Introduction
In the hallowed spaces of recovery, stories are our currency. The “drunkalogue”—the raw, unfiltered narrative of our descent into addiction and the trauma that often fueled it—is how we connect. We say, “Me too.” We shatter the isolation of shame. This ritual is powerful, sacred, and for millions, life-saving.

But what happens when the tool designed for healing inadvertently causes harm? What if, in our earnest attempt to share strength, we sometimes pass around the wound instead?

This is not a critique of intention, but an observation of effect. It’s a call to examine one of recovery’s most entrenched traditions through the lens of trauma-informed care. Because true healing requires not just bravery, but safety.

The Power and The Purpose
First, acknowledge the light. The drunkalogue serves vital functions:

• It Combats Isolation: Hearing “your story” from another’s lips destroys the crippling belief that you’re uniquely broken.
• It Builds Community: Shared vulnerability forges instantaneous bonds of trust and understanding.
• It Provides a Narrative: It helps make sense of a chaotic past, creating a “before” to contrast with the “after” of recovery.

The ritual works. Until, for some, it doesn’t.

The Hidden Risk: Re-traumatization in a Peer-Led Space
Here is the central dilemma: Trauma lives in the nervous system, not just in memory.

In a clinical therapy setting, revisiting a traumatic memory is a carefully guided process. A trained professional helps you titrate the exposure—touching the memory just enough to process and integrate it, within a container of unwavering safety. The goal is to transform the memory from a triggering, present-tense horror into a settled, past-tense fact.

A recovery meeting, by beautiful and necessary design, is not this container. It is peer-led, not clinically guided.

For the speaker, recounting a graphic trauma without this framework can be a neurological relapse. The heart races, the stomach clenches, the mind floods—the body responds as if the event is happening now. This isn’t catharsis; it’s re-traumatization.

For the listener with their own unprocessed trauma, the vivid details can act as a direct trigger, sparking anxiety, flashbacks, or a spiral of shame. The room meant to be a sanctuary can suddenly feel threatening.

We mistake rawness for authenticity, and intensity for healing. But sometimes, we are not sharing strength. We are circulating a trigger.

The Grateful Truce: A Call for Sacred Safety
A Grateful Truce with our past means we agree to treat our wounds with the respect they deserve. This isn’t about silencing stories. It’s about elevating them.

It means asking ourselves:

• Is this sharing for my healing, or for performance?
• Am I seeking connection, or just reliving the pain?
• Does this space feel safe enough to hold this memory?

It means advocating for and seeking out trauma-informed spaces within recovery—meetings or groups that understand these dynamics and have basic protocols to guard against harm.

It means honoring our stories so deeply that we insist on the right conditions for their telling: conditions that lead to integration and peace, not repetition and reactivation.

Ready for More Unfiltered Truth?

This video is part of my mission at Grateful Truce to cut through the noise of the recovery industry. If this honest look behind the curtain helped you, there’s more on my YouTube channel.

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Conclusion: From Circulating Pain to Cultivating Peace
Our stories are not liabilities; they are the bedrock of our empathy. But not every foundation needs to be dug up and inspected daily to build a stable house upon it.

Healing requires remembering. But it also requires processing, and ultimately, rest. The goal of recovery storytelling shouldn’t be to keep the wound vividly alive, but to acknowledge its scar as proof of survival, so we can finally turn our full attention to building a life beyond it.

Let’s move from simply sharing our pain to curating our healing. Let’s ensure our communities are not just brave, but safe. Let’s make a truce with our past that allows for a future defined not by what we survived, but by how we live.

Chris Mosser

Author of Grateful Truce & The AGI Dilemma