volunteer. And so I’d get, you know, people to stay after a meeting and participate in the study. And so it definitely went along with my personal experience that people who found guides to take them through these steps and they actually did the work. It produced a change, the same type of change that Carl Young was trying to induce enroll in Hazzard, where they absolutely, there’s a page and a half in the back of the Alcoholics Anonymous book called The spiritual experience appendix and in that it describes how the change, you know, comes about over time as a result of the work they do in the 12 steps and taking guidance from our sponsor or mentor. But it says in that spiritual experience appendix that quite often, friends of the newcomers are aware of this change long before they are themselves, they suddenly realize that they’ve undergone a profound alteration in their reaction to life. So that’s what we talked about here at the meadows, boundaries, and, you know, taking control of one’s life and not being a victim and the ability to have the midbrain not be overriding the frontal cortex. And it’s kind of crazy how spirituality is in the frontal cortex. And when we’re in trauma trigger or addiction craving, we’ve found through science, and I’m sure Dr. McCauley explained this very well, that the frontal cortex literally shuts off in a functional MRI under a lot of stress or trauma trigger, or we don’t have enough filters. So spirituality really is a filter, its ability to have appropriate functional adult boundaries, from the triggers that are coming at a person from their environment. And when you’re trying to,

David Condos
so it doesn’t change the circumstances, right. 

Jim Corrington
But it filters through and allows different response. And so somebody who’s spiritually fit, and I’ll explain what that looks like, can handle massively high levels of stressors and still be content, they don’t need anything else in the environment to change for them to be content, because they know that it’s their responsibility to be content in there, then that requires a lot of work. And so recovery is a lot of work one day at a time, but the results that it produces, and if somebody continues the steps, the maintenance steps, you know, continuing to take inventory, prayer and meditation helping others then they can keep their functional boundaries in place so that they continue to be able to handle stressors, not only handle them, but like in the AIA book, it talks about how we try not to manufacture misery like cause our own trouble, right? Or human we do that. But when trouble or as we measured in the study, stressors come because they’re gonna come life happens. when trouble comes, we cheerfully capitalize it as an opportunity to demonstrate God’s omnipotence. So that’s what recovery is about is to not resist stressors, but To allow ourselves to have functional boundaries, perspectives, and in the Serenity Prayer says courage to change the things we can. Well the things we can change are massive, we can change our own focus, our own perspective, our own beliefs, our own actions, who we hang out with, we can change our brain by doing these things, you know, and through some of the tools we use in treatment, neurofeedback, and all the brain spa activities and all that kind of stuff, trauma treatments, all of these things, there’s so much that we can change. But unfortunately, many people spend a lot of time focusing on things they can’t change, and they’re not really getting better. And that’s just frustrating, very frustrating, right? So we’ve, the spirituality thing has been exciting and people who are not spiritually fit, and they’re in a negative spirituality space. That’s where addiction and trauma and depression and anxiety just thrives is a darkness.

David Condos
And so what what does it take to get that spiritual fitness you that term using

Jim Corrington
the 12 steps, and then outside help in a lot of people like myself needed some outside help, but the 12 steps do produce the movement from negative spirituality, which is fear, self centered fear, self pity, resentment, and dishonesty, those types of things. And those things go on a fourth step inventory, and all the 200 plus 12 step programs. So really, what people are inventorying in the steps, is these negative spiritual principles. And if people continue to live in that space, they’re going to need to numb and Claudia black, one of our meadows, senior fellows always says, recovery is about learning how to tolerate our emotions, through our boundaries, without needing to numb it without needing to run or hide or escape or, you know, wish it wasn’t there or whatever. So through the process of recovery in the 12 steps, and some outside help people can move into a positive spirituality space, which is about trust and faith in something bigger than ourselves. And that’s wide open. Gratitude, as opposed to self pity glass half full instead of glass half empty, and they’re both factually accurate. Where’s our focus? And then acceptance is huge in recovery. And that is the opposite of resentment. And resentments are spoken about a lot in recovery. And the reason they’re spose so damaging, and a they’re called the number one offender, is because a resentment, that’s my definition, is always about something you can’t change. So it’s the inability or refusal to accept something I can’t change

David Condos
the past or a circumstance another person person. Yeah, it’s about a fact.

