Love Beyond Walls
Demetrius Davenport promised himself that if he survived federal prison, he would never return. Years later, he kept that promise by giving his life to God and discovering his voice through Christian…
Recovery is not rare
28 million and growing
Recovery looks like 28 million different lives.
Personal stories are how we see that, one person at a time.
People share what brought them to recovery, what changed, and what daily life looks like now, covering decades of writing from people across many pathways, many backgrounds, and many points in the journey.
Full Circle of Light
Years ago, a woman spoke at the treatment center where the author sat as a new patient. She'd survived streets and addiction, rebuilt her life with deliberate steps, and held hands with a sober partne…
In the Heart of Phoenix,a Recovery Movement Rises
On a Monday night under park lights in Scottsdale, more than twenty people in recovery circle up for volleyball. No church basement, no folding chairs. Just movement, music, and laughter. In Phoenix,…
Tim Sample: Finding Peace in the Unknown
Tim Sample spent decades making America laugh from network television stages, earning six figures and critical acclaim. But behind the spotlight, he was running from himself, using humor and substance…
Alaina Knox
Someone offered Alaina Knox drugs during her final weeks in prison. She almost took them. But an inner voice stopped her, and the next day she was randomly drug tested. That moment of choice set her o…
Finding Strength in Sobriety
Monique Coombs woke in panic after a party in January 2019, asking herself why she kept doing this to herself. She hasn't had a drink since. Now, as director of programs for Maine Coast Fishermen's As…
Kenny Williams Choosing to Be of Service
Kenny Williams noticed a vacant building as a kid and asked his aunt why no one fixed it up for homeless people. Decades later, after getting sober through recovery meetings and therapy, he found his…
Tom Filippini
Discover the inspiring journey behind Pepper Pong—a game of healing and connection. Dive into Tom Filippini’s story of recovery, community, and joy. Play, connect, and find hope with Pepper Pong.
Mr. Drew: Animals and His Sobriety, Too
Discover the heartwarming journey of Mr. Drew and His Animals, Too. From recovery to creating smiles, Andrew’s inspiring story shows the power of second chances and spreading joy. Join the community:…
Hope Through Love & Resilience: A Family’s Recovery Journey
Embark on a transformative journey with Linda and Melissa, guided by resilience, community, and unwavering hope. Discover the real, empowering stories that prove recovery is within reach, one step at…
James Rickrode
James Rickrode once consumed a gallon of vodka daily and threatened his wife. That felony arrest sent him to jail, where something shifted. Seven years later, he runs Fresh Start Sober Living, managin…
Danielle Rideout
Danielle Rideout was 12 when she first tried alcohol on a Maine island where everyone knew her name. But community wasn't enough to fill the void she felt. Drugs and alcohol seemed to do what nothing…
Cameron Obremski
Cameron Obremski's cat Belle runs and hides whenever he raises his voice. Years into recovery, he realizes he's chasing away the love he's finally learning to accept. This musician's journey reveals h…
Reilly Harvey: Worthy – Navigating Recovery and Healing
Reilly Harvey grew up in a nurturing Maine lobstering family, yet she felt so alone she cried every day for years. Behind a good mask, alcohol and relationships consumed her. After nineteen years, sto…
From Recovery to the Finish Line, Chris Madden’s Story
Chris Madden stands at the summit of his forty-eighth mountain, his father beside him on the New Hampshire peak. Four years sober, Chris has transformed from someone struggling to believe in himself i…
Navigating Sobriety with Self-Compassion and Courage
Erin Hamlin stood in front of her fitness class, fully present with her three children at home, something she once thought impossible. Now a recovery advocate in Maine, she's learning that sobriety me…
Radiant in Recovery – Danielle Ward
In prison, Danielle Ward enrolled in college courses and became a recovery coach. She couldn't imagine leaving her kids for treatment years before, but now, with five years of sobriety, she's earning…
Personal Recovery Story: Matt Senecal
