St. Paul couple turns substance abuse struggles into nonprofit serving Hmong community

Xianna Mouayang and Yeng Moua had one rule for their wedding – no alcohol.

Celebrating with alcohol is an integral part of traditional Hmong weddings. But the couple first met while they were in the early stages of substance abuse recovery, and their rule was designed to keep them on their recovery journey.

“Our recovery is more important to us than anything,” Moua said, “because we know that the day that we start drinking, it will always go back and lead us to maybe using meth again.”

Mouayang, Moua and Moua’s older sister, Mai Moua, who is also in recovery, established Koom Recovery in the Twin Cities last year to focus on substance abuse recovery in the Hmong community.

“Along the journey, we realized the lack of resources and the lack of support groups that are culturally specific,” Mouayang said, “it helped us want to strive more to get all of that in one place.”

Koom Recovery provides educational resources and peer support, and promotes erasing stigma in the Hmong community about substance use disorder. The nonprofit will host educational workshops and weekly support groups, and will connect community members with recovery resources. It does not provide medical care or health assessments.

“Koom” is the Hmong word for “join.”

“Some people, they always say that, ‘Oh, this is American, so it’s an American issue,’ but it’s not,” Yeng Moua said of substance abuse. “It’s a culturally specific issue, because, as we know it, methamphetamine is a big issue in the Hmong and Karen community.”

There is very little data available about the impact of substance abuse in specific ethnic communities.

Data on substance use in Southeast Asian communities is often lumped into one broad category instead of being broken down by ethnic groups, said Hua Xiong-Her, clinical manager of adult services at the Wilder Foundation in St. Paul.

The depth of the problems are also often underplayed or underreported in many communities due to stigma and shame, she said.

Xiong-Her said she has seen more young adults and youth struggling with substance abuse in Southeast Asian communities. Karen boys in middle school and high school are especially pressured by gangs to sell or use drugs, she said.

Despite the lack of data, Xiong-Her said, the Wilder Foundation saw a need to provide culturally specific recovery services for Southeast Asian communities based on its experience with clients seeking mental health services who also struggled with substance abuse.

Xiong-Her leads the foundation’s culturally specific outpatient substance abuse treatment for Southeast Asian clients. Several of the program’s specialists speak Southeast Asian languages and understand cultural nuances.

However, she said, Southeast Asian clients, especially ones with limited to no English, still face barriers to more intensive treatment such as sober living facilities.

Yeng Moua, 39, who emigrated from Thailand to the U.S. with his family when he was five, was exposed to alcohol and gang activity from a young age, growing up on St. Paul’s East Side.

His parents worked long hours, so Moua often hung out with other children after school who introduced him to gang life. Moua said he was a gang member and drinking alcohol by the time he was 12.

His drug use worsened after his father died when he was 18. Moua started using meth and dropped out of high school. He sold drugs for nearly two decades in between several years he spent in prison.

He didn’t know how to find help. Then Moua received a phone call that changed his life — he had a son. He knew he wanted to stop using and selling drugs. But he was sent back to jail for violating his probation. Moua asked to be placed into a substance abuse treatment program.

Moua spent a year at Minnesota Adult & Teen Challenge, graduated from the Christian-based recovery program and started working a manufacturing job. Meanwhile, Mouayang had just relapsed after eight years of sobriety. A friend introduced her to Moua, who helped her combat drug use.

“He was basically the light for me to get back into recovery,” said Mouayang, who has been sober for two years.

Moua decided to pursue his new passion helping others in recovery. He applied through AmeriCorps and was hired as a recovery navigator for about a year at Minnesota Adult & Teen Challenge.

Mouayang said she often felt out of her comfort zone in support groups where she rarely saw others like herself. Koom Recovery hopes to offer support groups starting in February for Hmong community members, and also wants to offer translated materials with information about substance use disorder and financial resources.

“I want to give back to the Hmong community because I know that there is a need,” said Moua, who has been in recovery since 2021. “If we [had had] a resource hub … maybe, maybe I would have never been through all of these struggles for such a long time.”

About the partnership

This story comes to you from Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to covering Minnesota’s immigrants and communities of color. Sign up for a free newsletter to receive Sahan’s stories in your inbox.