During National Recovery Month 2026, the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) included my story in its Voices of Recovery series, highlighting my journey from lived experience to becoming a Certified Recovery Support Specialist (CRSS) and Peer Support Specialist.
My lived experience is what brought me to peer support, but becoming a CRSS taught me an important distinction: having lived through addiction and recovery does not automatically teach us how to support someone else through theirs.
Through the CRSS Success Program at College of DuPage, I learned to listen differently, meet people where they are, and resist the temptation to assume that what worked for me should work for someone else. Peer support is not about having all the answers. It is about creating space for people to discover and pursue a recovery path that belongs to them.
That lesson has become an important part of the work I do today as a Peer Support Specialist, recovery coach, and advocate for multiple pathways to recovery.
As I shared with IDHS:
“Lived experience by itself is only the beginning.”
I’m grateful to the Illinois Department of Human Services for including my story in Voices of Recovery and to the College of DuPage CRSS Success Program for helping me learn how lived experience can become meaningful support for others.
