Peer Support Services for Behavioral Health

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People have an

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idea of

what an addict might look like

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and someone who's

in a rehab or detox.

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They come in the room and they see me

and they're like, Yeah,

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this is another guy

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from my insurance company

to tell me what I need to do.

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And I tell them that I use drugs

and alcohol for 22 years,

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and they sit back in their chair

and they go, What?

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That's the magic of peer support.

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When you tell them who you are

and you watch that

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wall come down.

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Our roles

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within the health

plan is to literally partner

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with the individuals

that are receiving services.

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So if that individual needs community

resources.

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There is nobody better than a peer

support to be able

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to identify

what those community services are

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and travel with that member

to those organizations.

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They're really known

as the individual that's walking

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the step by step journey

with our members.

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Most of us are known

for being transparent

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with our stories in that there's

just this honesty that occurs.

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Being a person who has

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lived with HIV for nearly 30 years,

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it's an honor

and a privilege to be this age

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when most of my friends did

not make it out of their thirties.

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It became very clear to me

that I did not know how to cope.

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What used to be what we would call

party favors, you know,

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drugs and alcohol became the thing

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that kept me from being so afraid.

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Every day

I realized that I was in trouble.

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One day when I got out

of the hospital and went to the bar.

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Who does that?

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Homelessness for me

looked just like it does

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for most women who experience

homelessness for the first time.

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It's shocking.

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It's demoralizing.

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Really, It's a state of confusion.

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There wasn't a recognition

of my coping skills

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that I had developed my entire life.

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Were actually feeding

a diagnosis of extreme

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anxiety, swinging into very

serious depressive disorders.

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I started feeling like

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my life as I knew

it was never going to be the same.

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And I didn't know what to do

if I didn't have the peer encounter

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that I had.

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I don't know

that I would be sitting here

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today.

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Having peers come from different

backgrounds is very, very important.

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I often tell people I might not have

walked in your shoes,

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but I probably walked down

that same block.

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We come from the places where

the people that we serve come from.

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I think having peers

in our behavioral health system

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is not only important, it's essential

because peers understand

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the complexities of different

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diagnosis

and living through those complexities

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on a day to day basis

and different circumstances.

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But also peer support can

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and does drive down health care costs

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because people are using prevention

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rather than, you know,

after the fact, health care.

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There's a settling of oneself

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that occurs

when you're a peer support.

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There's a transparency  that happens and that makes us

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better people.

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Doing this work has made me feel like

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I have the life that I only imagine

other people have.

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I'm a black gay man living with HIV

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with 20 years free from addiction.

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Life is good.