LYNN — Addiction treatment specialists met with city officials, residents, and law enforcement officers on the front lawn of city hall Tuesday afternoon to celebrate the Health Department’s first-ever Recovery Month Celebration.
Public Health Coordinator Norris Guscott walked around the lawn, checking in with various informational tables from the Salvation Army, Girls, Inc., and the Lynn Community Health Center, chatting with various specialists. In an interview, he said that this event, although the first of its kind, is necessary in a city like Lynn, where drug abuse and misuse are prevalent.
“In communities like Lynn, substance misuse has had a massive impact. If you live in Lynn, either you’ve been through it, or someone you know has been through it, or you know someone who knows someone who has been through it,” Guscott said. “This is City Hall’s way of showing solidarity and letting the community know that we are actively addressing this, this is important to us. You know, we intend to do the best we can, and recovery is 100 percent possible.”
This summer, the city’s Health Department received state approval to administer and distribute Naloxone, an overdose reversal drug commonly referred to by its brand name “Narcan.” Councilor-at-large Brian Field, who also serves as co-chair of the opioid subcommittee, said that he has seen the effect that opioid addiction has had on the community, and that he has struggled in the past with dependency on painkillers after an oral surgery.
“I spoke years in the past about my own dependency on prescription medication from oral surgery, and it could have been tougher. As a funeral director, I’ve seen it in so many other families, and what they’ve experienced.” Field said.
The crowd gazed upwards as Mayor Jared Nicholson, during a moment of silence, hung the addiction recovery flag, gray with a pink ribbon at its center, on the flag pole outside City Hall, raising it to the top. Following Nicholson’s brief speech, Michelle Simons, who works as a recovery coach at North Shore Community College, spoke about her own journey to recovery, as well as the need for affordable and accessible resources for those seeking help.
“When I came here, and I got into recovery in the City of Lynn, they told me Lynn was really bad, and it’s not a good place to get clean, and there’s a lot of drugs here, and there are all kinds of activity. My active addiction was IV (interveinal) drug use. I was homeless in the streets of San Francisco, actually grew up in the next town of Swampscott, but I got in recovery in Lynn because of all the resources that are surrounding us,” she said. “All these things that we see here today, and many, many more supported me and my recovery.”
As one of the event’s lead organizers, the city’s Opioid Prevention Specialist Candice McClory said she thought the recovery awareness celebration should continue in future months. She said although her department is working hard to help those in need of drug abuse resources, there is always more that can be done.
“The event is going very well. I’m really excited. It looks like it was a great response we’re having and hopefully, we’ll be able to do this every year,” McClory said. “We can always do more, but as you see here, Lynn has a plethora of resources for different types of addicts. Whether you’re using, whether you’re a man going through it, a woman, you have multiple resources in the area.”
Anthony Cammalleri can be reached at [email protected].
