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With a Little Help from My Friends: Peers and Recovery Housing
Getting back on our feet after beginning addiction recovery is a complicated process. Yes, finding a safe, affordable place to live is huge. But it’s not the only thing. Rather than doing it alone, many recovering people choose to live in transitional housing programs. L.A. CADA offers one of the largest supplies of Recovery Bridge Housing (RBH) in Los Angeles County. These facilities provide small unit housing shared with other people in recovery and managed by trained/supervised peer staff in recovery. On-site services include case management, assistance in obtaining benefits, services, and permanent housing, transportation to outpatient treatment and healthcare in the community, as well as 24/7 peer recovery support.
One of the first peer-driven models of recovery housing opened in Maryland in 1975 – the Oxford House Model. Research showed those with a severe substance use disorder (SUD) who were randomly assigned to live in an Oxford House after completing treatment were twice as likely to remain abstinent at follow-ups two years later. They also had lower rates of incarceration and higher monthly incomes at their follow-up compared to those who received services as usual. The Oxford House Model was based on a democratic, mutual-support peer-run sober living environment. Today, peer-supported recovery bridge housing is an evidence-based model. Although research is still limited, it demonstrates that recovery housing performed better than similar interventions delivered in other types of residential settings (such as therapeutic communities), especially for increasing alcohol abstinence, reducing days of substance use, and increasing income and employment rates.
People in early recovery have multiple challenges. Many have been recently unhoused, incarcerated, and/or hospitalized. They may not be employable yet due to lack of work experience or education. For some, deteriorated health is another barrier to stable housing. In addition, there are many broken and troubled relationships along the path to recovery, including severed friendships and family bonds. Without intervention, any of these issues can sabotage recovery.
Recovery Bridge Housing addresses more than the need for a roof over our head. Peers with lived experience in achieving sobriety and mental health stabilty, as well as overcoming the challenges of relapse, homelessness, community re-entry from jail or prison, and barriers to independent living are there for us in RBH. In addition to peer support, the program offers life skills training groups, relapse prevention education, and help getting the education, employment, and other resources needed to find and keep permanent housing.
If you’d like to learn more about L.A. CADA recovery bridge housing, we’re here for you. Call us at (562) 906-2676 for more information.
With a Little Help from My Friends: The Essentials of Peer Support
Peer recovery support services, or PRSS, is an evidence-based practice supported by the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Numerous research studies have proven that receiving such support:
- Improves a patient’s retention in treatment services
- Reduces relapse of alcohol, drug, and mental health disorders
- Enhances quality of life
- Produces positive health outcomes, and
- Lowers healthcare costs.
The key to successful peer support is the relationship between the supporter and the person receiving support. If patients feels the supporter is a true peer – someone with lived experience with psychiatric disorders and/or addictions – it forms the basis for a supportive relationship that can help move them along their path to recovery. A trusting safe relationship is based on acceptance, and empathy that is culturally sensitive. It promotes hope, respect and dignity which allows for the degree of sharing, validating, and normalizing that is critical to the peer relationship. It also shows full respect for each person’s unique process of change. In many ways, peer support readies people to engage and actively participate in professional treatment services, and to better self-manage. It’s helpful to look at what Peer Support Specialists are and what they are not:
| What Peer Support Specialists ARE & DO | What Peer Specialists ARE & ARE NOT |
|---|---|
| A person in recovery | A treatment professional |
| Share lived experience | Give professional advice |
| See the individual as a whole person in the context of the persons roles, family, community | See the person as a case or diagnosis |
| Motivate through hope and inspiration | Motivate through fear of negative consequences |
| Function as an advocate for the person in recovery, both within and outside of the program | Enforce the program |
| Teach the person how to accomplish daily tasks | Do the personal tasks |
| Teach how to acquire needed resources, money, services | Provide money and resources |
| Use language based on common experiences | Use clinical language |
| Encourage, support, praise | Diagnose, assess, treat |
| Share knowledge of local resources | Provide case management |
| Help to set personal goals | Mandate tasks and behaviors |
| A role model for positive recovery behaviors | Tell person how to lead his/her life in recovery |
If you are someone who needs peer support for recovery, L.A. CADA is here for you. Call us at (562) 906-2676 for more information.
With a Little Help from My Friends: Becoming a Peer Support Worker
If you’re in recovery from alcohol, drug, and/or mental health disorders, you are already a specialist. First, you understand how hard it is to ask for help. You’ve got experience taking those difficult first steps in treatment. And you’ve shown you can achieve and maintain sobriety and mental health stability. Why not take the next step and become a Peer Support Worker? The role of a peer support specialist has been defined as “offering and receiving help, based on shared understanding, respect and mutual empowerment between people in similar situations.” It’s based on key principles that include shared responsibility and mutual agreement of what is helpful. Peer support workers engage in a wide range of activities, including advocacy, linkage to resources, sharing of experience, as well as community and relationship building, group facilitation, skills building, mentoring, goal setting, and more.
According to the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administation, the core skills – called competencies – needed to become a peer support specialist are:
- How to engage peers in collaborative and caring relationships
- How to provide peer support
- How to share lived experience in recovery
- How to support recovery planning
- How to link people to resources, services and supports
- How to help peers manage crises
- Verbal and written communication skills
- How to provide leadership and advocacy
- How to grow and develop in your role as a Peer Specialist
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If that sounds like something that you’d like to do, you’ll need to select a training course and earn your certification as a Peer Suppport Specialist. There are courses in the community to accomplish this, including those provided by L.A. CADA. Check out: our Peer Academy or call us at (562) 906-2676 for information
With a Little Help from My Friends: Peers in Recovery
The 2025 holidays are hitting hard, rushing towards us with the usual rollercoaster of emotions and stress. L.A. CADA reminds you that one of the best ways we can stay clean and sober during this time is ‘with a little help from my friends’.
Peer support is now recognized by the scientific community as an evidence-based practice that works to help people with alcohol, drug, and mental health challenges gain and maintain stability. Peers in recovery formalize a natural system of support that has been around since the beginning of civilization, and certainly since the establishment of 12 Step support groups, such as AA.
Individuals with lived experience in recovery are able to create a unique bridge to engage suffering people in treatment. Peers use their own lives as examples of hope, providing evidence for recovery. They offer a wide array of services and connect individuals to local systems and resources. Peers, through their caring, empathy and practical support, activate individuals to engage and remain in services that foster recovery.
Becoming engaged in treatment and activating recovery are essential to recovery. Engagement is the process by which an individual and a health care system can establish the connection that links health, illness and well-being to a system of care. Activation occurs as an individual becomes empowered to improve and sustain their own health and wellness.
Peers in recovery do all of this by providing us with:
- Assistance in self management of symptoms
- Support for actions that maintain health and functioning
- Encouragement for selecting treatment providers
- Help with treatment decision-making
- Assistance/collaboration with treatment staff
- Navigation for provider systems
You can find compassionate, authentic peer support at community 12 Step meetings listed on the web, and here at L.A. CADA – where we can introduce you to some pretty special people in recovery. Don’t go through the holidays alone. Call us at (562) 906-2676