A Guide to Romantic Relationships in Recovery

The editorial staff of Rehabs. Our editors and medical reviewers have over a decade of cumulative experience in medical content editing and have reviewed thousands of pages for accuracy and relevance. Recovery is a time for self-care and reflection, establishing structure and controlling urges. Most weeks, Saturday nights are spent at 12 step meetings.

To be clear, no professional would ever recommend dating in early recovery.

To date in early addiction recovery, or not to date? How can a person in early recovery know exactly who they want to start a relationship with.

For some, discovering that your new love interest is in recovery for alcoholism or drug addiction might be a red flag. That was never the case for Karen Nagy. When she first started dating a man in recovery, she welcomed the challenge to be by his side on his path to sobriety. But as their relationship evolved, Nagy desperately wanted advice from someone who had walked in her shoes. It’s essentially a manual for people not in recovery who are either dating or married to those who are.

The book’s publisher, Hazelden, operates treatment centers across the U. Nagy offers her own experiences dating men in recovery and shares stories of couples embarking on the 12 steps together. The Tribune recently spoke to her by phone about her new book. Below is an edited transcript. A: Several people said to me, when I mentioned I was writing this book, “Oh, what are you going to say? I hope the book dispels that myth. You can work it out. You have tools to help you.

A: I think people who come from addictive families are used to the patterns they see in people in recovery.