Recovery in Plain Sight
Most people picture recovery as something that happens behind closed doors. But research on social recovery keeps finding the same pattern: connection is not a side benefit of recovery—it is part of h…
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Neighbors
Recovery does not take heroes. It takes neighbors who know recovery is possible, who do not flinch when it comes up, who carry the message that help exists without making it their job to deliver it. A pastor who mentions recovery from the pulpit without stigma. An employer whose policies make openness possible. A photographer who shows recovery as ordinary. These are the neighbors making recovery more findable, one ordinary conversation at a time.
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At Work
Most people in recovery are working. Employers, HR leaders, coworkers, and the people building recovery-friendly workplaces shape whether staying well at work is possible. Articles profile the workplaces and the people inside them already doing this work. Policies, peer support, accommodations, and the day-to-day culture that makes openness possible.
In Community
Faith leaders, business owners, photographers, probation officers, civic neighbors. Profiles of the people whose roles put them close to recovery in everyday community life, and who chose to show up as humans first. Articles trace what that looks like in practice. The small decisions, the open doors, the moments that turned out to matter.
Recovery Already At Work
“Recovery-friendly workplaces do not bring the problem into the workplace,” says Eliza Zarka of the National Recovery-Friendly Workplace Institute. “They’re bringing solutions for the problem that alr…
Thriving During the Holidays: What Employers Can Offer
When December hits, your payroll shifts. Shifts get missed, focus scatters, performance dips. For employees in recovery, this season carries sharper risk. Employers notice it first as absenteeism and…
Kennebunk Savings: Shifting Culture, Reducing Stigma
When Brad walks through Kennebunk Savings, he sees employees who've become "lighthouses" for colleagues struggling with substance use. The bank shifted from treating addiction as a performance problem…
The Role of Social Networks
Marcus sits across from his sponsor, sharing something he couldn't tell anyone during his using years. This conversation wouldn't happen without the relationships he's rebuilt. The article explores ho…
Nonantum Resort – Building a Recovery-Friendly Culture
At Nonantum Resort, a staffer mentions an upcoming sobriety anniversary at the team meeting, and colleagues applaud. This moment captures what happens when a workplace decides recovery belongs there.…
Building a Career Supporting Individuals in Recovery
Mackenzie Kelley spent years searching for work that mattered. Then she discovered recovery coaching, where her own experience with substance use disorder became her greatest strength. Now she spends…
Workplace Wellness – Fostering a Culture of Openness
A manager admits to her team that she's in therapy. A colleague mentions he's taking mental health days. These small moments shift something in the office culture. When leaders speak openly about thei…
Building a Recovery-Friendly Community
A person in recovery walks into a community center for the first time. She's nervous about judgment, but finds others like her, a job board, and counselors who know her name. This is what recovery-fri…
Removing Stigma From the Employment Equation
Nearly three thousand working-age people were missing from Washington County's employment figures. Economists wondered who they were and where. That question led to something unexpected: a network con…
Recovery Allies – Spiritual Health in Recovery
Sarah finds peace washing dishes, mopping floors, sensing wonder in tasks most people rush through. Alison Webb's Recovery Allies explores how spiritual health shapes recovery differently for each per…
Faith Organizations: Champions Against Stigma
A pastor stands before her congregation on Sunday morning and names addiction aloud, speaking of it not as moral failure but as illness worthy of compassion. Her church becomes one of hundreds nationw…
Recovery Allies: Supporting the Pillar of Health
Sarah sits in her doctor's office for the first time in five years. Her recovery journey is months old, but her body carries the weight of years of substance use. This article explores how health beco…
Workplaces at the Forefront
Three panelists gathered to discuss how businesses can reshape workplace culture around recovery. One statistic stopped them: three out of four people with substance use disorder hold jobs. Yet most s…
Maine’s Newly Launched RFW Certification
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…
Considering an Employer?
