Men in Recovery: Longing, Clarity, and Sacred Bonding
May we honor the sacred desires and connections between men, unsilenced and shared.
Author’s Intro Note
This started as a teaching for men in recovery, including straight, bi, and men who love men. Beneath the steps and traditions lives a deeper current: craving, clarity, power, and presence. This piece holds one man's decision not to speak seduction into a space that needed truth. It's about attraction, restraint, and the sacred act of naming what lives in us before it becomes something else. You'll feel the fire. And the breath that kept it contained.
Staying Clear: Boundaries and Communication Between Men in Recovery
In recovery spaces, men of all orientations are often drawn into emotional and spiritual proximity. For gay, bisexual, and straight men alike, that closeness can be clarifying, or confusing. Without clear communication, emotional labor becomes uneven, attraction is mishandled, or intimacy becomes assumption rather than consent.
In Mindful Soul Practice, based on Sankofa theory, each interaction begins with Spiritual Grounding, a pause to remember that we are not just managing feelings, but entering sacred space. The goal of our communication is not control or protection, but connection rooted in clarity.
This lesson is about how we walk toward one another without distortion, and how we stay with ourselves when desire or care begins to blur our boundaries.
Why This Matters
Men are taught to fear intimacy with one another unless it's masked by various forms of performance or hierarchy. In recovery, that masking becomes impossible. We confess. We cry. We remember things we were never allowed to say aloud.
But when intimacy is suppressed or denied, it reroutes. It becomes extraction. Or worse, confusion. Relational connection is a core principle of Mindful Soul Practice. Healing is not a solo act, it happens between us. Without mutuality, peer support becomes taking or pretending.
One participant in a men's recovery group once said, "I keep showing up because I love the honesty here." But when pressed, he admitted he never actually shared during check-ins, he just liked being near other men's vulnerability. It wasn't malice. It was unspoken desire disguised as spiritual witness.
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Cultural Resonance and Shared Masculinity
Mindful Soul Practice calls us to value one another as men, across lines of race, orientation, and experience. Shared masculinity is not sameness. It's the recognition that we all carry longing, pride, fear, and need. But how we're taught to express those, or suppress them, differs.
In one recovery sangha, a participant noted that the room was full of white, Buddhist-identified men. Silence and "respect" were the norm- but underneath was a charged stillness. Something wasn't calm, it was contained. Cravings, projections, unspoken longing.
And when the body isn't allowed to speak, it starts to shout elsewhere- through acting out, eroticized bonding, or abrupt withdrawal. The most dangerous room isn't always the one that's loud. Sometimes it's the room that calls suppression spirituality.
Embodied Knowing
Often, the body knows the truth before the mind can name it. A quickened heartbeat, a strong craving, or even a well-timed burp can interrupt the slide into unconscious displays of mindless and potentially damaging behaviors.
One speaker recalled sharing vulnerably during a chaotic Fellowship Anonymous meeting. He was raw, open, vibrating with truth, and found himself nearly saying something flirtatious about a man in the room. But just as the words gathered at his throat, he burped. Loudly. Mic on.
The moment shattered the illusion. And in that rupture, he realized he wasn't just moved, he was craving connection through seduction. It wasn't about that man. It was about the ache to be met, touched, mirrored. And the body interrupted the seduction before it performed as intimacy.
Embodied knowing is not shameful. It's sacred. It tells us where the truth lives, and when we are shifting into territory that needs care, clarity, or a clean breath.
The Fellowship Request: Presence with Discernment
After sharing a deeply personal story about long-term illness and survival, one speaker received a private message from another man in the group. The message was vulnerable and spacious, he spoke of ongoing struggles, emotional exhaustion, and the hope that someone might help him better support a loved one. The connection was immediate and real.
The speaker had noticed this man before, in passing exchanges in other meetings. Their rapport had always carried a charge: not quite romantic, not platonic either, just alive. And when the message came through, it touched something deeper. But the speaker also felt the stirrings of something powerful- craving, attraction, maybe even longing for mutual recognition.
He paused respectfully. He felt something sacred in the invitation and wanted to meet it clearly, not impulsively.
