After about a decade of chaotic binge drinking and untreated mental illness, I had my last drop of alcohol on July 4, 2011, my own personal Independence Day. In the 13 years since, I’ve earned a Master of Public Health, met the love of my life, started a family and opened the Courage Center, a small publicly funded agency that offers counseling, medical care and housing to Mainers in recovery from substance use disorder.

Today, while I’ve now witnessed many miracles of recovery, I’ve also seen true heartache, time and again, as our participants stumble tragically on their road to a better life. These stories are especially painful when it’s unclear what sort of chaos and misery they’ll be moving on to.

An overdose prevention center (OPC) would be far from a panacea to Maine’s overdose epidemic, but frankly, even the best “recovery” programs don’t have the sort of success rates necessary for us to be considered a panacea either. An OPC would raise the floor, making sure that, even in their darkest days, people who use drugs still have a safe place to go where they can receive attention from caring professionals instead of just using alone and dying in a filthy tent somewhere.

I’m grateful that I survived my own years of suffering, and I wish others the same good fortune as they too press on toward their own days of independence.

Rob Korobkin, MPH
Gorham