Maine’s Director of Opioid Response steps in to help get a recovery community center for Millinocket Gordon Smith was breezing past his desk one day this past spring when the phone rang. “It was unusual,” says Maine’s Director of Opioid...

When home is an unabridged island, people in recovery turn to creative means to access support services While life on one of Maine’s 15 unabridged islands can seem idyllic, the reality in geographic isolation, with a finite number of fellow islanders, can lead some residents...

The recovery community has its own language. We often speak it without even realizing we’re doing it. We grow accustomed to certain words, phrases and nuances. This can be an adjustment when first seeking recovery. I remember mimicking the things I heard and...

Creativity is therapeutic, and certainly not just for artists. Stitching sock monkeys, painting on canvas with pre-drawn images or making an altered journal in an art therapy session – these sorts of activities can lighten the mood, forge community or tease out buried...

Drawing on wood or a sketchpad while listening to people’s stories during the 10 recovery meetings he attends a week is soothing and meditative for artist Zoo Cain of Westbrook – and it’s also contagious. “Sometimes other people start doing it,” says Cain,...

Eleven University of Southern Maine graduates had a second, much more intimate commencement ceremony in May, recognizing not only that they had met the graduation requirements, but also the work they had done while committed to a recovery community called the ...