CHRIS NEWCOMB: Welcome to Peer Into Recovery, a podcast with the focus on the profession of peer support. For more information about how to subscribe, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. Welcome, everyone, and thank you for joining us. I am your host, Chris Newcomb. We have an exciting episode today. Our guest is Ashley Fitzkee, and she is from the RVA, and representing quite a few different hats that she wears every day at work. She’s a PRS. She’s a Youth Support Partner with Family Support Partners of Virginia with Christie Corbin. Interesting side note, we both became PRSs under Christie Corbin’s facilitatorship in class. She’s also the RVA Young People in Recovery Chapter Lead Coordinator at the SAARA Center, and also a personal medicine coach, and all around great person. Hey, Ashley, how are you today?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: I’m doing good. How are you?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Doing great. It’s so good to have you on the podcast. And what is going on with you today?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Well, I just watched my cat jump in the basket and get to work from home today. That’s super exciting. Living on the edge.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s awesome. I know that you have a cat there. I’ve seen. What’s your cat’s name?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Her name is Zuzu. She is my biggest ally. And the reason why I stay alive, sometimes, definitely.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s amazing. Well, animals have so much healing power for us humans. I have two cats myself. It’s amazing how an animal can bring a renewed perspective when things get a little out of sort between our ears.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yes. My recovery has been about a lot of promises, and I think that all started because the promise I made with her, that she would see her mommy get better and that I couldn’t leave her. Even when I really wanted to, she was the reason why I couldn’t. So I love that little girl so much.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s amazing. That’s really awesome. Today, for our listeners, we’re going to be talking about Ashley’s work with the RVA Young People in Recovery as the Chapter Lead Coordinator and also as Youth Support Partner. And we’ll be talking about what peer recovery work looks like with the younger generation and also those the young at heart. But before we get into that, I wanted to ask Ashley to just talk a little bit about her story. Now you’re from Richmond, Virginia, correct?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, for the most part. I grew up in like Petersburg, Colonial Heights area until I was about nine because my grandma was my guardian. And that’s where she lived. And then I moved over to Chesterfield when I was adopted non-formally by my aunt and uncle, who are my mom and dad now. So I’ve been in Chesterfield since fourth grade and still haven’t left.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: It’s a great place to live. I share something similar with you. I’m very close to my aunt and uncle, they’re kind of like second parents to me. And it’s great to have extended family that you can connect with and be a part of your life. Do you see them often?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yes, they are my best friends. I call my mom an insane amount, at least twice a day, sometimes to just tell her something very silly. It’s almost like I share every thought I have with her. But they mean a whole lot to me. And they are truly my mom and dad.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So I assume, you mentioned that they’re an ally, or the cat’s an ally, and I’m sure these folks are allies too. It’s nice to have someone that you can be honest with and just be you, I would imagine.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, and it’s a really cool part of my recovery story is I lost everything in my life within 24 hours at that very last rock bottom that I had. And the two things I didn’t lose was my parents’ support and Zuzu, my cat. So an ally is a great word for it, truly.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: And that’s really what you’re doing in the work that you’re doing, which we’ll get to in just a minute. So if you’d like to, can you tell us a little bit about your journey into recovery, whether it’s mental health and or substance use, one or the other, both, because we know people struggle in different areas and walk this path into a new way of life, which then often leads many people to do what you and I are doing, working as peer recovery specialists.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, I’d love to. So for me, there was a lot of hard stuff going on when I was a child. In those nine years before my aunt and uncle, my parents, got me, there was very significant trauma that happened. So much so that I was diagnosed with depression at five years old, and medicated and dealt with a lot of trauma. As I turned into a teenager and stopped doing all the extracurricular activities such as martial arts and cheer.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Tell me about that, Bruce Lee.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, so I moved in with my aunt and uncle, and it gave me the chance to be able to do all these things that I always wanted to do. Because my grandma just didn’t have the funding for all of that. So I needed somewhere to watch me after school and during the summer. So I started doing martial arts with Martial Arts World, which is Taekwondo under Grand Master YK Kim. I ended up getting my black belt by the time I was 13. That’s just a fun fact.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: It’s a very fun fact. Remind me not to meet you in a dark alley. I’ll come out on a stretcher.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Really what it taught me that it still sticks with me now is just like the discipline and the things that they had. I mean, I was like 10 years old screaming assets, not liabilities. I did not know what that meant. Be a leader, not a follower. I did not care about any of that, honestly, but it’s what I had to do and I did it. It taught me a lot of good things and a lot about the discipline of when to react for just self-defense purposes, not- Sure. I think that if it wasn’t for having my black belt and being told that I would get in extra trouble if I got into a real fight, I think that that helped me not be so scrappy. As a teenager, my friends took care of all of that, which is so bad and I tried not to be a part of that. But I think the martial arts helped me see that, like you don’t put your hands on somebody unless it’s in defense. Luckily, I haven’t had to use that much, so.