He responded:
"I will pray on what you shared and reach out. I could not tell what the deeper connection between us was meant to be. You may have just revealed it. We cannot save, but we can assist. If you use WhatsApp, we can stay connected there. What matters to me is that we walk forward with full disclosure and clarity."
This was not a rejection. It was a commitment to truth over rush.
It was an act of liberatory intentionality by choosing to engage without confusion, and to honor both the spark and the structure needed to hold it.
Straight Male Power, Reconsidered
Straight men often carry more influence in mixed-orientation spaces, especially when they are charismatic, emotionally open, or unaware of their impact. That power becomes dangerous when it is used unconsciously. But men who love men must also be honest about how we engage desire.
We can't ask for truth if we won't offer it. We can't offer deep care if we're hoping it will transform into something else.
Mutual Honesty and Craving
It is not only straight men who must clarify desire. Men who love men must name our longings, attractions, and histories, to be met with honesty, not evaluated. Straight men must not extract emotional safety from queer men without reciprocity. But neither can we withhold desire and disguise it as benevolent attention.
This doesn't mean oversharing. It means creating space where desire is not a secret and presence is genuine, honest, and vulnerable.
Some straight men disclose past same-sex experiences in recovery. That truth deserves space, not shame. But it also requires clarity. If a man is not seeking intimacy with other men, that must be communicated without assumption or testing. No one should be left guessing what is or isn't being offered.
As stated in Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, "Honest communication about our desires and behaviors is the first step toward connection that honors boundaries, not manipulates them" (SLAA, 2016, p. 42).
From Witnessing to Mutuality
Mindful Soul Practice teaches us that recovery is not just about what we reveal. It is also about what we are willing to receive. Mutuality is not sameness. It is co-presence. Support fails when one person holds the spotlight and the other disappears.
Mutuality asks: Can we name what's happening between us, even gently? Can we tell the truth without losing the relationship?
This is Sawubona. Not "I see your struggle," but "I see your true self."
The CoDA Framework for Boundaries
Co-Dependents Anonymous (1999) offers a four-step approach:
Notice when a boundary is needed (often when we feel craving, guilt, or confusion).
Say the boundary aloud, even is it emerges awkwardly.
Listen to respectful feedback, but don’t collapse.
Reaffirm the boundary later, privately if needed.
Boundaries are mirrors of truth. Limits set for safety by one create safety for many.
Spiritual Grounding: Before Any Exchange
Each conversation, especially across difference, deserves a moment of stillness. Spiritual grounding invites us to remember who we are before offering who we might become.
Here is one way to open:
Boundary Statement
Before we dive in, I want to offer presence.
I want to name something that's part of how I show up in fellowship, especially as a man who loves men recovering with male peers. I've had moments in the past where deep connection got confused with too much emotional labor on my part or engaging intimately without clarity.
So for me, I come into this space as a peer, grounded in recovery, and intentionally platonic.
I say it so the field can stay open and clear.
You don't need to respond to that. It is not a request, just a boundary I intend to hold so I will stay rooted during our relating.
Liberatory Intentionality with Dharma Ethics
We name boundaries not just for safety, but for freedom. Liberatory intentionality means we don't bind ourselves to roles. We speak plainly, so we can meet in wholeness. When we say "no," we make space for more honest yeses.
As Recovery Dharma reminds us, “We do not establish mentor relationships with people we may become romantically or sexually involved with.” This is an important choice made with sacred clarity. When we step into shared vulnerability, we protect it with mutual agreements, not unspoken desire (Recovery Dharma, 2020).
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Holding the Field
These teachings and reflections rest on lived experience and shared lineage. For those called to deepen study, the following resources offer additional grounding:
References
Co-Dependents Anonymous. (1999). Boundaries brochure. CoDA, Inc.
Harrell, S. P. (2022). Sankofa-based therapy: A culturally rooted, integrative approach to healing and liberation. Soulfulness Center for Applied Research and Education.
Recovery Dharma. (2020). Mentorship guidelines. https://recoverydharma.org/book
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous. (2016). Sex and love addicts anonymous: The basic text (The SLAA Book). The Augustine Fellowship.
Survivors of Incest Anonymous. (2019). Spirituality and healing: Voices from recovery. SIA Literature Committee.