Are you the Handle? When Trust Becomes a Weapon in Recovery Leadership

“When the axe came into the forest, the trees whispered, ‘The handle is one of us.”

It’s a short proverb, but it holds a lifetime of warnings. And in the context of recovery leadership, it feels like a mirror we sometimes don’t want to look into.

It’s easy to spot harm when it’s loud, hostile, and comes from somewhere “other.” It’s harder when it comes in quietly, walking and talking like us.

William White calls this “double-agentry”, “individuals speaking openly as recovering people while their voices actually represent hidden professional or institutional interests” (White, 2000, p. 31).

The hidden threat in familiar hands

The axe is any force that dismantles integrity, safety, or trust in the movement. The blade is the visible harm, exclusionary policies, funding deals that compromise values, leadership decisions that weaken grassroots voices.

The handle? That’s the part that feels safe, especially inside the recovery movement.

The handle is what lets the axe operate without resistance, the insider, the self-proclaimed leader, the respected organization, the familiar face.

Because they “belong,” our guard drops.

When insiders enable harm

Sometimes this shift is intentional; other times, it happens slowly, shaped by funding pressures, political alliances, or personal ambition. Either way, trust becomes the delivery system for harm.

It can look like:

• Leaders advancing exclusionary policies under the banner of progress.

• Organizations aligning so closely with institutional partners that community needs become secondary.

• Calls for accountability reframed as negativity or disloyalty.

Why it happens

The handle doesn’t start out as a weapon. It’s part of the forest. But pressure, opportunity, ego, or survival can shape it into something the blade can hold.

• Some do it for personal gain.

• Others convince themselves it’s the only way to “get things done”, echoing patterns of exploitation.

• Many don’t notice until it’s too late.

And the rest of the forest, seeing a familiar handle, reassures itself: “It’s fine. They’re one of us.”

Breaking the pattern

The proverb doesn’t tell us what happens next, but we know: the forest thins. The canopy breaks. Damage takes years, even generations, to repair. Grassroots energy gets absorbed into bureaucracy.

And over time, systems that were meant to liberate people begin to control.

Protecting the forest

The health of the forest depends on both trust and vigilance. We can’t always keep the axe out, but we can decide how it’s made, who wields it, and whose interests it serves.

That means choosing leaders who will slow the swing when necessary, question the agenda, and put the whole forest above their own role in it.

This is where ethical leadership and courage matter most.

It means remembering that unity is not blind agreement, and shared identity does not guarantee shared integrity.

We need individuals willing to speak up when something feels off, even if the "handle" looks like us.

The proverb reminds us that the handle can steady the blade. White’s warning reminds us that trust without discernment is dangerous.

Because leadership that protects the forest never becomes part of the axe.

Calliese Alexandra Conner

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Reflections:

• If you had to choose between protecting relationships and protecting the recovery movement, which would you choose, and why?

• Where in your recovery community might you be mistaking familiarity for safety, and how could leadership integrity change that?

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Reference:

White, W. L. (2000, April 3–5). Toward a new recovery advocacy movement. Paper presented at the Recovery Community Support Program Conference, Arlington, VA, United States. https://deriu82xba14l.cloudfront.net/file/1776/2000TowardaNewRecoveryMovement.pdf

Exact Paragraph referenced: 

5.1 Source of Movement Leadership The leadership of the recovery movement must come from the recovery community and the movement's agenda must be those of recovering people and their families. Great care must be taken in avoiding the problem of double agentry-individuals speaking openly as recovering people while their voices actually represent hidden professional or institutional interests. The movement must guard against those who will seek to colonize this movement to further their own personal, professional, and proprietary interests. Federal/state alcohol and drug authorities, treatment institutions, and treatment professionals may be supporters, members, and partners within this movement, but the leadership must come from within the indigenous recovery community. Where few indigenous resources exist, local treatment agencies/professionals can play a role in nurturing the development of such resources, but it is the recovery community itself that must eventually assume the central role in recovery advocacy and in the design, delivery and evaluation of key recovery support services.