WALLACE — A new sobriety recovery group called Thrive is being offered Tuesdays from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. in the basement of the Wallace Library.

Run by Tanner Marshall, the recovery group hopes to be an informal option for people struggling with sobriety and socialization outside the bar scene.

“Socially, what people expect usually involves alcohol and drinking. I want to do things in a more universal way. They don’t need to stand up and identify themselves as a title, or say ‘I am an addict.’ I kind of want to stay away from that mentality,” Marshall said.

Marshall has personal experience with the Spokane-based Reclaim program and wanted to find a channel locally that wasn’t based on Alcoholics Anonymous or Narcotics Anonymous or court-ordered meetings.

Siobhan Curet of Silver Valley CARES has been helping to spread the word about the group as a much-needed option for people in the area looking for “a space for people to find sober community and friendships.”

In Marshall’s experience, finding new ways to engage and get on a better track and outside of patterns of behavior that have negative impacts on their lives and relationships can leave people without many places to go.

“I want to offer community support for sobriety. It’s so new, I’m still waiting to learn how this is going to adapt into this area. The more I think about it, there’s so many different styles and ways that people can go about figuring out what’s going to work best for them. People can come to simply talk,” Marshall said.

Marshall has a friend who is trying to get on a healthy path away from social outlets that involve drinking and saw this as the perfect time to start something that he has had in the back of his mind to pursue locally for a while now.

The hardest part in his experience can often be reflecting on your past and present and finding a way to merge the two.

“In a recovery space, you’re trying to find that old sense of self that you forgot about and recreate it anew,” Marshall said.

The group will host weekly discussions and talk about what’s working for you, what’s not working for you, and what their hopes and goals for the future are.

“It’s a matter of seeing what people’s needs are and then adapting to them. It it comes to where people need resources, I’ll start talking to Siobhan and we’ll get the resource books out and go from there. I’m just trying to shed some light on what it looks like just to be sober. If you never knew, how would you know now?” Marshall said.

Contact Tanner Marshall at 509-979-0829 or by email at [email protected] for more information.