Don Coyhis and Richard Simonelli (2008), two leaders in the Native American recovery community, encourage us to imagine a sick forest in which there is a disease. To combat the disease, we might take the sick trees out of the forest and into a nursery to provide more nurture, water, and adequate sunlight. After nursing the sick trees back to health, we bring them back to the forest, but these trees get sick again. This happens because the same trees are brought back to an environment where nothing has improved. Workplaces often represent this sick forest in which employers may unintentionally cultivate recovery-hostile environments in place of recovery-friendly ones. As such, employees seeking recovery can be thought of as the sick trees who may be in and out of treatment, but upon returning to work, may relapse if a strong support system is not in place. For this reason, it is essential to provide fertile soil, or a recovery-friendly workplace sustained by recovery education and training, recovery-centric policies and protections, health and wellness resources, and health-relevant leadership. Effectively, a recovery-friendly workplace limits environmental threats (e.g., serving alcohol at company social events, drinking with company clients) and allows employees in and seeking recovery an opportunity to flourish.
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