Mental health challenges were prominent in my life very early on.
I started using substances at a young age, the first ones being food and sugar. And from there, I went on to discover alcohol, tobacco, cannabis (in its many forms), sex, and stimulants — the perfect recipe for the larger mental health challenges that affected every aspect of my life forward.
My own recovery gave me the insight to become a recovery coach and later to build my recovery coaching training practice.
At the beginning of my journey, people spent a lot of time telling me what I needed to do, where I needed to be, and where I needed to go. Unfortunately, that only worked for a minute. When someone told me to go left, I would go right. Told me to slow down, I would speed up. And if they told me not to go, I went. I coped by distancing myself from those individuals. And eventually, that whole approach stopped helping.
As I reflect back, here’s the lesson this taught me: the last thing you want to do as a recovery coach is give somebody advice, make suggestions, or tell anyone what they should or shouldn’t do.
Most people are going to do what I did, so keep your agenda to yourself.
It’s natural for a person in recovery to want to help others in their community going through the same experiences. But I recognized that coaches worked really hard problem-solving someone else’s recovery instead of supporting them in finding that path for themselves.
That was the lightbulb moment for me, and it landed right as the field of recovery coaching was starting to take hold in Massachusetts.
It was kind of like the gold rush in California, where everyone bought a shovel and headed west. The thing is, many people gave up before they even got there, but the field looks very different than it did back then. I was one of the ones who stuck around.
Being honest with myself, building CHOiCE Recovery Coaching has taken its toll over the years. There have been many ups and downs, and many times I’ve questioned my energy in dealing with the rigid systems coaches are up against.
Yet, through the trials and tribulations, I never once questioned this: people with lived and living experience are the spark that encourages others to connect with their personal motivation to move forward on their journeys. That’s the same spark that started my journey training recovery coaches and made myCHOiCE what it is today.
