About the Book
Start from Strength: The Empowerment Workbook is a groundbreaking, 40-lesson journey through the Trait-Based Model of Recovery-an innovative and human-centered approach to healing, personal development, and long-term transformation.
Unlike traditional recovery workbooks that focus on deficits and diagnoses, this model empowers individuals to reconnect with their strengths, explore their personal traits, and navigate the path of recovery with resilience, clarity, and self-compassion. Built for use in clinical settings, peer support groups, or individual journeys, this workbook offers a practical yet deeply introspective framework for growth.
Each lesson includes structured prompts, group discussion guides, reflective journaling, and actionable strategies-plus integrated QR codes for digital assessments, trait-based achievement badges, and a personalized graduation certificate. Clients take anxiety and depression assessments at key milestones, track their Trait & Hero journey from beginning to end, and complete the program with a personal pledge and invitation to join the Start from Strength Ambassador Club.
Whether you're a facilitator, a clinician, or someone walking the path of transformation yourself, this is more than a workbook. It's a new way forward.
About the Author :
Dr. Jason Roop is a behavioral health innovator, educator, and founder of the Center for Trait-Based Transformation. As the creator of the Trait-Based Model of Recovery and Prevention, Dr. Roop brings a unique blend of professional training, lived experience, and transformational leadership to the field of addiction recovery and personal development.
Rooted in his own long-term recovery journey, Dr. Roop's work challenges traditional, shame-based models by inviting individuals to discover their inherent strengths, navigate their inner terrain with honesty and self-compassion, and emerge as leaders in their own lives. His approach is deeply relational and human-centered-built not only to treat, but to inspire.
After spending more than a decade in higher education, where he earned his Ph.D. in Business Management and Leadership, Dr. Roop shifted his focus to recovery program design, curriculum development, and organizational transformation. He has served as a professor, program director, and keynote speaker, and continues to advise organizations across Kentucky and beyond on how to implement innovative, strength-based practices.
Dr. Roop's Trait-Based Model has been implemented in schools, treatment centers, reentry programs, and peer-led recovery groups across the country. Its curriculum blends psychological insight with practical tools like achievement badges, built-in assessments, personalized pledges, and QR code integration-making deep transformation feel structured, accessible, and empowering.
He currently leads workshops, facilitator trainings, and community-based pilot programs while supporting a growing network of certified Trait-Based facilitators. His commitment to healing is matched only by his passion for reshaping the conversation around recovery-away from defect and dysfunction, and toward strength, identity, and conscious evolution.
Dr. Roop lives in central Kentucky with his wife, Amanda Jo Roop, who plays a foundational role in the development and delivery of the Trait-Based curriculum. Together, they are building a movement rooted in the simple but radical truth: we are not broken. We are starting from strength.
Review :
"Without the incredible Trait-Based Model of Recovery I would still be trapped in the shame and guilt that traditional recovery models like AA label me with. I would still be searching for a way forward--desperate for a way out of the alcoholic shell that once confined me.
But my mind is free now. Thank you to the Center for Trait-Based Transformation." --Zee, Albuquerque, Trait-Based Graduate, Albuquerque, NM
