Five Things I Bring to Eating Disorder Recovery Coaching

Recovery is personal, and every coach brings something different to the work. Lived experience can be powerful, but it is what someone has learned from that experience, and how thoughtfully and responsibly they use it, that shapes the support they can offer.

I bring decades of experience living with and recovering from an eating disorder, along with alcoholism, depression, anxiety, medical complications, treatment, and relapse. I am a CCI-Certified Eating Disorder Recovery Coach, Certified Peer Specialist, and Crisis Responsive Peer.

My credentials matter, but they are only one part of what I bring. My approach comes from the combination of what I have lived, what I have learned professionally, and years spent figuring out how to carry recovery into an actual life.

Here are five things that shape my approach to recovery coaching – and why they matter.

1. I understand the difference between knowing recovery and living it

My eating disorder did not follow a straight line from illness to treatment to recovery. I first entered treatment years ago and went through nearly every level of care, over and over. There were times of progress, repeated relapses, abrupt discharges, and stretches when I could appear highly functional while my life was becoming increasingly unmanageable.

I know what it is like to understand recovery intellectually and still be unable to put it into practice. I know what it is like to want help and resist it at the same time. I know how shame grows when you have been given the tools – you can have an arsenal in your toolbox – and still cannot consistently use them.

This helps me celebrate a client’s motivation and progress while also understanding that neither will look the same every day. When change is difficult, I stay curious about what is getting in the way and work with the person from there.

My recovery is strong and well established. I also know that recovery does not erase every loss or make life uncomplicated. It is possible to be fully committed to recovery while still having difficult days, unresolved grief, and parts of life that require continued care. Your recovery is still valid with all that.

2. I understand what happens when an eating disorder is not the only thing happening

Dual diagnoses are central to my lived experience, particularly an eating disorder and substance use. I spent years trying to recover in systems that often treated them as separate problems, even when they were operating together. Not only that, dual diagnoses made it exceptionally difficult to access even fundamental care.

At different points, one behavior quieted down while another became louder. Alcohol could function as relief from the eating disorder, while the eating disorder could offer a sense of control when withdrawal in early sobriety felt unmanageable.

My experience is not limited to ED and SUD. I have also navigated depression, anxiety, OCD, body dysmorphia, medication changes, and complex physical health concerns. I know how difficult it can be to determine where one symptom ends and another begins. Fatigue, appetite, mood, fear, medication effects, blood-sugar changes, and eating disorder thoughts do not arrive in separate, clearly labeled boxes. And the diagnoses do not follow one designated recovery plan.

That does not make me a therapist, physician, or dietitian, and I am careful about the boundaries of my role. It does mean I understand why recovery support must account for the whole person. I  often collaborate with treatment teams so coaching reinforces clinical care while helping the client apply it in daily life.

3. I know how wide the gap can be between treatment and home

For years, I sat across from providers convinced that the recovery plans we discussed would be doable. It was only when I returned to my actual life that I realized how much harder they were to carry out without the structure of treatment.

Higher level of care likely saved my life, multiple times. I have also learned that succeeding inside a program is not the same as being engaged in recovery and knowing how to live when the program is gone.

A treatment center can provide meals, structure, accountability, and people nearby when something becomes difficult. Yet, even passes and transitional programs come with parameters and a team waiting when you return.

Home was different. I returned to an apartment alone. I went to the grocery store by myself, used the bathroom without anyone monitoring me, and made decisions about every meal with no one there to know what happened.

I had to manage work, finances, relationships, distress, and recovery at the same time. More than once, I relapsed soon after discharge or, sometimes, the very day I left treatment.

That was not because no one had explained recovery to me. I sat in a room with my therapist and artistically drew out everything I needed for a fool-proof relapse prevention plan. Knowing what to do and being able to do it alone are two different things.

Now I help clients work through that same gap between understanding recovery and living it day to day. A coach can help turn treatment recommendations into decisions that have to be made in real time: grocery shopping without falling back into old rules, following a meal plan around work and family responsibilities, eating in restaurants or other less structured settings, preparing for appointments, stopping one difficult moment from taking over the rest of the day, or creating support for the hours when no provider is present.

Recovery happens in real life. In their life. That is where I meet my clients.

4. I believe collaboration and agency are essential to lasting change

I have had care that felt collaborative, and I have experienced care that relied heavily on rules, consequences, and compliance. I understand that structure and clear guidelines are sometimes necessary. When someone is malnourished and their ability to think clearly has been affected, behavioral change may need to come before they fully understand or believe in what they are doing. Eating the meal, following the plan, and interrupting behaviors matter—even when those actions feel mechanical at first. External motivation often comes before it shifts to internal. That is normal and okay.

But a person can also perform recovery while feeling completely disconnected from it. Following directions may help stabilize someone, but lasting change requires more than doing what you are told.

I do not want clients to make choices simply because I told them what to do. My role is not to take over someone’s recovery. It is to help them understand what is happening, identify the choices available to them, and gradually strengthen their ability to make those choices for themselves.

Sometimes the meaningful choice is not dramatic. It may be eating the next meal even after the last one did not go well. It may be telling the truth before a behavior escalates. It may be choosing not to act on an urge today without having to promise what you will do forever.

The fact that the client is choosing matters. “I have to do this” can gradually become “I am choosing to do this, even though it is hard.” That is how recovery begins to feel less like something being imposed on a person and more like something they are claiming as their own.

My approach is individualized because people are individuals. I do not assume that what worked for me will work for someone else. My lived experience helps me recognize patterns and possibilities, but each client has their own history, needs, values, and life to consider.

5. I understand that recovery includes building a life after loss

Before my life became organized around illness and treatment, it was organized around music. I trained as a bassoonist and dreamt of a professional career. Music was not simply something I did. It was the grounding force in how I operated in the world.

When a neurological condition derailed and destroyed my playing, I did not just lose a career path. I lost an identity, a future I had worked toward, and the place I had always gone for refuge. There was no funeral and no clean ending. The instrument was still there, and I was still there, but my life no longer made sense in the same way.

That loss became intertwined with perfectionism, depression, and led to the development of my eating disorder and eventually alcoholism. Recovery could not give me my old life back. It required grieving what I lost while slowly discovering that a different life can still hold meaning.

Simple messages about “getting your life back” feel incomplete. Recovery can include returning to what you love, but it can also require grieving what cannot be restored. For me, that has meant facing the years I lost to illness while building a meaningful life that honors the loss and hurt and makes room for where I am now and what comes next.

That is why I do not measure recovery only by the absence of symptoms. I also look at whether someone is becoming more present in their own life, finding making choices to be easier, more honest in relationships, and less dominated by the need to escape themselves.

What this means for my clients

My clients can expect practical support, respect for their agency, and an understanding that choices that look small from the outside can require enormous effort. I recognize progress even when it is uneven, and I do not expect someone to change everything at once.

There is also room for ambivalence. Clients do not have to arrive certain about what they want or fully ready to make a change. I can sit with them in that uncertainty without rushing them toward an answer or interpreting ambivalence as a refusal to recover.

My work is to meet clients where they are. To help them understand the choices in front of them, take the next step they are ready for, and build a recovery that belongs to them.

If my approach feels like the kind of support you are looking for, I would be glad to talk with you. Schedule a free consultation call so we can discuss where you are, what you need, and whether working together feels like a good fit.

Learn more about We Do RecoverED Coaching at wedorecoveredcoaching.com.