What is A Recovery Coach?
A recovery Coach is not a therapist. A Recovery Coach is a professional who helps to identify and remove barriers and obstacles to recovery. Recovery Coaches serve as a personal guide and mentor for people who are seeking or are already in recovery from an addiction to alcohol and / or other drugs. What distinguishes a Recovery Coach from a therapist or peer oriented mental health professional, is that we stay in the lane of providing support for people in recovery from addiction to alcohol and other drugs. A good Recovery Coach provides strengths-based support and focuses on empowering the individual we are working with as we help identify triggers and cravings, while developing tools to help navigate them. And, a good Recovery Coach believes there are many pathways to recovery and that there is more than one way to achieve your recovery goals.
What Happens in a Session?
Our first session after your initial free consultation will be getting to know each other better. I want to know who you are and what your experience has been in recovery so far, and what your relationship to substance use has been like for you and those around you up to this point. I also want to give you plenty of time to talk about what you’d like to achieve through our sessions. Whether you want to develop strategies for harm reduction, or are focused on total abstinence - That choice is yours to make.
Each session after our initial meeting starts with a check in. It is my job to know where you’re at, what you bring to the table, and what you’d like to leave with when our session is over. We will talk about goals that you have for yourself as they relate to your recovery, and work out a plan to help you reach those goals. As you progress in your recovery, those goals might change, which is great, because they are yours to define, and a lot can change in the process of recovering. My job is to help you reach those goals and help you navigate what comes up along the way by highlighting the areas where you already excel and show strength and resilience so that you feel empowered as you work towards the outcomes you desire. Each session ends with one or two action steps that you choose to focus on or spend time with until we meet the next time. Throughout the process, we will spend extra time keeping track of and celebrating your victories and achievements as you define them, because You, and every little win along the way deserve to be celebrated.
Credentials and Affiliations
I have trained with multiple recognized organizations and have been coaching professionally for two years.
I am a Certified Professional Recovery Coach through the IAPRC (International Association of Professional Recovery Coaches), have earned the Certificate of Designation as a Recovery Coach Professional from CCAR (Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery) and am a member of their affiliated IARCP (International Association of Recovery Coach Professionals). And I am a Level 1 Certified Nutrition Coach through Precision Nutrition.
I am also an active member of the Recovery Dharma community.
My Story
My name is Sean Rodda, and I am a Professional Recovery Coach. I began my recovery journey in 2015. After too many years of over indulgence in drugs and alcohol, I learned that my use was going to put me into an early grave. I had my last drink a little over a year later.
One of the most important lessons I have learned through my recovery is that there is more than one pathway to recovery, and that we need more professionals in the field who are dedicated to learning new ways to assist and mentor people who are wanting to be successful in their own recovery. This lesson is what eventually led to me to become a Recovery Coach. So much of the language used when talking about recovery is based in shame, judgement, and a strict adherence to one specific program or method over another. But I don’t believe there is any one specific way to recover. I believe that much of recovery can be adapted to the individual who is living through the process of trying to overcome an addiction or dependency. I believe anyone taking on the task of their own recovery is their own best resource. I believe we know what we want to achieve and how we want to feel, but the path can seem long and daunting, and we don’t always know how to get there. Some of us need a little extra help and guidance along the way when it comes to navigating some of the obstacles and struggles that come up. This is where a Recovery Coach - who is also navigating their own recovery - can be a useful resource.
A hard truth about the coaching world is that you can’t trust everyone who calls themself a coach and you can’t always trust what they’re selling. Unfortunately, there are a lot of so-called “life coaches” and grifters out there selling easy fixes to complex problems and promising things they can’t deliver on. It is my goal to set myself apart from these individuals as much as possible. I am not a life coach. I do not sell the idea of “optimization” and do not believe in the delusions of “hacking” our brains and bodies to achieve our recovery goals. Recovery is not something we achieve with supplements, bio-hacking or mind tricks. Recovery does not let us cut corners. Recovery can be messy and difficult work at times, and it requires us to sit with it rather than find ways around it. My answer to these practices is to continuously challenge myself to grow and train in as many different approaches to navigating recovery, from as many trusted and tested organizations as possible, and by being a member of multiple professional groups focused on furthering the work of Recovery Coaches and other recovery professionals in a way that is ethical, sustainable, and puts the person who is on the path of recovery in the driver seat.