A Compassionate Road to Recovery

Recovery Mentorship & Harm Reduction

You belong here. ♡

REACH OUT TO TO OUR TEAM AND START YOUR RECOVERY JOURNEY TODAY.

* If you are from an organization referring a client who would like to be connected with trans and queer-focused recovery mentorship, please use the Provider Referral Form.

Road To Recovery

Our LGBTQIA2S+ communities are statistically more affected by alcoholism and addiction, or substance use that dominates our lives with negative impacts. The systems we live within cause profound harm to us and our communities–even more so with intersecting identities of race, ethnicity, class, disability, gender queerness, sexuality, and neurodiversity. The Equi Institute’s Recovery Mentorship and Harm Reduction Support Program is an LGBTQ2SIA+-specific support service for adults.

Certified Recovery Mentors (CRMs) share a lived experience of addiction and recovery. They are here to help you in your own harm reduction or recovery path as you choose it. Whether you are newly in recovery or have been on a recovery journey for some time; we are here for you. This confidential and free support does not require abstinence, only a desire to make a positive change.

We recognize that recovery is any positive change and that there are many roads on this shared journey. We support harm reduction as a path and practice. We have a holistic view and know that the systemic burdens and barriers that compound oppression, difficulty, and suffering throughout life; substances are a symptom, not the root of a problem.

We are here to support you where you are whether you are still using your substance(s) of choice, ready to make whatever positive change is right for you, or are seeking peer support in ongoing recovery. You are the expert on your own life. We are here to help you help yourself by providing a trauma-informed and supportive space.

1. When Do I Ask for Help?

  • If you find it hard or impossible to stop once you start

  • When you try to hide how much you are using

  • Routinely using to cope with feelings

  • Increased tolerance and needing more to get the same effect

  • Failing in attempts to stop or moderate use

  • When your social life and relationships center around drinking or using

  • Impulse control and risky or self-destructive behavior when intoxicated

  • If you’re experiencing a concurrent loss of relationships, self-worth, physical or mental health challenges, or the ability to direct your life

  • If your thoughts and days revolve around planning when you can use your substance of choice

  • When you have reasons you want to stop or change how you drink or use and struggle with making a change that can last

  • And finally…you can ask for help whenever you want. We do not need to have a devastating “rock bottom” to utilize harm reduction practices and recovery paths.

2. How Our Certified Recovery Mentors Can Help:

  • Providing trauma-informed LGBTQIA2S+ affirming recovery and harm reduction support

  • Harm reduction supplies

  • Empathy, connection, and guidance with queer peers in recovery

  • Co-creating change plans based on your starting point, goals, and values

  • Advocacy when seeking or attending detox, substance use treatment, or sober living options

  • Strategies to manage your recovery, take care of yourself, build self-trust, and live in a new way

  • Advocacy navigating community resources

  • Helping you explore options for connecting to a larger recovery or harm reduction community that is right for you

  • Helping you build life-affirming self-efficacy (ability to make changes one step at a time)

  • Working with Equi’s Community Health Worker team to help navigate the healthcare system

Healthcare is not as simple as offering a service; we often strategize with patients around navigating complicated barriers to care, and fiercely advocate for them when they are outright neglected and discriminated against within larger health systems. Our main challenges are addressing social determinants of health such as food and housing insecurity, as well as fighting systems of oppression like racism, ableism, and transphobia that cut people off from the care they need.

We focus our work around LGBTQI2s folks, People of color, people with significant mental health concerns, houseless folks, people living with addictions, people living with disabilities, and elders.

PLEASE NOTE

We are not set-up for active crisis response. If you are having a medical emergency, please call 911. If you are having a mental health emergency, please call the Multnomah County Crisis Line 503-988-4888.

We are not available to support 24/7. We are not available on the weekends or in the evenings and we will do our best to respond to messages and calls during our working hours within the limitations of our capacity. We may also request to schedule time with you so that we can help address your health goals.

We embrace any positive change as recovery and part of our queer liberation!

We reject stigma surrounding addiction, recovery, & harm reduction. Together, we can create a community where everyone has access to the support and resources they need to thrive.