Matt Senecal built a successful construction company, owned multiple homes and a boat, yet measured his worth by possessions he was terrified to lose. When the market crashed in 2008, his identity sha…
Gaining Peace of Mind from My Financial Past
A woman sits down with a financial workbook and finds herself trembling. Write your family history around money, it says. She remembers the sheriff at the door, utilities cut off, her mother working t…
Compassion in Action: Bethany Johnson
Bethany Johnson hands a caller a folder of recovery resources, her voice steady with certainty: "We do recover and we are never alone." Eight years sober in the small Maine town where addiction once c…
Ryan Paige
Ryan Paige woke up in a hospital recovery wing after two overdoses in one week. That September morning in 2019, he made a choice that would reshape his life and eventually help thousands of others. Hi…
Josh Colwell
Josh Colwell sat in a crowded meeting, front row seat, listening to a stranger describe his own spiral with uncanny accuracy. The substances matched. The feelings matched. But this man looked like he…
Stories Restoring Hope: Inked and Sober
Chris Bastey's clients book tattoo appointments years in advance for his bold, colorful work at Atlantic Studios in Rockland, Maine. Five years sober, he credits his art and a deliberate spiritual pra…
James Dillon III
James Dillon stands soaked at Portland's Pride Festival, hosting a mocktail bar for the recovery community center while rain streams down the park. Drenched and grinning, he realizes something: both h…
Crystale Vega’s Journey
Crystale Vega was released from jail in March 2020 with five months of sobriety and little else. Three years later, she holds an associate's degree, a car, an apartment, and a leadership role helping…
Stories Restoring Hope: Malerie Lockhart
Malerie Lockhart sits across from men in Maine's reentry center, helping them imagine life after incarceration. Once, she sold everything for a one-way ticket to Florida with two hundred dollars and a…
Dan Belyea
Dan Belyea divided his returnable bottles among different stores, gained seventy pounds, and drank alone every evening at home. He thought no one could see the problem. Now, after seventeen years sobe…
Stories Restoring Hope: Jim Mello
Jim Mello's Sunday sermons reach three Methodist churches, his poetry fills handwritten notebooks by the thousands, and his voice once hosted a college radio show. But it's his work as a substance use…
Building Better, Building Together
Matthew Jones was skateboarding when he tore his second ACL. This time, he reached for the painkillers. Years later, after his family had left and his business had crumbled, a phone call from an old s…
Sobriety is a Gift That Keeps on Giving
She walked into a therapist's office asking one question and left with none of the answers she expected. Twenty-three years later, that moment marked the beginning of everything else. This is how one…
Recovered, with April Tomah
April Tomah once struggled with heroin for ten years, surviving at least eight overdoses. Today, the forty-five-year-old mother of three chairs the Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance and works in public hea…
Wendy Ayres – Night Shift filled with Light
Wendy works nights at a residential treatment facility, staying awake when residents need someone who understands. Nearly eighteen years in recovery, she listens with the wisdom of someone who survive…
A Son, Softened Ed Crockett’s Story
Ed Crockett was two years old when his father left, a man the newspapers called Portland's worst drunk. Thirty years later, they would find each other again. This is a story about how a son learned th…
Maine Voices of Recovery – Rachelle Bell
Rachelle Bell sits across from incarcerated people in Maine's reentry centers, telling them the truth: the only difference between them and her is that she never got caught. Ten years sober after a de…
Dave Smith
A young person in recovery asked Dave Smith if he ever thought about getting high again. Dave looked at his life: a twenty-year marriage, twelve grandchildren, a good job, a home. He realized the thou…
Carly and Brinn Flagg
Carly Flagg woke in an ICU bed after her father found her overdosed in the family bathroom. That moment split her life in two: before, when she stole from everyone she loved to fund her heroin use, an…
