Recovery Professional Journey
My name is Sammy Ombisa, and I am an Internationally Certified Recovery Ally. Since my childhood, I loved soccer and this took me to the ranks of international youth soccer arena, representing Kenya in the Under 18 and 20 categories. This is where I came into the real space of understanding the need for high performance, and also experienced the pressure and demand for results from the fans. It was at this space that I could see some of my teammates use performance enhancing stuff.
Soon after, with the same energy in the sports, I became a wellness professional and here I would work with different sports people to design exercise and diet programs, and talk to them about stress management and sleep etcetera. This is where I realized the use and misuse of drugs was not only in soccer but it indeed cut across many sports disciplines. I became curious about it, and with the urge to help men and women in sports to deal with this challenge I enrolled in addictions studies.
Still with the passion to work with sports people, I would later find myself interacting with them at local to the international levels during my work. Meeting some who had substance use disorder, being brought in for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. With a keen eye on better treatment and recovery outcomes for my clients, it became obvious to me that, after treatment there was an area that was lacking (recovery) because. I witnessed many relapses and sometimes suicide and fatal injuries in some sports people who had been to treatment alone.
In 2022, I was part of a Trainer of Trainer program by the International Society for Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), Recovery Allies Link and Lend Inventive Engaging Support (ALLIES) Model, that was sponsored by The Colombo Plan Drug Advisory Programme (DAP), and funded by Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) US Department of State. At that point I gained knowledge and skills necessary to work with people in recovery. At Fahari Wellness & Life Coaching I included recovery as one of my main areas of work and to date, my primary focus is working with former and current sports people in recovery.
As a sports person myself, I undertook this need seriously in order to support upcoming to the seasoned sports professionals to understand addiction, seek treatment when need be and eventually be supported in the recovery process. I have since pulled this as a niche, to help in the reintegration back to the community for those who voluntarily wish to be supported this way and where possible back to their sport of choice.
So far, my work is to support sports people to stay drug free lives, to maintain sobriety so that they may improve their global health through the development of a person driven development plan. I enjoy my work because it involves the things, I am passionate about such as advocacy, mentoring and goal setting. Linkage to resources, skill development and relationship building are other ways I support my clients to be reintegrated back to the society through recovery-oriented approaches.