ROCHESTER — When a person experiencing a drug overdose goes to the Mayo Clinic Hospital emergency department, they see the typical providers: doctors, nurses.
But they’re also given the opportunity to meet with a certified peer recovery specialist, someone who can connect them with the resources they need to work toward addiction recovery.
“We may be starting from the beginning, and that might be warm clothes, food resources,” said Cheryl Laugen, peer recovery specialist supervisor at Recovery Is Happening, a local recovery community nonprofit. “Just really putting all the pieces back together … so we can move people out of their substance use disorder and from existing to thriving.”
The partnership between Mayo Clinic and Recovery Is Happening has been in place since 2018, Laugen said.
“When we started, it was something most people hadn’t heard of,” Laugen said.
Peer recovery specialists are trained, certified professionals who are also in long-term recovery.
Each week, one peer recovery specialist is on call for emergency room visits. It’s their only work responsibility for that week, Laugen said, as calls sometimes come at night and on weekends.
“I think it’s some of the most impactful work that we do,” Laugen said. “Being able to sit along a patient’s bedside and say, ‘I know what you’re feeling because I’ve been where you been,’ and offering those seeds of hope.”
It’s an intervention that had a lasting impact on Cedric Weathersbee. Seven years ago, he ended up in the emergency room.
“I was brought to the hospital because of my alcoholism, had been under the influence and being hopeless,” Weathersbee said. “I was just in one of the ER side rooms, and they asked if I would be willing to talk to someone about recovery, and I said, ‘Well, yeah, of course.'”
That day, Laugen was the peer recovery specialist who met with Weathersbee.
“She was just there and she listened and was just really compassionate,” Weathersbee said. “She was telling that it is possible to get through this.”
Weathersbee is now a peer recovery specialist at Doc’s Recovery House.
“Just having someone there at your side, it makes a big difference,” he said. “To walk alongside people in their recovery journey.”
Cedric Weathersbee is a certified peer recovery specialist at Doc’s Recovery House in Rochester.
Contributed / Michael Lockard
Dené K. Dryden is the Post Bulletin’s health reporter. Readers can reach Dené at 507-281-7488 and ddryden@postbulletin.com.
