Malden Overcoming Addiction leads the fight against opioid addiction

Recently Fox 25 News covered a story on Malden Overcoming addiction and our work in training new recovery coaches. Check out the full story & video here (copied below).

Malden, MASS. - Malden Overcoming Addiction is a recovery program run by those who were affected by heroin and opioid addiction.

The president of the program, Paul Hammersley, struggled with opioid addiction from a young age.

“I was 9 years old, misguided, mislead and I fell into some things at a very young age and I never got out,” he said.

Hammersley has been in recovery for over 14 years, and now works to train others to become recovery coaches for heroin addicts.

Some of the people in the program are former addicts themselves. Others, like Mary DeMarco, are not addicted at all.

Mary DeMarco’s daughter was pregnant when she died along from an overdose, her unborn child also died.

“The only thing that I can do is to not allow my daughter to die in vain and my granddaughter.  It's just what I have to do,” said DeMarco.

Kyle Hamilton has been clean for 10 years and said that being a recovery coach also helps him.

“It keeps me doing the stuff I have to do on a daily basis just to stay clean just by working with another addict,” he said.

According to the State Department of Public Health, as many as 1,979 people died last year from overdosing on opioids.

Hammersley is working through local grants at the moment, but is trying to get government funding for his program.

“It keeps me doing the stuff I have to do on a daily basis just to stay clean just by working with another addict,” he said.