NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Organizers of Saturday's Voices of Recovery are hoping to "flip the script on what addiction looks like."

 

Begun as a vigil in 2013 mourning those lost to addiction, the event has grown over the years to focus more strongly on recovery by adding a gathering and walk. It runs from 1 to 3:30 on Saturday at Colegrove Park with the 

 

"You think of death, you think of arrests, you think of broken homes, and that's all part of it," Colin Woods, a former addict now working with Berkshire Transition Network in Great Barrington. "For a young person in recovery it's a scary step to take ... [we need] to show there is hope and there is freedom on the other side."

 

Woods knows from experience. Raised in Clarksburg, his plans for higher education and taking over this family business fell to the wayside as his alcohol abuse as teen got him kicked out of college. As his addiction progressed, he moved on to opiates when his work in a pharmacy made them easily available. He burned bridges with family, was in trouble with the law and had reached a point even the substance abusers around him distanced themselves. 

 

He was homeless and camping out an Mausert's at his lowest point when he walked to the home of a relative who had conquered addiction to ask for help. 

 

"Addiction brings people to unimaginable bottoms both physically and emotionally," Woods said. "To have that hope and to have somebody hold their hand out and say I've been through that before is the way out."

 

Woods entered a treatment center in Connecticut and now, 6 1/2 years later, is holding out his hand to help others. The key, for him at least, was seeing young people who had overcome addiction.

 

"I need to see it. I needed to see somebody who took that next step and was living a life of freedom and happiness," he said. Instead of recovery being a grind, it was about moving forward and achieving goals.

 

"That's what I would like people to see recovery as: an upward trajectory not just a slow grind." 

 

Saturday's event highlight the path to freedom from addiction at the family friendly event with representatives from local resource groups, speakers, a walk down main street, music and activities. Northern Berkshire Community Coalition is the lead this year but Kenna Waterman's Josh Bressette Commit to Save A Life again will have a "Wall of Recovery."

 

"A big part of this event is to make recovery visible," said Wendy Penner, director of prevention and wellness at Northern Berkshire Community Coalition. "Because what is visible in our community about addiction is often death, overdoes, tragedy." 

 

Just in the last two weeks, two people have died of overdoses and first-responders have administered overdose-reverser Narcan at least five times. The Rev. David Anderson, who will speak at the vigil, has overseen the funerals of nearly a dozen overdose deaths, Penner said. 

 

There is hope, and it's not nearly visible enough, said the event's participants. 

 

"Many times when people are in recovery, that's a very private thing, there is a stigma of the disease," Penner said. "Every year we really struggle to find a person in recovery to speak because of that shame and stigma ... we need to move beyond it so when people are ready ... they can see those examples, they can see people [in recovery] ... and aspire to be like that." 

 

Mayor Richard Alcombright, a strong proponent of recovery work and member of several state and regional working groups on the opioid crisis, said the thing that differentiates addiction from other diseases is its illegal nature.

 

"It's sold illegally, it's used illegally," he said. "For me that's the big differentiator with community understanding of addiction and other life-threatening disease and we need to get past that, too." 

 

One way is the walk downtown this year at Colegrove Park, another is making sure people know where they can get services. The city could have pushed Tapestry Health's needle exchange to third floor in the back of a building instead of on West Main, the mayor said. "We didn't want to do that. We wanted it to be visible so the community understand that this is a disease."

 

Tapestry Health has serviced more than 250 people with harm-reduction efforts, testing and referrals to recovery sources since opening earlier this year. The methadone clinic is providing services to more than 200 people a week and the Brien Center on American Legion Drive has a day-treatment program that meets five days a week.

 

"It's not as well utilized as we would like it to be and so what we're seeing is we still have work to do to build that recovery community," Penner said. 

 

The theme for Saturday's Voices for Recovery is strengthening families and community by raising awareness of not only survivors and resources but looking at how families are impacted and where they also can find help.  

 

"For every one person who has a substance abuse disorder there are seven other people that are being affected," said David Risch, a member of Al-Anon and participant in NBCC's working group. "We're looking for support for people in recovery and family members could be a source of support."

 

It's in important for families members to learn the "language of addiction," he said, such as acknowledging they can't change a person. But they can step back and disengage emotionally to reflect if they are part of the problem or can be part of the solution. 

 

"If there are families out there who are struggling who need a place to start, a great place is this Saturday," the mayor said. "There will be resources there and plenty of people that can give either physical or emotional hugs."