Maine Voices of Recovery Issue #23
Rochelle Grant Kenney watches her grandson Sander call out "Mimi" across the living room in Hope, Maine. That voice reminds her daily of everything she regained when she got sober in 2009. Now she wor…
Brad Sorte
Brad Sorte kicks a soccer ball with his daughter, lunches with business partners, seems to have it all. But years ago, he was a boy without words for his pain, reaching for alcohol as his only tool. T…
Maine Voices of Recovery Issue #22
Becky watched the softball game from a parking lot, drunk, needing her husband and mother to help her to the car. That moment broke through eight years of hiding. She admitted she needed help, message…
Christine Maider
Christine stood outside an AdCare facility in Worcester, watching people connect and smile. She wondered why she couldn't have that. Five years ago, she decided she could. Today, she's regained custod…
Freddy Petrone
Freddy Petrone swung at a golf ball and watched it vanish. At the driving range, he knew something had changed. Four years later, blindness would force him to face what he'd been drinking to escape. B…
Anthony Brown
Anthony Brown sat on a park bench where he once slept rough, asking God for proof of existence. Years sober, he felt overwhelming peace wash over him in that moment. Today, that man who spent 23 years…
A Southern Maine Woman's Story
A Southern Maine woman woke one morning knowing she had to stop. Hiding vodka and pain pills while her daughter asked why mom seemed so far away, she finally called her doctor. Thirty years later, she…
Ben Sawyer
Ben Sawyer was a Marine, then a nurse, then a man watching his life dissolve after a routine dental prescription for Percocet. Five years into addiction, an investigator's phone call became his turnin…
Russ's Story
On the morning of January 28, 2017, Russ woke up drunk without meaning to drink at all. He walked into an AA meeting the next day and stayed. Seven years later, Russ has rebuilt his relationships, his…
Sarah Langevin
Sarah closes the bathroom door in her Auburn home, not to hide, but to breathe. Four children play beyond it. Inside, she thanks the frustration and anger visiting her body, then lets them go. This sm…
A Cultural Connection Drives Personal Transformation
Steven Knockwood walked out of prison in March 2020 as lockdown began, carrying years of self-sabotage and addiction. Four years into recovery, he now manages Opportunity House, an indigenous men's re…
Christopher Poulos
Christopher Poulos sat in a jail cell, listening to his court-appointed attorney suggest he simply stay locked up. That moment of abandonment became a turning point. Today, he's a lawyer fighting the…
Joe K.'s Story
Joe K. walked into his first AA meeting nervous, unsure if anyone could understand his journey. Years later, he burned the notebook containing his most painful confessions, watching the flames release…
Marshall Mercer
Marshall Mercer grew up searching for identity in all the wrong places: crime, then drugs, then prison. At 33, heroin nearly killed him multiple times. But in a jail cell, a stranger's smile and a Bib…
Senior Sober
At sixty-one, Brian Cuban remembers sitting in a recovery room at forty-six, listening to people twenty and thirty years sober and thinking he'd wasted his life. He'd spent years replaying the past, c…
Millions of Cups of Coffee and Not a Drop to Drink
Helen Thorgalsen stands behind the counter at H.B. Provisions, the general store she built with her partner 20 years ago in Kennebunk. She's been sober for 34 years. This is her story of recovery, of…
Willa Wirth – A Force of Nature
Willa Wirth crafts silver pendants shaped like cresting waves and earrings that shimmer like moonlight. Her jewelry is instantly recognizable as masterwork. It's also the work of a woman in recovery w…
Amanda Kurlanski – Trusting the Process
Amanda Kurlanski arrived at the McAuley Residence nearly homeless, unemployable, and fighting to get her children back. Two months sober, she needed more than a bed. She needed a community that believ…
Beth's Story
Beth's niece asked the same question three times at Christmas dinner. Each time, Beth had no memory of answering. That repetition became her turning point. For decades, she'd cycled through Alcoholics…
You Don’t Have to Be a Prisoner of Your Past
