By Greg Archer | Contributing Columnist
The Happier Life Project is on a mission to support people in the region impacted by substance-use disorders and mental health challenges. The nonprofit organization leans into offering advocacy, education, and peer-based recovery support services with a primary focus of normalizing recovery.
It’s a way to evoke hope and joy. The nonprofit’s backstory is intriguing.
“I basically put my dream on paper, and it got funded by the California Department of Health Care Services the same week that we received our 501c3 in 2021,” said Carolina Ayala, the founder and executive director of The Happier Life Project. “It was all through my own personal experience from A to Z that has propelled this project forward.”
A lot happened between A and Z.
Ayala’s personal story is filled with challenges of addiction, heartache, and second chances. A first generation American who parents are from Mexico, Ayala recounts how, at a young age, she turned to substance abuse.
“I started getting into trouble early on, became a teen mom and then incarcerated,” she said. “At one of those points, being in my own disease, alcoholism, I lost a child. I drove home from a high school party, picked up my daughter from the babysitter, and I went into my mom’s home and forgot to take her out of the car, and she died.”
That was more than 24 years ago.
“I just ended up in a loopy cycle of almost 15 years of being in and out of prison, and I literally was just a person that just needed some support,” she said.
She found it in a peer-support nonprofit that “saw and heard” her. The ripple effect changed the trajectory of her life, paving the way toward a more balanced life filled with personal healing.
But it also prompted her to want to give back.
Today, Ayala leads The Happier Life Project, based in Lake Elsinore, as a trauma-informed certified peer coach, facilitator, and advocate for the recovery community in Riverside County. Her approach combines her business administration experience with her direct, if not unique experiences as a “justice-involved woman in long-term recovery.”
Ayala’s insights on the recovery community and often challenging reentry process allow her to advocate for individuals with sincerity, empathy and compassion.
Recently, The Happier Life Project received a CIELO Fund grant through the Inland Empire Community Foundation. Ayala says the grant funds will help the nonprofit move forward with several initiatives.
One of them is expanding access to services for substance-use disorders in the community.
“This would be for the Spanish-speaking population, or bilingual individuals, and also Native American communities,” she said. “We just started an education campaign — in English, it’s called ‘Breaking the Stigma.’ It’s all in Spanish, and it’s about learning where the stigma comes from, how that was created, how that was imposed on communities.
“It will allow people to be trained in peer support for recovery coaching in Espanol,” she said, “because the state did not have that state certification. Even though they had a new workforce, they didn’t provide the training in Spanish.”
The organization has, in fact, garnered positive attention for its range of support groups, special events, outreach, and other services. A Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, All Recovery Meeting, and Live Group Peer Support are among the ongoing offerings in a week or month.
Related Articles
Riverside’s Deafestival to mark 25 years
Inland Empire film, story contest is open to students
What’s open and closed on Labor Day in the Inland Empire
Priest from Diocese of San Bernardino is finalist for Lumen Christi Award
Perris Elementary School District presents a new logo
Recovery Coaching also stands for the way it offers peer-to-peer support. There’s Community Reinforcement and Family Training, designed to aid family members of individuals with substance-use issues, primarily steering their loved ones on a path away from substance abuse.
All this ties into Ayala’s personal quest to help others who, like her, found themselves at a significant fork in the road.
“It became a desire in my heart to do this,” she said. “And it’s been nothing short of magical and divine every step of the way.”
Learn more about The Happier Life Project at thehappierlifeproject.org.
The Inland Empire Community Foundation works to strengthen Inland Southern California through philanthropy. Visit iegives.org.
