Oliver-Pyatt Centers Recovery Coach Ashli Gonzalez has been with OPC for five years. She works closely with the clients and supports them in their journey to being fully recovered. Ashli offers some insight into her work as a Recovery Coach and the great impact the role can have on the clients.
Choice. Continuously choosing something or someone is so important. Every day, I wake up and CHOOSE to continue working at OPC. Working at OPC is kind of like the work it takes to be in any relationship or marriage. It’s filled with high’s and low’s (mostly high’s), can be very challenging but extremely rewarding, is filled with love and inspiration and pushes me to be my best self every day. It does all of this for me and I am not even a client. But because of this, it in turn allows me to be the best I can be for our girls.
There are two sides to OPC- our clients and our staff members. In order to have a fully functioning treatment center, both are crucial. My days consist of “good morning, sunshine”, with a mega-watt smile on my face, when I first see each of our girls in the morning. I’m also notorious for calling everyone “sweetie”- I just can’t help it- our clients are the best. I take what the girls now call the “scenic route” to the center, instead of the route flooded with traffic, and I always encourage happy music for the drive. How you start your day sets the tone for your entire day. The rest of my day is filled with snacks and meals and outings, amongst a few other things. But mostly, it’s filled with hugs, a simple smile, a shoulder to cry on, a listening ear and a few kind words that go a very long way. It’s filled with compassion, and compassion is key and paramount to the work we do. As a Recovery Coach, I am there to support our girls every step of the way. I make myself available and most importantly, I make myself relatable. Being relatable creates a sense of trust and allows for our girls to know that we are all just trying to make it in this great, big world. Inspiring others is my passion and making a difference is why I love what I do. There is no other way for me. Two of my favorite quotes, that I often share with our girls is, “Comparison is the thief of joy” by Theodore Roosevelt and “Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road” by Jack Kerouac. I’ve actually painted the Kerouac quote on small canvases, which sits in each apartment where the girls live. I am a firm believer in the power of positivity and I encourage it with our girls on a daily basis.
This is simply my role. There are many that make up our incredible team at OPC. I am only 1 of over 100 staff members that we have, and while each staff member brings their own unique, individual personalities to OPC, know that there are many other people like me working at OPC and we are waiting for you or your loved one’s to join us so that we can help YOU choose recovery. Remember, “Loving yourself through the process is where your courage lives.”
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