An episode of Changing the Conversation podcast
Lonnetta Albright shares insights about the recovery movement and peer support with host Livia Davis. This episode is second in a series where we share the wisdom amassed by recovery leaders over the past 5 decades and reflect on the journeys that have laid groundwork for today’s recovery movement.
August 11, 2025
[Music]
Livia Davis, Host (00:05): Hello and welcome to Changing the Conversation. I’m your host, Livia Davis, the Chief Learning Officer at C4 Innovations. Today’s conversation is part of a podcast series called Learning From Our Recovery Elders To Inform Our Work As Recovery Leaders, where we delve into the profound wisdom amassed by recovery leaders over the past five decades. Through conversations and reflective storytelling, we are illuminating the journeys of those who have laid the groundwork for today’s recovery movement. Our aim is not only to preserve the invaluable insights, but also to inspire and guide current and future leaders in the ongoing pursuit of recovery.
(00:49):
My guest today is Lonnetta Albright calling in from Illinois. Lonnetta is the president and owner of Forward Movement Incorporated, a minority and female-owned company that offers executive and leadership development, and she’s also a national trainer and presenter in the field of recovery. Prior to her current role, Lonnetta was the Executive Director of the Great Lakes Addiction Technology Transfer Center, supporting states to shift from acute care models of addictions treatment towards recovery management and recovery-oriented systems of care. Lonnetta is also a Museum of African American Addictions, Treatment and Recovery 2018 Hall of Fame inductee. Lonnetta, thank you so much for joining us today.
Lonnetta Albright, Guest (01:37): Hi, Livia. Thank you, it’s so good to be here.
Livia (01:41): Lonnetta, you have been working in the field of recovery for many years. Could you share with our audience a little bit about your work as a leader in the recovery movement?
Lonnetta (01:52): So, Livia, I heard you give the title of our podcast today, Elders. It made me shake a little bit, and the many years, the 17 years that I was with the Great Lakes ATTC made me pause and think about what those 17 years looked like and then beyond those 17 years. The biggest piece for me when I was with the ATTC was around leading our region and the national ATTC’s network in the shift from treatment only. We weren’t looking at recovery, we were only looking at treatment. When I first started, we were looking at abstinence, abstinence only. So we would say many pathways to recovery, and yet abstinence was the only pathway.
(02:52):
So, working with … oh my goodness, I had such great mentors and partners. Bill White and Arthur Evans, Ijeoma Achara, who were the leaders in recovery-oriented systems of care, and the late Dr. Tom Kirk, as they looked at both substance use disorders and mental health and the role of the community, that we’re not just talking about the individual, we’re talking about families, the entire community and supporting people in creating a quality of life, and not just treatment.
(03:35):
Treatment of course is a part of recovery, because it’s a continuum, prevention, early intervention. Treatment is there, but what we’re really talking about is long-term recovery, which is all about health, health and wellness. One of the greatest parts to all of that work was the involvement of peers, when we began to bring peers into the workforce as professionals, not paraprofessionals. So when we were leading the effort around recovery, it was a shift and there was pushback. There was pushback and working with folk around change, and we have all of these ideas that nobody changes and it’s hard to change. Well, change is important and change is what was needed, but it’s a process and leading the change process to one that, I guess, I’d say transformation, because what we were looking for was sustainable change, change that would last.
(04:46):
It was just such a great effort and I would say as the leader, so to speak, there were just so many people teaching me as we went along. Peers taught me an awful lot, so when I think about leading that effort, I’d have to say it was quite a collaboration. I don’t even know if collaboration does it justice. It was all of us from so many different places, so many different partners, not just treatment providers, but bringing in this system, this recovery-oriented system that included schools and medical providers and the justice system.
(05:36):
So it was phenomenal, it was just phenomenal. The wisdom, when you talk about wisdom, I got so much wisdom, can’t say enough about peers. Clinicians would often tag me, so to speak, and say, “Lonnetta, you act like you don’t need us anymore, that peers are going to save the world.” I said, “No, we need you, we need everyone.” But there is a role for everyone, and if we could figure out how to braid these roles together and the different partners and systems, no matter the door that people come through, recovery is the goal.
Livia (06:15): You said so many things that could be a podcast all on its own, right? I mean, you kind of hinted at that a lot of the early recovery movement, what people mostly thought of was abstinence as the only recovery pathways, and that that was the more mainstream understanding in that as we got into systems really becoming involved in the treatment, then the treatment was probably the more mainstream way of thinking about either abstinence after treatment, right?
