Working your recovery program as a parent

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Working your recovery program as a parent

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Being in Recovery requires that I stay connected and that I make meetings. There have been times in my life, as a mom, that I have not been able to make meetings. My husband was deployed, he was in the military. He was deployed for four months to Iraq. I had a small daughter and going meetings was virtually impossible. The most important thing that I did at that point was, I connected with other people in Recovery on a daily basis. I did something for my Recovery. My meetings went down to about once a week, and that was the best I could do. So what I did is every day I spoke on the phone with someone. Every day I made a commitment to read a piece of literature about Recovery. Every day I made sure I was engaged in my Recovery to the best of my ability, on the phone, talking with my sponsor, staying in communication with other women in Recovery. Especially other moms, that had been where I had been, so they could share their experience, strength and hope. How they got through it and were unable to make meetings and they had small children. Often times, parents in Recovery are single parents, so we have to figure out how to navigate being a single parent and still making Recovery a priority in their lives. Without our Recovery first, we don't get to have our children; we don't get to have anything else. In active addiction, we don't get to foster family. We live alone in the disease. So in order to be in Recovery, we have to make sure that's a priority.

View Connor Barnas's video on Working your recovery program as a parent...

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Connor Barnas

Mom

Connor Barnas is blessed and busy, living life with her husband Ethan and two children, Magdalena June, eight, and Augustus Wolfe, six in the midst of finding the sacred in the mundane and allowing space for serenity. After being given the gift of desperation, Connor began her life of recovery and discovery within the 12 Step paradigms in 1995. In 2002 she graduated from the University of New Mexico with a bachelor’s degree in Fine Art and married the love of her life, Ethan; moved to a beautiful, dusty, desert town; and began her journey as a wife and mother.  

In 2003, Connor co-founded an Attachment Parenting group, and became a leader shortly after.  Connor has been involved in the Attachment Parenting community as a leader and a resource, and was honored as a featured volunteer during Volunteer Recognition Week, April 2011 by Attachment Parenting International. 

After relocating and settling in Jacksonville, Florida, to be close to her family of origin, Connor founded HAP East, a local homeschooling group whose focus and mission is to create community and continuity of relationship for homeschooling/attachment parenting families. 

Connor joyfully shares her experience, strength and hope with families and friends in the recovery, homeschool, and AP communities; she combines the spiritual principles of the 12 steps with the practical and compassionate parenting strategies of API to inform her path and growth as a woman, mother, wife, and active member of her world. 

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Transcription: 
Being in Recovery requires that I stay connected and that I make meetings. There have been times in my life, as a mom, that I have not been able to make meetings. My husband was deployed, he was in the military. He was deployed for four months to Iraq. I had a small daughter and going meetings was virtually impossible. The most important thing that I did at that point was, I connected with other people in Recovery on a daily basis. I did something for my Recovery. My meetings went down to about once a week, and that was the best I could do. So what I did is every day I spoke on the phone with someone. Every day I made a commitment to read a piece of literature about Recovery. Every day I made sure I was engaged in my Recovery to the best of my ability, on the phone, talking with my sponsor, staying in communication with other women in Recovery. Especially other moms, that had been where I had been, so they could share their experience, strength and hope. How they got through it and were unable to make meetings and they had small children. Often times, parents in Recovery are single parents, so we have to figure out how to navigate being a single parent and still making Recovery a priority in their lives. Without our Recovery first, we don't get to have our children; we don't get to have anything else. In active addiction, we don't get to foster family. We live alone in the disease. So in order to be in Recovery, we have to make sure that's a priority.