About

APRC supports multiple paths to recovery. We are united in our commitment to overcoming addictive or maladaptive patterns of thought and behavior, while respecting each individual’s freedom to determine the approach that best supports their growth and well-being. While APRC is not a 12-step program, we recognize that many aspects of the 12-step service structure can provide a strong foundation for a diverse and sustainable community. By separating these structures from the stigmatizing disease-model framework, we can use them to foster open communication and cooperation in a space where all voices can be heard.

White blossoms on tree branches backlit by the low sun in spring.

Economic Model:
Like AA and other such groups APRC seeks to create and nurture the “gift economy” model where we hold space for community, and so we work to keep all financial operations outside of the zoom space and all other meeting spaces and salons related to APRC. Please make monetary agreements, exchanges or commitments in our online or physical meeting spaces, and confine all economic activity to the billboard section of our website.

Our fellowship is self-supporting through the donations of our members and anyone else who would like to contribute to us, but in the spirit of the “gift economy,” all donations are received with no obligations attached nor granted. Allocation of money will be a collective decision made by all attending our regular intergroup meetings.

We’ll have on the front page of our website a community billboard where members can post goods and services deemed legal. Comments and members’ feedback can be left about goods and services listed on the billboard. Questions can be left here can be left with along members’ reviews and feedback

Meetings and Salons

Most people who come into recovery from addiction recognize the format of a 12-step meeting and our meetings are relatively the same except that each meeting will have its own literature. Some may choose to use the All Paths Recovery Community literature as it develops in the Salons.

Salons are semi-private and they are temporary: we think of them as “Temporary Research Zones,” in a hat tip to Hakim Bey’s “Temporary Autonomous Zones.” While salons may sponsor a public event with a special guest, or to announce the opening of a salon to those in the community who want to attend and participate, salons may close to focus on getting research work done. A salon begins when it is summoned by an APRC member who feels there is an interest in the community for the subject on which the salon will focus. The announcement for a first meeting will be posted in the Salon Blog.  Official membership closes at a time determined by the salon (or the salon may wish to keep it open). Thereafter, in the case of a closed salon, communication is done through secretaries who screen potential members and act as mediators between the public and the salon. There are also open salons, that is, open to APRC members and members of the larger public. These have open meetings and open recording sessions. 

The purpose of the salon is to research topics and hold discussions on the topic they’ve taken up. The discussions are recorded and transcribed. These become anonymous blog posts drawn from a recorded session on a particular topic. Here are some of the Salons:

1.What is Addiction? Study, discussion on different understandings of addiction.  

2. What is Recovery: Beginning Abstinence, Harm Reduction and Moderation This salon looks at three approaches to problem use and how to use them.

2. Recovering from Recovery: Dismantling Dysfunctional Schemas 

3. The Doctrine Salon: What do the plants teach?

Other salons will be organized as people are willing to volunteer to staff. 

The purpose of a salon is to study, understand and write up a study responding to the salon’s specific interest. This might consist of simple corrected, and approved, transcripts, testimonial, anecdote, research and personal experience or other sources and genres of writing and speech. As we are a peer-based community network we create these opportunities to hold salons at several different hours, or even times of year. Sometimes a salon will adjourn temporarily and pick up again later.