Curing Our Coast Series Dives Into Recovery; Two Men Share Their Stories, Both Involve Gaining New Identities

OCEAN CITY — While it’s one thing to accept that heroin has become a difficult problem in this region, it’s much harder for the average person to understand the long journey that former addicts must embark on to both get and stay sober.

The “one day at a time” mantra that almost every addict has uttered at one time or another can often be looked at as cliché or somewhat simple, but when you sit down and talk with a former addict about restoring the damaged brain chemistry that heroin inflicted or repairing the all the damage that their addiction levied on their families and friends, you start to see the sheer size of the proverbial hole that addicts often find themselves in.

Yet, while it’s easy to look at the growing numbers of overdose deaths or addiction cases and be alarmed by the statistics, the trickier and more nuanced narrative is the one that exists for the addicts who are taking the steps toward sobriety.

More