Racquel Garcia showed up to the interview dressed for a funeral. In a black dress and high heels, the addiction counselor and peer recovery specialist explained that grief is part of the job.
“I’ve lost a lot of people; a lot of friends,” she said, as she took a seat at the table.
Garcia has been in active recovery from alcohol use disorder for 15 years. She shares her raw, honest story regularly, because it’s a catalyst for many. Yet, the moment this interview concluded, she would be driving to the funeral of a friend she partied with decades before, she said.
“My story of recovery didn’t help her.”
Still, Garcia keeps sharing. Because the actions that she’s taken since embarking on her personal recovery journey have helped hundreds – if not thousands – connect to harm reduction and recovery support.
Including the chief medical officer of a Colorado hospital. Earlier in the day, Garcia shared her personal story to a room full of doctors. The CMO gave her a high five and announced in front of the group that she was six months sober.
“Often after I speak, the room is quiet,” Garcia said. “Lately, I’ve been astounded by the number of providers who speak up and share their stories, too.”
The World Health Organization estimates that there are more than 3 million deaths annually attributable to alcohol and drug use. Of the 30.5 million adults (18+) in the U.S. who are believed to have a substance use disorder, 22 million say they are in recovery.
The first step toward recovery
Today, Garcia, a 47-year-old mother of four, brings peer-based recovery coaching and support into hospitals, prisons and communities across Colorado. But the day she entered rehab, her life looked completely different.
She was 60 miles from home, at a friend’s house with her kids. She’d started to shake from detoxing from partying the night before.
To steady herself, she took a shot of vodka. Then two. Then three.
“I probably had four or five shots. I was drunk again. And I had to get home.”
As she strapped her kids into their car seats, she experienced a moment of clarity. Garcia made the decision to go into recovery. Rather than drive 60 miles south to her home, she drove 8 miles east to her parent’s house. But not before taking two Adderall pills to offset how drunk she felt.
“I wish I could say I didn’t put my kids in the car after I was intoxicated, but I did. I’m not proud, but I did it,” she said.
Garcia knocked on her parents’ door with kids in tow, drunk and high on amphetamines. Her mom was recovering from a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Her dad drove her to an in-patient treatment facility the next day.
‘Everything will get worse’
On day three of rehab, Garcia tried to check out. She had talked to her husband who was still using – and he accused her of abandoning him and the kids. She was packing when another mom intervened.
“She said, ‘If you don’t stay here and do this, everything will get worse.’” The woman had already lost custody of her kids. Deep down, Garcia knew she was headed in the same direction.
So, she stayed, despite her husband’s anger.
“People see me now and think I had a supportive and encouraging husband at home. I did not. He was using, and he kept using. And I was a stay-at-home mom of three kids, soon to be four,” Garcia said.
She spent the next eight years remaining sober and trying to stay sane in a space that wasn’t conducive to healing. A church basement with people who understood became her refuge.
What is a Peer Recovery Specialist?
Peer recovery specialists use their lived experiences with addiction recovery to help others on similar journeys. Known as mentors, coaches or counselors, they offer encouragement, motivation and guidance in one-on-one settings. They walk alongside people in recovery, connect people with resources and challenge misconceptions about substance use disorder and mental health. Using their stories of recovery, they play a key role in helping people with addiction create a meaningful path of healing and growth. Find a peer recovery organization in your community.
12 steps were the only option
Garcia completed rehab and joined Alcoholics Anonymous, which at the time was the only option in the small town of Palmer Lake, Colorado. There are more options for people like her today, because she created them. But back then, it was just her, three men and a woman in a church basement.
The woman would become her sponsor. As Garcia listened to her story, she had a hard time reconciling the person that stood in front of her with the story she was telling. The woman looked like “Pollyanna,” and Garcia was sure they had nothing in common. It was hard for her to picture the woman having children with multiple men and getting arrested in her pajamas in front of a beautiful home in Castle Rock.
“I just kept thinking, ‘How did you go from a total chaos life like mine to one that looks tranquil and peaceful and joyful?’” Garcia started asking a lot of questions. First, of her sponsor. Then, of herself.
Garcia was 17 when two of her friends were shot and killed while working at Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora, Colorado. Rather than feel the pain, it was easier to "swallow the pills and drink the drinks."
Unlearning a victim mindset
At age 15, Garcia had her first psych visit and received the first of many diagnoses. It was the start of her forming an unsupportive victim mindset.
“I latched onto the ‘poor Racquel’ story like nobody’s business, because it became an excuse to not do anything to take responsibility for my life.”
Nobody told her that she had power – including the power to “endure herself.”
“I used to think, ‘I can’t deal with my feelings. I can’t deal with the trauma.’”
Trauma that took root in 1993, when two of Garcia’s best friends were shot and killed while working at a Chuck E. Cheese in Aurora, Colorado.
Garcia was 17. Instead of feeling, it became easier to swallow the pills and drink the drinks.
If she could go back and talk to herself in those early days of recovery, she’d counteract that story. “I’d say to myself, ‘You're scared. But trust that you have everything within you to come out on the other side.’”
