AUGUSTA, Maine — A group of teens and young adults touched by addiction hosted a celebration of recovery Saturday night. The event sought to foster connections among youth living with family members struggling with substance use disorder or facing challenges themselves.
"I feel like more people need to know about it and know how to help," Kyleigh Ricker, 14, one of the kids who helped organize the event, said.
Ricker and her fellow organizers are part of the Mobilize Recovery Youth Caucus, a group of young adults engaged in advocacy around recovery that also devotes a great deal of time to connecting with kids in families where addiction is present.
“I just want to let them know that they’re not alone,” Ricker explained.
Saturday’s event, dubbed a “family fun night,” featured cotton candy, a bouncy castle, and a hearty meal for kids and adults alike. But just feet away sat rows of Narcan lined up on a table for distribution.
“It’s important for kids to learn these kinds of things, even though it is hard,” Esperanza Rodriguez, 15, said Saturday.
While many of the kids took pride in their ability to reverse an overdose using Naloxone (or Narcan), for the adults it showed the grim shadow addiction cast on these young lives.
“It’s devastating that young people need to know what Narcan is,” Courtney Gary-Allen, the Organizing Director of the Maine Recovery Advocacy Project, said Saturday. Still Gary-Allen sees it as a critical mission nonetheless to make youth in homes with drug use prepared for the worst. With the latest State data showing 94 people have died from drug overdoses so far this year, her message is straightforward.
“This is a reality that’s happening for young people right now in Maine homes, and we want to be able to give them access to education to save their parents’ lives,” Gary-Allen said.
Though the youth organizers must grapple with themes most adults try to avoid, they’ve developed friendships of extraordinary depth, creating support for one another as they navigate unpredictability.
As eight-year-old Cassandra Feeney explains, “When I first came, I made so many friends. And all those friendships mean so much, I can’t even explain.”