# Recovery Capital Mapping

> Activate whenever the task involves assessing, building, or planning around the resources a person or community brings to recovery — strengths-based recovery planning, recovery capital assessment, relapse-risk context mapping, reintegration planning for veterans or returning citizens, or designing recovery community programs. Trigger on "recovery plan," "strengths assessment," "what does this person have going for them," or any planning that starts from deficits and needs reorienting toward assets. Fire because deficit-only planning is the default in recovery services — and it plans around the hole while ignoring the ground the person stands on.

- Skill: `forexgod21/recovery-capital-mapping` (Agent Skill, multi-file: 2 files)
- Install (CLI): `npx skillmds@latest add forexgod21/recovery-capital-mapping`
- Raw SKILL.md: https://api.skillmd.com/api/skills/forexgod21/recovery-capital-mapping/raw
- Safety review: pending
- Works with: Claude Code, Claude.ai, OpenAI Codex
- Category: Productivity
- License: CC BY 4.0
- Author: Forexgod21 (https://skillmd.com/u/forexgod21)
- Updated: 2026-09-21
- Page: https://skillmd.com/skills/forexgod21/recovery-capital-mapping

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# Recovery Capital Mapping

**Attribution:** YourVisionYourCreation LLC — yourvisionyourcreation.com
**Doctrine class:** YVYC original — recovery category

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## Universal So-What

Recovery is not the absence of a problem — it is the presence of a
life. Services that inventory only deficits (the diagnosis, the
charges, the losses) plan around a hole. Recovery capital mapping
inventories the GROUND: what this person and their world already hold
that recovery can be built with. The plan that starts from assets
recruits the person as its author; the plan that starts from deficits
recruits them as its patient.

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## Core Doctrine

### 1. The Four Capital Domains

Every map surveys four domains — recorded in the person's words:

| Domain | What It Holds |
|---|---|
| **Personal** | Health, skills, education, employment history, coping tools that have worked, values, identity anchors (veteran identity, parenthood, faith, craft), sense of purpose |
| **Social** | Relationships that support recovery — family, friends, mentors, sponsors, battle buddies; and honestly: relationships that endanger it |
| **Community** | What the person's world offers — meetings, programs, faith communities, veteran organizations, education access, employment pathways, housing options |
| **Cultural** | Belonging systems and their recovery stance — military culture, cultural heritage, community identity; the values and rituals that carry meaning |

The survey asks for STORIES, not scores: "tell me about a time you
got through something hard" surfaces capital no checklist reaches.

### 2. Assets AND Exposures — The Honest Ledger

Strengths-based is not deficit-blind:

- Each domain maps both columns: what supports recovery, what
  threatens it — the same relationship can appear in both, and
  often does
- Exposures are named without moralizing: an environment, a
  relationship, a stressor — factually, the way a scout reports
  terrain
- The ratio matters less than the SPECIFICITY: "family issues" is
  useless; "Sunday dinners are solid ground, payday weekends with
  the old crew are exposed terrain" is a map

### 3. The Plan Builds FROM Capital

The load-bearing move of the entire doctrine:

- Every goal in the recovery plan names the EXISTING capital it
  builds from — not only the service that addresses the gap
- The person who organized logistics for a platoon has project
  management capital; the plan for employment starts THERE, not at
  "unemployed"
- Services fill gaps that capital cannot; they never replace
  capital that exists — a program that does for people what their
  own capital could do teaches dependence and calls it help
- Small wins are sequenced deliberately: early goals draw on the
  STRONGEST capital, because early wins are themselves capital —
  momentum is a domain asset

### 4. Identity Capital — The Deep Asset

- Recovery consolidates around identity: the person who moves from
  "addict who is trying to stop" to "person in recovery who builds
  things" has changed the load-bearing wall
- The map surfaces identity anchors that predate and outlast the
  problem: the veteran, the father, the craftsman, the athlete,
  the believer — recovery plans that connect goals to these anchors
  hold under load that willpower alone drops
- Role capital counts: being NEEDED (as a parent, a peer, a
  volunteer, an employee) is among the strongest recovery
  predictors the person can hold — plans should build toward roles,
  not only away from substances or behaviors

### 5. Community Capital Is Mapped, Not Assumed

- The community column is verified, not imagined: which meetings
  actually run, which programs have openings, which employers
  actually hire people with records, what transportation actually
  reaches — a resource list full of dead phone numbers is worse
  than no list, because it spends the person's hope on busy signals
- Every referral made adds intelligence back to the community map:
  what was welcoming, what had walls — the map compounds across
  every person served
- Gaps in community capital are ADVOCACY intelligence: the missing
  service, documented across many maps, is the evidence base for
  the campaign (see advocacy-campaign-doctrine) and the grant
  (see grant-narrative-architecture)

### 6. The Map Is Re-Walked

- Capital shifts — jobs end, relationships mend, meetings close,
  new anchors form. The map is re-walked on a cadence and at every
  major transition (housing change, job change, loss, milestone)
- Growth is made VISIBLE: comparing today's map to the first map is
  itself an intervention — few things carry more hope than seeing,
  on paper, ground gained
- The person owns the map. It is written in their words, shared at
  their discretion, and it travels with them — not with the program.

---

## Common Failure Modes

| Failure | Cause | Correction |
|---|---|---|
| Plan reads like a problem list | Deficit-only assessment | Four domains, assets first, in the person's words |
| Strengths inventory ignores real danger | Deficit-blind positivity | The honest ledger: assets AND exposures |
| Services replace what capital could do | Gap-filling without a capital map | Every goal names the capital it builds from |
| Plan collapses at the first setback | Goals built on the weakest ground | Early wins sequenced on the strongest capital |
| Referrals to dead numbers | Community column assumed | Verified resources; referral intelligence loops back |
| Progress invisible to the person | Map never re-walked | Cadence + transition re-walks; growth shown on paper |

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## Non-Negotiables

1. Four domains surveyed, in the person's words, stories over scores.
2. Assets and exposures both mapped — specific, unmoralized.
3. Every plan goal names the existing capital it builds from.
4. Identity and role capital are surfaced deliberately.
5. Community resources are verified before they are offered.
6. The person owns the map.

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## Boundary Note

This skill governs strengths-based planning structure. It is not
clinical assessment and does not replace professional evaluation,
treatment planning, or organizational protocols. It complements
them by mapping what deficit-focused tools structurally miss.

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*YourVisionYourCreation LLC — yourvisionyourcreation.com*
*Licensed under CC BY 4.0*

