What Is a Recovery Experiential Coach?
A recovery experiential coach works closely with clients with substance use disorder (SUD) and co-occurring disorders, supporting clients in building a healthier life. Recovery coaches typically have personal experience with SUD and mental health. Therefore, these coaches have insight into what you are going through in recovery. As a peer, a recovery coach can work with you to develop goals and skills to support you for a life in long-term recovery.
What Do Recovery Experiential Coaches Do?
Your recovery coach is focused on helping you build a life you are excited to live. Working together with you, your recovery coach helps you build and pursue the goals you set for yourself. On your journey to recovery, your coach is your guide to support you in managing your daily life and finding purpose.
Some of the things a recovery coach may help with include:
- Creating a plan of action
- Finding and understanding resources
- Developing healthier behaviors and coping skills
- Understanding and using recovery tools in your daily life
- Guidance in developing accountability
- Building healthier relationships with family and friends
- Processing your experiences and emotions
- Self-care and basic life skills
- Discovering a sense of purpose and fulfillment
How Can an Experiential Recovery Coach Help?
Recovering from SUD can be a difficult and emotional process. When you have setbacks on your journey, the challenges can feel demoralizing and shameful, but recovery does not have to feel that way. With a recovery coach, you are not alone on your journey. Your recovery coach is a cheerleader in your corner, supporting and guiding you toward a healthier you.
According to an article from Alcohol Research: Current Reviews, the peer-to-peer element of recovery coaching has shown more positive outcomes for clients. When a recovery coach is able to share their lived experience with SUD, it builds camaraderie and understanding that supports motivation to develop healthier thinking patterns founded on mindfulness, self-reflection, and problem-solving skills.
As noted by an article in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment, coaching in the recovery of your mental health is a holistic approach to working with you to find balance, joy, and meaning in your life as you build life skills. The recovery journey is about more than eliminating SUD from your life. Rather, the whole process is about finding long-lasting happiness, love, and purpose in yourself and your life.
What Makes Recovery Coaching Different?
Although sharing similarities with a sponsor, a recovery coach plays a different role in your recovery journey. A sponsor is someone who has made it through their own recovery and is dedicated to sharing their knowledge and supporting you in living a sober life. However, traditionally, a sponsor’s work and guidance are filtered through a 12-Step program. Although a 12-Step program can be valuable for recovery, the work of a recovery coach can offer you support outside the boundaries of The Twelve Steps.
Moreover, long-term recovery is a product of building a physically and mentally healthier you based on the life you want for yourself. A recovery coach will help you maintain accountability as you discover and address the goals you set for a life you are excited about. Therefore, while a sponsor is dedicated to your journey through The Twelve Steps, your recovery coach is invested in helping you reintegrate and grow in every area of your life.
Benefits of a Recovery Coach
- Forming bonds through community engagement and support
- Developing goals for personal growth
- Rebuilding and creating healthier relationships
- Assistance with finding and using community services
Grace Recovery TX’s Approach to Recovery Coaching
We believe the key to recovery is purpose and connection. Through their training and lived experiences, our recovery coaches are able to support you as friends and guides as you start your recovery journey. Figuring out what you want, what you need, and who you want to be can feel overwhelming and scary, but our coaches have been where you are now. Our recovery coaches are women who understand the feelings of being stuck, questioning your self-worth, and feeling lost in your SUD.
With their knowledge and experience, our coaches will support you in discovering and setting long-term and short-term goals to become the person you want to be. At Grace Recovery, we believe recovery happens when you address every area of your life through the ten pillars of life.
Some of the ten pillars include:
- Leisure
- Hobbies
- Nutrition
- Work
- School
- Volunteering
- Relationships
- Legal issues
Furthermore, your case manager at Grace Recovery TX will support you with six business-type goals such as work, resume building, and budgeting. On the other hand, your recovery coach is here to help you with four feel-good goals, like finding hobbies, engaging in leisure activities, and building healthier relationships.
More of What to Expect With a Recovery Experiential Coach
- Meeting with your recovery coach regularly
- Discovering and building life skills
- Finding simple joys in your life
- Thrift shopping
- Floral arrangements
- Cooking
- Beauty & self-care
- Introducing you to activities and events in Austin, Texas
- Running errands with you
- Supporting you in building a life you are excited to live
- Learning to use recovery principles to process your daily and weekly life
- Developing healthier coping strategies
- Building self-esteem, self-love, and resilience through principled living
To learn more about our recovery coaches and how they can support you, visit our About page.
With their knowledge and experience, a recovery experiential coach can help you discover the person you want to be in recovery. At Grace Recovery, we believe in women supporting women to set goals and find joy in building a life they are obsessed with. Call us today at (737) 237-9663 to start building a purposeful life in long-term recovery.