You're sitting across from a hiring manager, resume in hand. But here's what many people overlook: this interview cuts both ways. Before you say yes to any job, especially in the trades, you need to k…
Employment: A Cornerstone of Recovery
Marcus walked into his new job on Monday morning, clocking in for the first time in five years. By lunch, he realized something had shifted: he belonged somewhere again. Employment does more than pay…
4 Considerations for an Employee Support Program
A manager notices an employee's missed deadlines and withdrawn behavior. Before assuming performance problems, she connects him with the company's support program. The conversation changes everything.…
Up-Level Your Professional Life In Recovery
Someone scrolling through Coursera during their lunch break discovers a web design course that sparks something. Work isn't a luxury during recovery, it's a foundation. This piece explores three affor…
Supporting Employees Through Addiction and Mental Illness
A manager notices an employee's performance slipping, attendance irregular. Before assuming the worst, she has tools to help. Workplaces are discovering that supporting employees through substance use…
Recovery Allies
Someone asks you what you can do to help. Maybe you know a person in recovery searching for housing, or you want your neighborhood to embrace recovery-friendly communities. "Safe housing is the founda…
Eastern Maine Development Corporation (EMDC)
Lee Umphrey walks through Eastern Maine Development Corporation's Bangor office, where one in six employees is in recovery. For Umphrey, hiring people rebuilding their lives isn't a special program. I…
Employers Play a Vital Role
Doug Dunbar sat in jail wondering who would help the young, poor, sick people around him find the resources they desperately needed. Now a recovery specialist himself, he knows the answer: employers w…
Seabreeze Property Services
When someone notices a perfectly manicured lawn in Maine, they might be looking at work done by a person in recovery. Seabreeze Property Services, the state's largest landscaping company, has built so…
Creating a Mentally Healthy and Happy Workplace
An employee dreads Monday mornings, calls in sick twice a month, and quietly struggles with anxiety that nobody at work knows about. Employers are discovering that mental health support isn't just com…
Making It Work for Employees in Recovery
Maine's tourism industry faces two crises at once: nearly one in five hospitality workers struggle with substance use disorders, while understaffed restaurants and hotels scramble to fill positions. B…
Hiring People in Recovery
Dana Lariviere got a phone call two years after firing Sarah, an employee who struggled with attendance. She was calling to apologize, explain her heroin addiction and recovery, and ask for her job ba…
Recovery Friendly Workplaces
Keith Hornberger needed one chance to turn his life around. As a business owner in recovery, he understood that hiring others facing the same struggle meant offering something invaluable: purpose and…
Recovery Works for ME
A peer support specialist at a recovery center watched employers turn away qualified candidates because of past convictions and employment gaps. That observation sparked a workshop teaching business o…
What is Prevention?
A second-grader learns why medication belongs in a locked cabinet. A fourth-grader understands how drugs affect the brain. Prevention education starts early and builds year by year. This column explor…
Recovery in the workplace is an asset for employers
A peer specialist in long-term recovery watches employers struggle to understand why hiring people rebuilding their lives matters. He's spent years seeing how a paycheck transforms someone's ability t…
Probation Officers
Alicia Smith sits across from a person on probation and asks about their hobbies, their family, what matters to them. She's a probation officer, which most people assume means enforcing rules. But Smi…
Five tips for being a recovery ally
Ron Springel sits across from someone newly in recovery and asks an open question: What is your recovery journey like? That conversation, that listening, is where allyship begins. This guide offers fi…
Recovery Allies – Photographers
Joanne Arnold stands at dawn with men gathering around a fire circle at MaineWorks, camera in hand. She photographs people in early recovery, capturing moments of dignity and determination. Later, her…
Yoga Instructors
Elise Boyson came to yoga and felt something unexpected: she was coming home to herself. Now, as Executive Director of Sea Change Yoga in Portland, she brings trauma-informed classes to people in jail…
The Clergy
Rev. Allen Ewing Merrill stands before his congregation and speaks plainly: every person has sacred worth, no exceptions. At HopeGateWay in Portland, faith communities are moving beyond hosting meetin…
Recovery Allies (Issue 8)
At a brewery in Kennebunk, Police Chief Bob MacKenzie describes something radical: officers treating people in recovery with dignity. He's not alone. Across Maine, law enforcement are becoming recover…
Rotarians can make a big impact on addiction crisis
Lisa Hallee sat in a Portland Rotary Club meeting when she heard about the opioid epidemic ravaging Maine. The words landed hard: her nephew had died from an overdose months earlier. That moment spark…
The Holy Donut
When Jen Horton walked into The Holy Donut for her job interview, she heard laughter and singing from behind the counter. The CEO smiled and said, "That's our culture. I love knowing people are happy…
Recovery Allies: Business Owners
A yoga teacher in Portland opens her studio doors free to people in recovery. A credit union helps someone rebuild their credit score. A gym owner reserves one night weekly for members seeking wellnes…
Employers Open The Doors for Those in Recovery
Charlie Bickford runs Maine Paint's four locations and regularly hires people newly sober. When someone from a recovery meeting asks about work, he considers giving them a chance. His reasoning is sim…
Employers Can Be Champions For Recovery
A manager notices an employment gap on a resume and sees potential instead of judgment. This is recovery allyship at work. Employers shape whether people in recovery can rebuild their lives through me…