Colleen walks into a job interview and tells the recruiter straight: she's in recovery, just released from prison, spent time incarcerated for drug trafficking. She's direct, honest, at peace. Days la…
Tania Margate
Tania sat alone in an empty house after a drug raid, using by herself, when something shifted. The desperation she felt looking around that cold shell was the moment she realized how far her addiction…
Stephen Chabot
Stephen Chabot wakes at 4:34 AM to work out before his three young children stir, before the demands of leading Maine's largest elementary school begin. He's reclaimed mornings as his territory, he sa…
Sober Living Comes Full Circle
Daryl needed someone to handle rent, utilities, furniture. Someone to manage the noise so he could focus on recovery. Years later, he and his fiancée Katahli opened two sober houses in Maine, giving o…
Maulian Dana
Maulian Dana woke up on June 4, 2018, after a Sunday she couldn't be proud of. She'd been drinking wine, arguing about politics, feeling shame wash over her each Monday morning. That day, she texted h…
Amy Alexander
Amy found a sand dollar on a beach outside a hotel where she was staying with her boyfriend and understood it as a sign to leave. That moment, asking for help and calling the police, marked the beginn…
Kevin O’Grady
Kevin O'Grady spent fifty years drinking nearly every day, trying everything from twelve-step programs to ninety-day treatment centers. Nothing stuck until he discovered the Weiss Method, an energy-ba…
Mike Ouellette
Mike Ouellette arrived at York County Shelter Programs with one bag containing everything he owned. Grief, loss, and years of drinking had left him homeless and hopeless. What happened next shows how…
Brant Dadaleares
Brant Dadaleares sits across from job candidates without asking about their past with alcohol and drugs. Instead, he tells them straight: "Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes because I've done it…
Sara Kraus
Sara Kraus walks out of her bank shift and pauses before speaking. She's nervous sharing her story, but she will, hoping it reaches someone trapped in the darkness she escaped. Her path to recovery wa…
Recovery’s elder stateswoman celebrates four sober decades
Joan Giles was thirty-eight when she slipped on a shower floor, half-drunk, and imagined her sleeping daughter finding her unconscious. That moment changed everything. Now ninety, she has guided thous…
Louis Grassi
Louis grew up in a loving Maine home, surrounded by family and Sunday dinners. Anxiety found him anyway, then opioids. Five years dependent on heroin and pills felt inescapable. Today, five years sobe…
Sarah Siegel
Sarah Siegel helps her three children out the door on a school morning, then heads to her job as a recovery coach. Twelve years ago, she was homeless, moving between treatment programs and survival. H…
Lisa Silverman
Lisa Silverman sits in a coffee shop, radiant and grounded, a far cry from 1989 when she drank to blackout and felt trapped. After treatment and holistic training in meditation, nutrition, and breathw…
Transformed: Painter Eric Sorensen
Eric Sorensen pulls socks from his backpack to hand to people sleeping on Portland streets. Eleven years ago, he was one of them, pulling cardboard from dumpsters to survive. Today, he's a painter and…
Kayla Kalel
Kayla wakes early, drinks coffee, practices yoga, then heads to the beach with her nine-month-old daughter Trinity. A perfect day, she says, includes one essential thing: staying abstinent. In recover…
Elaine Lilley
Elaine walked past her dog waiting on the couch, ears perked for her usual greeting. That night, she couldn't offer it. By morning, she knew something had to change. Four years later, she explores how…
Melissa Rivera
Melissa Rivera quit drinking at thirty-seven, convinced a little cocaine wouldn't matter. She was wrong. Within months, she was consuming eighth-ounce quantities several times weekly, down to one hund…
Amanda Lapointe
Amanda Lapointe thought vulnerability was weakness. In recovery, she learned it was the opposite. Now a sober single mom reunited with her daughter and family, she speaks at jails and treatment center…
Jennie Joan Ferrare
Jennie Joan Ferrare saw herself in a vision, watched her own hand lift the glass, and knew what would follow: blackouts, waking in strange places, assault. That moment of clarity changed everything. N…
Heather Huntley