(06:49):
But at the same time, there are also all these other pockets of pathways happening in different communities, and we also know in different regions of the country of course. I think as awareness build about recovery and all the different pathways, how do you then work with systems to say, hey, how do you actually create an environment that not only puts the person at the center, but also really make sure that everybody understands the pathways that are available and to work with the person to say “Which one is going to work for you?” Then looking at all the different roles for the system and the community in order to really be a cohesive whole in helping people to recover.
(07:38):
So that’s a lot of work over decades that you are talking about, and I know you mentioned the 17 years, but I just really appreciate your reflection of the importance of working with systems and clinicians, and even some of those early worries about the peer professionals and the peer workforce and what does that mean for their role. It seems like we’ve come a long way in terms of those interdisciplinary teams now working together and that you had a lot to do with that.
Lonnetta (08:13): You know what? So many things as you talk about that and as I reflect over where we were, where we are now, just some of the tug of war, I guess, sort of the push and pull, the question around whether or not peers were professionals, whether or not ethics was something that peers had and did they have to follow the policies, et cetera. You had different disciplines with peer professionals whose credential, not their only credential, but their major credential was lived experience. Then you had clinicians who were trained not to disclose, and you had social workers who had a scope of practice and ethics that they were trained and signed on to and committed to, and so these were bumping up against each other. Supervisors who were social workers supervising peers, that was one of the big challenges as well.
(09:25):
While I’m thinking about peers and the many pathways, I remember we were training peers, and back when abstinence only, medications was something we didn’t want to deal with in the addiction field. Dr. Thomas McLellan said to me once, “Lonnetta, you’re talking out of both sides of your mouth. You say addiction is a disease. What do most diseases have, if necessary?” I thought, “Is this a trick question? Okay, what do most diseases have?” Well, a doctor, if necessary, and medications, if necessary. So if we really believe addiction is a disease, what would we do differently?
(10:11):
Well, we were training peers and when we were training, one of the peers said, “Okay, you’ve messed me up, because I really could not deal with anyone who used methadone, because that’s not the way I recovered. So I figured the way I recovered is the way, and it’s either my way or no way.” So peers who came up in the same system, our peers came up in the same system, many of them abstinence-based, so there was a shift for many of our peers. There were challenges all along the way, Livia.
Livia (10:53): There were challenges, and we have come a long way, I so agree with you. We have some challenges ahead of us, and could you talk a little bit about what you think are some of the biggest challenges facing the field of recovery?
Lonnetta (11:07): In some of the work I do now, we say leadership development, but I call it leadership growth more than leadership development. In order for us to grow, we have to change, and I think we have to think differently. We’ve got to read different things so we understand addiction, the research, the evidence-based practices, but what are we missing in our new leaders and some of our leaders, myself included, understanding that what we believe and how our beliefs guide how we lead, how our beliefs guide what we think about those who work for us and work with us, and how will we move our organizations, particularly the recovery community centers, recovery peer-led organizations, and also treatment providers that I work with? I often say, “What got you here won’t get you there, and where is there? Where is it that you’re going and what might you need to look at?”
(12:19):
So some have called me in to work on looking at their mission statement which is 25 years old, and their vision and their values. 25 years old, hasn’t changed, and looking at that differently. So I think for leadership and for leaders to continue to invest in themselves, invest in their own growth, and not just knowledge around addiction, but what is leadership all about?
(12:51):
It’s not management and leadership is very different from management, as you know, Livia. I mean, we’ve worked together for years, and I think when I think about thinking differently and shifting mindsets, it’s like who has a seat at the table? So you talk about I was the leader, but there were other people. We talk about multidisciplinary teams. It took a lot for these teams to allow peers at the table, because they were the voice of the individuals, the families and the community, and then I started challenging organizations, when is the individual at the table? Why are we talking about them instead of inviting them into the room, into the discussion? So I think we’ve got some great opportunities with voice and having everyone’s voice involved, so the growth piece is a biggie for me, Livia.
Livia (13:57): You said so much there, and I absolutely agree and hope that if you’re a leader, continuous growth is a must, so I so appreciate that and remind myself of that all the time as a leader. So, you talked a little bit about your recommendations for executive directors or C-suite around leadership growth. Are there some specific challenges for the field of recovery that you want to just mention, and so that we can be really clear about sharing those as we see them? Because we do live in some interesting times right now, and what can we do to support recovery as we move forward?
Lonnetta (14:43): When I think about the current environment that we’re in, certainly finances. Finances, we’re always advocating. I can remember always going before the legislature and it holding tight and increasing funding to meet the needs of the community, so I think finances and in the current environment, that’s a biggie. Some of the agencies that I’ve worked with, it’s interesting, some, and this is a leadership piece, some are saying, “we’re going to close our doors, lay off people.” I’m like, what happens to the individuals? What happens to the community if we as leaders can’t have hope ourselves?
