Deborah Beddoe - The Heart of Recovery: How Compassion and Community Offer Hope in the Wake of Addiction

If you or someone you love is caught in addiction or is in the process of recovery, this is a must-read book! With gut-level honesty, Deborah and David Beddoe share their storytheir failures and successesand their passionate desire to help you find the answers you desperately seek. Not only is this book a compelling read, its filled with specific information, techniques, and services, along with additional medical, emotional, and spiritual resources. Every person in ministry leadership needs this book, too!

Carol Kent , speaker and author of Staying Power

As a recovering addict myself, I know that healing and restoration for the addict and everyone around them can seem impossible. Deb and Daves life is a picture of the impossible becoming possible. Theyve turned their experience into a manual for what real compassion and grace look like in an addicts recovery. How do you love when theres been so much long-term failure, damage, and broken promises? Deb and Dave show you how to genuinely care in your marriage, family, friendships, and community.

Gary Morland , author of A Family Shaped by Grace

I have known this couple for over thirty years, and The Heart of Recovery is a great toolbox for informing family, friends, church leaders, or even employers how to identify and respond to the signs of opioid addiction. Forged from the fire of personal experience, this book exposes the reader to the practical issues and personal pain of recovery from a variety of perspectives. It is a MUST-READ for anyone involved in pastoral care. I will certainly use it as a resource for my Celebrate Recovery leaders.

Mike Kildal , executive pastor, Redeemers Fellowship, Roseburg, OR

Deborah and David Beddoe have written an insightful and extremely helpful book, not only for people overcoming addiction, but also for family and friends who are profoundly affected as well and wish to offer truly helpful support. The Beddoes personal candor, grace, broad insight, and practical wisdom are not to be missed.

Ron Friesen , spiritual director and director of LifePath, the recovery ministry of Salem Alliance Church, Salem, OR

The Heart of Recovery provides a flood of hope for individuals and families crushed by addiction. Deb and Dave are living proof of the miracle of restoration. As the leader of a local church, I recognize that patterns of judgment and shame have only forced addicts into silent destruction. This book calls us to follow the heart of Jesus by allowing him to shape us into a community of grace, hope, and healing.

Jim Walter , pastor of Restore Church, Poulsbo, WA

The Heart of Recovery is the loving but poignant wakeup call Christians need to no longer fear, hide, and avoid the world of addiction and recovery. Dave and Debs story is raw, powerful, but most of all full of hope. Through addiction, homelessness, the long and messy journey of recovery, and everything in betweentheir story, captured in The Heart of Recovery, is proof that there is no brokenness or hidden shame that the Lord cannot redeem. This book has the ability to change the way we view addiction and recovery, and perhaps remove the shame and fear of those addicts and their families who are still suffering in silence. It is a must-readnot just for loved ones of addicts, but for all Christiansas each of us know someoneopenly or still hiddenwho is battling opioid addiction. You will cry, learn, be challenged, and most of all be encouraged that no matter the circumstancewith Jesus, there is always hope.

Kari Trent Stageberg , coauthor of The Blessing and host of The Blessing podcast

The Heart of Recovery was like sitting with a dear friend and watching a home movie from a season of their life I had no idea they faced. Shockingly, this relieved me and saddened me.... How would I have responded had I known? Would I have caused more hurt or inspired hope? The expression You dont know what you dont know clearly states that each of our perspectives are limited. No one person can know or understand everything. Ignorance, and even innocent good intentions, can cause more harm than good. The Beddoes open up a window into the beautiful and uncomfortable ways recovery can be accomplished, both for the addict and the loved ones surrounding them. The Heart of Recovery is a wakeup call (to both the church and health workers) that addicts live in tension between experiences of deep shame and healing compassion and that there is a vast chasm between immediate healing and the holy pilgrimage of recovery which addicts travel. We can walk with them.

Melinda Gray , RN, emergency room and surgical nurse liaison

The Beddoes show that there are no formulas. Every recovery journey is as unique as every addict. The Heart of Recovery provided me with much needed encouragement to walk alongside my child with compassion and grace, embracing my own vulnerability and laying down my expectations. There have been no quick fixesjust Gods love flowing through me to love my addicted child and show them they are not alone.

Anonymous , mother of a heroin addict

Deb and Dave Beddoe have been given the truth and are speaking it through the authority found in living, surviving, recovering, and enduring addiction.

Anonymous , wife to a husband recovering from addiction