Dane Barner wants you to discover recovery.

To that end, he is facilitating a weekly meeting at Trinity Lutheran Church that is open to anyone who wants to work through their personal addictions.

“Our story is about a meeting that is available in Webster City. The meeting is focused on those who are in recovery from addiction, those who are curious about recovery from addiction, and those who are affected by those in addiction.”

To prepare for this service, Barner walked the rocky path of his own addiction to alcohol, a subsequent resignation from a local teaching position, and a stay at St. Gregory’s Recovery Center, which is a faith-based residential treatment facility in Baird.

“I am in recovery. I have been for the last 100 or so days,” Barner said recently. “And while I was in residential treatment, I realized there were several different types of meetings that were available. But I was looking for something a little bit different.”

What Barner and others came up with is Discover Recovery. It’s a meeting each Thursday evening at Trinity Lutheran Church, 1229 Kathy Lane, Webster City, in the Luther room, where casual seating provides a welcoming tone.

The meetings begin at 7 p.m.

“We want a meeting that serves the needs of the people who are attending the meeting,” Barner said.

That requires comfort and acceptance.

“What’s interesting in the time that we’ve had this meeting is the format has not remained constant for each meeting,” Barner said. “When the group of us was kind of thinking about what a meeting could be like here in Webster City, we definitely had a framework that we wanted to begin with. But as we started … having these meetings, we found out that the people who arrive at the meeting are kind of people who decide how the meeting goes.”

He explained, “At its beginning, we start with processing. This is just a simple form that’s not collected. It is basically just a way to have people start to share something about themselves.

“For some people, that’s very easy. For some people, it’s incredibly hard.

“So what we wanted to do was have just a little bit of direction for everyone what your name is. Where are you in the recovery process or how are you affected by recovery? What do you hope to get from the meeting? Are there any triggers that you’re experiencing if you are in recovery or in active addiction? Are there any triggers that you are experiencing places, people, situations, things that can be a jumping off point for our conversation.

“In some meetings, … we’ve filled out those – we call them processing sheets – and then never used them.

“In some of those meetings, we sat down, we filled out the processing sheets. Some people started to share. And as we went around the room, some people would use a processing sheet. Some people would not. And so, if it’s hard for somebody to share, it’s a jumping off point. Sometimes talking in front of people is very difficult. So we wanted to provide a format that would allow them to do that without feeling too much anxiety.”

The meetings are open to anyone.

“I very strongly believe that recovery is impossible without connection,” Barner said. “And any place that we can find that connection that hits, that if we share a common vocabulary, that makes it even better.”

Anyone interested in attending can simply show up at Trinity on a Thursday evening at 7 p.m. and someone will guide you to the Luther room.

To learn more about Discover Recovery, you can email wcdiscoverrecovery@gmail.com.