15 Years in Recovery: Reflections from Shannon Egan, RMC Founder & CEO

This January marks 15 years in recovery for me.

I don’t share that milestone lightly — not because it’s fragile, but because it’s foundational. Everything I’ve built since then, including my work as Founder & CEO of Recovery Movement Consulting (RMC), rests on the decision I made to choose life, responsibility, and long-term healing over chaos and self-destruction.

Recovery didn’t just change my habits. It fundamentally changed how I think about leadership, systems, boundaries, and long-term impact — especially within recovery-focused organizations.

Recovery Is Not Just About Sobriety — It’s About Building a Life

In early recovery, the focus is survival. You’re learning how to stay sober, how to stay regulated, how to stay alive.

But at some point — often years later — the question shifts:

What am I building with the life I saved?

For me, recovery evolved from holding myself together to learning how to create structures that could hold others — ethically, sustainably, and without burning people out.

This distinction matters deeply in recovery community organizations and nonprofit recovery work, where passion is strong but systems are often underdeveloped.

What 15 Years in Recovery Has Taught Me About Sustainable Leadership

After more than a decade and a half in recovery — and years working alongside peer-led recovery organizations, treatment providers, and community-based nonprofits across the country — a few truths are very clear.

1. Informality Is Not Kindness

Unclear roles, undefined boundaries, and “we’ll figure it out as we go” cultures often lead to burnout, resentment, and instability. Recovery work deserves clarity, safety, and structure.

2. Lived Experience Is Powerful — but It Must Be Supported by Systems

Being in recovery gives us insight. It does not automatically give us sustainable organizational infrastructure. Both are required for real, lasting impact.

3. Leadership in Recovery Is Not About Being the Hero

Strong recovery leadership is not about holding everything together personally. It’s about designing containers that work even when you’re not in the room.

These principles shape how I approach my work at Recovery Movement Consulting every day.

From Doing the Work to Designing What Holds the Work

One of the biggest evolutions in my own recovery — and in my leadership — has been learning to step out of constant fixing, rescuing, and over-functioning.

Early on, many of us lead by necessity. We fill gaps. We carry too much. We do what needs to be done because no one else will.

But long-term recovery and long-term organizational health require a different posture.

They require moving from doing everything to designing systems that can carry the work forward. That is the heart of what we help organizations do at Recovery Movement Consulting: clarify roles, formalize processes, build ethical frameworks, and create structures that protect both mission and people.

Recovery Taught Me How to Think Long-Term

Fifteen years ago, my focus was getting through the day.

Today, my work is grounded in:

• long-term sustainability

• ethical recovery leadership

• succession and stewardship

• building recovery organizations that don’t depend on one person’s exhaustion

This perspective didn’t come from theory or textbooks. It came from lived experience — from knowing what it costs to rebuild a life, and why it’s worth protecting what you build afterward.

Why I’m Still Here — and Still Doing Recovery Consulting Work

I’m still in recovery because I choose it every day — not only as a personal commitment, but as a professional ethic.

I believe recovery work should:

• honor lived experience

• respect boundaries

• be properly funded

• be structurally sound

• and be designed to last

Fifteen years ago, I chose to save my life. Today, I choose to steward it — and to help others build recovery systems that do the same.

If you’re in early recovery, I want you to hear this: survival is enough for now.If you’re further along, I invite you to ask the harder question:

What are you building — and will it still stand when you step back?

That’s the work I’m committed to. And I’m deeply grateful to be here, 15 years later, doing it.