North Shore Recovery School Gives Presentation at Massena High School

On Thursday, a group from North Shore Recovery High School visited area schools and the Seniors Center in Hogansburg, and gave a presentation for parents and students. I attended one of the presentations on Thursday at Massena High in front of a group of parents.

Michelle Lipinski, Director of the North Shore Recovery High School, and a group of former students from the school, came to the area to describe what they do there. One of the first, and perhaps most startling, facts revealed is that many children are becoming addicted as early as 7 years old, and when they hit high school they have been using for several years by that point.

Lipinski had been a Biology teacher for 9 years before the Oxycontin epidemic hit the north shore of Beverly Massachusetts. This was a new problem for them and soon Lipinski found she was looking for track marks on student’s arms and was unprepared for the epidemic. “They don’t teach you about this stuff in grad school,” Lipinski said. She realized she had lost nearly a third of her students and needed to do something. Lipinski found support from the school superintendent who was personally dealing with the epidemic as the parent of a child addicted to Oxycontin.

The problem they identified is first how does one define youth recovery? And once the child has entered recovery, they need to return to the school where the same problems exist, and they are often still in the same environments. Lipinski cited a figure of 90% of youth relapse, and so the plan is to prepare for when, and not if the youth will relapse.

They then went on to create an environment free of drugs and alcohol, where the students must be committed to recovery. But once they have made the commitment, Lipinski and company are committed to supporting the students.

Alyssa, a 24 year old graduate of the first class of NSRHS, spoke about her experiences. She was indicative of the face of addiction and showed there is no real archetype, because addiction affects us all. She came from a good background and was a competitive figure skater. Once her family situation dissolved, she turned to alcohol and began the spiral until one day she found “with a needle hanging out of her arm,” Alyssa said, she began using heroin. Alyssa eventually overdosed and dumped, left for dead. With the help of the NSRHS, Alyssa now can be a daughter to her mother, and has built lasting friendships.

The presentation was inspiring and showed the successes NSRHS has had in the fight against addiction.