For nearly 10 years, Rodger Borders III has served as a Peer Recovery Specialist with Adult & Child Health, using his own experiences with bipolar disorder and substance abuse as the foundation for a unique working relationship with his clients. Trust, he says, is the result of speaking openly and honestly about his experiences—both good and bad.
“When they see someone across the table who has dealt with some of the same issues they’re facing, it allows people to see what’s actually possible and to get outside their own heads.”
As one of a growing number of certified peer-to-peer service providers in the behavioral health field—and one of eight employed by Adult & Child Health—Rodger plays a vital part in helping people find their own paths to recovery from serious mental illness or addiction. Working alongside therapists, skills development specialists, supported employment specialists, and care coordinators, he meets with clients where they are most comfortable to offer his own brand of counseling and support. And it works.
According to a recent study published by the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, peer-delivered support services have become an integral part of the recovery-oriented approach to treatment for mental and substance abuse disorders, proving especially beneficial for those struggling with addictions and other chronic conditions.
For Rodger—whose lifelong dreams of becoming a therapist were derailed when his symptoms forced him to leave college early—the reason is simple: “Their symptoms might vary, but most people I see just want to know that someone else has felt the same way and overcome.” And he has.
Rodger first began to recognize that something was wrong when he was in high school, turning to alcohol and drugs as a form of self-medication before later being hospitalized four separate times as his condition worsened. Unable to keep a job—he remembers holding more than 30 in a single year, sticking with each for no more than a few days—and unable to stay in school, he worried that he would never be able to have a meaningful career.
But slowly, and with the support of his parents and fiancée (now his wife of 13 years), he learned to manage his symptoms and to take the necessary steps toward a better life. Beginning with a low-level position at a mental health and transitional housing agency, he rediscovered his passion for helping people—working his way up to an assistant supervisor job before being invited to join an assertive community treatment (ACT) team in 2004.
He’s seen the relatively new concept of peer-delivered services take shape in the years since, with training and certification programs evolving to embrace the power of shared life experience. He’s also had his fair share of ups and downs in his own recovery, which he doesn’t mind sharing with the people he serves on a daily basis, so long as it helps.
“One reason I stay (in this job) is that everybody matters, but some people get lost or forgotten—and somebody’s got to care about them. It’s not so much a job as a privilege.”