Heather's granddaughter loves her nanny. Her sixteen-year-old has her back. She gave her kids their first real Christmas in years. These moments arrived because Heather stopped making bad choices and…
A Southern Maine Woman's Story
A Southern Maine woman woke one morning knowing she had to stop. Hiding vodka and pain pills while her daughter asked why mom seemed so far away, she finally called her doctor. Thirty years later, she…
Russ's Story
On the morning of January 28, 2017, Russ woke up drunk without meaning to drink at all. He walked into an AA meeting the next day and stayed. Seven years later, Russ has rebuilt his relationships, his…
Joe K.'s Story
Joe K. walked into his first AA meeting nervous, unsure if anyone could understand his journey. Years later, he burned the notebook containing his most painful confessions, watching the flames release…
Beth's Story
Beth's niece asked the same question three times at Christmas dinner. Each time, Beth had no memory of answering. That repetition became her turning point. For decades, she'd cycled through Alcoholics…
Love Beyond Walls
Demetrius Davenport promised himself that if he survived federal prison, he would never return. Years later, he kept that promise by giving his life to God and discovering his voice through Christian…
Full Circle of Light
Years ago, a woman spoke at the treatment center where the author sat as a new patient. She'd survived streets and addiction, rebuilt her life with deliberate steps, and held hands with a sober partne…
In the Heart of Phoenix,a Recovery Movement Rises
On a Monday night under park lights in Scottsdale, more than twenty people in recovery circle up for volleyball. No church basement, no folding chairs. Just movement, music, and laughter. In Phoenix,…
Tim Sample: Finding Peace in the Unknown
Tim Sample spent decades making America laugh from network television stages, earning six figures and critical acclaim. But behind the spotlight, he was running from himself, using humor and substance…
Alaina Knox
Someone offered Alaina Knox drugs during her final weeks in prison. She almost took them. But an inner voice stopped her, and the next day she was randomly drug tested. That moment of choice set her o…
Finding Strength in Sobriety
Monique Coombs woke in panic after a party in January 2019, asking herself why she kept doing this to herself. She hasn't had a drink since. Now, as director of programs for Maine Coast Fishermen's As…
Kenny Williams Choosing to Be of Service
Kenny Williams noticed a vacant building as a kid and asked his aunt why no one fixed it up for homeless people. Decades later, after getting sober through recovery meetings and therapy, he found his…
Tom Filippini
Discover the inspiring journey behind Pepper Pong—a game of healing and connection. Dive into Tom Filippini’s story of recovery, community, and joy. Play, connect, and find hope with Pepper Pong.
Mr. Drew: Animals and His Sobriety, Too
Discover the heartwarming journey of Mr. Drew and His Animals, Too. From recovery to creating smiles, Andrew’s inspiring story shows the power of second chances and spreading joy. Join the community:…
Hope Through Love & Resilience: A Family’s Recovery Journey
Embark on a transformative journey with Linda and Melissa, guided by resilience, community, and unwavering hope. Discover the real, empowering stories that prove recovery is within reach, one step at…
James Rickrode
James Rickrode once consumed a gallon of vodka daily and threatened his wife. That felony arrest sent him to jail, where something shifted. Seven years later, he runs Fresh Start Sober Living, managin…
Danielle Rideout
Danielle Rideout was 12 when she first tried alcohol on a Maine island where everyone knew her name. But community wasn't enough to fill the void she felt. Drugs and alcohol seemed to do what nothing…
Cameron Obremski
Cameron Obremski's cat Belle runs and hides whenever he raises his voice. Years into recovery, he realizes he's chasing away the love he's finally learning to accept. This musician's journey reveals h…
Reilly Harvey: Worthy – Navigating Recovery and Healing
Reilly Harvey grew up in a nurturing Maine lobstering family, yet she felt so alone she cried every day for years. Behind a good mask, alcohol and relationships consumed her. After nineteen years, sto…
From Recovery to the Finish Line, Chris Madden’s Story
