After going through her own journey of addiction and being in jail, Ashley Pfaff now helps people who are in the same spot she was.

Pfaff is a newly minted peer counselor at Peer Kent, and is stationed as a peer counselor in the Federal Way Municipal Court.

Pfaff began her recovery from drugs and alcohol more than two years ago when she received support from Peer Kent peer counselors and worked there as well. After being supported by a peer counselor, Pfaff said she eventually became a recovery coach, and now has been a peer counselor since April.

As a peer counselor, Pfaff said she meets with people who are on probation or in jail, and supports them by connecting them to resources. Pfaff said she will help her peers find treatment centers, 12-step meetings, housing, employment and substance use disorder assessments — and she will be someone who doesn’t judge them. She said peer counselors help people learn how to support themselves in the long term.

On a daily basis, Pfaff said she goes into the Federal Way Municipal Court before court begins and introduces herself to people. Once court begins, Pfaff said she goes to the front and lets people know who she is and what support she can offer. Pfaff said she tells people she’s like the resource broker. She said often, when someone goes to court, they’re required to get a substance use disorder assessment, or they need somewhere to live after they get out, and instead of being on their own to find those resources, she connects people to the resources.

After she finishes meeting with people at the court, she goes to SCORE jail to work with the people who want her support. She said from going to SCORE jail to meet with peers, people sometimes recognize her when they go to the Federal Way Municipal Court again, and then ask her for help.

Pfaff said she lets peers know right off the bat that she doesn’t report things to the courts. There is confidentiality, and they are only contractors with the courts. Pfaff said often, when people are in jail, they feel hopeless, so she goes beside them to support them.

Pfaff said that recently, she was working with someone who was going to treatment for the first time. Pfaff said that peer was initially doubtful of how Pfaff could help her because she didn’t understand what she was going through, but after Pfaff let her know that she actually had been in her shoes, she began to help her and relate to her story. Despite the initial apprehension, Pfaff said that peer is now going to treatment.

For her tireless work in this field, Pfaff has been named the Federal Way Mirror’s Hometown Hero for Sept. 2024.

How a peer counselor helped Pfaff

Pfaff said she tried getting sober a number of ways — going to drug treatment centers seven times, 12-step groups, detoxing in jail. She said she’s tried it all. But what finally aided her in keeping her sobriety for more than two years was the support she received from a peer counselor.

Pfaff said she has two kids, so she was not only involved in the justice system, but she also had her kids taken away from her by Child Protective Services. Pfaff said she didn’t want to keep living in her addiction, but she couldn’t quit until at the last treatment center she attended, there were peer counselors. Pfaff said at the other treatment centers she had attended, she felt like the counselors didn’t understand her because they were knowledgeable about addiction, but they hadn’t gone through it.

“All the counselors there were in recovery, and it gave me that hope that, ‘wow, maybe I could do this.’ I’m hearing them talk about how they got their kids back and they’re getting married, buying houses. I thought I literally messed up my life. The other treatments have these counselors that didn’t have that lived experience. They just studied, so it’s like, ‘How do you know what I’m going through?’” Pfaff said. “To hear someone talk about how they did drugs, they lost their kids, they went to jail, they went to prison, and then that they made a life for themselves after that, it gave me the hope.”

Pfaff said the peer counselors told her they had no room to judge because they’d been where she was. She said the support from peer counselors gave her hope that she wasn’t as bad as she had told herself.

Pfaff said before her addiction, she worked in the medical field, so after she got sober, she knew she couldn’t go back to that work because she has a criminal record. But, after seeing she could be a peer counselor, she found a new way to help people and get a job that isn’t entry-level.

“It helps me stay clean because, like I said, I like to help people, and it definitely helped me in my recovery 100 percent. I don’t do it for the money. I do it because it helps me stay clean and sober,” Pfaff said. “I like helping people, especially when, a lot of times, we see people who are so broken down by the system, and people telling them, they can’t do this, they can’t do that. So just being the one to be like, ‘Yes, you can do whatever you want.’ It’s just believing in people.”