A few years ago, our coalition was doing outreach and educating folks to keep their prescription medications up and away to reduce the risk of medications, particularly opioids, from being diverted into the community. However, nowadays, raising awareness to prevent opioid misuse has shifted....
Kenneth Charles, chief of the Farmington Police Department, avoided getting into the family business for as long as he could but eventually joined his father and two brothers in becoming a police officer.
“I thought I certainly must have a different path,” he said. “I...
Though often thought to be a big city problem, substance use disorder can’t read a map. It can be especially hard to combat in rural communities because of limited resources for prevention, treatment and recovery.
This is the case in Washington County, with two notable...
One of the greatest gifts sobriety has taught me is the concept of choice.
Sobriety has been my chosen lifestyle since June 14, 2001, and it has made all the difference. It is freedom from a self-sabotaging way of life.
Alcohol’s presence was predominant in my...
I’m not recovering,” said April Tomah of Milford. “I’m recovered.”
She once struggled with heroin addiction, experiencing all the painful “anything and everything” that comes with active drug use, but she is now an enthusiastic, healthy mother of three and member of Maine’s Passamaquoddy Tribe.
April’s...
An Unintentional Director of Opioid Response
Gordon Smith, J.D., who became the state’s Director of Opioid Response when Gov. Janet Mills took office in 2019, knows he has a somewhat unusual background for the position.
“I am not in recovery, not in clinical work, and don’t...
