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In Devon\u2019s walk-up apartment in Arden, a town just south of Asheville, his pit bull, Qball, trotted across the gray carpet to meet him. Devon is tall and thin, with close-cropped hair and an understated, honest way of putting things. He said he understands how much routines matter, because he had spent years building his.<\/p>\n
He returned from Iraq in 2006 after two years in a scout platoon. Back at a base in coastal Georgia where he enrolled in college, he began to understand what he\u2019d brought home with him. His brain injury and PTSD plagued him with nightmares and made it difficult to hold a job. He began to self-medicate. \u201cOnce I started using, you know, the harder opiates, I would say I was using against my will at that point,\u201d Devon said, scratching his dog\u2019s ear. He overdosed and nearly died several times.<\/p>\n His relationships frayed under the strain, and for a time he lived on the street. He and his wife separated; her job didn\u2019t pay well, he\u2019d lost his, and they were in debt. In a bid to save their marriage and finances, the couple moved to Asheville, where his wife\u2019s family lived, in 2019. The city\u2019s recovery resources, which are abundant compared to elsewhere in the South, offered the promise of support, consistency, and a fresh start.\u00a0<\/p>\n Over time, Devon began building a new life. He is on disability and can\u2019t work, but he and his wife were able to buy a house. Suboxone, a daily prescription medication available at most pharmacies, eased his cravings for opioids. Twelve-step meetings allowed him to find support and celebrate progress. He and his wife welcomed their daughter into the world in 2020. While marriage and recovery were sometimes bumpy, he felt he was building something lasting.<\/p>\n Hurricane Helene blew all of that apart.<\/p>\n In the weeks and months after the storm, the routines that had anchored Devon\u2019s recovery began to shift. His 12-step group moved its meetings online for a couple of weeks. When it resumed gathering in-person, he struggled to attend, bogged down by the demands of repairing his house. With his time consumed by cleaning up from the storm, he stopped regularly going to individual therapy. Financial worries took the place of personal goals.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a huge interruption,\u201d Devon said. Online meetings are \u201cnot the same as being in person. You know, like when I like to go in-person in my home group\u2026 I can do service like either chair a meeting, help set up literature, help greet people, help set up chairs.\u201d<\/p>\n That kind of service is central to the recovery pathway that\u2019s worked for Devon, and it had become a vital part of his life. He tried to fulfill it by helping neighbors rebuild from the storm. He spent his days clearing debris, organizing disaster supplies at community spaces, and delivering them to people in harder-hit areas. \u201cWe were just pitching in the best we can, and I feel like I was using my experience in the program,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n He also met new people along the way \u2014 including church volunteers who helped remove the five trees that had fallen onto his house. At first, the spirit of cooperation brought people together. But as the months passed, that warmth faded and the losses began to settle in. The Federal Emergency Management Agency gave his family an emergency stipend of $750 to cover immediate expenses, like food and water, but they\u2019d already spent $20,000 on repairs. Even with insurance, they realized they\u2019d have to refinance the house to keep it.\u00a0<\/p>\n By last summer, the strain had become too much. Devon and his wife decided to sell the house,\u00a0 for $30,000 less than they\u2019d hoped. Amid the back-and-forth with the insurance company, their own fights escalated, and they filed for divorce \u2014 not uncommon after a life-changing disaster. Because North Carolina law requires a couple to live separately for one year before a divorce can be finalized, Devon moved into a hotel. He found himself alone more often.\u00a0<\/p>\n He managed to avoid relapse, but that meant treading carefully with hobbies that summoned the urge to drink, like playing poker. As the summer of 2025 dragged into fall, he felt spiritually adrift. Between his divorce and the costs of the storm, he\u2019d lost about $100,000. It was all too much. It had been years since he\u2019d felt this hopeless. \u201cI was suicidal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n For many people in recovery, relapse can be more dangerous than their initial drug use. After a few days of sobriety, tolerance starts to drop. Those who have gone through treatment are sometimes more likely to overdose, with the immediate first few days of relapse being the most dangerous. Over time, the mental health impacts and compounding losses of a disaster can push people further off course.\u00a0<\/p>\n In the early days after the storm, communities, volunteers, and recovery groups across the region sprang into action, temporarily filling the gaps left by upended routines and the slow trickle of federal help.