Natural recovery should be seen as the primary process of addiction recovery. Treatment needs to be seen as an adjunct to natural recovery, not as the essential element of recovery. In physical health, the self-healing capacity of the body is ultimately the source of healing. A physician can intervene, but the body heals. As the 16th century French surgeon Ambroise Pare remarked, “I dressed, and God healed.” When the body is too ill to heal, no physician’s work can be effective. Although surgery today is a highly successful enterprise, we might fail to consider that many patients are refused surgery because the surgeon decides they are not well enough to benefit from it. In psychological health, the capacity to benefit from an intervention appears to be based on the mind’s willingnes...