Recovery coaches help guide clients down road to better life
When recovering from addiction, domestic violence, mental illness or some other type of trauma, one of the hardest aspects for an individual is moving forward with a life that is normal.
This may seem obvious. But to many, it is not.
How does someone recovering from drug addiction, for example, learn to fill time that was once obsessively spent getting high or trying to score another hit? Or how does someone whose life veered off track to the criminal justice system take steps to heal ties with family, to find a home, to get a job?
Beyond the bars of prison, the walls of rehab or the halls of halfway houses, centers that specialize in a counseling service called recovery coaching have been popping up across the United States over the past decade. More recently, such centers have opened across Arkansas, including two in Hot Springs.
Harbor Recovery Systems opened the counseling centers last November with recovery coaches who work with clients from all socioeconomic classes. Their clients have experienced crises ranging from drug addiction and incarceration to mental illness and homelessness. The Fort Smith-based Harbor House Inc., a drug rehab facility, operates the centers in Hot Springs as well as numerous other cities across the state.
“This is a service that will walk along beside you,” Allen Coker, one of two Harbor House recovery coaches in Hot Springs, said. “It is a service that will be an encouragement and guide toward creating a life that is worth
living. Whatever your recovery life needs to look like, we help you try to figure that out and to stay on that path.”
His colleague, Marty Haynes, works closely with the Shalom Recovery Center on East Grand Avenue. The main counseling center is located at 615 W. Grand Ave. Clients work with coaches four months on average. The centers receive referrals from Arkansas Department of Community Correction as well as a number of rehab centers.
Recovery coaches help individuals to get “from point A to point B,” Coker says. Whether someone is taking the first steps toward recovering from addiction or has already been through a rehabilitation program, the coaches help design a plan of action and help clients execute that plan, Coker said.
The goal is to encourage those who need help to not dwell on past traumas but to focus on life goals and how to reach them. Centers also offer group therapy for anger management, interpersonal relationships and processing what recovery will look like.
“We help them find a plan of action, discover their values — what means the most to them — and emphasize connecting with that rather than digging up the past,” Haynes said. “We are looking to move the client further in life on a much broader scale rather than just focusing specifically on addiction.
“We want a client to know we are here to help them through everything. Not just the addiction part.”
Recovery coaches are certified alcohol and drug counselors. Their treatment plans follow a therapy that emphasizes acceptance and commitment, which focuses on the acceptance of what is beyond an individual’s control and a commitment to action to improve quality of life.
Anecdotal evidence has shown that such coaching helps with recidivism and with the completion of drug or alcohol treatment programs, Haynes said.
“They are less likely to drop out of treatment and less likely to relapse,” he said.
“This is a radical style that is much different than any other,” Haynes said. “It is a way to help the client live a life worth living even though they may have to experience the painful things that go along with life.”