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Programme

FORGE™

FORGE works on the patterns under the addiction: resentment, fear, control, dishonesty and self-centredness. In five stages (FACE, OWN, REPAIR, GROW, EMBED) you name them, become willing to let them go, make amends, build strengths to replace them and carry a daily practice into fellowship.

FORGE continues the work BARE began. BARE interrupted the addictive pattern. Once that pattern stops running the show, the patterns it was sitting on top of become visible: resentment, fear, the need to control, dishonesty, putting yourself at the centre. FORGE treats them as patterns, not flaws: old survival strategies that have outlived their use. The work prepares you for a 12-step fellowship and a sponsor.

There are twelve sessions in five stages. FACE is a written inventory of your resentments, your fears and the harm you have done, reduced to the three to five core patterns that repeat across everything. In OWN you name what each pattern still gives you, check whether you are willing to lose it and find its opposite move. REPAIR turns your harm inventory into a sorted amends list and your Repair Plan. In GROW you take an inventory of strengths drawn from evidence and describe the person you are building. EMBED sets up a nightly review, a daily practice and a fellowship plan, and compiles the FORGE Roadmap you leave with.

The path

12 sessions · 5 parts · ANNEAL comes first

  1. FACE

    Sessions 1 to 4. You name the patterns underneath, honestly and specifically. Session 1, After BARE, takes stock of what BARE gave you and has you name one pattern unrelated to the substance. Session 2, The Resentment Inventory, works each resentment across four columns: who or what, what happened, what it threatens and your part. Where it was done to you, your part can be none. Session 3, The Fear Inventory, names your fears and the behaviour each drives. Session 4, The Harm We Have Done, lists who you harmed and how, then condenses everything into your Pattern Inventory: the three to five patterns that repeat. You do not fix anything yet.

    4 sessions

  2. OWN

    Sessions 5 and 6. You see your part and become willing to let the pattern go. Session 5, What the Pattern Still Gives You, audits the real payoff of each core pattern, then asks, pattern by pattern, whether you are willing to lose it and what you would have to feel or face without it. If the answer is not yet, you write that. In Session 6, The Opposite Move, you map the specific opposite behaviour that replaces each pattern and commit to one of those behaviours before Session 7: what you will do, with whom and by when.

    2 sessions

  3. REPAIR

    Sessions 7 and 8. You put right what you can, directly and through how you live. In Session 7, The Amends List, you build an amends list from your harm inventory and sort each name into one of three groups: willing now, not yet and no direct amends. Use the third where approaching the person would do more harm than good. Amends are for the person harmed, never for your own relief. Session 8, Making Amends, covers the three forms of amends (direct, indirect and living) and turns the list into your Repair Plan. You make the amends; you do not control the response. Before Session 9 you take or prepare one safe amends step.

    2 sessions

  4. GROW

    Session 9. You build the strengths that replace the patterns. Removing patterns leaves a hole. This session, What You Are Building, fills it. You take a Strengths Inventory from evidence: specific things you have done across BARE and FORGE, and the strength each one shows. Then you write the next version of your integrity statement: two or three sentences in the present tense that describe, with proof, the person you are building. Before Session 10 you log each moment you act from that person rather than from the pattern.

    1 session

  5. EMBED

    Sessions 10 to 12. You make the work a daily practice and carry it into fellowship. Session 10, The Daily Inventory, gives you a five-question nightly review and a three-step spot-check (pause, name, choose) for when a pattern fires. In Session 11, The Daily Practice, you design a daily return to centre, faith-based or secular. You also design a pause for when you are agitated. It is STOP from BARE with one question added: what is the next right thing? In Session 12, Carrying It, you write your fellowship plan, compile your FORGE Roadmap, say how you will carry the work to the next person and set commitments for your first week after FORGE.

    3 sessions

How it works

One session at a time

Twelve sessions, taken in order through the five stages. Your clinician opens Session 1, then each later session after reading what you wrote in the one before; nothing opens on a date. Each session has exercises. Sessions 1 to 11 also set homework, usually a daily log, for the days between sessions. There is no right or wrong pace. If an amends involves serious harm, or raises legal or safety questions, do not plan it alone. The plan stays yours; a sponsor, a counsellor or a professional looks over its timing and method.

Each session opens in your own private area of this site. You read it, then write your answers there, and the clinician who reads your work replies. Nothing is timed.

What is held, and for how long

What you write is private. It is not used to train anything, not sold, and not shared with anyone who does not need to know, and never without your specific consent except where the law requires it, as the Privacy Policy sets out. It is kept for three years after your last contact with the practice, and you can ask for a copy or its deletion at any point.