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s awesome. Well, yeah. It’s a self-care thing and I can tell by the way you carry yourself and what you’re saying is that we, I’ve done martial arts too and the idea is that we walk the way of peace as much as we can and I was taught to even run from altercation because people have dainty and we don’t want to go there. But so that’s amazing. So a little fun fact, Ashley is three generations removed from Bruce Lee and if you need protection, she will do that for a small fee. So you do the martial arts thing and then tell me how things are going from there.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah. So I did martial arts and cheerleading and that kept me really busy. It gave me something to work on. But then I met what felt like my long-lost best friend, which was marijuana, weed, whatever. I just tended to like that a whole lot more than my friends, as well as drinking and other stuff as well. I started driving and had some scary stuff happen and I ended up getting diagnosed with panic disorder where I was medicated legally, on Xanax. So that’s really what started the pretty scary journey of addiction long before I ever recognized that that’s what it was, because I thought that it was okay because my doctor was prescribing it to me.

Over the years, that prescription got very, very hefty. It no longer was as needed. It was on a schedule at a very, very extremely unethical high dose. But I thought it was okay because that doctor was giving it to me. I got prescribed it at 16, but it was a really small dose and it was more as needed. But then once I got older, it became no longer as needed and no longer such a small dose. I did know that I was very dependent on weed. I mean, I wouldn’t even use the bathroom in the morning before I went and visited my apparatus at first. I could not do a single thing and my friends, because I do have a few friends that I’ve had through this whole time, the 18 years that I’ve lived in Chesterfield, they are able to reflect with me back and they would say that I would just keep going and going and going, and never getting any better. My anxiety never got better because of smoking. All along, I had that trauma. I had that trauma within me that really needed to be worked on and talked about, and I wasn’t doing that because I was taught that it’s just so shocking and upsetting that I need to keep it to myself, and that did not do me any justice.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah. I once heard a statement in Recovery Circle that we’re only as sick as our secrets. I think that’s a really powerful statement. Of course, the word sick can be charged, but we could say off balance, out of sorts, not at our best health, when we’re forced to keep secrets. Recovery is about being honest. I saw a thing today that a lady said, the trigger that you have is the invitation to go to the feeling below the trigger and honor it and listen to it. Then that reduces the trigger. I thought, wow, that’s amazing.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, it is. It would come out in ways that I didn’t realize. I searched for the things I thought I deserved, and that was chaos, that was bad relationships, that was external validation from unsafe people. There was a lot going on in my brain. I mean, they say that your personality is developed by the time you’re five years old. By the time I was five years old, I knew about drugs, alcohol, sex, non-consent, all of the really, really bad things that a child should not know, much less see firsthand. It was really scary and there was just a lot that I needed to work on and I would try to talk about it. It would just scare people because I was talking about it to the wrong people.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Sure. Well, at five years old, the prefrontal cortex, the part behind your forehead that says, look both ways before you cross the street, there’s nowhere near developed enough to have a language to be able to articulate those things. Hey, I’m five, I’m seeing XYZ and it’s freaking me out. You don’t really have the language to do that. Then of course, as you say, you’re maybe talking to people who are not safe or not trustworthy or whatever. Again, you’re five years old and you don’t have the language and the discernment to know not the right person to talk to. I’m sure that was a heavy burden to carry, not only just what you’re dealing with, but where is the imitation and the freedom and the safety to be able to talk out what I’m dealing with? As we work as Peer Recovery Specialists, we are being invited into someone’s story if they allow us to sit and listen to what they have to say.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: The cool thing about being a peer is now that’s a part of my story and they can spread hope.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: But the story changes, right? You hit the bottom and you find out it looks like concrete, but it’s really just a trampoline for you to rise the phoenix from the ashes.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Of course, the darkness of the story, that’s important, I guess, to set the stage. But where the real magic and importance is, of the journey of recovery.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So, that takes us to what you’re doing now. You’re dealing with a specific demographic of young folks. What are the generations that you specifically deal with? I mean, there’s baby boomers, there’s millennials, there’s Generation Z. Who are the ones that you focus on?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Honestly, I don’t really think about it in the labels of generations, but I do. I did get the wonderful chance to create my own support group about something I’m the most passionate about, which is self-love and self-care. And that is for ages 18 to 29. And that is through being a Youth Support Partner in Family Support Partners of Virginia. And I was really confused as why a group for the youth would go up to ages 29. And that’s when I found out that in Virginia, you’re still considered a youth in a lot of agencies and organizations until the age of 29 because they call it a transition age. And that is so freeing, it is so empowering, and makes me feel better about where I am in my life. Because if you think about no matter what generation you are, in your 20s, especially nowadays, every year looks different. You’re a different person every year. Like my best friend is 27 with three kids and married. I am 27, I’ve never been married, and my kid is a four-legged cat, you know? Like we’re all in such transitional ages, you know? We’re all complex people with complex lives and complex everything.

