Topic
Recovery supports are the people, places, and communities that help people build and sustain a life in recovery. Coaches. Recovery houses. Community centers. Peer groups. The structures that exist long after treatment ends — or instead of treatment altogether. Journey makes these visible so people know they're there.
53 stories
Recovery does not follow one path. Clinical care, peer support, spiritual practices, nature-based approaches, and holistic recovery all help different people in different ways. Articles introduce a range of recovery approaches and explore why pathway plurality matters more than picking a winner.
Recovery is built between people. Peer recovery coaches, recovery community centers, and the networks that hold people through early days and over years offer practical, accessible support outside of clinical treatment. Articles cover what peer coaches do, how recovery community centers work, and the everyday ways community sustains long-term recovery.
A growing sober-active culture is rewriting social life in recovery. The Phoenix, sober social societies, and recovery-friendly gatherings offer connection that doesn't require a bar or a meeting. Articles point to what exists, what's growing, and how to build or find social life in recovery.
Addiction is treatable, and recovery is already present in communities everywhere. Much of what people learn about addiction comes through stigma, fear, or incomplete information. Articles cover the basics in plain language: how addiction works, what recovery looks like, and why connection and support matter.
Sweetser’s new Intensive Outpatient Program in Brunswick offers structured, evidence-based treatment three hours a day, four days a week, so people can keep working, studying, and caring for family.
People in recovery often face financial challenges, and outstanding debt can feel overwhelming. Brittany Eaton and Nicole Lemieux of Town & Country Federal Credit Union offer a practical path: know wh…
A client sits with her counselor and names it plainly: another health crisis, another reason to give up. Chronic pain, untreated illness, a broken tooth. Each one whispers that recovery isn't worth th…
Your brain is lying to you about what you need. A small dip in energy feels like crisis. Everyday stress feels overwhelming. This article explains why cravings feel so powerful, how your brain misread…
Someone recovers in a hospital bed. Someone else sits in a church basement. A third person decides at their kitchen table that life has to change. Each of these moments looks different, but they all p…
Patrick Chester looked like he had everything: a wife, two kids, vacations to Hawaii. No one saw the secret eating him alive for nine years. His gambling addiction left no bruises, no visible wreckage…
A conference organizer noticed attendees clustering near the bar, making small talk. Others lingered at the edges, disconnected. By shifting focus from cocktails to structured networking and creative…
Sarah watched her brother spiral for three years while people told her to wait for rock bottom. Then he nearly died from an overdose. What nobody told her is that rock bottom is a myth, and a dangerou…
Scott Strode founded The Phoenix after recognizing that recovery needed more than abstinence. Through rock climbing, yoga, running, and weightlifting, this nonprofit builds community where people in r…
At a networking conference, a professional in recovery watched colleagues cluster around the bar while she stood alone with sparkling water. Event planners are rethinking gatherings to welcome everyon…
Mary read two different stories about herself. In one, she struggled alone. In the other, she was managing her condition with support. The difference changed how people saw her, her worth, and whether…
Twenty people sit around a dinner table in a house on an ordinary street, sharing a meal and their stories. This is a recovery residence, where peers in recovery live together, support each other, and…
Someone loses their job and feels their recovery slipping away. Another builds strength through therapy and steady friendships. Recovery capital measures the total resources, relationships, and commun…
Someone returns to use after months sober. A family member finds out and wonders if recovery is even possible. Recovery from substance use disorder is a long-term process with multiple pathways forwar…
Maria sits in a circle of folding chairs, listening to someone describe a struggle she faced last week. She recognizes herself in the story. Later, she shares her own. This is what community recovery…
When someone's brain becomes wired to crave a substance the way it craves food or water, addiction takes hold. It's not weakness or bad character. It's a medical condition affecting the brain's reward…
When a family first hears "treatment is available," the options can feel overwhelming. This guide breaks down the landscape: residential programs, outpatient care, therapy types, and medications that…
A person calls a treatment center unsure whether they need detox, a residential program, or weekly outpatient sessions. They don't know where to start. This article breaks down Maine's treatment optio…
A person in recovery sits across from someone who has walked a similar path, someone trained to listen without judgment and help navigate what comes next. Maine's recovery coach training programs are…
On college campuses across the country, students in recovery remain invisible, their struggles hidden behind stigma and assumptions. Yet nearly half a million undergraduates identify as in recovery fr…
