🎥 Video 1A Transcript: Welcome to Addiction Recovery Chaplaincy Practice

Hi, I am Haley, a Christian Leaders Institute presenter.

Welcome to Addiction Recovery Chaplaincy Practice.

This course is designed for volunteer, part-time, and full-time Christian chaplains who want to serve people impacted by addiction, recovery, relapse, shame, family pain, and the long journey toward restoration.

Addiction recovery ministry is holy ground. People often enter recovery carrying more than a substance struggle. They may carry secrecy, regret, broken trust, fear, anger, grief, trauma echoes, spiritual confusion, and deep loneliness. Some have tried to stop many times. Some have burned bridges. Some are ashamed to walk into a church. Some are hungry for God but afraid of being judged.

An Addiction Recovery Chaplain meets people in that place with calm presence, clear boundaries, and Christ-centered hope.

This course does not train you to become a therapist, addiction counselor, treatment provider, detox worker, sponsor, case manager, medical professional, or legal advocate. Those roles matter, and they have their own training, authority, and limits.

This course trains you to serve as a chaplain.

That means you learn to offer spiritual care without taking over someone’s recovery. You learn to listen without shaming. You learn to pray by permission. You learn to share Scripture with consent. You learn to encourage accountability without control. You learn to recognize when a situation needs referral, emergency support, church oversight, sponsor involvement, counselor involvement, or treatment care.

This course will also help you understand the difference between recovery coaching, sponsorship, pastoral care, counseling, and chaplaincy. Those differences matter because confusion can harm vulnerable people.

A good recovery chaplain is steady. A good recovery chaplain does not panic when relapse is mentioned. A good recovery chaplain does not make promises that cannot be kept. A good recovery chaplain does not create emotional dependency. A good recovery chaplain respects the church, recovery group, recovery home, treatment program, sponsor, family, and community structures already surrounding the person.

Most of all, a good recovery chaplain sees the person as an image-bearer of God.

People are more than their addiction. They are more than their relapse. They are more than their drug of choice. They are embodied souls with stories, wounds, responsibilities, relationships, gifts, temptations, hopes, and eternal significance.

In this course, you will learn practical ministry wisdom for real situations: first conversations after recovery meetings, relapse disclosures, difficult personalities, family pain, church stigma, boundaries, crisis signals, and the building of healthy recovery ministry in local churches and Soul Centers.

You are not here to fix everyone.

You are here to become faithful, wise, prayerful, grounded, and useful in Christ.

Welcome to Addiction Recovery Chaplaincy Practice.