Chris interviews our very own Betty Currier, retired teacher, national change agent and current board secretary for RCNC. This has to be the absolute richest podcast we’ve attempted to capture. There is so much history in this interview. We’ve listened to it half a dozen times and keep getting more out of it. It begins with the history of Betty – what it was like for a woman initiating recovery in 1976 – so many old men and only one pathway. Betty had just celebrated 40 years of thriving recovery at the time of this road trip turned interview in January of 2016. Betty “accidentally” found recovery while attempting to find help for her daughter. She ran into the right person at the right time and that seems to be the story of her life.

Betty attended the historic 2001 Recovery Summit in St. Paul Minnesota, where 200 recovery activists from 36 states gathered to begin the creation of a culture of recovery in the United States. Born out of that gathering was the determination that public perception of addiction and recovery needed to change and the best way to do that was through associating a face and a voice to this highly stigmatized issue. Betty witnessed the creation of Faces and Voices of Recovery as a founding board member. She also saw the genesis of Recovery Community Messaging Training, the educational experience that taught us how to leverage our recovery status effectively and proudly. A fantastic point of interest in this episode features a fired up, young filmmaker attending Betty’s messaging training. That star pupil, Greg Williams, went on to bring us The Anonymous People and Generation Found.

As one of the leaders of the New York recovery movement, Betty saw the need for the growing legions of volunteers to be trained to more effectively help folks seeking to initiate or sustain recovery. Betty was there at the beginning of CCAR’s Recovery Coach Academy, engaging in beta training in 2009. She went on to become an RCA trainer, bringing thousands of coaches to realization, then CCAR awarded her master trainer status, so she could create additional trainers in NY.

When Betty moved to NC in 2013, RCA came with her. NC CCAR Recovery Coach Academy now has over 100 coaches trained and Betty has passed the trainer mantle to two of the NC trainers she has helped to nurture. Betty has since been awarded the coveted CART Trainer Elite status.