Lisa Plaisted remembers her son David as smart, athletic and generous to a fault. He liked to draw and work with his hands.
David, a 28-year-old from New Ipswich, had long struggled with substance use, his mother said. But he had gone to treatment and was several years into recovery, living with his girlfriend and working in construction. Lisa Plaisted said it was the happiest she’d seen him. So it came as a shock when he died of an overdose in early 2021.
On Saturday — the day that would have been David Plaisted’s 31st birthday — a small crowd gathered to walk laps at a high school track in Jaffrey, in honor of him and other victims of New Hampshire’s overdose crisis.
“People need to know that they are special. They do count. They do matter. They're not worthless,” Lisa Plaisted said. “We're in a medical crisis. People need help. And I think the most frustrating is, sometimes I feel like in our state, we just don't understand that.”
The second annual Celebration for Recovery Walk, held by the local recovery organization Reality Check, comes as overdose deaths in New Hampshire — already one of the states hit hardest by the opioid crisis — have been rising in recent years.
Organizers said substance use is increasingly taking a toll on Jaffrey and surrounding towns, especially among young people. Schools are dealing with it, as are employers.
“It can really be anybody,” said Shelley Woodson, Reality Check’s director of recovery services. “It doesn't matter what your occupation is, it doesn't matter how much money you have. It's really affecting families of all types.”
Woodson and other organizers said Plaisted is one of several young people from the area who have lost their lives in recent years, including a firefighter and EMT with the Jaffrey Fire Department who died of an overdose in 2019.
Even so, not everyone wants to believe that substance use is a major issue in communities like Jaffrey, Woodson said.
“I think the attitude is, ‘That happens in Keene, it happens on the other side of the mountain, not on this side of the mountain,’ ” she said. “That's kind of what we hear — until it touches them in some way.”
As of late morning, 20 or so people had braved the midsummer heat and humidity to walk laps, play lawn games and sip water in the shade of a small tent. Upbeat rock classics blared from a speaker. Reality Check had several tables set up with flyers and T-shirts.
Sarah Desaulniers, a substance use prevention specialist with Reality Check, said she hoped the event raised awareness.
“This is pervasive. This is an issue. And a lot of people think, ‘Not in our backyards,’ ” she said. “This is in our backyard. This is happening all around us. And so I hope that we can just start that conversation.”
Mary Drew, Reality Check’s founder and CEO, said local municipalities have been supportive. Some businesses in the area have sought help to make their workplaces better for people in recovery, which can include things like allowing recovery groups to meet on site and referring employees to treatment if they relapse, rather than having a zero-tolerance policy.
But she said addiction treatment is still not accessible enough, and small towns like Jaffrey tend to have fewer services than more populated areas. One of her biggest concerns right now is the difficulty of getting treatment for mental health conditions, which are often intertwined with substance use.
“The waitlists for mental health supports and to get into treatment continue to grow — you know, two months, three months, four months, six months sometimes,” she said.
And people with substance use disorder are still largely stigmatized, said Drew, who is in recovery from alcoholism.
“Part of it is those conversations, just like me saying, ‘I am a person in recovery,’ ” she said. “Just normalizing that conversation, that it's okay to talk about.”
Lisa Plaisted feels it’s important to tell her son’s story. She thinks he would have wanted to help others. After David’s death, she said, his sister got a text from someone who knew him; he said David was the reason he was celebrating one year in recovery.
“I couldn't help David,” Lisa said. “But if there's another David out there that I can help, then that's what I want to do.”
If you or someone you know needs help, you can call 211 to get connected with substance use resources or visit one of the state’s Doorway locations. The state’s Rapid Response Access Point provides immediate assistance in the event of a mental health or substance use crisis; its number is 833-710-6477.
