About me
A forceful and entertaining instructor and presenter, Tom Jackson recently retired from his "day job" with the Peer Recovery Programs at the Shenandoah Valley’s Western State Hospital to focus on attending the Hazelden Betty Ford Graduate School's program in Co-occurring Counseling and on his "night job" as an Lead Co-Organizer with the Virginia Recovery Advocacy Project, which work together to support and advocate for people with any combination of mental health, substance use, neurodiverse, and biopsychosociospiritual needs. His Civil Rights, Anti-War, and HIV/AIDS/LGBTQIA+ rights advocacy, his personal recovery since 1991, and his training in Peer Certification and Peer Ethics, Relational Organizing and Narrative Disruption engage and call others to action to design and build a functional, reality-based recovery-oriented system of care for all people, recognizing that the existing silos have to be destroyed and the system rebuilt from the ground up, by and for people who are on their pathway to wellness and recovery, their friends, family and allies, and most especially those who have not yet realized a unique pathway awaits them. He finds hope in the dedication and recovery of the clients he has worked with, going back to school after nearly 45 years, in the personal recovery work he does, in the new peer hope dealers he trains, and in motivating and supporting others to end Version 2 of the War on (People Who Use) Drugs, and to #MakeRecoveryTheEpidemic. He is also generally acknowledged by the Chief Clinical Officer at his former employer as being, when needed, "a real pain in the ass."
