What Is a Recovery Coach?

By Beth Albaneze, CTRS, CPRP, CLP

When someone is addicted to drugs and alcohol a professional coming to the home can be the key to preventing relapse.

The advantage is that the professional discusses frustrations in the comfort of your home and walks you through the stress of returning to daily life. The goal is for you or your loved one to accept that there will be situations you are confronted with that will not change but other options can be introduced that are healthier and with this support at home enable you to master stress.

You or your loved one should be able to discover and participate in rewarding activities such as volunteering, returning to school or work, connecting to healthy individuals; attending support groups to give you the quality of life you deserve.

If you are still stuck, the opportunity to meet with our other professionals such as a recreation therapist or counselor can assess and evaluate barriers and monitor stress levels so you can continue the healing process of recovery and reduce the revolving door syndrome.

Recovery coaches will take you to Narcotics Anonymous or Smart Recovery meetings and will help recruit the appropriate sponsor. The recovery coach’s role is to guide you to engage in peer-centered/motivational groups so that you have an ongoing support system after the recovery coach is not coming to your home as often.

The ultimate goal of the recovery coach is to support the objective of remaining and recovering at home without crisis or readmission.

All services for a person in recovery should be managed under one umbrella including counseling the families. This process of working with the whole family in your home setting creates a systematic, accountable approach for effective communication.

It is recommended that when you or your family is discharged from any hospital setting that you immediately coordinate an appointment with the recovery coach to connect you to community resources and support networks to provide you with a variety of resources immediately to help with stability. The coach can coordinate and accompany you to your first psychiatric appointment and make sure you understand the medication management protocol.

Sometimes you might stop prescribed medication and begin to self medicate. Recovery coaches can be your go to contact to begin crisis protocol. The psychiatrist is then contacted immediately by the recovery coach to be made aware of the crisis, and then they work as a team to create immediate medical recommendations and placement arrangements in a hospital/facility. The recovery coach should always be identified as the crisis coordinator and remain the point of contact for a continuum of care.

The psychiatrist within the hospital should be communicating with your psychiatrist who sees you regularly to discuss a mutually agreed upon treatment plan. As this contact between doctors in the hospital and the community does not always happen automatically, the recovery coach advocates for total communication to ensure a smooth transition back home.