Getting SMART in Honduras

I am an American living in Honduras. I came here in 2011. My name is Kelly Ryan and I am a SMART Recovery Facilitator.

I worked initially with an international NGO for a few years but began feeling that I needed a change, to move on, a transition.  But I wanted to stay in Honduras. I slowly started getting online work and built a profile as a business or NGO administrator at a discount.  Working from home gave me the opportunity to follow other interests I had. Interests that would eventually lead me to SMART Recovery.

 Soon after starting online work, I was asked by an American friend to help two young men who had left a children's home but needed help navigating adult life and living on their own. Starting with the two of them and then growing through their friend groups, I started offering English classes as well as formal education and job opportunities. They were clearly struggling with smoking too much marijuana as they would come to meetings with me high, but I soon learned that was just the tip of the iceberg. 

One of the young men I was working with was arrested in 2014 for drug offences and criminal activity. I visited him in prison each day for 2 years to try and keep him from getting even more lost in the system.  I learned much about the Honduran prison system and through my friendship with him and his friends, I also learned about the realities of street and drug life in Honduras. Honduras is a corridor for the global drug trade and so drug abuse and violence are very real options for youth, especially these youth who were dealing with abandonment in their childhood and had no security net.

My friend lived in my house when he was released from prison, but unfortunately, he continued consuming and ended up leaving my house. We stayed in touch and when he asked for help, I started to investigate rehabilitation option(s) that could assist his addiction issues. It was during the last 4 years of helping him and others go through rehab that I was able to identify the areas where interventions fall short: primarily in street outreach and transition/maintenance post-rehab. I now partner with a local rehabilitation centre that does a great job, especially during the initial 6-12 months when individuals are resident based.  We are attempting to develop a transition program to assist those individuals who do not have a support network or families to return to.

I brought up my desire to further my learning and study during a meeting here in Honduras with a psychologist that specializes in drug addiction intervention. I explained that my interventions so far had been very personal, with people I know; lots of guess and check, but that I was trying to scale and allow opportunities to access a wider community. I wanted to educate myself more and was looking at whether I should get a Master’s degree.  He recommended that I should look into SMART Recovery.

I want to continue my street outreach and interventions, but I feel a responsibility to continue educating myself as I attempt to take on more of a leadership role. That is where I believe SMART Recovery Facilitator Training will give me the balance that I need in order to move forward and expand services. I want to expose the local rehab to the SMART Recovery program and the tools.  But the main goal, post COVID-19, is to open a community centre in El Progreso, Honduras.  It will be called the Recovery Workshop or "El Taller" in Spanish and it will be a place for SMART meetings, activities, events and for information about the scope of resources available. I am also a fan of Homeboy Industries and would love to follow their model of providing tools to improve emotional intelligence and reach individual goals. I feel that the modalities will complement each other.

My personal and living expenses are quite low in Honduras and online work is not always consistent. I also currently pay for 3 people who are in rehab. The scholarship provided by SMART Recovery USA allowed me to start studying at a time when I did not have a job and was struggling to make ends meet.

I hope to empower local Hondurans so they can change, so they can have the best life for themselves, their families, their communities, and hopefully in the long term, their country.