Jim Corrington
Yeah. And that’s why there’s a page in a book, it’s paid for 17. And in the fourth edition, used to be paid for 49. In the third edition, you know it well, yeah, that page on acceptance is the most widely quoted page in the whole book, like worldwide. And there’s a reason for that, because resentment is such spiritual sickness, people will need to numb with something if they’re stuck in resentment. Because what it’s actually doing is playing God, a resentment is saying, if I were God, this never would have happened. If I am God, this person wouldn’t be treating my head strong. Yeah, right now, the head control. And the first step says, You don’t have control. You got to resign as General Manager the universe. So it’s humbling. But acceptance is important. does not equal approval, doesn’t mean I approve of something, it means that I accept it. And then I can move on to focusing on things that I can change my own focus my own beliefs, my own perspectives, work on myself physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all that I can change, but you have to empty your own cup first and become teachable and humble and know that I’ve got a lot of work to do. You know, so you go fine. And then you it really, we’re spiritually permeable. I think whoever we hang around, we become very much like them. That’s the problem with being a child is you don’t really have a choice. And you’re going to spiritually absorb whatever your parents have, or whatever environment you’re in. And so what we do at the meadows is a lot of getting rid of some of that stuff so that you can have your own identity as an adult or functional adult. And you get to decide, is this true for me is is not true for me, and to move forward with who you want to be and what your goals are and dreams in life as opposed to what you spiritually absorbed from maybe three For five generations of people who didn’t realize they had a choice. So some of this recovery work is like trying to turn an ocean liner. Yeah. And a lot of work over time. But so we tell people, I tell people in their first year of recovery, I love here’s the rules in the first year, no suicide, no homicide, and no drinks, no drugs. That’s it. So if you don’t kill yourself, and you don’t hurt anybody else, you don’t use or drink or numb with a process addiction, you will get well if you do the work and follow the suggestions that other people have for you. So sticking with the winners is hugely important. And if people can find the winners out there, like whether they’re in ACA meetings or coda meetings, or there’s 200, plus 12 step programs, so we can find a match where it’s somebody’s job, you know, to find their chair where they belong. Yeah, I’m going to talk about more of that in a little bit.

David Condos
Yeah. And so let’s look at outpatient now. Because you said you’ve spent over three decades right in in making this your calling your career, I guess for First of all, like, why is outpatient specifically so important to you and kind of just lay the landscape for how it’s different what what makes it special to you?

Jim Corrington
Sure. It’s really exciting working in outpatient because it’s the real world, you know, somebody goes to an inpatient treatment center, that’s a protected sheltered environment. They’re guarded from phone calls and interaction with family members and stressors. So they have buffers from these triggers and stressors we were talking about. And they heal, you know, in a very kind of a cocoon, a spiritual cocoon.

David Condos
There’s 24 hours a day around the same people.

Jim Corrington
Yeah, they get fed and all their needs are taken care of. Well, that’s why I love outpatient because an outpatient, you’re in the real world, you’ve got all the stressors, right in your face, and you’ve got to come to treatment, and then learn how to use those tools and skills to actually do things differently,

David Condos
to go home to your family go back to work when whatever you’re doing. That’s right.

Jim Corrington
And depending on the place, like with the meadows, it’s probably, you know, 80% directly admitting and 20% coming from an inpatient center, whether it be the meadows or somewhere else. But generally people do try to follow through with an outpatient after they’ve been impatient. But it’s a beautiful thing, because they have to learn to really start putting the tools and skills into action, and make real changes in their life. Everything’s hypothetical, and theoretical, when you’re impatient. And it’s not that at all in outpatients. So that’s where they make it or break it. Yeah.

David Condos
So he, let’s dive a little bit deeper into that. Because I think that’s one of the really interesting things about this outpatient conversation is that kind of transitional point that kind of sits at this fulcrum of especially if somebody’s stepping down of getting into the real world applying that in their life, how do you how do you approach that with the people you’re treating?

