Topic
Recovery-friendly workplaces — Maine's RFW certification, culture change at employers like Kennebunk Savings and Nonantum Resort, and what it takes for a job to actually be a place where recovery is safe.
40 stories
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…
Monique Coombs has been sober since January 2019. As director of programs for Maine Coast Fishermen's Association, she brings counseling and wellness support to commercial fishermen.
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…
A parent sits down with their spouse after dinner and finally says what's been building for weeks: I can't do this alone. That conversation, hard as it was, became the turning point. This piece offers…
Your hands shake before the interview. Your mind loops through doubts about whether you're qualified enough. EFT Tapping offers a different way forward. By gently tapping specific points on your body…
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…
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…
Reilly Harvey runs a Maine painting business called We Paint. A mother and partner, she makes prayer and meditation part of daily life and finds strength in fellowship and service.
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…
Matt Senecal founded Senecal Construction. In early 2024 he was nearing 11 years of sobriety, and he now enjoys skiing, fishing, and boating without drinking.
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…
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…
Your employee arrives late again, irritable, thinner than before. You've noticed the pattern but dreaded the conversation. Yet three in four people with substance use disorder work. When employers spe…
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…
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…
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.…
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…
Dan Belyea is chief workforce development officer for the Maine Community College System. Sober 17 years, he speaks openly about his recovery and pushes for jobs for people in recovery.
Matthew Jones of Portland has been sober since Thanksgiving 2019. A carpenter, he gives people early in recovery work and support.
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
After a breakdown in year three of sobriety, this person walked dogs instead of launching companies. It took years of that simple work to rebuild boundaries, reconnect with recovery, and find real suc…
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…
Colleen Garrick works the 12 steps and sponsors others in recovery. She speaks openly about her past in job interviews, and employers have thanked her for her honesty and vulnerability.
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…
Tania lives in Harpswell, Maine, and has been back in her nursing career for over a year. Her friendships and family ties are thriving. The last time she used was May 26, 2013.
Erica Buswell sits with six community members around a table, planning how to help their friend find work and fix a broken car. What started as a simple idea, that people in recovery have gifts to off…
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…
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…
Doug Dunbar helps people in early recovery find services through his role at Eastern Maine Development Corporation. He says mental health care and the recovery community have been his way to heal.
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…
A manager sits silent after a team member shares an idea. Another colleague jumps in immediately with something unrelated. The idea dies. This article shows how listening, curiosity, and genuine respe…
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…
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…
Mike Elovitz owned a consulting business in New York City. Then he moved to Portland to start over in recovery, smoking fish at a restaurant and working a convenience store register. His Get Well Jobs…
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…
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…