Peter Wohl stands lost on a remote Vermont mountainside, panic rising as he realizes he cannot find his way back. Years later, beginning recovery, he faces that same disorientation: stripped of the re…
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…
Marcus hasn't set foot in a gym in five years. These days, he walks his neighborhood three times a week, sometimes with a friend. What he's discovered: movement matters in recovery. Research shows eve…
You're sitting with a horse, learning to brush its mane, when something shifts inside you. Holistic recovery combines traditional medical treatment with approaches like equine therapy, art, meditation…
A person in early recovery stares at an unfamiliar reflection, wondering if anyone truly understands the weight they carry. Recovery coaches enter that moment of isolation with something powerful: emp…
Patty King listens as someone describes the fog that won't lift, the anger that erupts without warning, the cravings that pull them back. She recognizes something others missed: a brain injury underne…
Bill left emergency medical work after an injury searching for a new identity. As a recovery coach, he discovered something unexpected: purpose. Watching people emerge from substance use disorder and…
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…
Scientists can now show what addiction looks like inside the brain: less active decision-making centers, dopamine systems flooded beyond normal. Understanding these physical changes matters because it…
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…
Audra hears it often: "I just don't know how to stay sober." Her answer comes from lived experience. As a peer recovery coach, she walks alongside people exploring recovery, building trust from day on…
Someone in recovery walks into a room and meets a coach who's been where they are. That person knows the weight of it, the hope of it, the daily work of it. Recovery coaching, once rare in Maine, now…
Someone scrolling late at night, searching for voices that understand, discovers a recovery account with thousands of followers sharing their stories. That moment of connection reveals something resea…
A beer spilled down her back at a Disney matinee. A wine glass at a six-year-old's birthday party. When this writer stopped drinking almost four years ago, she realized alcohol wasn't just part of her…
MaryBeth Murphy was immobilized in a cast when her life shifted. That pause forced a reckoning that led her into recovery from alcohol and codependency. Years later, searching for deeper connection, s…
A person in recovery sits across from someone who has walked the same painful path. The peer coach doesn't have a clinical degree, but they have something more: their own story of struggle and surviva…
Abby Ehmann watched customers at her New York City sober bar weep with gratitude over their first mocktail in years. Across the country, from football stadiums to concert venues, people in recovery an…
A pregnant person in recovery faces withdrawal symptoms, stigma, and fear of harming their baby. Medication-assisted treatment combined with peer support addresses these specific challenges. Research…
Someone witnesses an overdose and wants to call 911, but fear stops them. What if they have an outstanding warrant? What if their friend does? Maine's expanded Good Samaritan Law removes that barrier,…
Every August, adults return to a Massachusetts camp to do something they thought they'd lost: play. Kindred Spirits Camp, founded in 1982, combines summer fun with recovery community. Through hiking,…
Brittany moved into a recovery residence with nothing but chaos behind her. Five years later, she owns a house, works at the Maine Association of Recovery Residences, and parents an eight-month-old so…
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…
Ron Springel knows exactly what makes a recovery residence work: it's the place where someone actually got well. This simple wisdom points to something larger. Four pillars support recovery for everyo…
Someone shares their story with a peer support specialist in a way they've never shared before. That moment of genuine connection, where trust builds without judgment or commands, is where healing beg…
A parent asks their teenager "What were you thinking?" after a risky choice, and the answer is both simple and scientific: their brain isn't finished developing yet. This piece explains why adolescent…
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…
After a decade in public health meetings, Zoe Brokos realized something crucial: community itself is the healing tool. Not strategies or statistics, but people showing up together, accepting each othe…
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…
Josh Leonard wore out his welcome at home before finding Portland Sober Living. Two years as a resident transformed his life so completely that he stayed on as house manager. Recovery residences, from…
Sarah Siegel stood at a crossroads, feeling death hover over her shoulder as heroin gripped her life. Then a doctor offered another path: methadone. She chose it, and that choice became her choice to…
Leslie Clark drove past a building on her Portland route for months, hearing whispers about something wonderful happening inside. She didn't understand what a recovery community center was until she w…
A young man approached the Paradigm Windows job fair table and whispered a question to Lark Pitts: would his incarceration history disqualify him? She leaned in and told him there was no need to whisp…