Jim Corrington
Well, our philosophy and outpatient is that our job is to get them integrated into a system of support and care, and to start sets of behaviors in their life outside of the treatment arena, that will actually allow them to have the ability to become spiritually fed, like we were talking about earlier. And so that when stressors come at them, they’re able to handle them as a functional adult with boundaries in a way that produces results that they’re looking for, instead of being stuck in this, you know, trigger response in voluntarily responding to things and then not getting the outcome they like and getting frustrated with themselves when they just can’t stay away from their numbing behavior, whatever that is. So it’s really the dilemma of being a human so our patients exciting because talented therapists can guide a group and individuals to really looking at getting out of the victim stance and not and you know, blaming and shaming others. And parents do the best job they can with what they have to work with. But at and as an adult, we’re left with some life skill deficiencies. And we have got to go find the people in our environment, wherever that is, that have the tools and skills that we need, and then have them teach them to us, as well. Some of that will happen in the therapy, but most of it’s going to happen in their life in their community. So they absolutely need to get involved in a 12 step program. And there’s an appropriate 12 step program for everyone in our job in good outpatient treatment centers is to make people aware of that, and to help them find what I call find your chair. So over the years 30, some years I’ve developed this kind of recipe for recovery. And that lays out the ingredients of what does it look like when somebody is doing the things that produce this spiritual fitness? You know, where their content? Yeah, and they’re calm and peaceful, unable to handle the stressors of life, and they’re happy, you know, what are the things that people do in common that produce these results. So the thing that everyone shares in common at some level that they can identify in their mind is a belief that their case is different, terminal uniqueness we call it. So our job is to help them see that you’re really just another bozo on the bus, you’re just another garden variety, human who’s doing the best they can with what the tools you are given as a child and an adolescent and adult, but it’s not working. So you have to humble yourself and realize that your survival skills got you to survive, but they’re not working to thrive, and have a happy content life, you have to humble yourself that you need help. And so people are either on their way down in whatever depression, anxiety, trauma, addiction, or they’ve hit a bottom, and they’re done. And I always say the bottom, where’s the bottom of a hole when you’re digging with a shovel? different holes have different depths, right? It’s when you drop the shovel. So dropping the shovel is very symbolic, that’s really the first step is I do not know what I need. I need help. I need guidance, I need direction, I need tools, I need skills, I need help, I need to find people who have what I want. And then we can help somebody up. So people hit treatment, whether it be inpatient, or outpatient, oftentimes, when they’re still on their way down. And so our job and treatment is to help them down. That’s a different treatment plan than somebody who’s come in and they have dropped the shovel and they are hopeless, and but they’re very willing and very active, very receptive, then their job is to help them up. And that’s a whole different process.

David Condos
And I feel like that’s where the recipe for it comes in. Right? You’re helping them understand like, you’d like you, you don’t have to figure this out on your own right? Look, look at what other people are doing that’s working. And just try it.

Jim Corrington
Exactly. That’s exactly right. And it’s so frustrating, professionally and personally to know 100% that I know exactly what this person needs to do to get well and they just can’t or won’t do it. And that’s why family members are so frustrated. And so there is a recipe and it’s, you know, total abstinence from all things addictive. The exceptions to that early on is mat, medication assisted treatment, that definitely works and helps. And then getting people to the right 12 step meetings, you know, it’s so important. For example, if somebody is a 20 year old female heroin addict, and they’ve never had a problem with alcohol in their life, they’d be welcome at an AA Open Meeting. But that’s not where she needs to go, they’re

David Condos
not gonna find a lot of community connection, they’re

Jim Corrington
not going to work. She needs to find heroin anonymous, or Narcotics Anonymous where she can find a 24 year old heroin addict female who’s like three or four years clean, right? she’ll listen to her. She knows what she’s been through. And she’ll listen to her and she’ll follow her suggestions. But the 60 year old Old Crow drink an alcoholic doesn’t know anything, what this human beings been through. So that’s, I know, from personal professional experience that anybody on the planet can find groups like that. And these are for free, you know, that happen in communities. So whether it’s through, you know, a religious organization, or through a 12 step program, there’s human beings who are effectively helping each other, to get through life in a way that actually works. So it’s a matter of connecting people to what’s going on in the community. And then there’s prayer meditation, and then there’s, you know, finding meetings where there’s laughter and then there’s learning how to have fun in recovery. And then there’s reading the literature of your programs and not just go to meetings and listen to people’s opinions, but actually read the literature because that’s where the cumulative experience of all of these of the program is, is in the literature. So all of these things are, you know, important in parts of the recipe, and then to help others you know, as to pass among others. There’s speaking again about spirituality in what kind of works for me to understand that and get my teeth into it. When people start helping others, they really start to experience this energy flowing through them. And I like to use the metaphor of a little extension cord, right? Like, you know, there’s, I went to Ace Hardware and bought a little one when I do this talk. But you know, that extension cord is really powerless. The first step is we admitted we were powerless, right. So it can’t really do anything functional unless you plug it in to a source of power. So I spend half hour, 45 minutes every morning and prayer meditation that plug in, because I’m not the source, but I want to plug in, and I want to connect to my higher source in the morning. God, as I understand him, and then, you know, have people plug into me, and then when it’s flowing through me, it’s just a really good feeling. And you just feel like, this is good. This is why I’m on this planet to be purposeful like you are today. You guys are being purposeful. So that’s the goal is to get somebody to where they are being functional in their, in their relationships with themselves, other people. And the big picture, and then anything that comes along is easy to handle.

