By Dawn De Busk

Staff Writer

BRIDGTON — For some people in the community, regular recovery meetings are a part of maintaining a healthy, happy life.

Recent developments regarding the Coronavirus have caused the cancellations of recovery meetings and groups for the next two weeks at Lakes Region Recovery Center (LRRC) in Bridgton. This has been the pattern everywhere: the cancellation of meetings where numerous people might congregate.

Unfortunately, being isolated is a dangerous place for some people in recovery, but picking up the phone is a good solution, according to LRRC Program Coordinator Michelle Valeriani.

“We are still here. The hotline number is still available,” she said.

That number is 803-8707. 

“The drop-in center is closed for two weeks and all AA meetings, NA meetings are cancelled until then,”  

Valeriani said.

“We don’t want to just protect ourselves, but we want to protect everyone else out there,” she said.

“We are still making calls. If people call us, we are checking the phone lines. We are keeping a close eye on it so we can call people,” she said.

“We have a telephone recovery support line so they can have extra support on the phone,” she said.

On Monday morning, LRRC started out by cancelling all social events that had been scheduled for the remainder of March but recovery meeting were still on. By the afternoon, those cancellations had expanded to all groups and meetings.

“The CDC was just recommending that events with 200 to 250 people be cancelled. Then, it was recommending to cancel events with 50 people. Then, the president said to avoid groups of 10 or more so we decided to close it all down,” Valeriani said.

“Portland Recovery Community Center closed down and that hit us close to home. They are our hub. They are out headquarters. We try to follow in suit with them,” she said.

“People in Maine are getting sick and people in Portland are testing positive. We don’t want to wait until someone got sick here. We wanted to be proactive,” Valeriani said.

Also, there are online meetings available such as https://www.12step.org/social/onlinemeetings

Another one is https://www.intherooms.com/home/live/meetings