X Committee Update: Peer Sobriety Mentorship Project

“I wonder which one of these brains I’ve got now?” Donnie asks himself out loud, examining a slide of a row of CAT scans projected onto the front wall of the training room.

The images show the damage to brain activity following years of drug and alcohol use, and the slow but steady recovery process that comes with sobriety. The slideshow was part of last week’s peer sobriety mentor training for the X Committee.

The X Committee is running monthly trainings on counseling skills and understanding addiction, with the support of Saint Joseph’s Hospital Chemical Dependency unit. They have put together a team of ten peer sobriety mentors. All the mentors are themselves in recovery from drug or alcohol abuse, and all of them are or recently have been homeless.

Doug Fountain, an X Committee leader and co-founder of the Peer Sobriety Mentor Project, says, “Walking around the streets out here, you can see the drug transactions. I’ve been out there doing the same thing these people are doing. It’s an upsetting feeling to be clean and sober and see the alcohol and drug use of all these people, not taking care of themselves, with no more positive attitude on life. People who are on drugs are stuck in this triangle, not trying to get jobs, not trying to get help, not trying to get out.”

Doug saw addiction as the primary barrier for himself and others, keeping them from getting and maintaining jobs and getting out of the shelter. He helped start this project in order to create hope and support to help people believe in their own recovery, and create an anti-drug culture within the homeless community.

Peer mentors have a unique capability of reaching people on the streets because they have not only been there themselves, but also know many people from when they were using substances together. They are living examples of how their peers can improve their lives.

Peer sobriety mentors are assertive in their approach, though never accusatory.

Anthony Johnson, another project co-founder, has already worked with six individuals in the first week of peer mentoring. For one individual, Anthony helped him get a county referral to pay for an inpatient treatment program, found him a substance-free location to stay for the night–to get distance from the drug community he was participating in-–and the next morning walked him personally to the inpatient facility.

Editor’s Note: You can reach X Committee at xcommittee@yahoo.com or (651) 717-8949.