September is National Recovery Month. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA) theme for this year is the Art of Recovery, which recognizes the transformative impact of art on mental health and substance use recovery. Through creative expression, people find connection, healing, and empowerment.
Art has long been an important point of connection and self-expression for patients and clients of ETS. In the early days of the REACH team, they launched the Camera Club. REACH gave disposable cameras to clients to engage with people in a different way beyond just their social work and emergency needs. Camera Club was catalyst for building trust and fostering community. One REACH staff person recalled: “There was a couple that was very isolated, and they started coming in very regularly because they loved photography. They would bring me art pieces that they found in dumpsters because they really were kind of visionary. They didn’t want to engage with any social work organizations, because they didn’t see themselves that way. Once the camera club started, it was a different conversation, and then we eventually were able to get them both housed.”
Our clinics and REACH program also regularly share patient art, sometimes holding friendly competitions to see which piece of artwork adorns a poster, holiday card, or the cover of an ETS publication like the REACH zine. You can see a number of these submissions below.
In addition, this summer, SAMHSA Office of Recovery accepted submissions from two art mediums—painting/drawing/mixed media and photography—from people with lived or living experience of behavioral health challenges. The selected submissions are featured in their “Gallery of Hope: Artistic Expressions of Recovery Across the Nation” which launched early August and will remain available throughout Recovery Month in September. Check out the selected submissions on SAMHSA’s website. In addition, ETS community partner Path with Art also has a virtual exhibit that opened July 18. Check it out!
The Art of Recovery can also have another meaning, not only highlighting the art people create, but also the way they engage in their recovery. While there can be common themes, every person’s story of recovery is unique. The act of recovery is unique as well and can be seen as artistic self-expression—how someone decides to shape and create their life.
The poet, theologian, and author John O’Donohue wrote that everyone is an artist. When asked what he meant by host Krista Tippett on the On Being podcast, he replied, “I mean that everyone is involved, whether they like it or not, in the construction of their world. So, it’s never as given as it actually looks; you’re always shaping it and building it.” How someone shapes their recovery and what it means to them is a self-expressive and creative act.
This is one reason that ETS’ theme for this year’s Roots of Recovery event coming up on Thursday, Sept. 26 is “Many Paths to Healing.” If people engage in recovery in diverse and self-expressive ways, then we need to meet them with as many options as possible so they can chart their own course. There is not only one path to healing—there are as many paths as there are people who walk them. To learn more about this theme, stories from people we serve, and the options ETS offers, join us at our 7th Annual Roots of Recovery!
