Mental Health Coaches

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How It Works

Mental Health Coaches play a dynamic role in helping someone to stabilize and ultimately live into the life they deserve.

This role has been called anything from: Sober Coach to Sober Companion to Recovery Specialist to Recovery Agent. We choose to call them Mental Health Coaches because our coaches are trained to deal with complex mental health issues of which alcoholism or substance use disorder are only a couple. They are also not long-term babysitters. They are trained coaches.

The Role of a Mental Health Coach

A Mental Health Coach is invited into an individual’s life to live with them and support them towards their healing. This can happen in many different situations. Before going to treatment, to help begin the recovery process and ensure they get there safely. It can happen after a 28-day treatment program when a person is newly returning to their life and needs to establish new connections, relationships and practice the tools they have been introduced to and are not fully familiar with yet.

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It can also happen in place of inpatient treatment, where the coach becomes a primary support and guides the individual through their day. It can also be situational—for a family vacation or work trip or tour. Mental Health Coaches are also fundamental elements during an in-home detox.

Our coaches can be requested to address a variety of challenges from: substance use disorder to mental health to executive functioning or cognitive impairment to chronic pain to a general sense of being stuck in life. It is not only surrounding treatment for substance use disorder.

The Benefits of Having a Mental Health Coach

Great Mental Health Coaches perform their work on more levels than an individual is aware of. They are always keeping the wellbeing and treatment plan of the individual in mind when interacting with anyone in the loved one’s life, in helping them make decisions, in helping to build habits and routine.

They bring tools of recovery, mental health training, and trauma-informed care to help stabilize someone throughout difficult moments. They administer medication, perform drug testing, are a friend, accompany to difficult or triggering events, connect to activities, resources, recovery groups. They form a relationship that gives the individual strength to adopt healthier behaviors.

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In the best cases, they help the individual to identify what they are passionate about and build a life around it. The ultimate goal is to empower the individual to do what the coach has done for themselves, and become their own self-directed resource.

We don’t promote the notion of Mental Health Coaches as “adult babysitters,” “sober body guards” or “shadows.” Anyone can be hired to follow someone around. Coaches who are hired in that role will always be needed because they do not empower the individual to find freedom. A great sober Mental Health Coach will eventually work their way out of the job by empowering the individual to take the reins.

Doctors like to use Mental Health Coaches to help provide a kind of therapeutic intervention to certain behaviors or destructive patterns as they are not able to be in the home or constantly on the phone working to regulate a patient. They need someone who can maintain strict confidentiality and take direction from them to continue supporting the therapy work of the individual outside of their hourly sessions. This assists with accountability and honesty as well as emotional support to do the work to change. They are the “boots on the ground” of the treatment team.

Not just anyone can be hired to do this work. Because of the trust, confidentiality and sensitivity this requires to be effective, Mental Health Coaches need definite skills.

Initially, they are drawn to the work because of their personality and lived experience. These cannot be taught. They also have come from their own recovery journeys which provide the empathy, compassion and understanding necessary to facilitate a successful connection with the individual they are always uniquely and selectively paired with.

Finally, through training, they develop a clinical awareness to be effective on treatment teams and in the complexity of 24/7 coaching support.

SOHL prides itself on its instinct for finding and training the best Mental Health Coaches, as well as identifying the right fit between coach and client.

"I had done recovery my whole life, but could never stay sober long-term. I would always get sober for a while then get bored, unengaged and relapse. Then have to go through the detox and treatment process again, which was always stressful in so many ways. Physically, it really started to take a toll as I got older. Also taking time away from the firm and my fear of what other’s thought. When I was introduced to SOHL they helped me structure recovery in my life in a way that didn’t take me away from my life. They blended everything into my daily obligations so I could continue to function. And the kinds of people they introduced me to were just phenomenal. They all added something so important to my recovery. The best part was they made it fresh. Not just another therapy for the sake of doing it, but they introduced me to things and people that really taught me something new. I take their suggestions because I trust them. I still rely on them ongoing, not because I need them but because I want them to be part of my recovery. I am so grateful to have met them."

"I had long-term recovery, but I was struggling with a very personal behavioral issue that was deeply impacting my work and relationships. Introduced to SOHL and they got it right away. They provided me with compassion, no judgment and the security I needed while undertaking a very stressful tour that could have been made worse had I kept doing what I was doing. The relationships I built with them and their coaches continue to sustain me to this day."

"I was desperate for my son to make it through his senior year of high school as he was struggling with severe depression, drug use and struggling to get out of bed in the morning. Not having his mother made it even more stressful for me to manage on my own. I was referred to SOHL through a psychiatrist that recommended I hire one of their coaches to live in the house and work with my son. I was naturally apprehensive at first. Almost at once they connected and the coach became part of our family. My son started to find a routine and make commitments, and not only made it through his senior year of high school, but also applied and got into a great college. The support SOHL provided helped my son’s psychiatrist provide better care as well as they helped me to find the right support I didn’t know I needed. It gave me a lot of calm and security having them there. Today my son and I have a closer relationship."

"My daughter had developed a complex eating disorder as well as borderline personality disorder and our family was at a loss for how to support her. We had tried treatment multiple times as well as therapy for years, but she did not get better. A friend of the family referred us to SOHL to discuss putting together an in-home treatment program for her and honestly we were ready to try anything because we felt we had already tried everything and failed. We were surprised that the clinical team we worked with not only worked with her, but myself and my husband as well and our younger son. It was not easy, but with all of us doing the work we were able to see some change. Probably the most incredible gift was the love and support of a live-in companion who became like a big sister to our daughter and compassionately encouraged her to start taking care of herself better. It was a slow road at first, but the companion did not get frustrated or impatient or take it personal. She just kept loving our daughter and believing in her. Eventually things started to shift and now our daughter has not had a lapse for over a year, the longest since her episodes started. While the coach does not live with us anymore, our daughter is still in contact with her. I couldn’t be more grateful."

" When I first met Andrew my life was pretty messed up. I was going nowhere, depressed and not really wanting to live. He just talked to me and I don’t know how he did it, but I decided to start doing some things differently. I really got the feeling like I could trust him and that he had been through similar things. After a while I was able to go back to school and get better friends and start doing healthier things for myself. What do you know, it all made me feel happier! My life isn’t perfect by any means, but I am much better off now than I was before. I can definitely say I want to live and I am excited to see what’s next. "

"I want to thank Dr. Almaguer so much for helping me. I am just so, so grateful to have met her. I always felt this cold distance and just like a number whenever I met a doctor to discuss what was wrong with me. I felt like they were just doing this checklist and didn’t really care. She took the time to listen to me and ask me tons of questions to really find out what was going on. I could tell she really felt for me because at one point we both even started to cry! And I had never experienced that with a doctor before. After working with her for a while I was able to come to terms with things that I didn’t even know had happened to me, things I guess I was so afraid of admitting to myself that I just didn’t. She really took the time to speak with my mother and my sister and encouraged me to go back and play piano again which I had stopped for years. I am playing again and I can’t believe I’m preparing for a show. Honestly, working with her has changed my life so much and I can’t highly recommend her enough!"

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