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…
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…
Sarah knows where her next meal comes from and has a doctor's appointment scheduled. These basics once felt impossible. A recovery coach helped her see that stable housing, transportation, and trusted…
A person wakes up one morning and knows something has to change. They ask for help, but treatment slots are weeks away. A recovery coach answers that call, meeting them where they are right now. These…
Someone sits across from a recovery coach, uncertain where to begin. The coach listens, then offers a map. Recovery coaches meet people exactly where they are, removing obstacles, connecting them to c…
A person in recovery in Maine becomes someone else's guide. Peer recovery coaches, trained to meet people where they are, are reshaping how communities respond to substance use disorder. Since 2018, n…
At Kennebunk Savings Bank, hiring someone in recovery isn't charity. It's strategy. Maine's new Recovery Friendly Workplace program helps employers build cultures where people dealing with substance u…
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…
Bertha Pappenheim spent years institutionalized after Freud declared her "cured." What actually healed her wasn't therapy but purpose: working in soup kitchens, running an orphanage, fighting sex traf…
Jordan answered the phone at the recovery community center's front desk, greeting someone calling for the first time. Later, as a volunteer recovery coach, he'd sit across from people sharing their da…
Leslie Clark didn't understand why people stayed in recovery meetings for twenty years. Now, more than thirty years into her own recovery, she sings, gardens, and writes poetry. Her story reveals what…
Marcus sat across from his recovery coach, uncertain how to rebuild his life after treatment. His coach didn't tell him what to do. Instead, she asked questions that helped Marcus discover his own ans…
