Back to: Behavioral Health for Peer Supporters

0

Recovery

As a peer recovery support professional, you are quite familiar with recovery! The National Institute on Drug Abuse (n.d.) defines recovery. It is “a process of change through which people improve their health and wellness, live self-directed lives, and strive to reach their full potential. Even people with severe and chronic substance use disorders can, with help, overcome their illness and regain health and social function. This is called remission. Being in recovery is when those positive changes and values become part of a voluntarily adopted lifestyle. While many people in recovery believe that abstinence from all substance use is a cardinal feature of a recovery lifestyle, others report that handling negative feelings
without using substances and living a contributive life are more important parts of their recovery” (para. 1).1

Let’s watch a short video talk given by former basketball player Chris Herren about his own path of recovery: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_18V7klRY8

Resilience

Now let’s consider the subject of resiliency. The Recovery Village (2024) tells us that the word resilience comes from a Latin word meaning “to jump or bounce back” (para. 2). Further, such people “possess a certain degree of strength that allows them to … accept reality as it is. … they have a deep belief that life has meaning [and that] they can improvise” (para. 3). [Emphasis added.]2

Let’s look at a peer-reviewed professional journal article (open
access) related to relapse risk and resilience: https://substanceabusepolicy.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13011-021-00377-8

As you will be able to tell, peer recovery support professionals always play a large part, even in the development of resiliency!

Expand your Knowledge for a Healthy Life

In conclusion, it would be a great idea to continue to develop your understanding of what behavioral health knowledge it! Feel free to reach out for more suggestions on what helps to create healthier behavior, for your own continued growth and for that of your clients!

  1. National Institute on Drug Abuse. (n.d.). About recovery. https://nida.nih.gov/research-topics/recovery#:~:text=Recovery%20is%20a%20process %20of,This%20is%20called%20remission. ↩︎
  2. The Recovery Village. (2024, August 30). Exploring the role of resilience in addiction recovery.
    https://www.therecoveryvillage.com/recovery/resilience-in-addiction recovery/#:~:text=Resiliency%20allows%20people%20to%20step,may%20be%20some%20unexpected%20surprises. ↩︎
×