Most people in recovery have been told, in one form or another, to sit with a craving and wait for it to pass, and most people have found that advice about as useful as being told to relax during a panic attack. The knowing does not do the surviving. What helps is having something concrete to hold onto while the wave moves through you, and that is the actual problem Craving Surfer was built to solve. Urge surfing is not a new idea. The research behind it is solid, and the pri

Nobody told me when I started out as a peer specialist that I was going to need supervision more than I needed training. I thought I was ready. I had lived experience, I had survived things, and I walked in the hospital convinced that was enough. It wasn't. Arrogant and brash, I overstepped my role within days, got into a confrontation with a physician who was completely in the right, and had my badge pulled on campus while I stood there genuinely believing I was the wronged

There is a particular kind of exhaustion native to peer work, one not found on any symptom checklist and rarely named in clinical supervision, born from holding two legitimate goods in tension at the same moment and knowing no clean resolution exists for either of them. Peer specialists bring something irreplaceable to behavioral health care, namely the lived authority of having survived what the people they serve are surviving now, and yet this very authority places them in

Learning What You Cannot Fix Peer support skills are meant to be tools of invitation, not instruments of control. While the distinction might sound philosophical or even abstract at first, it carries practical weight for anyone who has ever been present with another person in genuine pain and wondered afterward whether anything they offered actually mattered. The attunement, the presence, the careful restraint of our own impulse to fix or direct or rescue. All of it is real,

Peer support supervision too often focuses on behavior and compliance rather than recovery. Here is a practical framework for bringing recovery-oriented questions into every supervision conversation.

A participant is pacing, talking over people, refusing to join the group. A staff member issues a warning. It doesn't work, so they get sent home, or suspended, or they lose canteen for the week. Order is restored and the group moves on. Most of us have seen this play out. Many of us have been the one doing it. The intention is usually sound — maintain expectations, hold a line, signal that behavior has consequences. The problem is that in doing so, we may have applied a cons

A good note doesn't have to be long. It doesn't have to use clinical jargon. But it does need to do a few things clearly:

Recovery is the process of building a life that reflects dignity, purpose, and hope. The goal is not to return to a previous version of life but to move forward into something more whole and meaningful. Recovery is not defined by the absence of illness but by the presence of agency, growth, and wellness. The definition provided by SAMHSA describes recovery as a process through which individuals improve their health and wellness, live a self-directed life, and strive to reach

There’s this moment in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe where Edmund bites into the White Witch’s enchanted candy—Turkish...

Sometimes the most profound lessons about resilience come from the most unexpected places. Once upon a time—more specifically, Christmas...

Original Peer Support Note (Unpolished, Misspelled, Poor Punctuation): "Met with client today. they said there struglin alot with stress...

Standing in the door of a C-130 at 1,200 feet, you face an unforgiving reality: gravity doesn't negotiate. When human meets earth, earth...

As a facilitator and support professional, I work with peers and colleagues who often face complex challenges that don't have simple...

If you're a peer support specialist wondering whether all the buzz about new Medicare billing codes is real—it absolutely is. The...

Peer specialists bring unique lived experience to nonprofits, but to gain a seat at the strategic table, they must evolve from...

It's crucial for peer specialists to be skilled active listeners to provide effective support. Here are 3 signs that a peer specialist...

When peer specialists encounter challenging situations with clients, the instinct might be to immediately problem-solve or offer advice...

Two Approaches to Peer Support Peer support is like the way my wife and I interact with our yard in Nashville. We're more than halfway...

As Peer Specialists, we're more than employees; we're "walking billboards" for the peer support movement. Our daily actions powerfully...

I've been working in this field for over 12 years, mostly in a supervisory role, and know this about my fellow peer specialists--they...