Walking Both Roads: A Guide for People in Recovery Who Are Called to Heal with Earth Medicines
- Christopher Shaw
- Dec 17, 2025
- 7 min read
Founder, Merkaba Temple & Merkaba Retreats
Co-Founder, ArcherShaw
My Story: How I Came to Walk Both Roads
There was a time in my life when I believed sobriety had only one shape — one language, one doorway, one definition. Twelve-step recovery gave me structure, community, and a spiritual vocabulary that saved my life. I owe my stability, my clarity, and my early healing to that path. For many years, it was the only container that could hold me.
But as the years passed, something unexpected began to stir inside me.
It was not restlessness. It was not craving. It was not the old pull of addiction, at first.
It was a call — subtle initially, then undeniable.
A call toward deeper layers of healing that the rooms could not explain. A call to understand the roots of my trauma, not just its symptoms. A call to meet the parts of myself that had survived on silence, shame, and strength alone.
Before - During a recovery/relapse cycle / After - Freedom baby!
At that time, I was also struggling in ways I did not fully understand. After staying clean for 11 years, I relapsed for 11 months. That relapse launched me into a full mid-life, post-divorce crisis.
Over the next five years, I lived in a cycle many people know privately but rarely speak about publicly — long periods of sobriety mixed with occasional weekend relapses. Never a complete spiral, but never fully grounded either.
I couldn’t regain solid recovery because I wasn’t spiritually at peace, and deeper layers of my trauma had never been addressed.
During this period, I was also on nearly every psychiatric medication available:
an antipsychotic
a mood stabilizer
an antidepressant
a sleeping medication
anxiety medication
ADHD medication
Each one was prescribed with care, but I still wasn’t okay.
I wasn’t healing — I was managing. I wasn’t living — I was sedated. I wasn’t awakening — I was disconnected from myself.
In 2024, something in me finally said, “Enough.”
With the support of my acupuncturist Denise and Chinese herbal medicine — true medicines of the Earth — I slowly tapered off all psychiatric medications under the supervision of my psychiatric NP. This was required before the retreat, but it also turned out to be a vital part of reclaiming my own clarity.
And for the first time in years, I started to feel the truth inside my own body again.
That clarity is what led me to the medicines of the Earth.
Not recreationally.
Not impulsively.
Not secretly.
But in ceremony.
In reverence.
In prayer.
With a lineage-trained guide who understood trauma, medicine, Spirit, and the nervous system.
My first ceremony did not give me a high — it gave me myself.
It revealed truths I had spent years circling but never touching. It softened places in me that therapy could not reach (And trust me, my therapist has 2 Mercedes and 2 swimming pools with my name on them!).
It reconnected me with a Higher Power that felt alive, not abstract. It healed layers of shame I didn’t know were still buried in my bones.
And something inside me reorganized.
The old onion of trauma & addiction — layer after layer after layer — didn’t peel this time…
It dissolved. Gone. Forever. Programs deleted.
I realized something profound: I had not left my recovery. I had deepened it.
This path did not replace the foundation that saved me — it completed it.
Since that ceremony, I have stayed clean — not through force or fear, but through alignment, devotion, embodiment, honesty, and a recovery program that actually fits who I am. I no longer need medications. The Earth Mother is now my first line of support — through earth medicine, herbs, acupuncture, breath, movement, devotion, ceremony, and connection.
Now I walk as a bridge between worlds: the world of recovery that teaches humility and service, and the world of ceremony that teaches embodiment and truth.
Both shaped me.
Both healed me.
Both still guide me.
And if you are reading this, perhaps you are standing where I once stood — at the doorway between the story you were given and the truth that is calling you forward.
If so, this teaching is for you.
Two Worlds That Rarely Understand Each Other
Addiction recovery and earth medicine work are two worlds that often look at each other with confusion — even fear.
One is rooted in abstinence, structure, and the belief that all substances are dangerous for people with addiction histories.
The other is rooted in ancient Indigenous wisdom, ceremonial intention, trauma resolution, and spiritual awakening.
And yet, for thousands of people today, these two paths are not opposites — they are parallel roads that can be walked with maturity, integrity, and humility.
This piece is for those in recovery who are deeply committed to their sobriety but also feel a genuine spiritual calling toward earth medicine.
Not recreational use.
Not escapism.
Not numbing.
But guided ceremony, facilitated healing, and sacred reconnection to the soul.
This is the conversation many recovery communities aren’t ready to have. But you are.
