Our first Recovery Hero, and two thousand people in a Vermont fairground.
On the last day of July, roughly 2,000 people drove to a fairground in Essex Junction, Vermont to sit in a room and talk about addiction out loud.
That was the fifth annual Coming Together summit, and organizers put the crowd at about two thousand in a state of roughly 650,000 people (VTDigger). One of the speakers, David Riegel, opened with this: "Trying to explain substance use disorder to someone who hasn't gone through it is like trying to explain the color red to someone who's colorblind." Two thousand people showed up anyway. Some to explain it. Most because they already knew.
Addiction wrote a story into you. Recovery is learning the code, how this actually works, and rewriting the story, one line at a time. Nobody runs that rewrite for you. It's an inside job.
This issue has something the last two didn't: a real Recovery Hero. Her name is Kat, she's nine years clean in Colorado, and the reason she's alive is a dog and a roommate who would not quit. Also in here: reported news stories from three countries, a Medicaid ruling that didn't go the way 25 states hoped, and a new road trip for anybody who needs a meeting tonight.
British Columbia is opening eight supportive recovery and stabilization beds at the Inlet Recovery Home in Port Alberni, run by the non-profit Connective, open around the clock to people 19 and older, with stays that usually run 30 to 90 days. The province says it now funds 3,829 substance-use beds, 879 of them added since 2017. "For many people in Port Alberni up until now, getting this level of care meant leaving the community," said Island Health board chair Leah Hollins. The beds open late this summer, so this is a promise, not a ribbon cutting yet. Government of B.C.
SoberPlatz ran again at Musikfest in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, July 31 through August 9, on the festival's SouthSide, built with Sync Recovery Community: free naloxone and instruction, a message wall, painted recovery rocks, therapy dogs, a scavenger hunt, a silent glow disco. "Musikfest is about bringing people together, and SoberPlatz provides a welcoming space where guests can connect, recharge and enjoy the festival," said ArtsQuest COO Curt Mosel. Northampton County Council voted 9 to 0 in March to put $15,000 toward expanding it. Worth stealing if your town has a festival. ArtsQuest · Lehigh Valley Press
Mississippi awarded about $50 million in opioid settlement money to addiction projects, but the contracts pay grantees back quarterly instead of funding them up front, and small nonprofits can't float 90 days of costs. Agreements were supposed to take effect July 1; fewer than half are signed. Communicare won $5.2 million for a pediatric treatment center and can't move. "There's no way that our agency can purchase that building and wait for the reimbursement for an entire quarter," said executive director Melody Madaris. The state's advisory council is now discussing paying more often. Mississippi Today · WDAM
Researchers at CU Anschutz looked at all 46 Colorado county jails and found nearly 40% had no publicly available policy on medications for opioid use disorder, four years after the 2022 Fentanyl Accountability and Prevention Act told them to write one and publish it. Of the 28 jails that did share policies, 71% described screening for substance use disorder, 67% outlined medication provision, 63% described connecting people to treatment after release, 46% offered all three FDA-approved medications, and 26% included peer recovery support. Rural jails were thinner than urban ones. "State legislation is an important first step, but policies also need to be transparent, comprehensive and consistently implemented," said senior author Katherine LeMasters, PhD, MPH, in Health & Justice. CU Anschutz
WellPower is running a walk-in medication clinic at its Recovery Center, 4455 E. 12th Ave. in Denver, Wednesdays 1:00 to 4:30 p.m., no appointment: Suboxone and Sublocade, peer specialists, nursing and pharmacy help, fentanyl test strips, naloxone and instruction. Capacity is about six people a week for now. "We opened this clinic as overdose deaths rise again in Colorado and Denver, even as national trends improve," said WellPower president and CEO James Greer. Peer specialist Jud Felder, on who it's for: "The goal is to get them obviously to use less and to use smarter." Call 303-504-7700 or see wellpower.org/mat. Call ahead; a six-person window is the kind of detail that changes. Denverite
Last issue, 25 states plus D.C., Colorado among them, had asked a federal judge to block the new Medicaid work requirement before it reaches people. On July 29, Judge Richard Stearns denied that request without prejudice, so the rule stands and so does the January 1, 2027 deadline (Georgetown litigation tracker). The case isn't over: the court set an expedited schedule to decide the merits, with a summary judgment hearing October 20, deliberately ahead of the deadline. Roughly 44,700 comments were filed before the comment period closed July 31 (Federal Register, a live counter that can still move).
