Catholic in Recovery: 12-step program combines faith and healing

CV NEWS FEED // Addiction can be a taboo topic among Catholics. Although the Church offers healing and forgiveness through the Sacrament of Confession, many people need additional support in order to end their addictive behaviors. 

Noticing the gap between the Church’s ministry and recovery programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, Scott Weeman founded Catholic in Recovery, which combines the supportive structure of a 12-step program with the rich faith heritage of the Catholic Church.

Catholic in Recovery is “a nonprofit organization that seeks to serve those suffering from addictions and unhealthy attachments,” such as alcohol and drug abuse, gambling, and sex addiction, according to their website.

“We support parishes and communities with group resources that draw people closer to these two powerful sources of grace,” the website adds, referring to the 12-step program and the sacraments. “It is the aim of Catholic in Recovery to share the Good News that God can bring about healing and recovery, even in the most hopeless of cases.”

In a recent interview with CatholicVote, Weeman spoke about how his own journey of healing and faith led him to establish an addiction recovery program rooted in Catholic tradition.

CatholicVote: Could you tell us what led you to establish Catholic in Recovery? 

Weeman: I was blessed by finding 12-Step Recovery myself in October of 2011. I was 26 years old. My life was falling apart. Most of my challenges and problems were related to my inability to stop drinking and using drugs and acting out in other unhealthy ways. 

I walked into a 12-step recovery meeting that changed my life and saved my life. It was at this 7 a.m. meeting in Pacific Beach, San Diego, where I walked into this room in an Episcopal church, and people there had a solution to my problem. I thought no one really understood or could relate until these people were sharing my story through their own experience. 

Right after that meeting, a man across the room looked me in the eyes, and said, “I know exactly how you feel. You don’t ever have to drink again.” And he saved my life. We went and got coffee after that meeting and made it a daily routine of going to a meeting, going to a coffee shop afterward, reading recovery literature. We cross-referenced that with the Bible. 

A couple years into my recovery, I recognized that the church, which I had returned back to, could learn quite a bit from 12-step recovery groups in the way that we share the gospel and share a message of hope and healing. I also recognized that there are a lot of people in 12-step recovery meetings who are longing for a deeper relationship with their higher power. … There was nothing serving as a bridge there. 

CatholicVote: How did you start helping those searching for God in the recovery process?

Weeman: In early 2015, I started a website, catholicinrecovery.com, where I was sharing my experience, strength, and hope through articles on topics that overlap 12-step recovery and Catholic faith. Maybe six to eight months into that, I got a message from a woman from Ave Maria Press inquiring about my interest in writing a book. And then two years later in 2017 the book, The 12 Steps in the Sacraments: A Catholic Journey through Recovery, was published.

While all of that was taking place, while I was writing the manuscript for the book, I did a four-week series at the cathedral, St. Joseph Cathedral in downtown San Diego, on the structure of the book. The best part of that was when I was done speaking and other people in the audience had a chance to share their experience with addiction or recovery or their loved ones’ challenges with addiction, but through the lens of our faith and sacraments and Scripture and Catholic devotions, things that are otherwise a little too specific in a secular 12-step meeting. 

It was very clear we needed to keep bringing those people together. So we started our first Catholic in Recovery meeting in January 2017 at St. Joseph Cathedral in San Diego. Fast-forward to today, there are about 125 active Catholic in Recovery meetings in person and about 75 weekly virtual meetings held via Zoom, and it’s grown in ways that I could have never imagined.

CV: What are some of the ways that you think Catholic spirituality and 12-step recovery programs complement each other?

Weeman: I think that the recognition of the need for a savior is key. The first step in recovery asks us to admit that we are powerless over fill-in-the-blank: alcohol, lust, food, drugs, that our lives have become unmanageable. And I see great parallels with this … in our desperate plea for God -– and this might be a daily plea or this might be a one-time plea — but to save us. And the spiritual waters of Baptism are very similar to that cry out for help, recognizing that we can’t do it by ourselves, but also recognizing that God can do for us what we can’t do for ourselves, and surrendering to that power, to His grace and glory. 

I would also highlight the overlap between the sacrament of confession and steps four through nine, which I think really teases out the fullness of the Sacrament of Reconciliation in the preparation. In step four, we make a searching and thorough world inventory of ourselves. And in step five, we admit that to God, ourselves, and another human being, kind of like the preparation for a very thorough preparation for a confession and the act of confessing. 

And then asking God to remove whatever defects of character stand in the way of serving Him and others. And then in steps eight and nine, we make a list of all persons we have harmed, become willing to make amends to them, and then in step 9 we go out and make those amends. Which, much like a very thorough penance, that helps us to stay away from the act or the behavior that we’re seeking freedom from. 

CV: And what were some of the challenges, if any, that you faced while founding the program? 

Weeman: I would say the biggest challenge has been, and I think I’ve seen this changing over the last nine years or so, but the biggest challenge has probably been just in churches’ willingness to adapt or create a space for people who are suffering from addiction and maybe the unwillingness to recognize the problem of addiction and the Church’s need to be involved. 

CV: Does your program help or support the family members and loved ones of those struggling with addiction? 

Weeman: Yes, we do. We recognize addiction as a family spiritual disease that impacts not only the person struggling with the addiction but also all others in the family, shifting roles within the family system, creating resentment, fear, isolation, very similar to what the person impacted by the addiction is experiencing. Yes, we do offer meetings and resources available for family and friends of those with addictions. 

We have some groups specific to family members of those with lust addiction who know a very specific betrayal trauma unique to lust, pornography, and sex addiction. And we also serve people who are adult children of dysfunctional families and alcoholics by offering some resources and fellowship for them to begin to adapt new adult relationships based on secure attachments, stepping away from old patterns that addiction within the family can form, especially the impact that it can have on a child as that child develops and starts adapting to life based on how they adapted to the addiction or the dysfunction in their home. They learn new sets of tools to reparent themselves and reparent themselves with the help and grace of God to find new ways of coping with life and dealing with relationships. 

CV: For the people who want to join Catholic in Recovery, do they have to be a fully practicing Catholic to join a group? 

Weeman: No, we have people of all faith denominations who participate. Some are there to explore. Maybe they’re interested in the Catholic Church, and they have recovery experience. They appreciate understanding the spirituality of the Catholic Church by way of their knowledge of 12-step addiction recovery. 

Editor’s note: This interview was edited for brevity and clarity.