And the ages of 18 to 29, I just feel like people are lost because I would go to certain support groups and be the youngest person by 10 to 15 years. You know, I’m coming back for my job as a nanny and they’re leaving their like law firm. Like we don’t have that much in common and it made me feel more alienated and alone. And my whole thing about being a peer for me is the promise that I made to myself of telling little Ashley’s story, but also to help all the other little Ashleys out there. I’m willing to be vulnerable and share the parts of myself and that are uncomfortable because I felt so alone for so long. And that’s like the worst feeling ever is to feel alone and to not have somebody that looks like you and talks like you and represents more of you. And I think that it’s so much more powerful to go into a high school, which I now get to do and I’m really excited about. And talk to the students about recovery. Because I look more like them. I talk more like them. You were saying that maybe Gen X is like the lost generation. I feel like Gen Z and below, maybe the misunderstood generation.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Okay. Tell me about that.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah. Like I think that times are changing so fast. Technology is changing so fast. The level of problems that they have to deal with are higher, I will say. I know people always say like, back in my day, we walked through the snow barefoot to get the school uphill for 20 hours. Yeah, that might be true and maybe people don’t have to do that today. But just because I like to compare it to when you’re little and you don’t want to eat your broccoli because you don’t like broccoli, and your parents can compare it to somebody being hungry down in a different country. That doesn’t make you magically like broccoli. You still don’t like broccoli. You get what I mean?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: For me, it was chicken livers and asparagus, so I totally get you.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, no chicken livers for me. I’ve heard that they’re good for you though.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s what having a dog is for. My stepmother one night said, you’re not getting up till you clean your plate. She went to take a shower and I was like, do it on the floor, dog took it up. I was like, yes.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: It doesn’t make you magically want that. I’m sorry, I interrupted your broccoli story.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: It’s okay. I could just talk about this stuff forever because if you just look at Gen Z’s life, they so early on dealt with the stuff about 9-11 and being like five years old, learning about this scary thing that could happen to us at any time. A pandemic, having social media where you’re comparing yourself to these unrealistic versions of people’s life that’s not real.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s interesting because in my day, I will not say that. Growing up as a younger person, I grew up in the age of MTV. In MTV, you could compare yourself, but it was only in your head and it was not on social media for everybody else in the neighborhood to go ahead and weigh in an opinion about the way you looked in comparison to what you wanted to look like, unless you were unfortunate enough to ask them or they were not nice enough, they were too not nice to tell you. That’s a whole different deal than what Gen Z and below are dealing with because it seems, you see kids that are seven years old who are seeing counselors because their schoolmates are just being vicious online.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah. I mean, even through the pandemic, having a pandemic in very important years for your development and social and everything, switching to being on the computer where you’re seeing yourself that entire time, or even without the pandemic, just having the smartphone that you’re taking pictures of yourself or videos and all this, and you’re seeing what you look like every single week, that wasn’t a problem before. When people would go get film and pictures, like you take pictures for a special event, and you look at them when you go through your photo album. But having like, I probably, I could look right now, I think I have 68,000 photos on my phone since 2016.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s 68,000?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yes.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: You should do a job telling your story and taking pictures.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Right? I will say probably half of them are from the last two years of having my cat. I take a lot of video questions.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: What are the percentages of selfies? Or you don’t have to tell that one.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Not as much as they used to be when I was younger for the ages that I served. The ages that I serve now because that’s just a part of their life.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So what is it?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Sorry. When I think about talking with the youth of this age, sometimes people, they just don’t understand. They act different because they don’t understand. I’ll talk about the Self-Love Club and say the age range and everybody makes sure to say like, oh, that isn’t my age. Like, okay, but your age probably has a lot of things that you can go to, places you can find support. But that age range of 18 to 29, people get lost in the system or when they try to actually go to something in that system, there’s nobody there that talks like them and feels like them. And I think the youth are really big on authenticity, which is really cool because that’s a part of being a peer. And I know that you’ve asked, like, how do you connect with these people? And I think that while as much as I worry about trying to be cool or whatever, like, because, I mean, I’m 28, like, or almost 28 in January. But, you know, compared to an 18 year old, my life does not look that cool. But when I’m my authentic self, and I talk about the little things that make me me, that’s what people connect to. And being able to just like, I think a lot of it is just being like chill and casual and relaxed and…