Gratitude: The Recovery Path Saved Me
Whether you came through:
AA
NA
CA
SMART Recovery
Refuge Recovery
Church-based recovery
Therapy or rehab
…something held you when you could not hold yourself.
Recovery gave me:
language
community
accountability
humility
structure
a Higher Power
This deserves respect.
Honoring the path that rebuilt you is wise and grounding.
You are not abandoning recovery. You are expanding your relationship to healing.
Why 12-Step Rooms Get Triggered by Earth Medicines
Most people who push back are not judgmental — they are protective. They have lived through:
overdoses
relapses
psychosis
funerals
chaos
To them, “substances” equal danger.
They do not understand the difference between recreational drug use and ceremonial, supervised, intentional and prescribed earth medicine
I do. You do.
Understanding their fear helps you stay compassionate instead of defensive.
Ceremonial Earth Medicine ≠ Addictive Use
These are not the same phenomenon.
Addictive use:
driven by compulsion
used to escape pain
private, unsafe, dysregulated
rooted in avoidance
Ceremonial medicine:
guided by trained facilitators
held in prayer, intention, and structure
rooted in healing
followed by integration
done in community
One collapses the self. One restores it.
Your Integrity Must Become Even Stronger
Walking both roads requires more honesty, not less.
Ask yourself:
Is my intention clean?
Is my facilitator ethical?
Am I integrating consistently?
Am I accountable?
Am I running toward healing or away from discomfort?
Ceremony requires:
humility
preparation
honesty
integration
emotional courage
This is not bypassing. This is deeper sobriety.
You Don’t Need to Disclose Everything
Not every recovery room can hold this level of nuance. Confidentiality is not secrecy — it is discernment.
Your spiritual path belongs to:
You
Your Higher Power
Your healing team
People capable of nuance
Not everyone is a safe container.
This is not dishonesty — it is maturity.
Addiction Trauma, Religious Trauma, Spiritual Trauma Are Real
Many in recovery carry:
shame
fear
black-and-white beliefs
religious wounds
spiritual confusion
Earth medicine work often reopens:
the inner child
ancestral memory
grief
stored trauma
forgotten truth
This is deeper healing than many rooms are prepared to understand.
Seek Mentors Who Understand Both Paths
Your healing deserves guides who understand:
trauma
addiction
ceremony
integration
spirituality
the nervous system
relapse prevention
These mentors exist — and they matter. Choose people who can hold ALL of you, not just the version that fits a meeting format or their way.
Let Your Results Speak
People may debate your choices, but they cannot debate your transformation. Let your sobriety show itself through:
emotional stability
healthy relationships
consistency
humility
grounded decisions
Your life becomes your message.
You Are Not Betraying Recovery — You Are Deepening It
Recovery is not just abstinence. Recovery is:
awakening
honesty
responsibility
connection
healing
service
Earth medicine can deepen all of these. You are not leaving the tradition. You are helping it evolve.
Permission to Walk Your Own Path
You can honor:
Twelve-step recovery
Your sobriety
Your Higher Power
Your healing
The medicines that changed your life
All at the same time.
Your path is yours. Your healing is yours. Your relationship with Spirit is yours.
You are not here to fit into a box. You are here to heal. And you are doing that — bravely and with integrity.
A Final Invitation
If you are someone like me… Someone who has walked the long road of recovery — who has done the meetings, done the steps, done the inventories, again and again — and still feels that something deeper is calling…
If you want to be held in ALL of who you are — not just the 12-step version, not just the “acceptable” parts, not just the pieces that fit into someone else’s idea of sobriety — but the whole, complex, awakening human you are becoming… Then reach out.
Email me at christopher@merkabachurch.com
I am here and I am available for:
friendship
sponsorship
clinical coaching if you prefer a more structured professional relationship
earth medicine retreats in Mexico
When I returned from my first medicine retreat, my sponsor fired me. He told me I was “not practicing a spiritual program.”
The truth was simpler — and harder:
I was not practicing his program.
I no longer fit into the box he needed me to stay in.
I no longer needed someone to tell me how to live my life.
My recovery had evolved, and it no longer looked like his.
And that was okay.
Recovery is not one-size-fits-all.
Spirituality is not one-size-fits-all.
Healing is not one-size-fits-all.
If you are ready for a path of recovery that matches who you truly are — one that honors sobriety, ceremony, Spirit, accountability, trauma healing, growth, and your full humanity —
I’m here for you.
You don’t have to walk this road alone.
With infinite love and blessings and in service to Truth, Devotion, & Recovery,
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