Chris Madden stands at the summit of his forty-eighth mountain, his father beside him on the New Hampshire peak. Four years sober, Chris has transformed from someone struggling to believe in himself i…
Navigating Sobriety with Self-Compassion and Courage
Erin Hamlin stood in front of her fitness class, fully present with her three children at home, something she once thought impossible. Now a recovery advocate in Maine, she's learning that sobriety me…
Radiant in Recovery – Danielle Ward
In prison, Danielle Ward enrolled in college courses and became a recovery coach. She couldn't imagine leaving her kids for treatment years before, but now, with five years of sobriety, she's earning…
Personal Recovery Story: Matt Senecal
Matt Senecal built a successful construction company, owned multiple homes and a boat, yet measured his worth by possessions he was terrified to lose. When the market crashed in 2008, his identity sha…
Gaining Peace of Mind from My Financial Past
A woman sits down with a financial workbook and finds herself trembling. Write your family history around money, it says. She remembers the sheriff at the door, utilities cut off, her mother working t…
Compassion in Action: Bethany Johnson
Bethany Johnson hands a caller a folder of recovery resources, her voice steady with certainty: "We do recover and we are never alone." Eight years sober in the small Maine town where addiction once c…
Ryan Paige
Ryan Paige woke up in a hospital recovery wing after two overdoses in one week. That September morning in 2019, he made a choice that would reshape his life and eventually help thousands of others. Hi…
Josh Colwell
Josh Colwell sat in a crowded meeting, front row seat, listening to a stranger describe his own spiral with uncanny accuracy. The substances matched. The feelings matched. But this man looked like he…
Stories Restoring Hope: Inked and Sober
Chris Bastey's clients book tattoo appointments years in advance for his bold, colorful work at Atlantic Studios in Rockland, Maine. Five years sober, he credits his art and a deliberate spiritual pra…
James Dillon III
James Dillon stands soaked at Portland's Pride Festival, hosting a mocktail bar for the recovery community center while rain streams down the park. Drenched and grinning, he realizes something: both h…
Crystale Vega’s Journey
Crystale Vega was released from jail in March 2020 with five months of sobriety and little else. Three years later, she holds an associate's degree, a car, an apartment, and a leadership role helping…
Stories Restoring Hope: Malerie Lockhart
Malerie Lockhart sits across from men in Maine's reentry center, helping them imagine life after incarceration. Once, she sold everything for a one-way ticket to Florida with two hundred dollars and a…
Dan Belyea
Dan Belyea divided his returnable bottles among different stores, gained seventy pounds, and drank alone every evening at home. He thought no one could see the problem. Now, after seventeen years sobe…
Stories Restoring Hope: Jim Mello
Jim Mello's Sunday sermons reach three Methodist churches, his poetry fills handwritten notebooks by the thousands, and his voice once hosted a college radio show. But it's his work as a substance use…
Building Better, Building Together
Matthew Jones was skateboarding when he tore his second ACL. This time, he reached for the painkillers. Years later, after his family had left and his business had crumbled, a phone call from an old s…
Sobriety is a Gift That Keeps on Giving
She walked into a therapist's office asking one question and left with none of the answers she expected. Twenty-three years later, that moment marked the beginning of everything else. This is how one…
Recovered, with April Tomah
April Tomah once struggled with heroin for ten years, surviving at least eight overdoses. Today, the forty-five-year-old mother of three chairs the Wabanaki Two Spirit Alliance and works in public hea…
Wendy Ayres – Night Shift filled with Light
Wendy works nights at a residential treatment facility, staying awake when residents need someone who understands. Nearly eighteen years in recovery, she listens with the wisdom of someone who survive…
A Son, Softened Ed Crockett’s Story
Ed Crockett was two years old when his father left, a man the newspapers called Portland's worst drunk. Thirty years later, they would find each other again. This is a story about how a son learned th…
