Peer Recovery Coach Uses Experiences to Support Others

For Deanna Jones, peer recovery coach with Eskenazi Health, the first steps in recovery from addiction can be subtle ones, such as a willingness to take a handout with locations of local 12-step programs.

Jones works for Project POINT (Planned Outreach, Intervention, Naloxone and Treatment) at Eskenazi Health, a team of certified peer recovery coaches offering wraparound services for patients who arrive at the Michael & Susan Smith Emergency Department at Eskenazi Health with a substance use disorder. The small team - just four coaches, a manager and a social worker - visits with nearly 5,000 patients each year.

Once a patient is up for a visit, a team member is there to listen and offer information and materials about treatment facilities, insurance, transportation, medication-assisted services and other resources. They also provide toiletries, food gift cards, medication vouchers, naloxone kits and care packages. A Project POINT coach will connect anyone ready to move forward with recovery to services, make referrals, help with over-the-phone assessments and even transport patients to treatment facilities from the emergency department.

"It's huge that they know we're here," Jones says. "If nothing else, to plant the seed. Maybe not today. Maybe tomorrow. But hopefully, just to let them know there are ways out."

Her own way out was a long one. She was 15 years old when her sister was pulled from life support after a tragic car accident. Jones had been close to her older sister, describing her death as "devastating." Amid her grief, Jones traded neighborhood sports and her school band membership for partying and substance use.

Jones was an intravenous substance user for more than 30 years after that accident. Her life, she says, "just spiraled, spiraled, spiraled." Through work, marriage, four kids and a divorce, she couldn't leave addiction behind. "You never plan to be like that," she says, "but you cross that bridge, and then there you are. You're shocked. How did I get here? 'Cause you always think you can quit."

"Lots of times I wanted out," she says. "It was so ingrained in me …. You want to get out, but you really just don't know how." For Jones it took "total surrender" to change course. She credits her faith, her mom's prayers and 12-step programs.

"I have fought tooth and nail for my recovery," she says. "And I help people. I help people all the time. My phone is always pinging, people wanting help."

For the past 11 years, Jones has been assisting others with recovery, the last five with Project POINT. She's been thrilled to apply her experience to helping those struggling with addiction, many of whom are at their lowest moments.

For some patients, recovery is a hard sell, and Jones doesn't push. "If I can at least get in there and talk to them a minute," she says. "Because they can tell by talking to me … I've been there …. And I let them know I genuinely care." If the patients aren't ready to face their addiction when she visits, Jones doesn't get discouraged, saying that they'll hopefully keep her card if nothing else.

She witnesses that same caring in the doctors and nurses in the emergency department. Their support for recovery comes through to the patients, she explains, adding, "It makes a big difference, the whole atmosphere."

The Project POINT team sees numerous repeat patients. Witnessing those hospitalized due to their substance use can be "very hard at times," says Jones. That's why she's grateful when former patients approach her, usually at meetings for 12-step programs. If they thank her for assisting them, Jones responds, "You don't know how much that means to me." "One woman calls me her angel," she adds.

Jones and the other peer recovery coaches share success stories with one another, which she calls "nuggets of hope." Some of her favorite experiences are when former patients run up to her, displaying their graduation certificates from a recovery program. Project POINT works directly with recovery houses to cover the cost of a patient's first 12 weeks of sober living if they complete a 28-day program. "That's huge," she says.

Jones just celebrated her 65th birthday this summer and her sixteenth year in recovery this month. "I should have been dead multiple times over. I've been in some really bad situations on the street. I got shot. I've overdosed," Jones says. "Every gray hair, every line, every scar, I am grateful. I am so grateful that I made it because so many people haven't."

"I know God pulled me out of my mess to help others," she says. "Not a doubt in my mind."