What is an Anonymous Recovering Community (ARC) Program
The ARC program has been designed by addicts in abstinence-based recovery, for addicts seeking abstinence-based recovery. People join voluntarily as members of a mutual aid (helping each other as equals) community sharing a safe, secure, and supportive environment.
People joining the ARC course need an environment where they can feel an experience of safety and warmth that earns their trust. The essential ingredients of this environment are positive and supportive relationships, structure, and a right to privacy and freedom of expression. The course is offered in residential settings.
What happens in an Anonymous Recovering Community (ARC) Program?
The ARC program highlights the role of engagement (joining in fully) and unity in creating safety and trust within a group. In ARC we have learned that joining a community can be scary. We recognize that each person needs enough private space to retreat into and process their thoughts and feelings, whilst having a community that offers enough support, empathy and insight, focused on similarities, to earn trust.
People wishing to join have an assessment. As part of this, all ARC members need to recognize that the ARC course is about moving out of isolation and into community through the earning of trust. In ARC we understand that trust cannot be demanded. The ARC course brings together proven mutual aid tools, some old and some new. All the tools stem from the same basic understanding of human experience, and all have track records of helping people to rebuild safety, trust, and an ability to form healthy fulfilling connection with themselves and other people. In ARC we believe that anything that is controlling will fail. (The image of the opening flower).
What is the structure of an ARC course?
Before beginning the ARC course there will have been a pre-program or integration stage, carried out by the accommodation provider. This is not part of the ARC program itself.
The ARC course is made up of daily group meetings from 10.00 to 11.00 am on weekday morning.
The course has four Stages which members work through. Each member is given a personal portal (place to do the ARC cource) on the ARC program website. They use this to record and confirm their learning. Learning is also supported and confirmed by sharing with peers at the group meetings.
Group meetings:
Monday – House group
Any house that facilitates its residents engaging in ARC [Bideford Lighthouse Project (BLP) in this instance] will hold a House group on Monday mornings, facilitated by the house manager. In this group, the manager explores with the group any problems and issues relating to sharing the environment of the house. The ‘senior peer’ receives a report from the manager on Tuesday mornings to bring to the Tuesday ARC process group for exploration.
Tuesday – ARC Process group
In process groups members share with their peers and contribute from their learning and experience of the ARC program
Wednesday – ARC Program group
In Program groups members listen to information and teaching, for example on understanding the disease concept
Thursday – ARC Program group
Friday – ARC Process group
ARC Stages:
Integration Stage
The process of ARC requires a strong and safe environmental foundation for participants. All projects facilitating ARC mutual aid must provide an environment that holds the practical resources and personal safety that ARC members need whilst they work through the course. The personal growth processes of the ARC program can begin only after having created the practical safety and connection to real world resources that enable clients to feel safe. This pre-ARC program stage is called ‘Integration’. It includes:
- Being assigned a supportive buddy
- Engaging with an appropriately skilled, experienced, and supportive Key Worker
- Learning what the house boundaries, health and safety regulations, and house routines are
- Engaging with a doctor
- Engaging with a dentist
- Engaging in appropriate recovery networks
- Being in relationship with a spiritual community if applicable
- Connecting with appropriate Government supports such as state benefits
- Addressing any outstanding legal issues
- Creating a plan of action for any family relationships that need urgent attention
The pre-program stage is facilitated by the House Manager and is not part of the ARC program.
The ARC program
Stage 1
In stage 1 members write a life story and share it with their peers. This begins to build relationship with the community as the other group members get a sense of ‘who’ their new peer is, and what their life has been like. Stage 1 also includes attending all ARC groups, listening in program groups, contributing in process groups, and studying the disease concept through their personal portal.
The tasks of stage one are ‘joining the group’, and ‘understanding the disease concept’. As with all ARC program learning, everything is confirmed through the personal portal on the website and sharing with peers.
Stage 2
In stage 2 members learn the basic skills involved in the TRE exercises, mindfulness meditation, and focusing. Having developed an intellectual understanding of their addiction in stage 1, they now learn the skills they will apply in their recovery process. As with all stages in the ARC process, learning is confirmed through the member’s personal portal on the website and through sharing with peers.
Stage 3
This is the heart of the ARC recovery process. Members work through their 12 step program, recording and evidencing their progress in their personal portal, and receiving reflections, identification and validation from the group.
Stage 4
Members learn the skills of ARC sponsorship and start leading the ARC groups.
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