There's more people that struggle with addiction than people that know how to cope with people that are addicts.
I'm taking the recovery coach training right now to hone in on some of my skills as a peer coach.
I really want to get back and help out people who are in the process of trying to recover from their addiction.
I am a dispensary nurse at a methadone clinic and I just wanted to get a better understanding of how I can better help the clients.
My probation officer knew that helping people was a passion of mine and she mentioned it to me and I looked into it and I told her something I was ready to do.
The course itself was much more expansive than I expected.
It's given me a lot of tools and assets I think to put in my own tool bag.
The CCAR curriculum was very informative.
Educating and inspiring. I enjoyed it.
It's allowing me to give a better understanding of how to help people through their recovery process and kind of give me a better understanding of the process that I went through.
They kind of were able to start with kind of the basic skills that you need to have as a coach and then kind of worked all the way up to the more intensive work.
Pretty much have an understanding of what's expected of somebody who is a recovery coach and what the clients should be getting out of it.
It's just an opportunity to learn and to also kind of open up my mind more as to what I should be expecting, what I should be able to give as a nurse.
But it's also helped me with my own clients and having the confidence to coach them in the right direction and being really aware of my own stuff and not projecting that onto them.
The past three years I've learned everything from an addict's point of view and how to keep myself sober but now looking at it and how I can give back and there's many other techniques that I can use rather than what worked best for me.
You realize that everyone's bottom is different, therefore everyone's sobriety could look differently.
You know, judging or pre-judging what someone's recovery should look like is no benefit to me or the person suffering from addiction.
I see myself using this training in the future at work every day and working with various clients and always looking back on the tools and skills I gained in this training.
I'm actually looking into going to school to get my certified addiction counselor license and mentor other clients that are struggling and don't feel comfortable talking to a counselor or the probation officer.
My goal is to have sober houses and I feel as a recovery coach I'll be able to counsel people that are living in the homes and maybe someday branch out into working with individuals that need recovery coach.
Just better able to help clients maybe not so much being, I guess, more empathetic with clients than what I've been.
I am incredibly grateful for this training.
It's helped me tremendously.
The gift I got is a gift that I want to return to others and teach them that there is a better side to life other than drugs or alcohol.