(15:30):
Doesn’t mean this is easy. I’m not saying any of this is easy. However, how do we thrive in a crisis? There are ways to thrive in a crisis. Hope, yes. As I’ve said often, hope is not a strategy, so what’s our strategy? There are organizations, there are a couple that come to mind that are thriving. When I asked one of the VPs of this organization, how is it that you all, you seem to be thriving, grants are going away, funding’s going away? One of the things she said to me was relationships. So with her state partners having a good relationship was one, exceeding expectations was another. Having the back of your staff, of your team and engaging them in the discussions. If we’re going to take a cut, she said, of course I could sit in my office and say, “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” or bringing everyone together, bringing the team together and say, “This is our problem, this is what we’re facing. What can we do? How can we figure this out?”
Livia (16:50): Thank you, Lonnetta. There’s so much there, and I think leaning on each other and learning from each other, sharing strategies is so important right now. I wonder, as we get close to our end together here today, is there something that you would want emerging or current or newer recovery leaders to know about the history of the recovery movement that could help during this time?
Lonnetta (17:14): I think one of the things that I often when I work with leaders of recovery community organizations is to get them to believe that they have greatness in themselves, the confidence and that they can do this, that their lived experience is a big plus, but they’re no different. I mean, leadership, we’ve been doing leadership development programs for peers, Livia, and I’m telling you, I’ve got peers that leave these leadership institutes, a couple started their own organizations, a couple wrote books. I mean, just phenomenal things and getting them to believe in themselves and the dreams that they have and the power. The power in their lived experience, the power in relationships and the power in partnership.
(18:10):
The last thing I’d say for our leaders across the board is really to understand cultural humility. Not cultural competence, but cultural humility, because you work with one group, you think you understand the whole group, and what we’re talking about is individuals. Everyone is a unique individual, and how I experience my culture, for example, is different from how another African American female experiences her culture.
(18:44):
So when we’re working with diverse groups, that we understand that every person has the right, has the civil right to decide what their culture is, how they experience their culture, and what their goal is, what it is that they want for themselves. That we’re not telling people what to do, we’re not telling people what to think, when we’re supporting folk, whether it’s staff or individuals, not what to think, but how to think, so we ask questions.
(19:23):
Learning to ask questions is one of the things that if I had anything to offer to leaders of recovery community organizations is to learn how to ask great questions. It’s almost like coaching. Ask great questions so that the person from within can decide who they want to be and what type of life they want to create. So there’s many things, Livia, that I’d love to share, but that one piece, cultural humility for sure.
Livia (19:57): Yeah, it’s so good, and it’s so important. Something you said early on is this whole idea, it’s hard to outperform your own self-image, and so how can you work on your confidence as a leader? You and I both have coaching, training and background and you’re a current coach, and that was one of the big lessons that I got is people don’t outperform their own self-image, so you have to work on your own self-image and your confidence and what you can do and your power. So, thank you for that. Lonnetta, what keeps you going?
Lonnetta (20:35): People. I didn’t realize how much I love people, and it’s not so much the underdog, but I believe that every single person can create the life that they want, and it doesn’t mean it’s easy. With support, people have support if people are given the opportunity. Mentorship is a biggie that I would say having a mentor, but seeing people begin to do the things that they thought was impossible, that they thought they couldn’t do, that keeps me going.
(21:12):
The next generation, that’s another discussion, because it is the next generation. They keep me going, they keep me young. My nephew calls me youthful, and of course that makes me feel good. He doesn’t call me the elder, but it really is. The next generation, Livia, and I’ll leave you with this quote, it says, “The eyes of the future are looking back at us, and they are praying that we will see beyond our own time.” That keeps me going.
Livia (21:47): Lonnetta, thank you so much for joining us today. It was so good to touch base with you today, thank you.
Lonnetta (21:53): My pleasure, my pleasure. Livia, it’s just so good to still be connected to so many colleagues who are friends. Of that group, you are at top of the list, so thank you for inviting me.
Livia (22:07): Thank you. To our listeners, join us next time on Changing the Conversation.
Erika Simon, Producer (22:12): Visit c4innovates.com and follow us on LinkedIn and YouTube for more resources to grow your impact. Thank you for joining us. This episode was produced by Erika Simon and Christina Murphy, our theme song was written and performed by Peter Hanlon. Join us next time on Changing the Conversation.