CHRIS NEWCOMB: For those who may be listening that aren’t familiar with the usage of the word chill in that sense, you don’t mean chill as in put a jacket on because it’s cold outside. You mean relaxed, right? Casual, I mean, I know what it means, but you know, there’s a difference amongst, you know, amongst generations. And, you know, it’s funny because I have found in my work, this is about you, so I’ll do it very quickly, that the whole cool factor, people will think you’re cool when you’re authentic, which is what we do as peers. When you show a genuine interest in them and their story, your cool points, quote unquote, go up. And then if you ask them a question about themselves, because people love to talk about themselves, not that they’re being arrogant, people like to share. And I’ve found that I can go up to someone who may have a t-shirt on of a band that I would never listen to, you know, and they may think, oh, well, he likes Lawrence Welk, and if you don’t know that is it’s very different than like rock and roll. But to go up to someone and go, oh, cool, tell me about that band. They all of a sudden it’s like, well, this guy looks really kind of lame, but okay, he’s asking me about the band, at least he can read, right? So what, when you work with folks, what are some hurdles that you have to overcome to be able to meet them? Like if you’re talking to an 18 year old, and you’re almost 28, how do you overcome that hurdle of breaking that ice to be able to connect?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: I think that I just try to, like I think about the things that I see in my life that they may connect to, like maybe there’s a certain saying on TikTok about being in a silly, goofy mood. I’m not going to just use that term just to use it to see if they connect. But if I am feeling like I’m in a silly, goofy mood, like I can say that. I love that. That’s fun. But sometimes it can be a true hurdle because a lot of these people that I’m helping, they’re not comfortable talking on the phone. They don’t want to meet in person. A lot of them do not want their cameras on. And that’s a big reason why I think they stay coming to the Self-Love Club is I don’t care that their camera is on. They can change their name to Peanut Butter, you know?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: It’s a good name.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, it is, right?

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Here’s a question. Jif or Peter Pan?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Kroger Brand.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Okay, all right, that’s good. If you were going to say Jif, we’d have problems.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So, I mean, what I hear is authenticity meeting them where they’re at, which are crown jewels in the peer support delivery of services. And once you, you know, you make that connection, how have you seen people resonate with your approach?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: I think that in any peer work, no matter the age, you know, you never know what you’re going to share about yourself that somebody else connects to. And sometimes it’s hard to share like the really like deep, intimate parts about yourself. But I’ve talked about the certain kind of therapy I’m doing to heal trauma or inner-child healing in general. And I just see that it lights them up. And or maybe I will talk about safety. And if I can see them on camera, I can see how they react to it. And that’s obviously a need that’s met, that’s not being met for them. So we can kind of explore that more. And I think that having somebody who’s just like chilling, sitting in their room, I have like little fairy lights behind me and show my personality of the things behind me. You never know what somebody is going to connect to and not making it, because we’re not clinicians, we’re not therapists. We’re just on the same level. And a lot of something that’s unique is a lot of those people have never even heard of a peer recovery specialist or been in a group that doesn’t have all these extreme rules. And that the person facilitating it can talk to you outside of it. And it’s not unethical.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Because the hurdles that you’re talking about is being able to meet them where they’re at and create a safe, which is a very buzzword, a safe space, but vital, particularly when you’re talking about trauma, to provide a place that, because safety creates the opportunity for trust, trust creates the opportunity for healing. Because if I don’t trust you, I’m surely not going to tell you the very scary things that have caused wounds for me. Because if I can’t trust that you’re going to hold that in confidence and you’re going to respect me and not put me down or judge me, I’m just setting myself up to get hurt even further. Right. So you’re creating a safe path. So if you were talking to one of your peers and let’s say they’re like you, and the guy says, you know, Ashley, you need to make telling your story your job. And so you’re working with a peer and you go, you know what, Tom, you need to make your story part of your job. How would someone follow the path to do what you do?