We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mitchell O’brien. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mitchell below.

Mitchell, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. How did you get your first job in the field that you practice in today?

I had struggled with substance use disorder for over 15 years. This had left my life in a depression and anxiety-filled ruin physically, emotionally, and spiritually pushing me into suicidal ideation territory. After years of despair and multiple close calls with death, from my deteriorated health and the loss of value in my own life, I found a life of wellness in recovery.
This epiphany, and complete 180° turnaround, was the beginning of an entirely new life path. I went from losing everything to gaining these losses back with added blessings on top of them. But, there were bumps in the road along the way.
After living a sober life for about a year and a half my life began to grow stale. I had achieved goals in this journey but my life had come to a stand still. I was in an unhealthy relationship and working a job that I was grateful for but had no room for growth. I was spinning my wheels.
I wasn’t allowed to live my life out loud like I am today. The people I chose to keep close had compelled me to keep my past a secret tied up in the looming stigma of substance use disorder. In my case, alcoholism.
After clearing some of these blockages in the forms of relationships out of my life I met the director of 217 Recovery. A recovery community organization based in Traverse City Michigan, my hometown.
See, my biggest goal in my life of recovery was to become a certified peer recovery coach so I could give back to the community that helped me and guide people out of the challenges I once struggled with. I had spoken to multiple treatment centers about achieving this goal and kept being met with the same answer: go get the education, get the certification, and we’ll consider you for employment. I had zero idea on how to even start this process.
This is where Corey Winfield, the Director of 217 Recovery, comes in. After seeing him in the community wearing his recovery-branded swag, we struck up a conversation. In this talk, I mentioned my Recovery Coach goal and he responded by telling me about the non-profit recovery community organization he ran and how he was looking to hire a recovery coach. Bummer for me, I don’t have the required education or certification. This felt like a great thing that was just out of reach. I communicated that with Corey, and long story short, he responded with something like “Come work for me and I’ll help you get those”.
This blew my mind. Is someone willing to invest in me like this? Yes, yes he was.
The twist in this story is that I almost turned him down due to feeling comfortable in the routine I had structured myself. Even though I was spinning my wheels in life, seemingly not progressing anymore, the stability was a relatively new and good feeling I was not used to. I thank God every day that after praying that night and contacting Corey the next day the offer was still standing. It felt good and it was the beginning of my life/career working in the recovery community of Northern Michigan.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Today I work for 217 Recovery, the recovery community organization I mentioned before. I was born, raised, and cycled through my lived experience of substance use disorder and found a life of wellness and recovery all in the Traverse City community.
We offer peer recovery coach services completely free to our clients across Michigan, create recovery-based media content and events for sober people in the community, facilitate recovery meetings at our office on Eighth St in Traverse City, and have a rides program that offers free safe transportation to and from recovery services like inpatient treatment centers, sober living homes, and transitional housing across the state to people living in Northern Michigan.
We run by the motto “Having fun in recovery” because everyone that I work with has identified that the stigma and shame of substance use disorder makes the process of finding a life of recovery much more difficult. This is why if you come to one of 217 Recovery’s community events, listen to one of our many recovery-based podcasts, watch our recovery community videos on YouTube, or attend one of our many recovery meetings throughout the week you’ll notice that everything we offer has a taste of light-hearted fun wherever possible.
We believe this cultivates an environment that makes habit-changing and wellness easier to achieve.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Society makes mental health uncool for men, and people in general. The way some people raise their kids doesn’t cultivate young people who prioritize their mental health and wellness.
You see all over media in the forms of TV shows, movies, video games, comics, etc show that when you have a stressful day or something negative happens to you, people, especially men, are expected to “get over it”, “pull yourself up by the bootstraps”, or “just go to the bar to deal with your problems like the rest of us”.
Don’t even get me started on the father telling his son “Boys don’t cry”. This is destroying lives.
This is something that I see more prevalent in past generations but still exists today. This is also the way I was raised alongside the media supporting the views I mentioned above.
I had to deconstruct this programming through counseling and making my mental health a priority. I couldn’t be the man I am today without breaking down these false doctrines and rebuilding a healthier view of what wellness and success actually look like.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

Lived experience. Being a person in recovery myself, and hearing this exact phrase from many others trying to navigate the challenges of early recovery, a college education only gets you so far. We want and need people who can truly relate and show empathy while understanding the levels of discipline and boundaries it takes to accomplish the life-changing transformation from active substance use to a life of sobriety.
Having lived a life of addiction and personally walking the path to wellness is crucial to working in this community.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.217recovery.com/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Mobri517/
• Twitter: https://x.com/mitchell217prc
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@217recovery/videos
• Other: https://rss.com/podcasts/whitenucks/
  https://rss.com/podcasts/redacted-recover-your-mind/
  https://www.recoverydads.com/

Image Credits

Mitchell O’Brien