Addiction is often born from pain—not just physical or emotional pain in the present, but unhealed wounds from the past. For many, substance use began as a way to cope with trauma, to numb the unbearable, to escape what felt inescapable. But within the story of addiction, there is also a story of survival—and for some, a path to something even more powerful: post-traumatic growth.

Trauma leaves a mark—sometimes visible, often hidden. It carves out places in us we never asked for, places filled with pain, confusion, and loss. But what many survivors come to learn—sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once—is that trauma can also create the conditions for profound transformation. This is what we call post-traumatic growth (PTG).

We believe in compassionate harm reduction tools for people, no matter where they are in the change continuum.

Why do we need a new Paradigm for recovery?… because what we have isn’t working.

Because you can’t hate yourself into healing.

What happens when the dominant model doesn’t fit the complexity of your healing?

Because staying well is more than staying clean.

Not sobriety. Not perfection. Not performance.
The goal is system coherence. The goal is wholeness.

Not where we wish they were. Not where we think they should be. But right here, right now, in their real, messy, human moment.

Non-abstinence-based recovery challenges one of the most deeply held assumptions in the recovery world: that healing only “counts” if you quit completely. That if you’re still using—at all, in any amount—you’re still sick, still in denial, still failing.

But what if that’s not true?

Understanding What a Non-Abstinence Based Recovery Program Can Be

Are you struggling with an addiction and looking for a new way to recover? The Suma Method offers a non-shaming, harm reduction forward, solution to addiction and recovery based on systems thinking and Positive Psychology.