Maine Voices of Recovery – Rachelle Bell
Rachelle Bell sits across from incarcerated people in Maine's reentry centers, telling them the truth: the only difference between them and her is that she never got caught. Ten years sober after a de…
Dave Smith
A young person in recovery asked Dave Smith if he ever thought about getting high again. Dave looked at his life: a twenty-year marriage, twelve grandchildren, a good job, a home. He realized the thou…
Carly and Brinn Flagg
Carly Flagg woke in an ICU bed after her father found her overdosed in the family bathroom. That moment split her life in two: before, when she stole from everyone she loved to fund her heroin use, an…
Maine Voices of Recovery Issue #23
Rochelle Grant Kenney watches her grandson Sander call out "Mimi" across the living room in Hope, Maine. That voice reminds her daily of everything she regained when she got sober in 2009. Now she wor…
Brad Sorte
Brad Sorte kicks a soccer ball with his daughter, lunches with business partners, seems to have it all. But years ago, he was a boy without words for his pain, reaching for alcohol as his only tool. T…
Maine Voices of Recovery Issue #22
Becky watched the softball game from a parking lot, drunk, needing her husband and mother to help her to the car. That moment broke through eight years of hiding. She admitted she needed help, message…
Christine Maider
Christine stood outside an AdCare facility in Worcester, watching people connect and smile. She wondered why she couldn't have that. Five years ago, she decided she could. Today, she's regained custod…
Freddy Petrone
Freddy Petrone swung at a golf ball and watched it vanish. At the driving range, he knew something had changed. Four years later, blindness would force him to face what he'd been drinking to escape. B…
Anthony Brown
Anthony Brown sat on a park bench where he once slept rough, asking God for proof of existence. Years sober, he felt overwhelming peace wash over him in that moment. Today, that man who spent 23 years…
Ben Sawyer
Ben Sawyer was a Marine, then a nurse, then a man watching his life dissolve after a routine dental prescription for Percocet. Five years into addiction, an investigator's phone call became his turnin…
Sarah Langevin
Sarah closes the bathroom door in her Auburn home, not to hide, but to breathe. Four children play beyond it. Inside, she thanks the frustration and anger visiting her body, then lets them go. This sm…
A Cultural Connection Drives Personal Transformation
Steven Knockwood walked out of prison in March 2020 as lockdown began, carrying years of self-sabotage and addiction. Four years into recovery, he now manages Opportunity House, an indigenous men's re…
Christopher Poulos
Christopher Poulos sat in a jail cell, listening to his court-appointed attorney suggest he simply stay locked up. That moment of abandonment became a turning point. Today, he's a lawyer fighting the…
Marshall Mercer
Marshall Mercer grew up searching for identity in all the wrong places: crime, then drugs, then prison. At 33, heroin nearly killed him multiple times. But in a jail cell, a stranger's smile and a Bib…
Senior Sober
At sixty-one, Brian Cuban remembers sitting in a recovery room at forty-six, listening to people twenty and thirty years sober and thinking he'd wasted his life. He'd spent years replaying the past, c…
Millions of Cups of Coffee and Not a Drop to Drink
Helen Thorgalsen stands behind the counter at H.B. Provisions, the general store she built with her partner 20 years ago in Kennebunk. She's been sober for 34 years. This is her story of recovery, of…
Willa Wirth – A Force of Nature
Willa Wirth crafts silver pendants shaped like cresting waves and earrings that shimmer like moonlight. Her jewelry is instantly recognizable as masterwork. It's also the work of a woman in recovery w…
Amanda Kurlanski – Trusting the Process
Amanda Kurlanski arrived at the McAuley Residence nearly homeless, unemployable, and fighting to get her children back. Two months sober, she needed more than a bed. She needed a community that believ…
You Don’t Have to Be a Prisoner of Your Past
Colleen walks into a job interview and tells the recruiter straight: she's in recovery, just released from prison, spent time incarcerated for drug trafficking. She's direct, honest, at peace. Days la…
Tania Margate
