Regenerative Recovery (RR)™
A Twelve Step program for personal recovery and the recovery of our bioregions
Do you find yourself living in ways that harm the Earth, even though you don't want to? Using plastics, fossil fuels, and gas from fracking. Buying food and clothes made by people treated as indentured servants. Eating fish caught by trawlers that are emptying the oceans. Many of us said, “But I get no enjoyment from contributing to the destruction of the Earth. I just don't know another way.”
There is a solution.
Regenerative Recovery is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other so that they may recover from Earth debting — and help others do the same. We work the Twelve Steps, find sponsors, hold visioning meetings and action meetings, and become conscious about our choices, one day at a time.
Twelve Step programs have helped millions of people recover from dozens of compulsions and addictions. There are programs that help people stop debting and overspending, stop underearning, stop working compulsively. There is a high rate of recovery for people who work the steps in these programs. They hold as spiritual truths that people can live free of debt, earn sufficiently, and do healthy work in moderation.
It follows as a spiritual truth that we can meet our needs and live free of causing harm to the Earth, ecosystems, and species, a day at a time.
Systemic forces are real — the economy we live inside was not built by any one of us, and no one recovers by pretending otherwise. And our own agency is also real. Both are true, and they don't need to be resolved. What we've found is simple: when people work the steps with a sponsor and get help from the group, an inner transformation takes place, and an outer transformation almost always follows. Our recovery is not contingent on the global patterns.
If you want support, Regenerative Recovery offers it.
There are no dues or fees for RR membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop engaging in harmful extraction to the Earth and others.
Is Regenerative Recovery for You?
Only you can decide. Most of us found it helpful to sit with questions like these, gently and honestly. There's no score. If several of them feel familiar, RR could be for you.
Do you sense something is deeply wrong with how we're living on the Earth, but feel frozen, overwhelmed, or unable to find a way in?
Do you make choices you know harm the Earth — plastics, fossil fuels, throwaway goods — and tell yourself you have no other option?
Do you find yourself thinking, “Nothing I do will help. Everyone else is still causing destruction, so I might as well too”?
Do you avoid looking at the true costs of what you buy — to the people who made it, the ecosystems it came from, the places it will end up?
Do you numb, distract, or shut down when news of the climate, oceans, or extinctions comes up?
Do you fantasize about escaping — finding a safe place to run to, or amassing enough money or goods to ride it out?
Do you feel grief, guilt, or shame about your participation in harm to the Earth, and carry it alone?
Do you buy or consume more than you need, and feel emptier afterward?
Do you tell yourself the destruction is “out there” — in another industry, another country, someone else's hands?
Do you keep waiting for someone — governments, corporations, technology — to fix it, while your own life stays the same?
Do you feel isolated in your concern for the Earth, as if no one around you sees what you see?
Have you tried to change how you live through willpower alone, and found the changes didn't last?
Is your relationship to work, money, or spending crowding out what actually makes life wonderful — connection, meaning, health, place?
Do you long to live in real relationship with the land, water, and community where you are, and not know how to begin?
Do you want to stop engaging in Earth debting, debting from the Oceans, Forests, Biodiversity, future generations, etc?
If you answered yes to the last question, that's the only requirement for membership. The rest we work out together, one day at a time.
What Is Earth Debting?
An addiction can be seen as a repetitive behavior where there's a perceived benefit, but when seen from a broader perspective the behavior causes sickness, problems, or even death.
Earth debting fits this description. It is taking from the Earth faster than the Earth can regenerate — individually and collectively — while telling ourselves it's necessary, or that someone else will handle the consequences. Since 1970 humanity has been consuming beyond what the planet renews each year. The choices that drive deforestation, extinction, and exploitation feel normal, even required. Meanwhile they produce collective sickness.
Like other addictions, Earth debting comes with a voice that says the problem is out there. “I drink because of my boss.” “I debt because of the economy.” “I can't live differently because of my job, my town, my family.” What's been found over and over in Twelve Step recovery is that when people work the steps with a sponsor and get help from the group, the inner story changes first — and the outer life follows.
Many of us also found that trying to run from the crisis, or amass money and goods to ride it out, wasn't a reaction to the problem. It was the problem — like the alcoholic who wants to keep drinking without suffering the costs.
We don't say this to shame ourselves. The system we live inside is genuinely extractive; the pressures are genuinely real. We simply found that waiting for the world to become less addictive didn't work. Recovery meant changing our own relationship to the pattern — with support, accountability, and honesty.
And in recovery there's a lightness, creativity, and energy that surprised most of us. Instead of working just for money, we find ourselves drawn toward what contributes most to our lives, to others, and to the Earth. We're restored to sanity and experience ourselves as part of the web of life. Living free of causing destruction feels better than any of the things we thought we'd miss.