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Put their recovery first, put themselves first, and build up that toolbox of everything they may need. The biggest they’ve ever had it for themselves, because that’s necessary and helps your life a whole lot. But it will help your job. And for me, I found it easier to want to do things for myself because I knew that telling that part of the story may help somebody else. Like, for example, I have somebody in my group that has curly hair. So we bond about how annoying curly hair is. And it truly is the little things. I think that’s how you connect with the youth. You sign up for your 72-hour course. Hopefully, you have a really awesome facilitator that you vibe with really well. And, you know, take the training seriously.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: So you take your 72 hours training and then what would they need to do?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: The facilitator of your training can help throughout the next steps, but it usually, it has to be that you get 500 hours. There are lots of really awesome internships out there, programs. I got so lucky and got to be one of the first few people to do the Region 4 Peer Intern Academy with RBHA. And I truly am so thankful of that. And when I did my interview for that position, one of my mentors that I respect so much, they mentioned that those 500 hours treat the whole thing like an interview. You never know who you’re talking to, may want to grab you. And that ring to be very, very true for me. I took that seriously. And little did I know that while I was doing my 72-hour training with my facilitator Christy Corbin, she had something in the works to have her first round of interns as well. So I got to be an intern with her company as well as the Region 4 Peer Intern Academy. And then I just kept showing up as myself and did different recovery events. And I ended up joining a Young People in Recovery event because I was invited to it and I’ve never even heard of them. But we floated down the James River for four hours. Yeah. And I guess I kind of did networking, which is still pretty new for me.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: When you network out of authenticity, it’s very easy. You’re not putting a facade on and you’re just like, hey, I’m Ashley, this is what I do. This is my story. I want to help people. And I think there’s wisdom in what you were saying is how you present yourself, obviously, can open up all kinds of doors. The key is, of course, when we do it authentically, it’s even better because we’re not playing a part. We are being who we are. And I think recovery allows us to do that. And you mentioned the internships and jobs. So I have to make a shameless plug. For the virginiapeerspecialistnetwork.org website, you can go to, and we have listings of internships and jobs for peers. So that’s something, if someone wanted to work with your particular demographic, they can go there as well to find a position. I think, I mean, your story is amazing and what you’re doing, the work you’re doing is incredible. What would you say, and I have to wrap up, but what would you say to a peer who’s, quote unquote, not in that generation bracket, but has a peer who is, who comes to talk with them, what are some things that they may want to consider as they speak with that peer if they feel like, well, gosh, I don’t have anything to offer, I’m not of their age or their age bracket, I’m too old, blah, blah, blah. What might you tell them?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, I really love that question. Thank you for that. That’s a really good one. I would say just treat them like a person. Just because they’re a young adult doesn’t mean that their voice doesn’t matter. I trust and believe that peers know that everybody’s voice matters, but it’s not a time to compare your 20s to theirs. Trust me, they’re already doing that enough every single moment of every day sometimes. Just treat them the same that you would and be yourself. If you do get on social media, you could talk about something on there. If you think that they might be into that kind of thing, but don’t force it, don’t force the connection.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I need to wrap up, but this has been such a great conversation. I really appreciate your time, Ashley, and talking about your work with those in the younger demographic as a Youth Support Partner with Family Support Partners of Virginia, and also as a RVA Young People in Recovery Chapter Lead Coordinator at SAARA Center. If someone listening wanted to get in touch with you, what’s the best email address if they wanted to get in touch with you or how might they do that?

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Yeah, so my email is ashleyf at saara.org.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: All right.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Ashley F at saara.org.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: Ashley F as in Frank at saara.org. For all of your Ashley connection, just send her an email. She’ll be glad to talk with you. Thank you, Ashley, for being our guest.

ASHLEY FITZKEE: Thank you. Thank you so much. This was great.

CHRIS NEWCOMB: I’d like to thank our listeners for listening to the Peer Into Recovery podcast, which is brought to you by the Virginia Peer Recovery Specialist Network and Mental Health America of Virginia. And if you like our show and would like to subscribe to the podcast, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. And please leave us a brief review on iTunes. In the meantime, take care of yourselves, everyone. See you soon.