Seven years of people, programs, and places across Maine and New Hampshire: recovery coaches, community centers, crisis workers, and neighbors who were already doing the work. These articles made it visible.
Some details may have changed since publication. Each piece shows the date it was written. For current recovery resources, use the Recovery Directory.
55 pieces
January 15, 2025
Marissa Exchange sits with someone in crisis, providing a space where they can speak freely without judgment. As a mobile crisis worker, she connects people to resources and support networks. What kee…
October 11, 2024
A small Maine town gathers at a community rally to remember Dr. Peter Leighton, a physician in recovery who helped build something remarkable. Bridgton now has emergency doctors, counselors, peer coac…
October 11, 2024
A corrections officer spots potential in someone newly hired. A counselor recognizes when a person in recovery needs extra support. Washington County Community College is expanding its Criminal Justic…
October 11, 2024
A Maine emergency doctor worried that offering buprenorphine treatment in his ER would overwhelm the system. Instead, patients started talking honestly about their struggles, and he found a way to hel…
May 31, 2024
Dakota Eddy lost her uncle to substance use disorder when she was nine. Years later, watching classmates struggle in her Vermont hometown, she found purpose at the University of Southern Maine's Recov…
May 31, 2024
At a karaoke night in Portland, people in recovery sing off-key and laugh together. This is what Maine's Recovery Community Center offers: a place where healing happens through connection, free coachi…
May 31, 2024
Inside a Maine prison, someone training to be a recovery coach listens to a peer describe their fears about release. This conversation, peer to peer, happens because a program treats incarcerated peop…
May 31, 2024
Melissa watched women at McAuley Residence choose survival over possibility: entry-level jobs instead of college, poverty instead of the futures their children deserved. She knew reunification meant n…
December 12, 2023
In rural Maine, Abbie Rohde built something that reaches beyond preventing return to use. Her Opioid Health Home teams people with lived experience alongside counselors, psychiatrists, and peer coache…
December 12, 2023
On a Tuesday morning in September, Maine EMS responded to their 276th suspected opioid overdose. The paramedics arrived, treated the patient, offered resources. Then they went home carrying the weight…
October 4, 2023
Ashley Roberts meets a public health nurse on a rainy Bangor morning, heading out to find people living outside. As an OPTIONS Liaison, she builds trust, learns what people need, and connects them to…
August 11, 2023
When a police officer recognized a resident at a community meeting, he stood to thank the man whose overdose he'd reversed with Narcan years before. That moment captures Friendship House's mission: a…
August 11, 2023
A man walked into Inspire Recovery Center wanting only a warm place to watch television. Weeks later, he cried during a job interview, describing the space as magical. He'd gone from active substance…
August 11, 2023
On October 7, hundreds will gather in Augusta to walk together through Capitol Park. They're not just exercising. They're showing up for neighbors struggling with mental illness, reducing shame around…
August 11, 2023
Mike Kleiner arrives at work each morning as a people operations manager for a Dunkin' franchise. This spring, his company began hosting pop-up resource events at 36 Maine locations, offering recovery…
August 11, 2023
Joe Graffius spent years chasing money and drugs across Alaska before prison stopped him cold. Now he works as a peer recovery coach in Maine, modeling the kind of life he fought to build. SaVida Heal…
June 6, 2023
When pandemic lockdowns pulled youth from classrooms and away from each other, isolation deepened. Some turned toward unhealthy coping. A Maine organization recognized the real answer: communities sur…
June 6, 2023
Janet Dosseva watches staff members practice administering naloxone in the Westbrook library. It's a small action, part of a larger shift: her community coalition is stocking life-saving medication in…
June 6, 2023
Kirsten Wears grew up watching someone she loved struggle with substance use disorder. Years later, laid off during the pandemic, she channeled that experience into founding Tucker's House, a women's…
June 6, 2023
Kyle spent years seeking help from program after program, carrying labels that made him feel like a burden. At SaVida Health, something shifted. His counselor saw past the addiction to the person unde…
June 6, 2023
Rene Smith watches workshop participants practice answering interview questions with HR professionals from local businesses. These mock interviews are part of something bigger: Maine's CareerCenters n…
June 6, 2023
In 2016, neighbors gathered to talk about something no one wanted to ignore: substance use disorder was affecting their community. Three people from that conversation became recovery coaches. Today, t…
April 9, 2023
Four organizations in Machias decided to build something together: a recovery home where women could stay, with or without their children. Katie Sell manages Safe Harbor, making sure residents get tra…
April 7, 2023
Amy Day parks on Main Street in Calais and unlocks the Downeast Recovery Support Center, where someone might be seeking naloxone, another attending a meeting, a third just needing a smile. In rural Wa…
April 7, 2023
Brian Garrity missed an appointment and spiraled into shame, convinced he'd lost his chance at recovery. Then messages arrived from his entire care team, checking in. At SaVida Health Maine, this isn'…
April 7, 2023
Gordon Smith wasn't trained in medicine or law enforcement. He was a lawyer guiding the Maine Medical Association for three decades when Gov. Janet Mills asked him to lead the state's opioid response.…
April 7, 2023
Ron Springel once told Betty Ford that recovery homes frightened him, filled with "convicts and drug addicts." She replied, "You'll fit in perfectly." Decades later, as executive director of Maine's r…
