About this episode
Dr. Lisa Belisle and Dr. Jeff Barkin welcome Dr. Jonathan Fellers, an addiction psychiatrist who serves on the board of the Portland Recovery Community Center, and Nicole Proctor, the center's executive director and a person in long-term recovery. Together they offer an honest, hopeful look at substance use disorder in Maine and the work of a recovery community built on peer support. The Portland Recovery Community Center serves as Maine's recovery hub, helping communities across the state stand up their own centers and train recovery coaches so that help is available close to home.
Proctor describes a peer model where most staff identify as people in recovery, and where services are free and open to anyone who walks through the door. Fellers explains how clinical care and community-based recovery fit together, noting that most people he treats live with both a substance use disorder and a co-occurring mental health condition. The conversation traces the history of opioid use in America and the way prescribing practices, access, and isolation have shaped the current moment, while keeping the focus on people rather than statistics.
The hosts and guests examine the balance every clinician must find between treating real pain and avoiding harm, and the stigma that still surrounds both addiction and recovery. Proctor makes the case that recovery becomes possible the moment someone sees it modeled by another person, and that meeting people where they are, with dignity, changes outcomes. The center offers meetings, peer coaching, workforce support, and pathways into recovery housing. The closing message is simple and steady: addiction does not discriminate, and neither does recovery.
Mentioned in this episode
More from Portland Recovery Community Center
Also mentioned: Dr. Jonathan Fellers
From this episode
“Addiction has been described as a disease of disconnection. I think for sure there are increasing pressures with technology and other things for our attention, and substances can offer a chance of respite or disconnection from the pressures of the world.”
“I met people in recovery and I could see that recovery was possible. And until I believed that it was possible for me too, there was no chance for me to get better. And that's what we do at the centers all across Maine, and especially here in Portland: we treat people as resources in their own life.”