How It Works
Regenerative Recovery uses the same simple structure that Twelve Step programs have used for over eighty years, because it works: honest self-assessment, community, experienced guidance, and small repeated actions that accumulate into transformation.
Meetings
We attend RR meetings regularly to share our experience, strength, and hope. A meeting can be two people if need be. In a group, each person's lessons add to the greater knowledge; a pool of solutions arises, and recovery from Earth debting is experienced as possible, probable, and our birthright. It's frustrating and vastly less effective to try to figure out solutions alone.
Sponsorship
We actively seek sponsorship with someone who has worked the Twelve Steps and is willing to guide us. A sponsor isn't an expert or an authority — just someone a little further down the path, sharing their experience, strength, and hope.
Working the Steps
The Twelve Steps are the heart of the program. We work them with a sponsor, at our own pace. They move us from admitting where we are, through honest inventory and amends, to a changed way of living we then carry to others.
Visioning Meetings
In visioning meetings, we imagine — concretely and out loud — the life we want and the kind of bioregion we want to live in. What would it look like for me to live in harmony with the Earth? What would it look like for this watershed, this foodshed, this town? Visioning is good for the person: it replaces vague dread with a direction we actually want. And it is good for the bioregion: shared visions are how neighbors discover they want the same things — healthy soil, clean water, local food, real community — and begin moving toward them together.
Action Meetings
In action meetings, we take our visions and break them into small next steps, then support each other in taking them. One member might commit to starting a garden bed; another to repairing instead of replacing; another to joining a watershed group or helping start a local food project. The steps are small on purpose. They're good for the person — each completed action builds the felt knowledge that change is possible. And they're good for the bioregion — small actions, multiplied across a fellowship, are how regeneration actually takes hold in a place.
Action Partners
We connect regularly with action partners regarding living in harmony and integrity with the Earth, to give each other accountability, continuity, and support.
One Day at a Time
We don't recover all at once, and we don't have to. We become conscious about our choices today. We do not Earth debt one day at a time.
Characteristics of Recovery
These are some of the ways life changes as we recover. These are descriptions of what many of us have found.
We focus on what's truly valuable: the Earth, ecosystems, healthy food, water, and relationships.
We bring awareness to the true costs of our decisions — for example, a tomato grown by a person working in inhumane conditions, sprayed with pesticides, wrapped in styrofoam, and transported across the country, adding to global warming.
We focus on needs versus strategies, and stay mindful of our own needs, the needs of others, and the Earth. We let go of outdated strategies.
We make life easier and add to quality of life by sharing, cooperating, and being in community.
We value the margins — different lifestyles, ways of being, cultures, and ecosystems.
We bring our awareness and actions toward what's life affirming.
We place more emphasis on what's life affirming in the moment, rather than a heavy focus on an abstract future and collecting material things.
We experience as a spiritual truth that we can live abundantly, and put our time toward things that make life more wonderful for ourselves, others, and the Earth.
We let go of a microfocus on personal gain and put energy toward a better world for all.
We value and respect life, from microorganisms and soil to the entire Earth. We're restored to sanity and experience ourselves as of the web of life.
We understand any unskillful choices in the past led us to this new awakening.
We live with as much natural joy and wellbeing as possible, if we choose.
12 Steps of Regenerative Recovery
We admitted we were powerless over engaging in Earth debting and harmful extraction — that our lives had become unmanageable.
Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of a loving higher power of our understanding (some people chose the group, in that most of us can’t recover alone, but in the group we can. How we view that power changes for most of us, some of us call it the great Not-I, e.g. it’s not self-will).
Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
Admitted to a loving higher power, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
Were entirely ready to have a higher power remove all these defects of character.
Humbly asked a higher power to remove our shortcomings.
Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with a higher power, as we understood this, praying only for knowledge of a higher powers will for us and the power to carry that out.
Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these Steps, we tried to carry this message to people engaging in Earth debting, and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
Adapted from the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
The Tools of Regenerative Recovery
Alongside the Steps, we use these tools in our daily lives.
Seeing true costs – We see the true costs of our choices to people, ecosystems, species, and the Earth.
Paying true costs – Plastics, fossil fuels, fracking, deforestation, and exploitation of people and the environment have enormous costs. We make the best choices possible, and make restitution when our choices have negative impacts.
Focusing on needs – We let go of outdated strategies and focus on true needs: physical wellbeing, connection, meaning, authenticity, play, love.
Meetings – We attend RR meetings regularly to share our experience, strength, and hope in order to help ourselves and others recover from Earth debting.
Sponsorship – We actively seek sponsorship with someone who has worked the Twelve Steps and is willing to guide us in our recovery.
Solvency – We do not debt one day at a time. Personal debting leads to engaging in Earth debting.
Service – Giving service is vital to our recovery. It is through service to others, and to the Fellowship, that we keep what has been so generously given to us.
Goals pages – We set goals for all aspects of our lives, including living in harmony with the Earth, write them down, measure our progress, and reward achievement.
