KCRC Vaccine Campaign: Protect Our Gifts of Recovery
Last fall when we were making the difficult decision to cancel our Recovery Day at the Mariners due to the Delta Variant, we learned that a large percentage of the recovery community was not getting vaccinated. This was surprising to the KCRC/WRA team. After all, so many in our community fought for years, struggling with substance use and/or mental health challenges, before getting into recovery. How could it be that people who had finally become free, were not taking the steps to get a Covid vaccine, and risked losing everything they fought so hard to achieve?
Was it our somewhat natural distrust of authority figures, especially ERs, doctors, and clinics, after the experiences we may have had in the past? Was it our rebel nature? It couldn’t be a fear of the chemicals…we would put things in our body we had no idea what was in it, on the off chance it would change how we felt for the better! Or help to feel nothing at all. Right? That was you too? ” Let’s get Heather, she’ll try anything!”
The pandemic has had a huge impact on everyone and our recovery community has suffered greatly, lost so many people to Covid, overdose and suicide. The isolation, anxiety and depression have been so challenging and we are yearning for gathering in person once more. Getting vaccinated is one thing we can do to protect ourselves, our recovery, our families and each other. Together we can do this!
For information on Covid vaccines and booster shots, click here.
Check out our Tik Tok to see our vaccine campaign videos.
We began to have conversations and reached out to people in the coalition to discover why they were getting vaccinated, if they had. We asked what they considered their Gifts of Recovery. Here are some of their stories:
“My name is Marcos, I’m an individual in long term recovery and I am vaccinated. For some of us in recovery from addiction, it is a known fact that in active addiction we inflict many people great harm or harm ourselves at the same time. Now with being an individual in long term recovery, staying clean and living clean, to me comes with responsibilities ,and the practice of some spiritual principles: concern, respect, and love for others, especially our family, loved ones and others dear to me allows me to be more selfless and mindful with my elder mother, my wife dealing with a chronic illness and its’ treatment, as well as my youngest son with a condition that places him along his mother, my wife, and his grandma, my mother, in an immune-compromised group, I decided to get my COVID-19 vaccination as well as the follow up booster shot. It has been written somewhere that just as there is no model of the recovering addict, there is no model of the recovering parent- basically our example teaches our children more than our words ever can. Without getting caught up in politics and or ideological debates, my stand is real simple: I am pro vaccination. Living in recovery comes with responsibilities and practice of spiritual principles: concern, respect, and love for others, especially our family, loved ones With my youngest son, my wife, and my mother, all in the immune-compromised group, I decided to get my COVID-19 vaccination as well as the follow-up booster shot.”
Share your Covid vaccine/booster experience and why you are protecting your gifts of recovery. If you are hesitant to get vaccinated or against vaccines and want to share your experience, please do so.
To get more information on Covid vaccines and booster shots, click here.
King County Recovery Coalition thanks King County Behavioral Health and Recovery Division and LifeStance Health Foundation for supporting our vaccine campaign to help our recovery community. We are so grateful for your generous contributions.
Information on access to COVID antiviral drugs and therapeutics in King County and WA
