Feature Issue on Addiction and IDD

Smelley referees a recreational volleyball game.

Working as a peer mentor in mental health and substance use disorder projects for people with intellectual and/or developmental disabilities (IDD) has been both challenging and rewarding.

Peer mentors are sometimes called peer support specialists, recovery support peer specialists, or mental health peer specialists. I’m a mental health peer specialist, which means I support people in navigating complex systems of support like Social Security and Medicaid. Here in Texas, our state system is called the Texas Workforce Commission Vocational Rehabilitation Program, which offers services to persons with disabilities. Peer mentors also help people they serve with finding needed resources for different situations they face, as well as supporting them to find resources themselves. They advocate for the people they serve when appropriate, and support their peers in developing their own advocacy skills.

I don’t have personal experience with addiction, so there have been times when I’ve been around people who I now think must have been under the influence, but I wasn’t aware of that at the time.

Author Jordan Smelley

I do know a lot about the Texas waiver program for benefits, and knowing how to navigate the different complex supports for people with disabilities and also mental health issues like addiction has been really helpful for the people I support. Teaching people how to better advocate for themselves and find resources makes me feel good.

Facilitating support groups for people with IDD who have addiction issues has made me a better advocate, and I know it gives people in recovery a feeling that they have someone who understands what they’re going through. I’ve had to learn to set boundaries, though. I’ve had people in these groups who start to consider me a friend, which I find very flattering, but it goes against the code of ethics.

Peer support does work, and I sometimes think it is even more helpful to people with IDD than to others because so many people with IDD don’t have a lot of peers in their lives to go to informally if they have a problem.

We need more providers to understand that we have the right to access medications and treatment that we need and that we shouldn’t be losing out. Sometimes providers will say they can’t treat someone who has an intellectual disability for addiction or some other mental health issue, but the reality is that many already do.