The Heart of the Model

by Killian Noe, Cofounder of Recovery Café Network

[Editor’s note: Recovery Café Cofounder Killian Noe delivered this inspirational speech at Recovery Café’s Standing in the Gap fundraiser on September 19, 2024. You can watch the video recording of her presentation at this link.]

I’d like to highlight three truths at the heart of the Recovery Café model.

First of all, at the heart of this model is the truth that everyone belongs.

In our larger culture when we belong to a particular religion, socioeconomic class or political party, our belonging is based on adhering to the ideas and norms of that particular group and often upon the exclusion or demonization of those who don’t adhere to those same ideas and norms.

Our understanding of belonging at Recovery Café is radically different from our larger culture’s understanding of belonging. At Recovery Café all are seen and celebrated – just as we are – and all are called upon to see and celebrate others, just as they are.

Being seen and celebrated, just as we are, is something many of us have been longing for our entire lives.

Nothing activates the light of divine Love within us like seeing and celebrating the light of divine Love in others. We were created to be instruments of love; seers of light.

Even though being seen is an important part of our healing journey, the deepest joy comes – not from being seen – but from being see-ers of the light in others.

And part of becoming more fully an instrument of love – a seer of light – involves welcoming and including parts of ourselves we may have been trying to get rid of most our lives.

What we lovingly embrace, gets transformed. What we reject, tightens its grip on us.

A second truth at the heart of the spiritual journey and the heart of this model is that forgiving ourselves and others sets us free.

When my daughter, Kietrie, was five years old, she announced she was running away from home. I watched with great interest as she packed favorite clothes, books, toys and foods for her journey; like a 19 oz canister of powdered Country Time lemonade mix. Problem was, when it came time to lift her packed bag it was too heavy to budge.

Holding on to resentments toward ourselves or others weighs us down and makes it impossible for us to move toward freedom.

This past year I dove more deeply into forgiveness work than I ever had before. I shared with one small group that I felt that I had finally forgiven myself and others of all hurts; beginning with childhood traumas.

I told this group that I had finally reached the basement of forgiveness. One friend in the group responded, “When you reach the basement of forgiveness, you may discover there is another elevator waiting to take you to Parking level 1 and Parking level 2.”

We need the soil of authentic community if we are to practice offering and receiving forgiveness.

The third and final truth I’d like to highlight – which is at the heart of all 65+ Recovery Cafés – is that it is in contributing that we find purpose; that we come alive. It is in giving that we receive.

We tell our members in a thousand ways, “not only are you loved, but you have gifts to share that will help others know they are loved.”

For those who have been endlessly excluded, even despised, to take in the truth that not only are YOU loved, but you are crucial to helping others know THEY are loved; well, it sets off a seismic identity shift.

We shift from taking our identity from all we got wrong or from all our wounds to taking our identity from divine Love at the core of our being.

One of our long-time, beloved members, I’ll call Cammy, came to me one day and said, “I need you to go with me to return the court seal I stole from a judge many years ago.” A little concerned that they might detain her, I called Laura Inveen, a judge who serves on Recovery Café’s board, to ask her for advice. A plan was devised to meet the offended judge to return the court seal.

We arrived in the judge’s chamber and Cammy handed the judge the stolen court seal. The judge opened the leather case, looked inside and acknowledged, “That’s the court seal, alright.”

Then Cammy testified, “Even though I don’t steal anymore, it is true that I stole this court seal many years ago. But what is most true about me is that I am an instrument of Love.” Tears streamed down my face and the face of the judge.

I’d like to come full circle and end these remarks as I began them. For twenty years Recovery Café has embodied – for the larger culture to see – what it looks like when people from radically different life- circumstances, socio-economic realities, races, religions, sexual orientations, gender identities and even different political views live and love like we belong to each other… because we do.

That’s what is happening at our Seattle Cafés staffed by world class lovers-of-people. That’s what’s happening across our nation as group after group allows their hearts to break over the need in their communities and then works tirelessly to bring a Recovery Café to their town or city.

Currently we are able to walk closely alongside 20 new groups each year as they launch Recovery Cafés. At that rate we’d help launch 200 new Cafés over the next ten years.

But what if we doubled our staff capacity and deepened our capacity to love? What if we walked alongside 400 new Cafés over the next ten years?

No one knows for sure how far and wide this love movement will spread. Maybe loving like we belong to each other will become the national norm in mental health services, addiction treatment and within our justice system.

Killian Noe cofounded Recovery Café in Seattle in 2004. The Recovery Café Network was established in 2016 to support those who felt called to establish Recovery Cafés in their own communities. There are now more than 65 Cafés across the country and in Canada. Read the full story, and be inspired, by Killian’s book Descent into Love: How Recovery Café Came to Be.