Here's the part that matters most to this list, and almost nobody reported it. Colorado's exemption language is wider than the federal floor. Health First Colorado exempts people in treatment for a drug or alcohol use disorder, people living with a substance use disorder that keeps them from completing 80 hours a month, and, in the state's own words, "People in recovery from a drug or alcohol use disorder for 5 years or less that prevents them from completing 80 hours per month of work, school, and/or volunteer activities." Renewals move to every six months, and Colorado says letters go out in January 2027 to members with March 2027 renewal dates (Health First Colorado).
If you're in treatment or early recovery, you are likely exempt, but exemptions are not automatic if the state can't see you. Three things, today: make sure your address and phone are current with your state Medicaid office, ask your treatment provider or peer specialist for written proof of enrollment and keep a copy, and open every envelope. In Colorado, read the exemption list yourself at the link above. Guidance is still developing and the court could still vacate the rule in the fall. We'll track it every issue.
The man from the top of this issue, in long-term recovery since 2007. In 2008 he started renting rooms in his own house to people trying to get clean. That grew into the Vermont Foundation of Recovery, which he now runs and which operates recovery homes across the state. He also directs housing policy and planning for Vermont's Agency of Human Services, so he works the problem from inside the building and inside the house. He is honest about why he drank in a way most people won't be, which is the whole point of him being on that stage.
"It was this magic elixir that allowed me to move through the world and, for the first time, be comfortable in my own skin."
"Alcohol did more for me than what it did to me."
Fourteen years in active addiction, ten years in recovery. Warren is lead peer support specialist for Project Save Lives, which puts peer specialists in the emergency room at Ascension Sacred Heart Bay, so somebody who has been there is at the bedside when a person wakes up after an overdose. Ahead of International Overdose Awareness Day on August 31, she wanted people to hear the part nobody says out loud.
"I really thought I was going to die on the streets. I never thought for one second I'd live the life that I live today."
[Recovery Hero shield image here, centered. Use shield.png from this kit. Minimum 48px, full color, unrotated, unrecolored, clear space preserved per the shield brand spec. Then delete this line.]
Kathleen "Kat" N.
Colorado · Clean since July 18, 2017
A feature of THE RECOVERY CODE · It's an Inside Job.
There's a specific kind of alone that most people never touch. Kat lived in it.
By the end, her husband had been murdered over a bad drug deal. Every bridge she'd ever had was ash. She was on the streets. And somewhere in there she'd crossed the line that scares people the most, the one where you stop being afraid of dying and start wishing for it. Sick and tired of being sick and tired. If you've never stood in that exact spot, be grateful. If you have, you already know Kat, because you know that silence.
She had one thing left. A service dog named Tramp. Fifteen years, the two of them.
Then the overdose. Then the coma. And here is the part that anyone who has ever hated themselves will understand: when she woke up, at 56, she still didn't want to be alive. Recovery didn't start with a burst of hope. It started with none. She opened her eyes not caring what happened to her at all.
But she looked down, and Tramp was lying across her legs, where he'd stayed the whole time. And she couldn't do it to him. She didn't have enough left to live for herself. She had just barely enough to live for someone who needed her. That's how it happens for a lot of us. Not because we suddenly believe we're worth it, but because someone else is, and we borrow their reason until we grow our own.
So she said yes to one more day. For the dog.
Fort Lyon, a two-year transitional housing program, came and got her from Denver Health. And then Kat did the thing shame always convinces you to do. She went into her room and shut the door. When you're that low, isolation doesn't feel like a symptom. It feels like the only safe place left. It's the loneliest lie there is.
