Drawing Your Personal Map

A blank sheet of paper on the desk. In the middle, I drew a circle and wrote “me.”

Around it, I started writing: clinicians, family, helplines, support groups, emergency resources. Next to each one, I wrote phone numbers or names.

I stepped back and looked at the finished sheet. One page of paper held the whole network of support around me. “If something happens, I can reach here.” It was right in front of me.

Until that moment, all of this information had been scattered across my head in separate pieces. Scattered, it felt like “there’s nothing.” Put on one page, it turned out there was more than I’d thought.

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Why put it on a map

Recovery needs a lot of information.

• Numbers for clinicians
• Helplines
• Support group meeting times
• An attorney or credit counselor
• Family and trusted friends’ numbers
• Emergency resources

Each one has come up somewhere earlier in this book. Kept scattered, though, you don’t know where to look in a crisis.

The crisis brain is bad at searching. You don’t have the capacity to type “problem gambling counselor” into a search bar. You don’t have the capacity to pull up contact numbers from memory.

So you put it all on one sheet of paper, made in calm hours. In a crisis, you just look at the sheet. No thinking. No searching.

That’s the personal map.

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Five things to include

Five sections:

1. Medical
2. Helplines and community
3. Support groups
4. Legal and financial
5. Personal contacts

Going through each.

Medical

• Your psychiatrist, therapist, or addiction specialist
• Name, address, number, hours
• How to make appointments (call, web)
• Your primary clinician’s name, if you have one
• Urgent-care or after-hours options for psychiatric care

Helplines and community

• State problem gambling council
• County or community mental health center
• Each of their phone numbers and hours
• The Suicide & Crisis Lifeline (24/7)
• The Crisis Text Line (text-based, 24/7)
• The National Problem Gambling Helpline (24/7)

Support groups

• Your nearest GA meetings
• Meeting locations, days, times
• Contact info (if any)
• Gam-Anon (for family)
• Online communities like QuitMate

Legal and financial

• A non-profit credit counselor (NFCC-member agency) you’ve talked to
• Your bankruptcy attorney or legal aid clinic
• The joint account information (if money is being managed with family)
• Credit bureaus for freeze management (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion)

Personal contacts

• Family numbers (the key people)
• Three trusted friends’ numbers
• GA peers (if any)
• Mark one “can call in the middle of the night” person

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How to build it

Step 1: Paper and pen

One sheet of paper and one pen. Ideally a few colored pens too (red, blue, black).

Step 2: Put “me” in the center

Draw a circle in the center. Write “me” inside. Or your name. That’s the center.

Step 3: Place the five sections around it

Lay out the five sections around the center at even spacing.

Step 4: Write details under each section

Draw a line from each section and write the specifics.

Example:

Fit everything on one page. If you can’t, shrink the writing or keep only the highest-priority items.

Step 5: Highlight emergency contacts in red

From your five sections, circle in red the ones you’d call first in a crisis.

• Crisis resources (Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, emergency services)
• Urgent-care psychiatric option
• The one “can call in the middle of the night” person

Red grabs your eye in a crisis moment.

Step 6: Photograph it and save it

When the paper map is done, photograph it. Save it to your phone’s photos. Consider setting it as your lock screen. Keep the paper copy on a wall at home, or in your wallet.

You want it “in front of you” at all times. Not “findable if I dig.”

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Using the map day-to-day

During a crisis

Open the map first.

• Strong craving, can’t move → call one of your personal contacts
• “I want to die” thoughts → emergency resources (red) in order
• Money-related pressure → non-profit credit counselor or attorney
• Mental health collapse → medical

No thinking. Look, and call what’s written.

On calm days too

Use it outside crises.

• Review monthly (are contact details still current)
• Add new contacts as they show up
• Cross out contacts you no longer use
• Decide “next thing to try” once (e.g., “visit a GA meeting next month”)

The review itself is a check-in on your own state.

Share with family

When you can, share the map with family. They know where to turn if something happens. It lowers their load too.

If no family is available, share it with a trusted third party (clinician, social worker). If nobody’s there, a map for you alone still works.

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Monthly review

What to check

Pick one day each month to review.

• Have any numbers changed
• Any new places you want to try
• Mark places you’ve actually used
• Dim places you tried but didn’t fit
• Mark in blue places you want to try next

Add one new thing each month

Set a goal of adding one new entry each month.

• Find a new clinic
• Learn about a new support group
• Note a new helpline
• Add one new person you can reach

Small is fine. One per month is twelve per year. A year from now, the map is full.

”I have resources” builds up

Doing the monthly review grows the felt sense of having resources around you. What started as “nothing” turns, by month six, into “actually, this much.”

This is the same movement as recovery capital from Chapter 23 growing in visible form. Social capital and part of physical capital ride on this map.

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Even with few entries

Some people’s maps start mostly empty. One contact. No family. No known support group. No clinic yet.

Still worth building. Because:

• “I can add to this” becomes visible
• Where to add next becomes clearer
• Even one entry is proof that “something exists”

A mostly-empty map is a list of things to fill in. You don’t have to complete it up front. Write, then add one per month.

References

• White, W. (2008). The mobilization of community resources to support long-term addiction recovery. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 36(2), 146-158.
• Best, D., & Lubman, D.I. (2012). The recovery paradigm: A model of hope and change for alcohol and drug addiction. Australian Family Physician, 41(8), 593-597.
• Humphreys, K., Wing, S., McCarty, D., et al. (2004). Self-help organizations for alcohol and drug problems: Toward evidence-based practice and policy. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 26(3), 151-158.
• Laudet, A.B. (2007). What does recovery mean to you? Lessons from the recovery experience for research and practice. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 33(3), 243-256.
• SAMHSA. Recovery and recovery support. https://www.samhsa.gov/