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From Recovery to Helping Others: Jared Petersen Finds Purpose at MRHC
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When Jared Petersen walks through the doors of the Recovery Center at Manning Regional Healthcare Center, he knows what it feels like to be on the other side.
Today, Petersen serves as a counselor tech, spending much of his day alongside the clients receiving care at the Recovery Center. He takes clients to the recreation center, accompanies them to meetings, helps facilitate groups and, perhaps most importantly, gets to know them on a personal level. He understands what they are going through because he has been there himself.
Petersen has been in recovery for six years, but his struggle with substance use began much earlier. What started as experimentation in high school gradually turned into something he could no longer control.
“Substance use was a problem in my life from a very early age, probably my senior year of high school,” Petersen said. “I started figuring out that drugs were going to be a problem in my life and it continued to progress from there.”
As his addiction deepened, it affected every part of his life, including his closest relationships. He became separated from his wife and three children, and he remembers a period when he pulled away from the people who cared about him most.
“The addiction made me run from everybody that loved me because I didn’t feel like I was worthy of love,” he recalled.
As Petersen reflects on his journey with addiction, he wants people to understand something he learned firsthand. “I think one of the biggest misconceptions about addiction is that it’s a choice,” Petersen said. “It may have been a choice in the beginning, but definitely in the end there was no choice left.”
While recovery did not erase the consequences of those years, it gave him something he had lost along the way: a sense of agency.
“One of the greatest things about recovery is it gives you that choice back,” he said. “Today I choose every day whether I’m going to act as if I’m in recovery or act as if I’m in active addiction. At the end of the day, I’m still an addict. Today I’m just a recovering addict.”
After getting clean, Petersen realized that helping others through recovery was exactly where he wanted to be.
“I believe that there’s no better person to help somebody in recovery than somebody who’s in recovery themselves,” he shared. “I’ve walked in their shoes. I know what they’re going through.”
For Petersen, being of service to people struggling with addiction has become an important part of his own recovery. His experience has also changed the way he sees himself.
“I decided to get help because I am worth it and recovery is possible,” Petersen said.
That is the message he wants every new client who walks through the Recovery Center doors to hear. He knows they may be scared, skeptical, or unsure whether treatment can truly make a difference. Petersen wants them to know they are not alone. He also wants them to know something he once struggled to believe himself: there’s another way to live.
“When we get a new client here at the Recovery Center, I want them to know that they are worth it,” Petersen said. “As long as you’re still breathing, there’s still hope.”
His journey shows that recovery doesn’t erase the past or instantly repair every relationship. Instead, it opens the door to new choices, new purpose, and a new way forward.
Recovery Center at MRHC
The Recovery Center is a 16-bed, co-ed rehabilitation facility providing evidence-based medical care, behavioral therapy, and social support to help individuals build a healthy, substance-free lifestyle. The facility is licensed by the Iowa Department of Public Health and is covered by most insurance plans.
Individuals seeking help for themselves or a loved one struggling with substance use are encouraged to call (712) 655-2300. For more information, visit www.manningrecoverycenter.com.