Her roommate wouldn't let her have it. Bobbie. Every single day, on her about a meeting. Every day. And one day, worn down, just to make her stop, Kat went.
That meeting saved her life. She hasn't used since.
Sit with how thin that thread is. A dog who needed her. A roommate too stubborn to quit. That's it. That's what stood between Kat and the ending everyone expected for her. She grabbed it with both hands. Four meetings a day for eighteen months. Narcotics Anonymous gave her her life back and taught her how to live on life's terms, and the woman who nagged her into that first room became her best friend in the world.
Bobbie didn't make it. She couldn't stay clean, and she's gone now. Kat has watched too many people she loves go the same way, and she does not pretend that doesn't gut her. Her heart aches for them. Anyone who's buried friends from this thing knows that ache never fully leaves, and she carries it on purpose. It's part of why she can't sit still while somebody else is out there drowning.
Because that's what she does now with the life a dog and a stubborn friend handed back to her. Nine years clean, since July 18, 2017. A disabled widow in Colorado, living alone, who says plainly that she has dedicated her life to saving lives. Service work at her home group. A plethora of sponsees she pours herself into every single day. And she means this completely: they are the reason she wakes up every morning. The woman who once didn't want to open her eyes now has people depending on her to. Carrying the message is the greatest purpose she has ever known.
Here's how she says it to the person still out there:
"I see you. I know the darkness. Take my hand. You never have to be alone again. Let me love you and help you live, just for today."
"The difference between using and being clean is literally like night and day, darkness and light. Today I'm a Hope dealer, not a dope dealer. If I can do this, I guarantee you anyone can do this. Find a life worth living. You are worthy. Let me show you the way."
If you're reading this from inside that silence right now, hear the part that matters most. Kat didn't start with hope. She didn't feel worthy. She just let one reason keep her one more day, and then she let one stubborn person love her into a room. That was enough to build nine years on. It can be enough for you too.
Your story is not over. You are not alone.
Know somebody like Kat? Somebody quietly showing up for people who have nothing to give back? Tell us:
recoveryhero@therecoverycode.org
Kat is alive because Bobbie would not go away. Worth taking apart, because most of us are bad at this. We lecture, which makes people defend the thing we're attacking, or we back all the way off so we don't push them further. Backing off is exactly what the DIS-EASE wants.
What works looks boring. Be specific and small: "I'm going at seven, I'll pick you up" beats "you should really get help." Ask a question instead of making a case, then shut up long enough to hear the answer. Show up on a schedule they can predict, because reliability is the argument. Don't spend your ultimatum early or you'll have nothing left on the day they're ready. And say the quiet thing once, plainly, with no speech attached: "I don't want you to die."
Now the honest half. You cannot want it more than they do. Bobbie asked every day for however long it took, and it still came down to one morning when Kat went just to make her stop. Your job isn't to fix anybody. It's to still be there on the day they say yes, and to keep your own life standing while you wait. Nobody gets rescued. People get accompanied until they can walk.
This is BOBO's cleverest injection, because it doesn't argue against recovery. It agrees that recovery is real and wonderful, then quietly writes an exception for you. Other people get a chance. You have a history. He needs you to believe that, because someone who thinks they're the exception stops walking into rooms, and isolation is the exploit he's actually running. The lie is just the delivery.
Kat woke up from a coma not wanting to be alive. Nine years later she has a phone full of people who depend on her. If that line were true, it would have been true for her.
The patch: you don't have to believe you're worth saving. Borrow somebody else's belief and run on that until yours boots. Go where people already believe it, and let them carry the file for a while. BOBO never fully deletes; you quarantine him and keep him patched. He just can't execute in a room with other people in it.
Week 1: Be somebody's Bobbie. Pick one person and make one specific offer with a time attached. Not "let me know if you need anything." An actual ride, an actual hour.