Action meetings – We organize action meetings with other RR members to discuss our concerns and to generate actions that help us live abundantly, and in harmony with the Earth and others.
Action partners – We connect regularly with action partners regarding living in harmony and integrity with the Earth, in order to provide each other with accountability, continuity, and support.
Communication – We contact other RR members to seek support, to diminish isolation, and to reinforce our commitments to action.
Literature – We read Twelve Step literature to strengthen our understanding of compulsive disease and the process of recovery.
The Twelve Traditions of Regenerative Recovery
The Traditions keep our groups healthy, so the fellowship can keep offering recovery to the person who still suffers.
Our common welfare should come first; personal recovery depends upon RR unity.
For our group purpose there is but one ultimate authority — a loving God as He may express Himself in our group conscience. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
The only requirement for RR membership is a desire to live in harmony with the Earth.
Each group should be autonomous except in matters affecting other groups or RR as a whole.
Each group has but one primary purpose — to carry its message to the Earth debtor who still suffers.
An RR group ought never endorse, finance, or lend the RR name to any related facility or outside enterprise, lest problems of money, property, and prestige divert us from our primary purpose.
Every RR group ought to be fully self-supporting, declining outside contributions.
Regenerative Recovery should remain forever non-professional, but our service centers may employ special workers.
RR, as such, ought never be organized; but we may create service boards or committees directly responsible to those they serve.
Regenerative Recovery has no opinion on outside issues; hence the RR name ought never be drawn into public controversy.
Our public relations policy is based on attraction rather than promotion; we need always maintain personal anonymity at the level of press, radio, and films.
Anonymity is the spiritual foundation of all our traditions, ever reminding us to place principles before personalities.
Adapted from the Twelve Traditions of Alcoholics Anonymous. AA has not reviewed or approved this adaptation and is not affiliated with Regenerative Recovery.
Personal Recovery and the Recovery of Our Bioregions
Regenerative Recovery works at two scales at once, because they are the same process.
For most of human history, people lived in intimate relationship with specific places — watersheds, seasons, soils, local communities. Recovery, for many of us, means coming back into that relationship. Not everywhere at once. Here.
The visioning meeting and the action meeting are where the personal and the bioregional meet. In a visioning meeting, I might see my own life with a garden, debt free, more time with people I love — and I might also see my valley with restored streams, local food, and neighbors who know each other. In an action meeting, my small step might be personal — taking a new class, walking instead of driving — or it might be regional — joining a creek cleanup, helping a community garden, supporting a local farm. Usually it turns out to be both. What heals the person tends to heal the place, and what heals the place tends to heal the person.
We don't take on the whole system. We don't have to. The recovery tradition doesn't ask anyone to fix the world; it asks each of us to get honest, take the next step, and stay in relationship. Small movements, multiplied across groups and regions, produce something no policy can: genuine change from the inside out.
Starting a Regenerative Recovery Meeting
Any two people with a desire to stop engaging in Earth debting can start an RR meeting. Here's what has worked in other Twelve Step fellowships:
Start small. A meeting can begin with just two members, and grow larger as it attracts more people. Listen for others interested in starting a meeting, even if it's just one other person.
Find a consistent time and place. Choose a venue with a room available at the same time every week, with affordable rent — or meet online or by phone. Venues used by other Twelve Step fellowships, close to transport, have historically worked well. Researching where other fellowships list their meetings is a good way to find a venue.
Choose a simple format. A typical meeting includes a welcome, the RR Preamble, readings of the AA 12 Steps and Traditions, or Tools, or a speaker with recovery or a topic, and time for members to share their experience, strength, and hope. Meetings can also be visioning meetings or action meetings. Formats change and evolve to best serve newcomers and regulars — the group decides by group conscience.
Let people know. Create a simple flyer and place it at other Twelve Step meeting venues, libraries, and community notice boards.
Build a small service team. Successful meetings share the work: someone to open the room, someone to chair, someone to hold the literature. Our leaders are but trusted servants; they do not govern.
Stay self-supporting. Pass the basket for rent and expenses, per the Seventh Tradition. There are no dues or fees.
The Regenerative Recovery Preamble
Regenerative Recovery is a fellowship of people who share their experience, strength, and hope with each other, that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from engaging in Earth debting.
The only requirement for membership is a desire to stop engaging in Earth debting. There are no dues or fees for RR membership; we are self-supporting through our own contributions. RR is not allied with any sect, denomination, politics, organization, or institution; does not wish to engage in any controversy; and neither endorses nor opposes any causes. Our primary purpose is to refrain from Earth debting and to help others do the same.
A Closing Word
Alone, it was too much for almost any of us to face. Together, with the support of the Steps and the tools, we're able to live in harmony and integrity with the Earth, one day at a time. It begins one day at a time, one person at a time. It begins with you, and me. If you want support, Regenerative Recovery offers it. Welcome.