David Condos
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

David Condos
Well, let’s wrap up with a couple more general questions. First of all, what would be one thing that you wish the general public at large, understood better about addiction, about recovery about this whole journey?

Jim Corrington
All right? Well, first of all, is that it’s not a bad thing. And it’s a blessing in disguise. And it can turn out to be the best thing that’s ever happened to an individual or a couple or a family. It certainly has been the best thing that ever happened to me. And that is absolutely the most treatable illness on the planet Earth. This recipe for recovery works 100% of the time. And that should give one hope. Yeah, you know, if you were to walk on a Children’s Cancer hospice unit, and say, Hey, so the parents or the child, all you got to do is do these 12 things, and your disease will go into complete and full remission one day at a time for the rest of your life, they would follow you off of that word like the Pied Piper. But somehow with addiction, it’s such a dark thing that people think their cases different, and that they don’t need it or you don’t understand or data data. So what I tell everybody about addiction and recovery is that, yes, you have it if you have it, and it’s not a symptom of something else. It’s a primary disease, and you can’t work on any of these other things in your life, until you get into successful recovery for addiction. And two, it’s going to turn out to be a blessing in disguise in your life. If you’ll just do these things, you will get better than your wildest imagination, your life will turn out better than you can possibly imagine. And that’s been the case for every single person that I’ve seen, do what’s laid out before them. So that’s what I would tell people

David Condos
I yeah, yeah. And then to leave listeners with just a couple tips. What would be one book one resource related to this conversation that that you’d recommend people look into?

Jim Corrington
Well, I’m previously mentioned Dr. Paul O who passed away 19 years ago, and I talk about him nearly every day. So he obviously had a huge positive effect on me. And he wrote two books, and you can get them on Amazon, whatever been, he just put in Dr. Paul last initial O, and one of them’s called, there’s more to quitting drinking, then quitting drinking. And it goes through emotional recovery, physical recovery, spiritual, relational, everything, and it’s as humors in there, it’s fantastic. Then he wrote another book right before he passed away, which is really the summary of his whole recovery of 32 years. And it’s called, you can’t make me angry, which is a red book, and it’s just packed full of beliefs and perspectives and attitudes that have those are adopted. And I pretty much got rid of most of my ones I had as a, you know, child and teenager and early adult and adopted his I just stole them because they worked much better than my and he’s really funny. But those two books, there’s more to quitting drinking than quitting drinking, and you can’t make me angry. I must have given three or 400 copies of each two people over the years. That’s not an exaggeration, and I’m sure I’ll keep doing that. So those are highly recommended. And of course, the text for any 12-step program would be ready remembered as

David Condos
well, that’s great example of passing it on. Yeah. So then to leave our listeners with this What? What’s the best piece of recovery related advice you’ve ever received that meant so much to you?

Jim Corrington
I think somebody said to me once, when I was resisting still on thought my case was different. “How’s that working for you, Jim?” And I had to look in the mirror and say, You know what, I need help. I need to follow some simple suggestions that people are offering me and just get well, like the rest of these people are getting well. So I would, I would say, be honest, have an open mind and be willing to follow some suggestions and life will get better than you can possibly imagine.

David Condos
Thank you so much for your time. That was wonderful.

Jim Corrington
Thank you.

David Condos
Jim Corrington is a licensed clinical social worker and the executive director of outpatient services for the meadows he’s based in Scottsdale, Arizona. Find out more about The Meadows Outpatient Programs offered in Arizona, California in Texas, at the meadows io p.com. Beyond theory is produced and hosted by me David Condos. You can discover more from this podcast, including videos of each conversation at beyondtheorypodcast.com. Finally, thank you for listening. And I hope you’ll join us again next time for another episode of beyond theory.

 

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