SMART participant wellnessandhope( her screen name) says her “destruction of choice” started in her freshman year and continued throughout college. While her friends were graduating, she was in rehab. This was not how she thought her life was supposed to go. Eventually, though, it put her on a path to recovery and led to helping teens and young adults going through the same experiences. Today, wellnessandhope is a licensed mental health and addiction recovery counselor, working as a Project Coordinator at Youth Recovery CT and as a SMART Recovery Facilitator.

In this podcast, Pam talks about:

• Continually abusing substances throughout college and going to rehab instead of graduation
• Learning to make her life less complicated by not using substances
• Finishing her education and focusing on helping teens and young adults
• Driving across the state to the only library that carried the book Rational Recovery
• How the recovery needs of young people are different than those of adults
• The rewards of watching young people connect with recovery
• Realization that recovery makes things less complicated
• The impacts of using social media
• Celebrating the many ways people succeed in recovery
• Having multiple SMART meetings available for teens, young adults, and family and friends at Youth Recovery CT