Doorways of Nashua. Image/Southern NH Health Facebook
By the time Nicholas Bickford sought help for addiction in Manchester two years ago, he said he had suffered about 12 overdoses over decades of addiction. He had been through several rehab programs and in and out of probation and parole.
“I finally had had enough,” he said. “I took every suggestion. And it just started clicking,” he said. Like so many, his addiction began with painkillers and led to illicit drugs, including heroin.
This July, Bickford marked two years of sobriety and graduated from the state’s drug court program, which provides an alternative to prison. He is no longer on probation and recently bought a truck after restoring his credit; he’s a self-employed carpenter with many plans.
As Bickford tells it, timing was also key to his progress. When he was ready to change, he received the level of care he needed. He was placed in respite housing, which provides temporary shelter for those awaiting treatment, until a spot opened up in an intensive inpatient program. Next, he entered a 90-day residential program called Turning Point, run by Southeastern New Hampshire Services in Dover. In the past, he’d come to expect delays. “I’d wait a couple of days and then I couldn’t take it any more and I’d relapse. And then I’d be on another run,” he said.
Turning Point is among many programs that receive funding through a federal State Opioid Response (SOR) grant. Even with federal money, however, the program, which provides support while people transition back into the community, has struggled. “Ultimately we get by because we get a lot of donations. We can’t break even without having community support,” said executive director Denise Elwart. Hiring staff at all levels has been difficult. The program has been unable to compete even with certain service jobs that pay more, she said.
Some of the largest amounts in SOR grants have gone to Doorways around the state that serve as entry points to a network of services. These nine sites serve as “hubs,” which provide a range of services, such as crisis stabilization, as well as referrals to various treatment and recovery programs – the so-called “spokes” of a hub-and-spoke system of addiction treatment.
The federally funded statewide initiative was established in 2019 to address the opioid addiction crisis. The total awarded amount for SOR to NH to date is $114,231,915.00. Another SOR grant was announced recently – this one for $28.5 million, an increase of $400,000 over last year, according to the state’s Congressional delegation.
Meanwhile, the addiction problem has worsened both nationally and statewide. The federal government estimates more than 100,000 people died from drug overdoses in 2021, the highest number of annual overdose deaths ever recorded. The vast majority of those deaths involved opioids. From March 2021 to March 2022, overdose deaths in New Hampshire increased by an estimated 26 percent, according to the National Center for Health Statistics. (This provisional data is based on available records and may not include all deaths that occurred during a particular time period.)
As of June, according to the Chief Medical Examiner of New Hampshire, there were 230 overdose deaths, with fentanyl a factor in 125 or …….