One Page a Day: How Recovery Connection Is Using ‘The Daily Stoic’
What a 2,000-Year-Old Philosophy Has to Do with Recovery in Maine Township
The first principle of Stoic philosophy is also the first principle of recovery: you don't control what happened to you, and you don't control what other people do. You control what you do next. Roman Emperor & Philosopher, Marcus Aurelius wrote that down in a private journal in the second century. The founder of Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson wrote a version of it on a napkin in 1935. Now the Maine Township Recovery Connection group is making stoicism a main facet of their approach to make healthy and positive decisions in their daily lives.
May is Mental Health Awareness Month. As part of this month, Maine Township is shedding a light on tools that can enhance the lives of those struggling with addiction, stress and general anxiety. The Daily Stoic by Ryan Holiday, is a book of 366 short meditations drawn from ancient philosophers Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and Seneca.
Recently Maine Township Recovery Connection Director, Marty Cook gifted this book to the participants in his program.
“It’s one page per day. A few minutes of reading, and then conversation about what it landed on,” says Cook. “It's a deliberately small practice with big intentions, and that's the point,” Cook stated.
Why a book of Stoic philosophy fits a recovery room
Recovery and Stoicism cover the same ground from different directions. Both start with an honest accounting of what a person can and can't control. Both treat the present day as the only one that matters — not the wreckage behind, not the worry ahead. Both insist that character is built in the smallest decisions, repeated, when no one is watching.
A few of the tenets prevenient in ‘The Daily Stoic’.
The dichotomy of control. Epictetus opens his handbook with it: some things are up to us; some things are not. The serenity prayer is the same idea in twelve fewer words. For someone managing a substance use disorder, a mood disorder, or grief, the daily work is learning the difference and not wasting energy on the wrong side of the line.
The obstacle is the way. Holiday wrote a separate book on this idea, but it runs all through The Daily Stoic. The thing in front of you — the craving, the panic, the resentment, the bad week — isn't blocking the path. It is the path. The work happens in it.
Daily reflection. The Stoics journaled. So does anyone with a sponsor, a therapist, or a recovery coach worth their salt. The Daily Stoic gives the group a shared prompt — same page, same morning, different lives, same conversation that night.
What it looks like at Recovery Connection
Members may read a day's entry on their own time and choose to bring up what stood out for them in a monthly meeting. Some entries land hard. Some don't land at all. The discipline is in showing up to read the next one anyway. Cook believes many of the participants have used the book to meditate on their daily lives and move forward grounded and more accepting of past outcomes and more have realized the importance of living in the present moment.
Recovery Connection is peer-led, free, and open to any Maine Township resident working on mental health, substance use, or both. It runs on the principle that the people doing the work are the experts. Adding a shared book to the routine isn't a curriculum. It's a handrail used to foster peer discussion and mutual growth.
— Recovery Connection Group members, Patrick L and Jack R
Upcoming Recovery Connection Outing in Chicago
The author, Ryan Holliday is coming to the Copernicus Center in Chicago on August 19th and Recovery Connection is going as a group. The plan to attend the live event together and have a meal after. For a program built on showing up week after week in a meeting room, a night out built around the book everyone's been reading is the right kind of community celebration.
If you've been thinking about joining Recovery Connection, this is a reasonable month to do it. Read a page. Come to a meeting. Decide for yourself.
How to get involved
Recovery Connection meets weekly on Friday nights at 7:30 PM at 7877 N Milwaukee Ave. in Niles. Walk-ins are welcome. Family members and allies are welcome at designated meetings. To get the meeting schedule, the group's contact for the Holliday event, or general information about Maine Township mental health resources, call 224-257-4871, email mccok@mainetown.com or visit the Recovery Connection page on mainetown.com/recovery.
If you or someone you know is in crisis, call or text 988. That line is staffed every hour of every day.