Week 2: Name your borrowed reason out loud. The person, the animal, the thing that gets you to tomorrow when you can't do it for yourself. Write it somewhere you'll see it Tuesday.
Work trip, family visit, rural road, 2 a.m. None of it has to stand between you and a room. Virtual meetings run around the clock, worldwide. This issue's stop is for anybody who'd rather do almost anything than sit in a circle and talk.
When: Every Saturday, 11:00 AM Pacific / 12:00 PM Mountain / 1:00 PM Central / 2:00 PM Eastern (18:00 UTC)
Where: Online. The official listing shows the start time converted to your own time zone and carries the join button: meetings.lifering.org/meetings/1233
Format: a topic meeting the directory describes as "A Creative Expression of Recovery in the form of music, art, poetry, etc." People bring songs, writing and art that mean something to their recovery.
Open to the public, no cost. LifeRing is secular, abstinence-based and self-directed, which makes this a different door from the two we've featured before. Open the listing to confirm the time in your zone before you go.
Online Intergroup of AA · directory of online AA meetings running 24/7, worldwide
NA Virtual · NA's hub for virtual meetings, any time zone
In The Rooms · free live online meetings across many recovery paths, all week long
SMART Recovery Online · filter the meeting finder to online sessions
Recovery Dharma Online · meditation-based recovery meetings, daily, from anywhere
Same rule as always: these are doors, not "the" way. Wherever you are tonight, one of them is open.
"The Urge: Our History of Addiction" · Carl Erik Fisher
Fisher is an addiction psychiatrist who nearly lost everything to alcohol and amphetamines during his own residency, and he tells that story alongside four hundred years of humans arguing about what addiction even is. What makes it worth your time is that he won't sell you a single answer. Every model gets its turn and every model gets its limits. It's the densest book we've recommended and the most path-neutral: less "here's the way," more "here's why anybody who tells you there's one way is selling something." Penguin Books, 2023.
Need a higher level of care than a meeting? A member of our community sent in this list of Colorado detox and inpatient residential treatment (IRT) contacts. It's a starting point, not a ranking or an endorsement: coverage changes and beds fill, so always call to verify, especially Medicaid (your RAE region). PHP/IOP/OP are day and outpatient programs. In crisis, call or text 988.
Site note: this is the same list already published on the Get Help page. If the Get Help version stays current, link to it here instead of duplicating it.
Denver CARES (Denver) · (303) 436-3500 · Detox · Medicaid RAE 3
Centennial Peaks (Westminster) · (970) 673-4980 · Detox
Landmark Recovery (Aurora) · (720) 702-9729 · Detox/IRT · most insurance
CuraWest (Denver) · (888) 687-5118 · Detox/IRT · Medicaid RAE 1 & 3
Mile High Recovery Center (Denver) · (855) 796-2102 · IRT/PHP/OP/sober living · Medicaid RAE 3/4/5 + private
Foundry Front Range (Broomfield) · (720) 807-7867 · IRT · Medicaid RAE 1
CeDAR (Aurora) · (720) 848-3000 · Detox/IRT · most insurance
Alpine Recovery Center (Denver) · (720) 704-2883 · Detox/IRT · Health First Colorado RAE 3
Rocky Mountain Detox (Lakewood) · (833) 433-4850 · Detox/IRT · private + Medicaid
West Pines (Westminster) · (877) 519-3108 · Detox
Valiant Living Detox & Assessment (Fort Lupton) · Detox · private + all Medicaid
Avenues Recovery Center (Denver) · (720) 704-0844 · Detox/IRT/PHP/IOP · most insurance
Sandstone Care (Denver) · (888) 850-1890 · PHP/OP · private insurance
Footprints to Recovery (Centennial) · (855) 628-2899 · Detox/IRT · Medicaid RAE 1
Recover Colorado (Westminster) · (888) 695-5407 · call to verify
Red Rock Recovery Center (Lakewood) · (855) 218-7588 · Detox/IRT
Denver Springs (Englewood) · (720) 643-4300 · Detox/IRT · most insurance
Valley Hope of Parker (Parker) · (303) 841-7857 · Detox/IRT · Medicaid RAE 1 & 2 + private
The Raleigh House (Arvada) · (720) 891-4657 · Detox/IRT · most insurance
Continuum Recovery Center of Colorado (Denver) · (844) 901-3066 · Medicaid RAE 1
Revive Health and Recovery (Denver) · (720) 573-6450 · Medicaid RAE 1
Colorado Medication Assisted Recovery (Thornton) · (720) 707-3593 · Medicaid RAE 1
Turning Point Center for Youth & Family Development (Fort Collins) · (970) 221-0999 · most insurance
ARTS: Addiction Research & Treatment Services (Denver) · (303) 734-5000 men's / (303) 336-1600 adult outpatient · Detox/IRT
Northpoint Recovery (Loveland) · Detox/IRT · most insurance
New Beginnings Recovery Center (Littleton) · (303) 830-2064 · IOP/DUI
Mountainside Women's Recovery Center (Aurora) · (970) 245-4214 · IRT/housing, women
Circle Program, Health Solutions West · IRT/housing
There are many paths to recovery, and none of these is "the" way; they're doors. Find your path, any path, just find one.
