Repairing Foundations for Recovery

Supporting Veterans’ Relationships with Self, Others, and Community

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APPROVED FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDITS BY:

Diamond Mind, LLC is a NAADAC-Approved Education Provider (#290357). Individuals participating in educational programs offered by NAADAC Approved Education Providers are assured that the continuing education (CE) hours provided for each course will be accepted toward national credentialing by the National Certification Commission for Addiction Professionals (NCC AP), as well as many of the individual state licensing/certification bodies in the addiction and other helping professions. To learn more - https://www.naadac.org/providers

North Carolina Addiction Specialist Professional Practice Board (NCASPPB) has approved this training for up to 3.0 hours of continuing education credit for SUDV (formerly SAV, Substance Use Disorder and Veterans) and SS (Substance Abuse Specific Training). All Board-approved hours are acceptable for NCASPPB credentials and re-credentialing requirements. To learn more - https://www.ncsappb.org/forms-resources/trainings/ (total credits determined by length of training) (26-343-S)

Theme: How connection and relationships protect recovery

Overview: Recovery is difficult to sustain when guilt, shame, and fractured relationships continue to isolate veterans from themselves and others. This training equips clinicians and peer supports with practical tools to repair relationship foundations at three levels—self, others, and community—as a protective factor for long-term recovery. Participants learn concise, repeatable strategies to process shame and guilt, release resentments, set healthy boundaries, and strengthen recovery-supportive connections. Designed for clinical, peer, and justice-involved settings, this session provides ready-to-use exercises and planning templates that reduce isolation, improve engagement, and support meaningful reintegration.

Outcomes: Attendees gain practical frameworks for reducing isolation, strengthening protective relationships, and supporting healthy community reintegration.

FULL COURSE DESCRIPTION & LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

For many veterans, recovery is undermined not only by symptoms of mental health or substance use disorders, but by unresolved relational injuries carried forward from service and transition. Guilt, shame, resentment, mistrust, and fractured support systems often drive isolation, conflict, and self-sabotaging behavior—especially among justice-involved and high-risk populations. Without intentional repair of these relational foundations, recovery efforts may stall despite access to treatment, peer support, or accountability structures.

This training equips clinicians, peer support specialists, and recovery professionals with a practical, trauma-informed framework for restoring relationship health as a core protective factor for sustained recovery. Using Diamond Mind’s CAM framework (Connection, Authenticity, Meaning) and the PERMA “R” (Relationships) lens, participants learn how to guide veterans through a stepwise, inside-out

pathway: rebuilding the relationship with self, strengthening relationships with others, and reestablishing connection and belonging within community.

The session begins by addressing internal relationship repair, helping veterans recalibrate self-talk, restore balanced self-image, and distinguish guilt from shame. Participants learn brief, repeatable protocols to process unresolved guilt, build shame resilience, and reconnect individuals with an internal locus of worth and accountability—without collapsing into self-condemnation or avoidance.

The training then expands outward to interpersonal repair, focusing on releasing resentments, rebuilding trust, setting workable boundaries, and strengthening high-value relationships that support recovery. Participants are introduced to structured tools for resentment processing, belief–behavior reconciliation, and influence mapping, enabling clients to intentionally curate relationships that reinforce stability rather than undermine it.

Finally, the session addresses community reintegration as an essential component of long-term recovery. Participants learn how to support veterans in reconnecting with community through prosocial roles, responsible service, empathy-building practices, and intentional circles of belonging that reinforce identity, purpose, and accountability. Special attention is given to justice-involved contexts, where stigma, disrupted trust, and social fragmentation often intensify relapse risk.

Grounded in trauma-informed care and strengths-based practice, this training emphasizes that connection without authenticity undermines regulation, and that sustainable recovery requires relational environments aligned with growth. Participants leave with ready-to-use worksheets, scripts, and planning tools that make relationship repair teachable, scalable, and immediately applicable across clinical, peer, reentry, and community-based settings.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this training, participants will be able to:

Describe how guilt, shame, resentment, and unresolved relational wounds impact recovery engagement and reintegration for veterans with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders.
Differentiate internal relationship repair (self-forgiveness, shame resilience) from external relationship repair (trust-building, boundaries, reconnection).
Apply trauma-informed tools to reduce emotional barriers and strengthen recovery-supportive relationships in clinical or peer-based settings.
Facilitate structured exercises that support resentment release, boundary setting, and influence curation to reduce relapse risk.
Develop a brief community-reintegration plan that increases belonging, accountability, and protective relational supports for a hypothetical veteran client.