Vipassana / Insight · International + Online
Buddhist-inspired recovery training based on Noah Levine's curriculum. Facilitators lead in-person and online recovery meetings using meditation, mindfulness, and the Eightfold Path as relapse-prevention practices.
Refuge Recovery is a Buddhist-inspired recovery program founded by Noah Levine, drawing on his earlier work with Dharma Punx and Against the Stream. The community uses the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path as a framework for addiction recovery, alongside meditation, peer mentorship, and group meetings. Refuge Recovery meetings are run worldwide in person and online, with active sanghas across the US, Europe, Australia, and parts of Asia. Facilitator training in Refuge Recovery prepares members to lead meetings, run write-up groups based on the Four Noble Truths inquiry process, and support newer members through the recovery program. Facilitators are not licensed addiction counselors; they are peer-recognized members of the community with sustained recovery and sustained meditation practice. The training is donation-based and includes the Refuge Recovery book by Levine, online study modules, mentor relationships, and progressive service in the community. The community went through a governance and leadership crisis in 2018 to 2019, after misconduct allegations against Levine led many sanghas to leave Refuge Recovery and form Recovery Dharma. Refuge Recovery continues as a separate organization with its own central leadership and curriculum. The two communities remain related in framing but are now organizationally distinct, and members occasionally participate in both. The practice combines breath awareness, body scan, metta, and compassion practice from the Insight tradition with the Refuge Recovery write-up process: a structured inquiry working through the Four Noble Truths in relation to one's own addiction history. Facilitators learn to lead meeting structure, hold space for write-up sharing, and offer initial guidance to newcomers. Clinical scope is explicitly outside the role; severe psychiatric or medical concerns are referred to professionals. The community is active across hundreds of meetings worldwide, with regional retreats, online meetings, and a structured pathway from member to facilitator. All formal Refuge Recovery activities are run on a donation basis; the community's recovery-tradition roots in Twelve Step culture meant a strong commitment to free or low-cost access from the start.
Preparation centers on the Refuge Recovery book by Noah Levine, which lays out the Four Noble Truths as a framework for understanding addiction, the Eightfold Path as the structure for ongoing recovery, and the write-up inquiry process for personal application. Members work through the write-up process with a mentor, completing systematic inquiry into the four truths in relation to their own addictive patterns. Meditation instruction draws from the Insight tradition: anapanasati breath awareness, body scan, metta, and forgiveness practice. Topics extend across compulsion and craving, ethical action and the Eightfold Path, the role of community in recovery, working with relapse, and supporting newer members. Facilitator-specific content covers meeting structure, holding space for difficult disclosure, recognizing when a member needs clinical support, and the boundaries of peer service.
Training runs through online modules, mentor relationships with senior facilitators, sustained sangha attendance, and progressive service in local meetings. Online retreats and regional in-person retreats deepen practice exposure. There's no exam in the conventional sense; readiness to facilitate is recognized through completion of the write-up process, mentor support, and the local sangha's invitation to take on leadership. The pathway is donation-based throughout. Continuing service after initial facilitation is part of the model, and many facilitators take on rotating regional roles or organizational service over time.
Facilitators are recognized within Refuge Recovery to lead meetings, run write-up groups, and support newer members. The credential is internal to the community and carries no external accreditation or clinical license. Facilitators are not therapists; the role is explicitly peer service. Many facilitators serve for years, taking on rotating roles in regional and international community structures.
Members typically have sustained personal recovery, regular sangha attendance, completed write-up inquiry work, and ongoing meditation practice. Local sanghas may set their own norms for minimum sobriety time. The pathway assumes commitment to peer service within the Refuge Recovery community.
Refuge Recovery and Recovery Dharma share doctrinal roots in Buddhist recovery and the Four Noble Truths framing. The split in 2018-2019 left two organizations with similar curriculum and different governance. Refuge Recovery retained more centralized leadership tied to Noah Levine's framing; Recovery Dharma is explicitly democratic and peer-led. Both differ from Twelve-Step recovery in their Buddhist content, particularly the use of the Four Noble Truths in place of higher-power and powerlessness framings. For practitioners drawn specifically to Levine's writing and curriculum, Refuge Recovery is the home community.
| Location | International + Online |
| Country | United States |
| Tradition | Vipassana / Insight |
| Format | Online, In-person |
| Duration | Self-paced |
| Estimated cost | Free (donation-based) |
| Accreditation | Refuge Recovery Facilitator |