Hotlines: SAMHSA National Helpline 1-800-662-HELP (4357) (free, confidential, 24/7) · 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call/text 988 · Cocaine Anonymous 310-559-5833
Find treatment: findtreatment.gov · confidential, free, official locator
Find a meeting (every path counts): AA · NA · CA · CoDA · SMART Recovery · Recovery Dharma
Get connected, get moving: Young People in Recovery · peer support, life skills, local chapters · The Phoenix · free sober active community
Colorado readers: 5280 High School (Denver recovery high school, tuition-free)
Nominate a Recovery Hero: recoveryhero@therecoverycode.org
Contact us: support@therecoverycode.org
"Please help" might be the two most valuable words a person struggling with addiction can learn. So we'll go first:
Too many people are still stranded: cold, isolated, and convinced nobody is coming for them. We are coming.
Help us build a bridge from the icy island of addiction to a life filled with hope, freedom, and purpose. Help us cast a dragnet of hope wide enough to reach every person who is still struggling. A like may seem small. A follow takes only a second. But one share could reach someone on the night they are ready to give up.
Please:
• Like and follow The Recovery Code on Facebook.
• Share our messages with someone who may need them.
• Invite others to help us reach the people still struggling.
You may never know which share becomes someone's first step toward recovery. Together, we can reach more people. Together, we can save lives. We leave no one behind.
The Recovery Code · IT'S AN INSIDE JOB.
TheRecoveryCode.org
#TheRecoveryCode #RecoveryIsPossible #ItsAnInsideJob #NoOneLeftBehind
Two thousand people in a Vermont fairground. Eight beds coming to a town on Vancouver Island. A walk-in door in Denver that fits six people a week and opened anyway. A woman in Colorado who woke up from a coma not wanting to be alive and now has a phone full of people counting on her to answer. None of that is a system working perfectly. All of it is people refusing to leave.
Your story is not over. You're mid-rewrite, and the next line is yours to write. If you can't find a reason of your own today, borrow one. See you in two weeks. Keep debugging — and keep BOBO out of the build.
[Monogram image here, same as the /issue-2 page, then delete this line]
NEED SUPPORT RIGHT NOW?
SAMHSA National Helpline · free, confidential, 24/7: 1-800-662-HELP (4357)
988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline · call or text 988
// checksum: every fact in this issue was checked against at least one primary or two independent reputable sources before publishing: that's our checksum. Data labeled preliminary or provisional may be revised by the issuing agency. A full verification log is kept for every issue. Spot an error? Email support@therecoverycode.org and we'll patch it, publicly, next issue.
Recovery Hero nominations: recoveryhero@therecoverycode.org · Contact: support@therecoverycode.org
THE RECOVERY CODE · Issue #3 · August 10, 2026 · Published every two weeks · It's an Inside Job.