Meet Susan Bowling | Recovery Advocate & Coach

We had the good fortune of connecting with Susan Bowling and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Susan, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
It was a progression really. I had worked at an addiction treatment center for a few years, interviewing and assessing people’s needs and then referring them to treatment programs throughout Southern California. I would go on to help to establish a pilot program with the City of Santa Monica and the Santa Monica Police Department responding to public intoxication arrests, going into the jail and speaking with every arrestee and offering them a bed in treatment. That project taught me a lot about the physiological needs of a person in active addiction. Meanwhile, I was getting a lot of calls from family members who had loved ones in jail who were arrested for drug-related crimes and were looking for someone to help.

I also began to case-manage parolees reentering the community after prison. And I realized that we need to get to people earlier in their addiction and before they are facing incarceration. Because the work is so much harder for someone to rebuild their life when they need to rebuild their community from scratch.

I saw it then – that there was a gap in the system and what was needed was someone to go into court and speak up for this person, propose a solution for treatment rather than incarceration. This was 17 years ago, when not a lot of alternative sentencing was going on at that time and our prison system was bulging at the seams. As a nation, we incarcerate more people than any other country in the world. As a state, California has more prisons than universities. The LA County jail system is the largest jail system in the world.

And so, I went back to UCLA and became as a paralegal. I did this not because I needed those skills specifically, but because I thought it might give more credibility to my work. That it might help a DA or a judge trust me a little bit more and let me put a client in treatment who might not otherwise get the chance. And it worked – each successful case led to additional successes and opportunities for my clients to receive the care they needed. Over the years, I have seen such extraordinary change in people who have been given a chance. The idea of alternative sentencing has become more commonplace now. We still have a long way to go, and we still incarcerate far too many people for non-violent, low-level crimes – but we are doing better and the system is slowly reforming to accommodate.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My specialty is in knowing what programs are available with private, as well as public, funding and having the ability to build a treatment plan that stretches beyond the limits of traditional funding and really addresses the full spectrum of needs of a person. I work independently of any treatment center, so that if my client fails in a treatment setting, I move on and place them in another program. And even now, with all the successful cases I’ve worked on, I feel as if we are still not getting help to people early enough. Before there is an arrest or before their life unravels.

About 10 years ago, I began learning everything I could about harm-reduction and began applying the principles in my work. Harm-reduction is the best way to get help to people earlier. Harm-reduction accepts that a person is engaging in something that may cause harm, in this case use of drugs or alcohol, but that there are inherent opportunities to offer help that will stabilize the person and help prevent a free fall and the very real harms that come with ostracizing and ignoring people who use drugs.

I now do private coaching for people who are new to recovery as well as with those who are still actively using. A few colleges in LA took notice of my work and hired me to consult with their students. I now work with 4 colleges in LA – 2 colleges of music, a film school, and an acting conservatory. Working with an artist who may be struggling with drinking or using drugs, gives me the opportunity to reach them earlier, and before the fall. I sit with a person and ask the very simple question – what good things does your drinking or using do for you? Because it always starts there. There are good things and we need to understand that. I may suggest a change in the way they use that substance, the timing of their use, but I’m not taking it away or judging their use. Changing the timing of when they use will disrupt a pattern – and that can be helpful. That is the beginning.

I see my criminal justice work and my working with artists as a continuum of the same work, it is the same job albeit with somewhat different demographic populations. I jokingly say that I work with artists and outlaws. But it is quite true, and I love the work I am able to do with people. I feel like I have the coolest job in LA.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

I would start driving east through downtown Los Angeles early in the morning as the sun was rising. It is indescribable, especially then as people there are folding up there tents, putting away their belongings. You see people at the beginning of their day – making way for the business of downtown LA to begin. It starts at Wall Street (ironically) and moves in deeper – each block revealing more and more of humanity trying to make it for another day. Then I would go to Wayferers Chapel in Palos Verdes. It is the most beautiful architecture of Lloyd Wright (son of Frank Lloyd Wright). Imagine a church surrounded by Oak trees and the ocean – made almost entirely of glass.

Then we move on to Blue Jay Way, a street at the top of Beverly Hills with amazing views of the city – there was a Beatles song that referenced this street. I would end with dinner at Yamashiro, a wonderful restaurant above Hollywood with again – amazing views of LA. That view puts the day in perspective – and everything we have seen.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

I have 2 people to dedicate my shoutout to. Both have provided great influence and inspiration to me.

First, The Honorable George Eskin, retired Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge. George Eskin served as an assistant district attorney in Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties and as chief assistant city attorney in Los Angeles as well as a number of years in private practice. He has spent his life advocating for alternative sentencing and when on the bench, established a Military Veterans Treatment Court in Santa Barbara. I consider George my mentor and I hold him in the highest regard, both personally and professionally.

And secondly, Gabor Mate, MD.

I first read Dr. Gabor Mate’s book “In The Realm Of Hungry Ghosts” in 2011 and it absolutely changed the course of my work. Dr. Mate is a pioneer in addiction medicine and trauma. He came forward with a treatise on harm-reduction with that book and several others. He breaks it down so clearly, it connected every dot. I highly recommend reading all of his books.

Website: susanbowling.com

Instagram: @artistsinrecovery

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-bowling-3693b131

Facebook: @therecoveryadvocate

Image Credits
Carol Hannan