Dunavant Family
Dunavant Family
Hope Fund Sponsor
ARCHway believes in recovery from the disease of addiction.
At the lowest point of my addiction, after losing custody of my children and living homeless, I checked myself into a behavioral health unit with severe withdrawal symptoms and suicidal ideation.
It was there that I was outreached by a person who was in recovery. He offered me resources and had a solution for every barrier and excuse to recovery that I presented. It was my first experience with a Peer Support Provider.He set me up with an appointment to an Intensive Outpatient Treatment Provider. From the behavioral health unit, I went straight to my appointment where I received Vivitrol and other therapies. I moved into Sober Living the day I left the hospital. While in sober living, I became attracted to the impact of peer support and worked to become certified to provide peer support. I began helping at the sober living house as a manager and got a job as a Certified Peer Specialist with the same medication assisted treatment provider that administered my Vivitrol. After about a year and a half, a position opened where I had received IOP treatment services. The position was for a Recovery Coach on the same outreach project that put a peer in front of me in the behavioral health unit a couple years prior. I applied for the position and got it!
I became a Certified Peer Specialist, got hired as a Recovery Coach and married the mother of my children. We bought a house and regained full custody of our children.
I continue to share my story on all platforms to inspire hope regarding substance use disorders. I work passionately as an advocate for my peers and Peer Support Services as they’ve had such a great impact on my recovery. I currently sit on the Board for the National Peer Recovery Alliance – Missouri Chapter (an extension of The ARCHway Institute). It is my hope that with money raised through this Hope Fund, more peers will be brought together to advocate for long-term recovery for those we are serving and to unite and strengthen the peer workforce.
I continue to serve my peers because someone once helped me. It’s for that reason that I will always do what I can to help others.
~ Jake Dunavant, CPS