What is the role of a peer recovery coach?
Recovery Coach 101 and how you can become a certified recovery coach with URS
What is a Peer Recovery Coach?
By basic definition, a Peer Recovery Coach (PRC) is a nonclinical professional that has lived experience with addiction and engages, educates and supports an individual to successfully recover from mental and/or substance use disorders.
At Unity Recovery Services, we define a recovery coach as a personal guide and mentor to persons seeking or already active in recovery. Our recovery coaches help link recoverees to treatment and other services, and remove other barriers to recovery. Recovery coaches also serve to advocate and educate within their communities on behalf those they serve.
Why are recovery coaches important?
Recovery coaches can be a key to helping individuals in recovery achieve and maintain sobriety. Recovery coaches support their recoveree through victories and setbacks, and provide emotional support when needed.
Recovery coaches offer important practical assistance that can improve the outcomes in day-to-day life by providing advice and support from their own lived experience. Overall, recovery coaches help create positive changes in their recoveree’s life as they navigate their journey of sobriety.
How do recovery coaches help with challenges of early sobriety?
Specifically, research shows that recovery coaching has helped people in recovery increase their average drug and alcohol abstinence rates by up to 82%. Recovery coaches provide the best chance for individuals to make a full recovery.
In the early stages of sobriety, common challenges include:
- Boredom
- Fear of relapse
- Depression
- Anxiety
- Insomnia
- Difficulties with rebuilding your social networks
These challenges have the potential to trigger a relapse. A recovery coach is a perfect resource for helping to overcome these issues by offering advice, emotional support, and sharing strategies through lived experiences that may prevent a relapse.
Become a Certified Recovery Coach
Does becoming a recovery coach sound like something you would be interested in?
We are excited to host our CCAR Certified Recovery Coach Training in January 2024! Registration costs $400 and with completion of the program you will be certified to serve as a recovery coach for individuals on their journey to recovery.
Learn more about our training and sign up today!