Episode 29: Values-Based Recovery: Anchoring to Your Why
What do you truly stand for? In this episode of Breaking Free from Within, host Prairie Francia explores how values-based recovery helps individuals and treatment providers anchor decisions in what matters most.
Values are the compass that guide our lives — qualities like honesty, family, freedom, or health. According to Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory (1977), values are shaped early through modeling and parental influence. But in the chaos of addiction, people-pleasing, or survival mode, values often get buried.
Prairie paints a vivid picture: a parent who values family and honesty finds themselves lying to cover up their drinking and missing their child’s soccer games. This disconnect, research shows, leads to shame and further disconnection (Miller & C’de Baca, 2001). But values never disappear — they can be reclaimed.
From a neuroscience perspective, clarifying values strengthens the prefrontal cortex, the brain’s executive control center responsible for decision-making. Studies in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience show that reflecting on personal values activates self-control networks, making it easier to resist short-term cravings (Harris et al., 2009).
Listeners are guided through a Motivational Interviewing visualization: “If I were living fully in alignment with my top three values, what would my day look like?” This practice turns values from abstract words into embodied action.
For practitioners and treatment centers, Prairie introduces the Empowered Recovery Curriculum, which provides values card-sort exercises, group reflections, and structured tools for integrating values into recovery work.
Whether you’re uncovering your personal “why” or helping clients reconnect to theirs, this episode reminds us that values aren’t about perfection — they’re about direction. Each choice in alignment with your values rewires the brain, restores integrity, and leads you back to a life that feels authentic and free. READ MORE…
References for Show Notes
Bandura, A. (1977). Social Learning Theory. Prentice Hall.
Miller, W. R., & C’de Baca, J. (2001). Quantum Change: When Epiphanies and Sudden Insights Transform Ordinary Lives. Guilford Press.
Harris, A., Kaplan, J., Curiel, J., Bookheimer, S., & Iacoboni, M. (2009). Self-related processing in the brain: A meta-analysis of functional neuroimaging studies. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 21(5), 799–816.
Volkow, N.D., & Morales, M. (2015). The Brain on Drugs: From Reward to Addiction. Cell, 162(4), 712–725.