February 14, 2023
A team member asked how to hold members accountable while showing support. That question, posed in August 2021, sparked SaVida Health's core philosophy: compassionate accountability. At their Maine op…
February 14, 2023
Aaron Smart puts down whatever he's doing the moment someone walks through the door needing support. At Lakes Region Recovery Center's new Bridgton location, that responsiveness defines the work. Cert…
February 14, 2023
Katahli and Daryl Blums married while building their recovery residence business together. They run two Maine certified homes where residents progress through phases, writing goodbye letters to their…
February 14, 2023
A seventeen-year-old filmmaker named Tyler Muise watched an audience cry at his fifteen-minute film about a high school boy spiraling through substance use. What moved them most wasn't judgment or sha…
February 14, 2023
Glenn Gordon drives through Oxford County's two thousand square miles, showing up when someone has overdosed or gotten arrested for drug-related charges. As the OPTIONS Initiative liaison, he connects…
December 2, 2022
A woman arrives at her first appointment terrified, ashamed, wondering how she got here. Dr. Alane O'Connor sees many tears at MaineMOM's initial visits. But this program in Maine doesn't judge. It me…
December 2, 2022
Jamie Lebish lived in a refrigerator box in Seattle before finding recovery. Now, twenty-four years sober, he runs El Rancho de la Vida, a Maine residence where people in early recovery find safety, d…
December 2, 2022
Brian Kiloski answers the phone at GateHouse Treatment, placing people into recovery programs. Years ago, he was the one needing placement. Now he helps families understand that addiction touches ever…
October 3, 2022
When Lonnie Labonte lost friends to overdose and suicide, he knew exactly what to do with his inherited business space. Working with his mother Kathie, a person in recovery herself, they built the Lar…
October 3, 2022
Scott Pardy watched the same men cycle through the county jail year after year. Years into his own recovery, he saw the pattern clearly: no stable housing meant a return to use, then arrest, then jail…
July 29, 2022
Three women in recovery in Millinocket decided to stop waiting for help and started their own. Four years later, Pir2Peer Recovery Community Center is outgrowing its space. Now moving to Medway, the c…
June 4, 2022
A woman drove past the gym five times before she found the courage to walk in. She had no fitness background, just a feeling she needed something. Today, she's a strong CrossFit athlete in recovery. T…
January 19, 2022
When Governor Mills stood before Maine's opioid response leaders last July, she outlined a vision: behavioral health specialists and paramedics arriving together at overdose scenes across all sixteen…
December 17, 2021
When someone leaves Knox County Jail, a person in recovery meets them during discharge planning to share what worked: how they rebuilt their life, where to find help, who to trust. Community Consultan…
December 17, 2021
Jess was pregnant, in her early 30s, and seeking a second chance at recovery. When federal rules blocked her from residential treatment, her counselor fought to make an exception. Now, walking out of…
December 17, 2021
Your colleague mentions Puff Bars casually, and you realize you're hearing about a vaping product designed to slip past the regulations that caught up with JUUL. These disposable devices pack nicotine…
December 17, 2021
Nicole walks through the doors of the McAuley Residence as a single mother searching for a way forward. At this Portland transitional housing program, she discovers something she thought impossible: a…
November 2, 2020
Nancy Risley nearly died from hepatitis at thirteen. That brush with mortality set her on a different path: learning everything about healing her body and mind. Decades later, her Spa Tech Institute t…
October 26, 2020
Michael Yerema has watched people arrive at The Farm for 25 years, many from detox units or jail cells. Maine's oldest residential treatment center, nestled minutes from the Canadian border, offers so…
June 23, 2020
Dr. Ted Logan didn't wait for a crisis to bring treatment online. Years before the pandemic, he moved his practice to video visits so rural Mainers could access care without driving hours or sacrifici…
June 12, 2020
In a restored convent on Lewiston's Blake Street, six women trafficking survivors will move into rooms of their own this year. Sophia's House offers two years rent-free, plus job training and support…
June 12, 2020
Heatherly Wing stood before nearly a hundred women in prison, holding pages she'd written but never read. She was nervous about sharing Glenn Simpson's puzzle idea, a project where each person writes…
March 12, 2020
Bill Hemmens walked through a door looking for help for his grieving niece and found it missing. That absence became a mission. Thirty-three years later, the Center for Grieving Children serves thousa…
March 7, 2020
Ten men sit in a circle on Middle Street in Portland, shoes off, voices steady as they speak about hurt and hope. For twenty-three years, Stephen Andrew's Courageous Men Circles have offered something…
December 23, 2019
Col. Dave Hickey returned home to Maine after military service and quickly noticed veterans struggling to find their footing in civilian life. That observation led to Boots2Roots, an organization prep…
November 26, 2019
On a Saturday night in downtown Brewer, 125 people crowd into a converted furniture store for peer support meetings and dancing. The BARN, a recovery center, has become a lifeline for people seeking c…
September 6, 2019
In 2011, families sitting in Portland church basements shared the same heartbreak: they had money for rent, for food, but not for treatment. From those conversations grew The Family Restored, an organ…
May 27, 2019
Leslie Clark hears piano music drifting through the Portland Recovery Community Center as people gather in the lounge, laughter echoing from meeting rooms. Over 125 people walk through these doors dai…
