Helping others define who they are through recovery

For most of her career, St. Cloud State University alumna Laurél Kimpton has felt called to support those battling substance use disorders.

She started her post-secondary academic journey in integrative health and healing, before enrolling in SCSU’s community psychology program.

In between she interned at an addiction clinic in Princeton, Minnesota.

“I’ve never had any experience aside from some distant relatives that had addictions, but I wanted to explore the use of integrative stress reduction techniques,” Kimpton said. “So I brought that to the clinic, and it was actually very well-received.”

While interning she worked with both clients and their support staff to find healthy ways to manage their stress levels. While she presented them with different modalities, it was important to Kimpton that participants chose the methods they wanted to pursue.

“I presented those items to each of those groups and let them choose three that they would like to learn, because I figured it was better for me to get their input versus me just saying, ‘OK, you're going to learn about this,’” Kimpton said. “And that was a big key piece of learning for myself — going through that process — is it's not about me, it's about them. And so that really helped keep my eye and my focus on who I'm working with.”

Kimpton earned her Bachelor of Elective Studies from SCSU in 2014, after she completed an internship working in the University’s Veterans Resource Center. While working with veterans, she met with a number of individuals who were coping with respective traumas through substance use. She earned her master’s degree in addiction counseling from the University of Minnesota, before coming back to St. Cloud to work in the detox program at Central Minnesota Mental Health. Kimpton would go on to work in outpatient services for other organizations before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and brought with it more telehealthcare.

“That was really where I learned to hone some of my skills. Yes, it's one thing to be able to see and sit there and be face to face with individuals, but I found people were a little bit more apt to be open by meeting remotely — it almost allowed them to let their guard down because I wasn't in their face. And that makes sense,” she said. “There's challenges to that as well, because they can turn their camera off, they can multitask because they're at home and all the dishes are calling or their kid is doing something or the phone is ringing or whatever, and you’ve got to focus. But I really found that telehealth — especially for this population — is actually really good, because a lot of them lose their license and then how are they supposed to get to treatment?”

Kimpton said there is much to navigate when it comes to addiction counseling, including stigma from society as a whole as well as insurance companies.

“They’re people, and I try to help them deal with their everyday and to shake off the stigma that comes with addiction and often mental health in general,” she said. “I’m seeing them for who they are as a person; that they are not their last worst deed.”

A common theme in recovery groups in general has been for participants to introduce themselves by saying they’re an alcoholic or an addict. That is not a practice used in Kimpton’s sessions.

“I shut that down in my groups. That's not your identity. I don't walk around and say, ‘Hi, my name is this and I'm a diabetic.’ That's just weird. No, that is not who you are,” she said. “I walk my clients through finding out who they are; who it is that they want to be.”

Kimpton vividly remembers conversations she had in SCSU’s foundations of addiction class that have helped her define the kind of provider she wants to be throughout her career.

“One of the things we had gone through was, ‘What do you feel is the root, direct cause for addiction?’ The majority of the class said they felt it really was a brain disease, a medical issue. And although I agree that you can have medical complications due to addiction, I don't think that's the root cause,” she said. “I see addiction as a symptom. I see it as a symptom, as a societal issue. What is it about ourselves that we feel we have to shut down or hide or mask? How did we use that as a coping skill? And I don't see that as a brain disease. I see it as a symptom — a symptom of another issue — and that's how I approach addiction.”

Kimpton started her private practice, Indigo Recovery LLC, in May 2025. Her practice is exclusively telehealth to make services accessible to all clients, and provides comprehensive chemical dependency assessments and brief intervention individual addiction counseling. Kimpton plans to start a monthly subscription peer support and education group, as well as three- and six-month long-term aftercare programs with individualized support services to assist clients in their early recovery to be successful.

“A person needs to know that they’re valued, that they have worth and that they have a reason — a purpose of being here. And that's what I try to focus on,” she said. “I try to give them the encouragement they need to look at those pieces. What is missing in my life? What is not working; what is it that I don't want to see? What is it that I'm hiding from others? What is it that I feel I cannot share? Why do I feel that way? Once they start to feel like they're heard, they can make progress.”