Someone You Should Know: Darris Grant, helping others with lived experience

BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA ( KXNET ) — Darris Grant, Peer Support Specialist, Seeds of Eden clip “Joni … she’s seen me passed out on the park bench.”

Now Joni and many of their friends see Darris Grant on the regular, in a totally different light, supporting them all in any way he can.

“He’s just trying to help us. He sticks around and he’s pretty awesome,” Joni, a friend of Darris, exclaimed.

Darris Grant, “Tell them the truth you guys always thinking I’m taking you to treatment. So you guys run from me man!”

But they don’t run, and Chad says Darris is always there with the pep talk he needs.

“I just can’t take that for granted because I gotta make the best things work for myself and to make the positive happen to come back into my own life again,” said Chad, a friend of Darris. “I’m very thankful that Darris is here with me, that he helps me out.”

Today, Darris is a Peer Support Specialist with Seeds of Eden, but not too long ago, he was also running from his own inner demons by drowning them in drugs and alcohol.

Darris Grant, “I struggled with my addiction problem for a good 13 years, before I actually got sober.”

Two years ago, Darris was thinking of his son.
Knowing he would either die or go to prison, he needed to make a change.

“I knew that I couldn’t continue doing what I was doing. If I wanted to be a father. Plus, I started having really bad nightmares. And I would wake up every morning scared, sick. My body was like kind of turning yellow.”

Darris started to pray for a sign, and he says out of no where, his son’s mom showed up.

“She just laid it down,” explained Darris Grant, peer support specialist, Seeds of Eden. “She’s like, ‘this is not who you are, but if this is who you want to be, I’ll support it. If you need a couple of bucks, if this is actually really the way you choose like, I’ll do it. But your son is going to see you though.'”

The signs kept appearing, from his probation officer giving him another chance, to leniency from the court when he turned himself in, to the Good Road to Recovery taking him as an emergency detox patient.
Darris sobered up, stopped drugs and started to see more clearly.

But he says it wasn’t only those unexpected chances that helped him succeed.
The never-ending support of his friends, battling their own demons, impacted him immensely.

“It really is like a really tight knit community, and I am kind of grateful to have experienced that,” Darris explained. “Because people just see the outside part where, okay, it’s just people sitting on the street drunk all day, but I got to see what was actually going on on the inside. And so a lot of brokenness, but they care unequivocally about each other.”

Four months into his sobriety, he went to visit some of his old friends when he heard a couple of them had passed away.
They sat with each other like old times, when one of them said something that hit home and led him to where he is today.

“‘I just want to let you know that you coming back to say hi really meant a lot to me.’ She said, ‘Because there’s a lot of people that get sober and they forget about us, but the fact that you were able to come sit down and still have fun, that meant a lot.’ And they all said that,” Darris explained. “So I continue to do it. Even throughout my recovery I was coming back saying hi, giving them a few bucks, buying them some food. And that’s how I ended up working at Seeds of Eden, because one of the Seeds of Eden employees saw me doing that. And yeah, so came full circle.”

Today, as a peer support specialist, Darris continues to be there for old friends and new in a different capacity.
Having lived a similar experience, he understands his job is not to fix them.

“My job is to support them in any way they want, and not try to tear them away from that, because tearing them away from that would be kind of like me trying to tear them away from a baby away from the family,” Darris explained.

Darris uses his own experience and where he is today to lead by example, and is often told:

“You’re doing a really good job, man, I remember when you were out here, and it just inspires me to try to be better as well,” Darris said.

But it hasn’t been easy.

“It’s been a process these two years, I’m not gonna lie,” Darris admitted. “As someone who struggles with the kind of arrogance, at times, to have the humility within myself, because if I want to transmit humility to someone else, I have to have it first. So it’s a lot of personal growth on my part.”

Recognizing his need for a healthy outlet, Darris started a fitness journey.
He even took it to the next level by entering a Mr. Health & Fitness competition .

“It plays a very important part in my recovery though,” Darris explained. “Because it’s that physical outlet that I need because you need for your wellness and well being you need social, mental and physical.”

As Darris continues on his own recovery journey, he promises to meet others where they’re at in their journeys.

“If you choose the day and you want to choose that, I’ll help you,” Darris said. “But I’ll also help you here, without looking down at you.”

Darris Grant, supporting others where they’re at, is Someone You Should Know.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to KX NEWS.