Using Her Own Recovery to Help Others

Danielle Rideout grew up on an island off the coast of Maine. She felt embraced by her tight-knit community, but that wasn’t enough to beat out the alcohol and drugs that filled a void she had felt from very early on in life.

“As soon as I tried drugs and alcohol, it hit me that this was what had been missing from my life. This is what’s going to make me feel safe in my own skin.”

Danielle first experimented with alcohol when she was 12 years old. She started using opiates at age 15 years.

“In my junior and senior years in high school, I remember being so sick because I either didn’t use the night before or I used that morning and I was nauseous from that. And it was just this vicious cycle. But I was weirdly okay with it because this is what made me feel okay.”

Danielle entered treatment for the first time before she graduated high school.

“I started young and got sober young,” Danielle confirms.

This included detox and attending a 12-step program with a friend. Although she recognized and appreciated the help she was receiving, unfortunately, her recovery didn’t stick. She was in and out of treatment between the ages of 17 and 22.

Danielle also got a job lobstering after high school and entered into a “work hard, play hard” phase in her life where she put in long hours on the lobster boat, but in her own time, she had begun using drugs.

During these tumultuous years, Danielle knows that she was lucky to always have one constant: the support and encouragement she received from her family to keep trying to get and stay sober.

“Whether it was my mom, my brother, my uncles, my cousins, my grandmother… I always knew I had a place to go and I knew I always had someone to be there for me.”

Danielle met her husband when she was 21 but continued using through the early years of this relationship [her husband does not have a substance use disorder].

When she was 23, Danielle found out she was pregnant.

This finally gave her the courage to make a change.

“I knew that I couldn’t be the mom I wanted to be and use drugs, so I got on Suboxone and ended up staying sober throughout my pregnancy.”

Danielle was fortunate to connect with a pilot program at Mercy Hospital for moms in recovery using Suboxone. “In group, we would talk about recovery and pregnancy and parenting. Nurses came in to help us prepare and set up to succeed. It was the greatest program.”

Danielle stayed connected with the mom’s group after giving birth to her daughter. “But when she was about three months old, I ended up relapsing.”

This time, however, Danielle was determined to get into recovery and stay there. After striking out at two treatment centers, the new mom found her way back to the 12-step program.

“I spent every day of the first three years of my recovery in a 12-step meeting. I stayed on Suboxone. I got a sponsor. I worked the steps.”

And then something else changed for Danielle. As her own recovery took root, she knew that she wanted to reach out and help others.

“I don’t really ever do things halfway, so I wasn’t just going to be in recovery. I also wanted to become a substance use counselor, so I worked for it and got my counseling license.”

Danielle loved her job working in a methadone clinic and continued her own recovery by successfully tapering off Suboxone. She also added fitness to her daily routine, which she said was a key part in helping deal with the side effects of ending Suboxone.

In the 17 years since, Danielle has volunteered with family crisis services and other helping agencies, obtained a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and a master’s degree in counseling, served as the Westbrook Police Department’s recovery liaison, and began teaching a recovery-friendly Phoenix class at Crossfit Yarmouth. “The gym has become another place of community for me. I have developed amazing friendships there, and it has given my family a healthy way to spend time together.”

She and her husband also had their second child, a son.

Today, she’s a counselor in private practice who specializes in working with individuals and families experiencing substance use disorder as well as people involved in the criminal justice system and pregnancy/parenting issues.

Danielle views her work helping others on their recovery journey to be a privilege. “Every time someone walks into my office, I feel like I have the privilege of being there with them, of hearing their story and being a safe place for them to share that shame in hopes that over time it lessens. This is powerful work.”

Danielle’s openness about her own recovery journey has also helped open doors as she connects people with recovery resources she has personally experienced.

To Danielle, this is part of being a good member of the Maine recovery community, which in many ways resembles the large family and tight-knit island community of her origins.
“I’m trying to do what my family and the island did for me, I guess, by building a sense of community for people, a sense of connection and belonging…to help them know that support is there when they are ready.”