Sobriety Through the Sacred
Mission
To help people break the self-sabotage loop and build a sober life that holds, through daily structure, honest trade-offs, supportive community, and lived contact with the Sacred.
Our Perspective
Most recovery options lean either clinical, purely cognitive, or purely communal. Sacred Sobriety combines what’s often separated: practical accountability and daily structure, depth work that targets the hidden drivers (shame, resentment, ego defenses, grief), and a humble, reality-based spirituality rooted in conscience, beauty, love, and the living world.
We don’t worship sobriety dates or shame slips… we measure progress by honesty, engagement, and follow-through, and we help you return quickly when you drift.
Recovery isn’t only what you quit — it’s who you become.
We help you reconnect:
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to the Divine (God — not as a “thing,” but as a lived relation of trust, response, and love),
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to your own conscience and body,
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and to the living world that modern life trains us to treat as background.
When that bond is repaired, self-sabotage loses its grip and purpose takes root.
Self-sabotage is often a symptom of disconnection — from reality as it is, from the body, from meaning, from relationship. Left unchecked, it can harden into self-destructive patterns that feel “inevitable,” until they don’t.
What makes us different
Most models are useful, but incomplete on their own. At its root, addiction is not merely a behavior problem — it’s often a crisis of meaning, belonging, and spirit.
What seems clear is that recovery requires a renewed relationship with the Sacred — the dimension of life that calls for reverence, truthfulness, and humility.
We speak of God carefully — not in a religiously exclusive way, and not as a cosmic object — but as a name people have long used for the Divine reality that meets us in conscience, beauty, love, truth, and the living world.
To revere God is to practice humility, awe, and gratitude — not only when life is bright, but also when it is difficult. The point is not to “win” at recovery, but to become more real.
Nature-based practices are central.
Modern life trains us into abstraction: screens, speed, severed rhythms, chronic noise. We consciously rebuild the bond with nature — because it returns us to what is actual, embodied, and whole. And through that return, many people rediscover contact with the Sacred.
Additional differences
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We explore recovery through consciousness, shadow work, and spiritual practice. Much of the work is reshaping the hidden patterns that run the show when willpower runs out.
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We welcome the sober-curious. This is a sanctuary where exploration is encouraged and rigid labels fall away. You don’t have to adopt an identity to begin living differently.
We offer a free 30-day action plan, unconventional coaching, private online group, AI Sober Companion, and our YouTube channel.
Whether you’re really hurting or sober curious we welcome all forms of abstinence and sobriety—here, you will find zero judgment.
Chris Willitts, Founder & Fellow Traveler
Guiding recovery through meaning, shadow, and the Sacred.
Street Cred
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Consciousness Studies & Psychology – five years at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
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Coaching 15+ years – with focus on mindfulness, integrative, and plant-based approaches
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Mindfulness & Meditation Training – University of Michigan various traditions and lineages (trained under a Shaman)
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Shadow Work Facilitator – rooted in Jungian and mythopoetic frameworks
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20+ years on the path of recovery – including AA, psychotherapy, group therapy, in-patient treatment, sober living, plant medicine, and inner work
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Student of the Mystics & Philosophers – Marcus Aurelius, Plato, Jung, Watts, Tolle, McKenna, and McGilchrist
I’ve founded several health and wellness projects over the years, but coaching keeps returning — less like a job, more like a calling. And I don’t think that’s an accident.
Human beings are far more resilient than they feel in the middle of the struggle.
I studied Consciousness Studies and Psychology at the University of Michigan, which gave me a solid academic foundation — but the deeper lessons didn’t come from textbooks. They came from experience: facing my own patterns, my own shadow, and learning (slowly) what it means to come back into relationship with life.
So I coach as a fellow traveler — not as someone who has it all “figured out,” but as someone committed to what’s real.
Flexible Recovery
A Journey of Depth, Not Dogma
I’ve been walking the path of recovery for over 20 years.
- In my first long stretch of sobriety, Alcoholics Anonymous was my lifeline.
- The fellowship, the steps, the higher power—I leaned all the way in, and I’ll always be grateful.
- I carry that community in my heart… and their symbol on my arm (tattoo).
My second stretch of sobriety was reshaped by new forces:
- It’s a more integrated path, one that includes plant medicine and inner work.
- I no longer depend on meetings to stay sober, but the principles of recovery are still alive in me.
- The core truths—honesty, humility, surrender, service—they don’t expire.
My third successful run at sobriety integrated even more elements:
- I returned to the rooms of AA once a week to grow deeper roots and commitment to my sobriety. It also renewed my sense of community and gives me a chance to be of service.
- I started attending church and doubling down on the path of Jesus (not religion itself). This also has given me a wider sense of community, support, and more opportunities to be of service.
- These two communities helped me remedy my natural tendency to isolate and go things alone. Life is so much better when I’m surrounded my healthy people who actually care about me.
- Don’t underestimate love and support. We need people. Scientific research it clear about this.
Over time, I’ve come to believe something that’s become central to my work:
There’s no one way to get sober.
There are many valid paths — and what matters most is whether a path brings you back into wholeness.
A simple test is this:
Does it bring you closer to what is most real?
Does it restore relationship — with the body, with truth, with the living world, and with the Sacred?
Some call that “God.” I understand the word is loaded. But whatever we call it, the point is contact — not ideology.
Do you feel more honest? More grounded? More able to love?
Do you respect the man looking back at you in the mirror?
If so, that may be your medicine. That may be your ground.
