The Next Step in Recovery
Author: Nancy Nolley

I believe alcoholism starts with a breach of personal integrity. As children and young adults, we couldn't always reconcile our whole Self with a dysfunctional environment, and the pain of that breach of wholeness was dulled by drinking.

We drank to survive. I believe we stop drinking when we feel like we have what it takes to start re-building our integrity. To become whole.

After 11 years of sobriety, that familiar feeling of void was resurfacing in my life. I couldn't figure out what was going on. I had a good life, owned my home, had a good job, etc. but still felt empty. My soul searching started several years ago and I'm just now starting to get in touch with how to live a truly authentic life. My quest for living a life full of joy and authenticity began with a career change. I knew I was ready, but I never imagined it would take me on this journey.

I started my new career as a personal coach by enrolling in the coach certification program at Coach U, Inc. After taking classes for about a year in the program, I was ready to enroll in one of the more intensive courses, Personal Foundation. This was the class that really started me on my journey for a deeper level of understanding, and desire, to really know WHO I am. With this deeper desire, I had a vision of my full potential.

As I progressed on this new journey, I came to believe that as alcoholics, we are seldom taught the tools we need to live an authentic life. So much of our living is just surviving. Even after we are sober. We don’t know how or where to start learning these foundational tools. We know integrity only as a word in the dictionary. We hear people say they live by their values, but again, we come up empty.

I was astounded that, even after 11 years of sobriety, I had not been exposed to many of the principles that the Personal Foundation course is about. Now, I have a new desire to deliver it to others that are ready to take their recovery, and life, to a deeper level, to the next step in recovery.

A strong personal foundation will lead you to truly learn what your core values are and how to live from them. It starts with bringing an awareness to what you are tolerating in your life, raising your standards and setting extensive boundaries. Along the way of building a stronger foundation, you learn how to get clear of the past and restore your integrity. Living in integrity is when you can start living your life based on your values and not by being driven, haplessly, by life circumstances.

When I first started taking this course, I came to see how the deficit of the life tools learned in the Personal Foundation course had caused me to make the decisions I had that sabotaged me living a full life. There is a phenomenon with alcoholics of social immaturity, that the age at which we started drinking is the age you delayed our social and emotional development. This course has taught me the life skills I have missed out on and how to start living a fuller life.

This program starts by discussing and defining the What, Who and How of your life. The ultimate goal is to integrate the What and Who, by learning and living with the knowledge of a healthy How.

I am just now learning, at age 48 and 11 years sober, the Hows of living a full life by integrating my What and Who. Living authentically.

Are you living a life fully integrated? Are you living an authentic life?

I now facilitate the course that starting me on my journey to a deeper self awareness to other people in recovery. Call or email to get a schedule for my next course.

--Nancy Nolley






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Nancy Nolley, MS, coaches groups and individuals in recovery who want to build a stronger Personal Foundation on which to live their life. To sign up for a course, or receive additional information, email or call Nancy at: Nnolley@aol.com or 800-210-5870.

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