Today, Garcia empowers people from all walks of life to do something different, including holding themselves accountable and responsible.
“I tell people all the time – you were made to be able to handle you. The emotions, the traumas – you have everything you need inside you. All those hard feelings will not break you,” she said.
Most of all, she wants people to know that you never have to recover alone.
“It’s another thing the medical community needs to understand: Privileged people go to rehab; poor people go to prison.” – Racquel Garcia, on why peer recovery communities are critical
The never-ending story of recovery
In 2019, Garcia founded HardBeauty – the first peer-led organization in Douglas County to offer hybrid coaching and programming to support people in recovery from substance misuse. She and her team use the power of community and trauma-informed peer coaching to explore all recovery pathways.
Garcia continues to abstain from drugs and alcohol. Her husband joined her in sobriety in May 2018. She continues to credit the support she receives from her peers as integral to her self-discovery. And she continues to “work the steps” with her sponsor.
A little over a year ago, Garcia’s dad died. And after 15 years of not having a drink, the cravings came on hard. It was 60 days after he passed, and on a Tuesday at nine in the morning, she wanted a margarita.
“When those feelings came up, I knew I had to go back to my recovery community. I had to go back to therapy. Recovery is a never-ending story,” she said.
If you love someone in active addiction, get help for yourself. First.
“I want to help your brother, your daughter, your aunt, your grandma. I do. But I can’t. Until that person wants support, there’s nothing I can do. Even after eight years of helping people in this space, I still don’t know when someone will hit their limit. I don’t have a timeline for anyone. So to the people who ask, I always say – you have to take care of you. Get some coaching; get counseling. How you take care of you is the most important thing.” – Racquel Garcia
Making data meaningful
In the last few years, Garcia and her team have been invited to participate in research and programs to help people recover from substance use disorder. She has become comfortable with urging researchers to not lose sight of the humans they are helping.
“I’m hoping that all the data and research maintains a sense of story to it – from their own motivations for doing the research to how that research is presented in and translated for our communities,” she said. “People are tired of being numbers. We’re the humans who are validating your academics. They’re just numbers and data sets until you put a person in.”
While she doesn’t believe researchers lose sight of patients intentionally, she understands how it can happen when you’re focused on other things. When she first started helping people recover, she made a commitment to remain focused on vulnerable populations. To this day, Garcia routinely visits women in prisons.
“It’s another thing the medical community needs to understand: Privileged people go to rehab; poor people go to prison,” she said. “In community, it’s important to know that Medicaid doesn’t pay for treatment in most places, so the people who want to recover from substance use come to peer-based recovery services.”
“Your peers are here to walk with you to design a recovery lifestyle that reduces harm. I think peer recovery is the missing link. It’s the conduit, too. We can help you find the next step.” – Racquel Garcia
Garcia also educates people in the medical community. She’s often invited to speak at hospitals and doctors’ offices to connect with providers. But it can also be triggering. Some of her battles with addiction were due to prescriptions. And she knows many other people who have trust issues with physicians for this reason.
“Asking people in the recovering community to come into your spaces is a great step, but it can be triggering for us. And a much better way to connect with us is to come to our spaces. Lend a hand. Support our events. It’ll make connecting your patients to care a lot easier,” Garcia said.
The first step toward recovery
Garcia encourages people to consider speaking with a peer if they are curious about recovery.
“For me, getting sober was ‘go to rehab; get better; go home.’ I wish I’d had a recovery coach.”
Garcia said that peers can offer support from a non-judgmental place and meet people where they are in their lives, even if they are still actively using.
“Your peers are here to walk with you to design a recovery lifestyle that reduces harm. I think peer recovery is the missing link. It’s the conduit, too. We can help you find the next step,” she said.
Despite knowing that the work she does helps people, Garcia is all-too aware that she has many people in her inner circle who she’s not able to touch. As she gathered her things to leave for the funeral, she admitted that sometimes the sorrow feels all-consuming.
“But I have to do something with it, right? ‘Pain into power’ is how I operate my life,” she said.
Above all, Garcia wants people to understand that there’s hope.
“It’s the most amazing thing – you don’t have to drink. Because I don’t drink, I can employ 46 people who are in active and sustained recovery. All because I maintain my recovery. And it’s beautiful.”
We live in a world that’s normalized alcohol use. Garcia wants to normalize getting help.
The COVID-19 pandemic became an interesting “portal” for Garcia. She observed how, even during lockdowns, communities prioritized maintaining access to alcohol. Two years ago, Colorado law changed to allow grocery stores to sell wine (full-strength beer was added to grocery and convenience store shelves in 2019). Garcia has been vocal about this expansion of alcohol sales, sponsoring legislation to “move the booze.”
“For someone with alcohol use disorder, picking up dinner can be a challenge, as marketers strategically place alcohol in various areas of the store – red wine above a display for steak; seltzers by the cereal aisle,” she said.
(Statistics derived from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration 2023 Survey.)
