Peer Recovery Coach Tactics on the Frontlines of Drug Outbreaks

Must one be in recovery to be an effective peer recovery coach?

This is not a question intended to be dismissive about efforts of " in recovery" coaches, who deserve nothing but accolades.

But it is a pertinent question in two contexts:

(1) How to make most efficient and effective use of scarce resources, counting the indirect benefits of employing " in recovery" coaches?

and (2) What is the analogue to a peer recovery coach when a community faces an outbreak and struggles more to constrain occurrence rates for newly incident users before the community has accumulated enough cases required to mobilize treatment services?

npr story on peer recovery coaches