Transforming adversity into recovery capital through structured coaching. This Community of Practice session examines the full U-ACT LEROS framework — from redefining addiction at its root to the Kintsugi system that turns personal chaos into professional practice.
Live CoP session
Cinematic overview
Community of Practice session · 12 May 2026 · MAUNi London Recovery Coaching · Cinematic summary generated via NotebookLM
Every recovery coach in the LERO framework starts from the same place: a personal journey through adversity. But a personal journey, however profound, is not yet a profession. The U-ACT LEROS Systemic Recovery Coaching Framework is the structure that bridges the gap — transforming raw lived experience into credentialed, scalable professional practice.
This Community of Practice session is where certified coaches and trainees gather to process the work — to bring real cases, real questions, and real chaos into a structured learning environment. It is the 40-hour theory phase of the certification, attended across 20 dynamic CoP sessions.
Before any framework can be built, the foundation must be honest. The word addiction is commonly treated as a medical label for substance misuse. But its etymology reveals something far more useful to a coach.
Addiction is a biological dependence on chemicals — a substance misuse disorder to be treated medically.
From the Latin addictus — to be indebted to, or enslaved by, a devotion. A disease of the will.
Key insight: Addiction extends far beyond substances. A person can become enslaved to gambling, destructive relationships, or the compulsive pursuit of instant gratification. Understanding this broadens the coach's field of vision and opens the door to genuine systemic recovery.
One of the most clinically important — and least understood — aspects of addiction is that the substance itself is rarely the peak experience. The ritual surrounding it is. This has profound implications for how coaches work with cravings and triggers.
The initial urge or environmental cue that activates the cycle — a person, place, emotion, or time of day.
Waiting for the dealer, rolling the joint, walking into the shop. The highest hit comes from the ringing up and the waiting, not the drug itself.
The actual consumption or action — often yielding disappointment or emotional flattening relative to the anticipation.
Navigating a world without the ritual. Clients often find it harder to go into a normal shop and pay for an item than to abstain — the daily hustle was their entire routine.
"The highest hit comes from the ringing up and the waiting, not the drug itself. Coaching unpicks the habit and the anticipation of use — which are often more entrenched than the substance."
The U-ACT LEROS framework is structured around five interconnected modules, each radiating from the core of lived experience. Together they give the coach a complete operational toolkit.
Moving beyond advice-giving to facilitate genuine self-discovery. The coach asks, listens, and holds — they do not prescribe, fix, or rescue.
Navigating the spectrums of human experience — from addiction to wellness, isolation to connection — using the Four Continuums as the shared measurement language.
Understanding the client within their wider web of family and institutional relationships. Recovery is never just about the individual — it is about the ecology around them.
The coach acting as a catalyst for systemic change — not just individual change. Shifting the culture from adversity to resilience across the entire system.
Establishing psychological safety and boundaries to hold chaos and conflict. We are not doctors, social workers, or midwives — we are professionals holding a safe space for adults to learn how to recover.
Becoming a certified recovery coach under the U-ACT LEROS framework requires 110 structured hours across three phases. Each phase builds on the last and cannot be skipped.
The coach does not operate in a dyad. They sit at the centre of a systemic triangle — pulled simultaneously by three distinct forces, each with different needs and agendas.
The client seeks absolute trust, confidentiality, and an ally against a system that judges them. The family is exhausted by addiction — projecting frustration onto the coach, demanding updates and immediate fixes. The professionals operate within institutional risk frameworks, seeking compliance, reporting, and evidence of proper recovery. The coach's role is not to pick a side — it is to hold the boundaries and shift the entire system's culture from adversity to resilience.
A gambling addiction case from this CoP session demonstrates exactly how the systemic web plays out in real practice — and why holding professional boundaries is non-negotiable even when the system pushes back.
A client requests coaching for gambling addiction but demands strict secrecy from his wife. He wants to attempt controlled gambling rather than immediate abstinence.
The coach meets the client where they are — agreeing to trial the client's own idea to build trust and autonomy. No imposition of abstinence.
The client's wife discovers the arrangement, bypasses the coach, and complains to the institutional Social Worker — demanding the coach's removal.
The coach firmly holds confidentiality with the Social Worker. By the sixth session the client realises on his own: "It doesn't matter if I win or lose. I just don't want to go home." The realization sparks true recovery.
Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold — the philosophy that breakage and repair are part of the history of an object, not something to disguise. The U-ACT LEROS framework adopts this as its central metaphor for what recovery coaching actually does.
The input is a culture of adversity — chaos, compulsive devotion to ritual, systemic conflict, and stigma. The catalyst is the systemic coach, leveraging professionalised lived experience to hold boundaries, bypass barriers, and navigate complex family and institutional webs. The output is recovery capital — a transformed human system that possesses the resilience, insight, and structural support to sustain long-term wellness.
"We do not fix people. We build the container where they learn to heal themselves."
The Kintsugi System · U-ACT LEROS · London Recovery CoachingThe U-ACT LEROS certification is a 110-hour structured journey from lived experience to professional practice. Community of Practice sessions run live every week. Join the London Recovery Coaching Campus on Skool to access the full programme.