CLAREMONT — September is National Recovery Month, and a Claremont-based recovery center is looking to bring attention to it with a trio of free community events scheduled throughout the month.
The events are hosted by TLC Recovery Programs, a Claremont-based advocacy and support organization for people recovering from drug misuse or alcohol-use disorder that operates in Sullivan and Grafton counties. TLC Director Dan Wargo said his organization hopes the events will help attendees “recognize that people are in need of recovery, that recovery exists in most communities, and that recovery is possible.”
National Recovery Month was established in 1989 to help promote new evidence-based treatment and recovery practices and to celebrate the recovery community and support providers, according to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Each of the three events focus on a different aspect of recovery and healing. The first, a viewing of the documentary Uprooting Addiction: Healing from the Ground Up at the Claremont Opera House on Thursday explores the correlation between trauma and substance addiction and will be immediately followed by a panel discussion led by medical professionals from TLC and Dartmouth Health along with someone who can speak from personal experience about the link between the two, Wargo said.
The second event, a candlelight vigil at Claremont’s Broad Street Park on Friday, Sept. 23 from 7-9 p.m., will act as a remembrance for people lost to substance misuse, which include more than 415 people who died of drug overdoses in New Hampshire last year and 210 people who died of opioid overdoses in Vermont.
Data from the monitoring initiative on drug-overdose deaths in New Hampshire for 2022 isn’t available yet, but numbers have been trending downward in the state since peaking at 36.4 deaths-per-100,000 in 2017. In 2020, that number stood at 30.7.
In neighboring Vermont, drug overdose deaths increased last year, from 158 deaths in 2020 to 210 in 2021, an increase from a rate of 25.3 such deaths per 100,000 to 33.7.
Wargo said the remembrance will also include a few speakers who will share their own recovery journeys and will also grant time for audience members to share their own stories if they would like.
“More or less, (we) just want to show that, while we’re grieving those that we’ve lost, there’s still hope,” Wargo said. “They will be sharing their stories to offer a little bit of hope in these types of situations.”
The final event is a barbecue at Arrowhead Recreation Area that starts Sunday, Sept. 25, at 1 p.m. Wargo said it’s intended as a no-strings-attached celebration of recovery.
He noted that TLC hosted a barbecue last year that ended up with more than 100 people in attendance and he hopes there’s a similar turnout this year. The community has been “very receptive” to TLC’s services and outreach, Wargo said, because “the problems we have here are apparent and obvious.”
Wargo referenced an incident in Claremont earlier this year, in May, when a “bad batch” of fentanyl led to six known overdoses over a three-day period and led to the town’s police department making a warning announcement about the batch on its Facebook page. He said Claremont’s issues with substance abuse, specifically fentanyl and methamphetamines, “ebbs and flows.”
“Just when it seems like things are getting better, you hear about more people overdosing or more overdose fatalities,” Wargo said. “It seems like every few months, there’s a quiet period and all of a sudden it’s like, ‘Oh dear, this person died.’ ”
The need for opioid-related treatment in New Hampshire has risen in 2022. According to data from the New Hampshire Drug Monitoring Initiative from July 2021 to June 2022, opioid-related emergency department visits climbed from roughly 18 people per 100,000 in January to nearly 22-per-100,000 by June. The administration of naloxone, a opioid-overdose antidote commonly known as Narcan, also rose over the same period, from 10.8-per-100,000 to 11.7-per-100,000.
Wargo believes there’s been “a good upgrade” in treatment for people in the Claremont area. In recent months, new transitional-living homes, also known as “sober houses,” have opened in Claremont to help people recovering from addiction stay sober.
“A common problem that we’ve experienced is we have people coming in who get set up for residential treatment, usually a 28-day program, (but) then they come back here to the same place that got them into treatment in the first place,” Wargo said. “With sober houses, they can exit treatment, come back to their community and into a safe home that helps them maintain their recovery.”
TLC offers a host of programs and resources for people at every juncture in their recovery path, Wargo said. That includes hosting support groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, along with providing access to peer-support specialists who, by virtue of going through recovery themselves, can help assist and mentor people going through it now.
TLC also provides free naloxone and fentanyl-test strips, as well as “resource brokers” who help people in recovery find housing and employment.
TLC has two drop-in centers, one located at 62 Pleasant St. in Claremont and another in Newport, at Millie’s Place, 45 John Stark Highway. Anyone struggling with substance use themselves or is a family member looking for support can also reach TLC’s services by phone at 603-542-1848.
Ray Couture can be reached at 1994rbc@gmail.com.