Tania sat alone in an empty house after a drug raid, using by herself, when something shifted. The desperation she felt looking around that cold shell was the moment she realized how far her addiction…
Stephen Chabot
Stephen Chabot wakes at 4:34 AM to work out before his three young children stir, before the demands of leading Maine's largest elementary school begin. He's reclaimed mornings as his territory, he sa…
Sober Living Comes Full Circle
Daryl needed someone to handle rent, utilities, furniture. Someone to manage the noise so he could focus on recovery. Years later, he and his fiancée Katahli opened two sober houses in Maine, giving o…
Maulian Dana
Maulian Dana woke up on June 4, 2018, after a Sunday she couldn't be proud of. She'd been drinking wine, arguing about politics, feeling shame wash over her each Monday morning. That day, she texted h…
Amy Alexander
Amy found a sand dollar on a beach outside a hotel where she was staying with her boyfriend and understood it as a sign to leave. That moment, asking for help and calling the police, marked the beginn…
Kevin O’Grady
Kevin O'Grady spent fifty years drinking nearly every day, trying everything from twelve-step programs to ninety-day treatment centers. Nothing stuck until he discovered the Weiss Method, an energy-ba…
Mike Ouellette
Mike Ouellette arrived at York County Shelter Programs with one bag containing everything he owned. Grief, loss, and years of drinking had left him homeless and hopeless. What happened next shows how…
Brant Dadaleares
Brant Dadaleares sits across from job candidates without asking about their past with alcohol and drugs. Instead, he tells them straight: "Don't try to pull the wool over my eyes because I've done it…
Sara Kraus
Sara Kraus walks out of her bank shift and pauses before speaking. She's nervous sharing her story, but she will, hoping it reaches someone trapped in the darkness she escaped. Her path to recovery wa…
Recovery’s elder stateswoman celebrates four sober decades
Joan Giles was thirty-eight when she slipped on a shower floor, half-drunk, and imagined her sleeping daughter finding her unconscious. That moment changed everything. Now ninety, she has guided thous…
Louis Grassi
Louis grew up in a loving Maine home, surrounded by family and Sunday dinners. Anxiety found him anyway, then opioids. Five years dependent on heroin and pills felt inescapable. Today, five years sobe…
Sarah Siegel
Sarah Siegel helps her three children out the door on a school morning, then heads to her job as a recovery coach. Twelve years ago, she was homeless, moving between treatment programs and survival. H…
Lisa Silverman
Lisa Silverman sits in a coffee shop, radiant and grounded, a far cry from 1989 when she drank to blackout and felt trapped. After treatment and holistic training in meditation, nutrition, and breathw…
Transformed: Painter Eric Sorensen
Eric Sorensen pulls socks from his backpack to hand to people sleeping on Portland streets. Eleven years ago, he was one of them, pulling cardboard from dumpsters to survive. Today, he's a painter and…
Kayla Kalel
Kayla wakes early, drinks coffee, practices yoga, then heads to the beach with her nine-month-old daughter Trinity. A perfect day, she says, includes one essential thing: staying abstinent. In recover…
Elaine Lilley
Elaine walked past her dog waiting on the couch, ears perked for her usual greeting. That night, she couldn't offer it. By morning, she knew something had to change. Four years later, she explores how…
Melissa Rivera
Melissa Rivera quit drinking at thirty-seven, convinced a little cocaine wouldn't matter. She was wrong. Within months, she was consuming eighth-ounce quantities several times weekly, down to one hund…
Amanda Lapointe
Amanda Lapointe thought vulnerability was weakness. In recovery, she learned it was the opposite. Now a sober single mom reunited with her daughter and family, she speaks at jails and treatment center…
Jennie Joan Ferrare
Jennie Joan Ferrare saw herself in a vision, watched her own hand lift the glass, and knew what would follow: blackouts, waking in strange places, assault. That moment of clarity changed everything. N…
Heather Huntley
Heather's granddaughter loves her nanny. Her sixteen-year-old has her back. She gave her kids their first real Christmas in years. These moments arrived because Heather stopped making bad choices and…