The role of the person in recovery is essential to understanding the recovery process; the self, not the service professional, is the "agent of recovery." Recovering people are more than passive recipients of care or cure. While they may draw on the clinical technologies of professional helpers and the experience, strength, and hope of others in recovery, each recovering person must ultimately take ownership of his or her own recovery even when the centerpiece of that recovery lies in resources and relationships beyond the self.

      Recovery involves:

·        a reconstruction of personal identity;

·        a reformulation of the relationship between self and illness; and

·        a reconstruction of one's relationship with the world.

     These dimensions are often evident in the three-part story style of people in recovery: 1) the way it was (depiction of the onset and course of the illness), 2) what happened (the experience of recovery initiation), and 3) what it is like now (depiction of life in recovery).