Who Do I Put On My Release Of Information?

Posted on October 22, 2018

Isolation is one of the biggest threats to our recovery, regardless of whether we are recovering from a chemical dependency, an eating disorder, a behavioral addiction, or another kind of mental health issue. Shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world in our recovery puts us at risk for relapse. Accountability, honesty, and transparency are the proven antidotes to isolation by breaking our barriers and opening up vulnerable, authentic communication. The more people we have in our inner circle who know us, love us, and have access to information about what is going on with us, the better. By including more people in our journey, we have a greater system of support from treatment to home, work to school, and beyond. To recover is to change our lives completely, meaning we need a complete team of people we know, love, and trust, to support us.

Depending on our situation, we may need to give information about our recovery to legal or professional entities as well. During our time of struggles, we might have run into problems with the law or our employers. Working with Hired Power, we can trust that our information remains confidential to only those who need to know about our sobriety and/or our progress in recovery. Only the people we give release of information to will be released information about our private life of recovery.

Personal Life:

• Family Members: Depending on age and circumstance, members of the family will need to be involved in your recovery. Parents are most often involved. Sibling who are extremely close may need information, guardians, or any other family members with custody, legal supervision, etc.
• Spouses: Sometimes our spouse is our family. Spouses can be included in the conversation and receive information about recovery. If we are in divorce proceedings, an ex-spouse or separated spouse may need to be involved legally, or for support.
• Trusted Individuals: We don’t get to choose the family we are given at birth, but we do get to choose a family in recovery. If we have trusted individuals in our lives who are as close to us, or closer, than family, we can include them in our recovery journey so they can support our goals.

Professional Life

• Employer: Our mental health struggles may have affected our professional life and our workplace. Depending on our vocation or profession, we might have standards boards, certification boards, regulatory agencies, and any number of processes in place which we have to work with in order to regain standing at work.

Legal Life

• Lawyer: Mental health struggles impair our ability to execute our cognitive functions properly. Meaning, our decision making, thought-processing, and best judgment are at a severe disadvantage. As a result, we might have made some choices which brought us legal trouble. As well, we may have outside issues in which legal proceedings take a role, like divorce or custody.
• Parole Officer/Probation Officer: If we have to maintain abstinence or prove mental wellness as a result of imprisonment, or to avoid imprisonment, it is of the utmost importance to include our Parole or Probation Officer on information about our recovery progress.

Recovery Life

• 12-Step Sponsor: Twelve-step programs like Alcoholics Anonymous can become a huge part of our lives in our recovery from chemical addiction. Even if drugs and alcohol aren’t part of our story, we might find a 12-step fellowship or other kind of support group to participate in. Our sponsor can act as a mentor and have a large role in our lives. If we are working closely with our sponsor, they can lend our support team great information about our recovery.
• Treatment Program: Treatment is offered on a full scale continuum of care. Our treatment plan might include a step down process, various groups, and work with specific institutions. For treatment, the information is necessary to go both ways. What happens at treatment can help inform the rest of our support team. What happens outside of treatment help inform our treatment team.
• Therapist: Working with a therapist is an important part of recovery. Like treatment programs, therapists need to be informed about updates in your recovery. As well, your support team can be greatly helped by some information from your therapist, like how you are progressing in your sessions. You and your therapist can decide what kind of details to share— like relapse, self-harm, etc. and what kind of details not to share, like personal feelings or opinions, unless they pose a threat to your wellbeing.
• Doctors: Mental health issues do not only exist in the mind. Recovering from mental health is a holistic effort because mental health affects the whole: mind, body, and spirit. We might be working with a number of different kinds of doctors for a number of different kinds of issues. Our progress in recovery and our sustained abstinence is a key piece of information for our medical team.

You never have to walk the journey of recovery alone. At Hired Power, our dynamic team of experienced recovery professionals serves to stand by you, every step of the way. We live recovery every day in our personal lives or the lives of our loved ones. Having witnessed the pain and struggle of addiction, as well as the possibility of recovery first hand, we know what your family needs to heal. By bringing recovery home, our services help you focus on what matters most: health, wellness, and serenity. For information on our services, call us today: 1-800-910-9299