This Samhain, as the veil thinned and the Pagan year turned, something sacred was reborn. A new religious fellowship rose to life. I call it The Sovereign Phoenix. It is a Detroit-based religious nonprofit dedicated to providing legally protected spiritual recovery and community for witches like me, across the nation.
For years, I’ve followed Spirit. Wherever it leads me, and this past spring, I felt Spirit whispering that I was meant to create something bigger than my individual practice or my teaching circles. When I started to see listings for church properties, I thought maybe that meant buying a church, but Spirit had other plans. I wasn’t meant to buy one. I was meant to build one.
The Sovereign Phoenix is not just a dream or an organization. It is a sacred act of reclamation. It is the answer to a prayer I did not know I had been saying for years: a prayer that witches in recovery would finally have a place to belong.
When I started my own recovery, witchcraft was what kept me alive. It gave me something to hold when I couldn’t hold myself. I have since listened to hundreds of witches share their stories, each one echoing the same truth: that for us, magick is not an aesthetic. It is survival.
MONTHS OF RESEARCH REVEALED A GAP NO ONE ELSE WAS FILLING
Before I moved forward with this work, I immersed myself in research. I studied spiritual recovery models, mental health data, addiction studies, and legal frameworks. I combed through everything from academic papers to Reddit threads, and what I discovered broke my heart.
Witches, pagans, and spiritually intuitive people in recovery are still healing in the shadows. They are recovering alone. Many of them are afraid to say that ritual, tarot, or ancestor work is part of what keeps them sober.
Everywhere I looked, I saw the same pattern: traditional recovery programs steeped in Christian language, and secular ones that strip out anything mystical or sacred. Even programs that claimed to be “spiritual but not religious” were afraid of words like witch, spell, or spirit.
Our research confirmed what I already knew in my bones. Witchcraft and recovery are both paths of transformation. Yet witches in recovery are constantly forced to translate their truth into terms that others will tolerate. We found no structured, protected program that allowed witches to recover as witches.
Over time, I began to see the bigger picture. Pew Research Center and The Wild Hunt reported that 1.5 to 2 million Americans now identify with witchcraft or Paganism, and the #WitchTok craze resulted in over 45 billion views. At the same time, addiction and mental health struggles among LGBTQ+ and neurodivergent people are rising fast. Those are my people. They are our people. And they are being left behind.
WHY I CHOSE TO FORM A RELIGION
People sometimes ask me, “Why make it a religion?” My answer is simple: because it already is.
The path of the witch is not therapy, coaching, or a trend. It is a faith tradition, a worldview, and a sacred way of life. It holds a cosmology that honors the Divine within us and the Universe around us. It recognizes the soul as eternal, learning across lifetimes through suffering and healing.
I chose to form The Sovereign Phoenix as a religion because we deserve legal protection and sacred recognition. Recovery is not only a psychological process. It is a spiritual one.
Our faith has its own moral code, sacred texts, and liturgy. We honor The Witch’s Promises as our covenant, and we live by The Frequency of Acceptance as our spiritual practice. We gather with the turning of the seasons, we study magick as sacred technology, and we initiate leaders who embody recovery, energy work, and integrity.
This is a real religion with a real theology: the belief that healing is holy, that shadow work is sacred, and that Magick is the Divine in motion.
BUILDING LEGAL PROTECTION FOR WITCHES IN RECOVERY
The Sovereign Phoenix is structured as a 501(c)(3) religious nonprofit, intentionally designed to protect our right to practice witchcraft as a legitimate faith.
Legal precedents such as Dettmer v. Landon (1986) and Cutter v. Wilkinson (2005) have already affirmed that Wiccan and Pagan practices are recognized under the First Amendment and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. Yet even with these victories, many practitioners still face discrimination.
I’ve heard from witches who were denied access to recovery programs unless they agreed to pray to a Christian God. I’ve met people who were told their tarot decks were tools of the devil. I’ve seen spiritual suppression disguised as “neutral policy.”
That ends with us.
If witchcraft is what keeps me sober, then it must be protected as my religious practice.
The Sovereign Phoenix affirms transgender, queer, and nonbinary identities as sacred manifestations of soul. We recognize body autonomy as spiritual sovereignty. And we hold divination, ritual, and spellwork as sacred expressions of spiritual intelligence.
Our community is not asking for permission to exist. We are asserting our right to exist, to heal, and to be recognized.
ROOTED IN SPIRIT AND EVIDENCE
When I speak about this movement, I speak from both faith and fact. The evidence is clear.
Data from the CDC and the National Institute on Drug Abuse show that rates of anxiety, depression, and addiction are rising sharply among young adults, especially LGBTQ+ and trauma-impacted populations. Studies on religious trauma syndrome reveal that being exiled from one’s spiritual identity can deepen addiction and despair.
In contrast, studies on ritual, tarot, and embodiment show that spiritual practices reduce stress, regulate the nervous system, and help us process trauma.
When we use ritual to release pain, or tarot to understand our emotions, we are not escaping reality. We are integrating it. These are not just mystical acts. They are psychological tools that heal the soul.
I built The Sovereign Phoenix to unite the mystical and the practical — to bring spiritual technology and trauma-informed care into sacred alliance.
SERVING OUR COMMUNITY
The Sovereign Phoenix serves both local and national members through virtual recovery circles, seasonal rituals, and monthly educational programs. We are based in Detroit but open to witches everywhere.
We’ve partnered with two recovery community organizations here in Wayne County, Michigan, Passenger Recovery and the Recovery Action Network of Michigan, bridging spiritual and clinical approaches.
Membership is open through TheSovereignPhoenix.com, where witches in recovery can apply to join, support the mission, or make a donation. The first official initiations will take place in the spring of 2026, marking the beginning of a new lineage of initiated witches in recovery.
A BEACON IN CHALLENGING TIMES
I created The Sovereign Phoenix because I saw what was coming. Religious nationalism is rising. Queer and trans rights are under attack. Pagan and witch communities are still misunderstood and marginalized.
In this climate, creating a legally protected religious body is not only radical, it is necessary.
We are not a wellness brand or a social club. We are a religious fellowship with a covenant, sacred texts, clergy formation, and rituals that honor the Divine through recovery. We exist to protect witches, our faith, our healing, and our right to practice freely.
My vision is that one day, temples, both physical and digital, will exist around the world where witches in recovery can gather, pray, create, cry, and heal without fear.
No witch should ever walk the path of healing alone. That is the promise I’ve made to Spirit, to my ancestors, and to the next generation of witches who will one day inherit what we are building now.
Love and magick in recovery,
Sunshine
About Sunshine
Sunshine is a Psychic Medium, Soul Healer, Reiki Master, High Priestess and the pink-haired trailblazer behind The Sober Witch Life movement and founder of the Sovereign Phoenix. As a recovering alcoholic and spiritual mentor, she helps witches in recovery rediscover their magick and align with their highest purpose.
Join the Sober Witch Life Movement at SoberWitch.life
Join the Free Weekly Recovery Circle for support and a community of sober witches
Join Witches in Recovery at the Awakening Hope New Orleans Retreat: March 2026
Get her book Sober Witch Life: A Magickal Guide to Recovery