<\/p>\n Researchers often observe a curious \u201choneymoon phase\u201d after a disaster: A time of intense social cohesion as people united by shared loss come together to help each other. It\u2019s months or years down the line when the pileup of trauma and loss begins to complicate that cohesion.\u00a0<\/p>\n John Kennedy saw that shift unfold in Buncombe County.<\/p>\n Kennedy, a guitarist, and his wife Cinnamon Kennedy, a drummer, spent years distributing naloxone, which can quickly reverse an opioid overdose, to nightclubs, music halls, and other venues throughout the county. Such work is called harm reduction \u2014 providing the education and tools to help people who are actively using drugs prevent infection, illness, and death. The project began after John lost several friends and his brother to overdoses. The Kennedys rely on the tight network of musicians and venues to get those supplies to the people who need them.<\/p>\n John Kennedy drove me around Swannanoa, a small, largely working-class town outside of Asheville. Even a year and a half after the storm, there are reminders of how the social fabric has frayed.\u00a0<\/p>\n The last music venue in Swannanoa closed after the storm, and others in the area also have closed or aren\u2019t booking bands.. One survey found that across 23 counties, small businesses lost an average of $322,000 during Helene, and many couldn\u2019t withstand it. The closures of bars and venues has left fewer places to congregate. Kennedy worries that may mean more people are using alone. Research shows that hurricanes and tropical storms can cause excess mortality for as long as 15 years, so the region is still only at the beginning of the aftermath.<\/p>\n Kennedy can\u2019t help but reflect on what\u2019s been lost. \u201cJust the ability for people \u2014 like a church service, like a job \u2014 to show up and come in and be able to check on everyone, check in on everyone, see how people were doing,\u201d he said, driving past Silverados, one of the venues he relied on to carry naloxone until it closed permanently. One after the other: shuttered, shuttered, shuttered.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kennedy pointed out the dozens of RVs parked along the roadways, all hosting people who lost their homes to the storm. A field where there was once a trailer park. Ossified muck and debris where there was once a gas station, a farmers market, a woodworking shop, a veteran\u2019s clinic.\u00a0 \u201cIt\u2019s not what it was.\u201d<\/p>\n Kennedy still delivers naloxone, but more often to venues in Asheville, where it\u2019s easier to find people. The community feels battered, he said, but he hopes it is slowly regrowing.<\/p>\n In the immediate aftermath of the storm, many opioid treatment providers struggled to track patients and keep records up to date, said Major, the Boston University doctoral candidate. Some providers reported that the number of people in treatment remained stable, or even increased as street drugs became harder to find. Others have lost patients \u2014 one provider saw 15 patients drop out or move away. Just some eventually returned.<\/p>\n Have naloxone (also known by the brand name Narcan) on hand and know how to dispense it.\u00a0<\/p>\n Understand the medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), to help reduce stigma around their availability and use. Buprenorphine is an evidence-based treatment, but requires healthcare providers and pharmacies to maintain an adequate supply to ensure access when disasters hit.\u00a0<\/p>\n Ask your local officials how people with substance use disorder are considered in disaster planning. Do shelters have low barriers to entry and no abstinence requirements? Are volunteers trained on how to reduce stigma and respond to overdoses?\u00a0 FIRST at Blue Ridge, a halfway house in nearby Black Mountain, saw about 30 residents leave to deal with the aftermath of Helene, though record-keeping was difficult in the chaos. Some residents lost the homes they\u2019d hoped to return to. Others, placed there as a condition of probation, had to navigate spotty cell service to notify court officials and get permission to go assist their families. A few simply walked off, hoping to hike home. Most eventually came back, but one or two never returned. The center administers drug tests when people come or go, and found that several had relapsed during their time away.<\/p>\n Similar disruptions have been reported across the mountains, especially where the legal system is involved. Cordelia Stearns, chief medical officer at High Country Community Health in Watauga County, said displacement can set off a chain of events that ends in incarceration for the patients treated at her clinic.<\/p>\n One had been living in a shed after Helene and accidentally burned it down trying to stay warm through the winter. He walked hours to reach the clinic and keep up with treatment for opioid addiction. \u201cHe did actually make these heroic efforts to stay in care,\u201d Stearns said.<\/p>\n Despite that, he was incarcerated multiple times for nonviolent drug offenses. He\u2019s currently out of touch again, and, she assumes, probably in jail. She hopes he\u2019s OK, she said, choking up. \u201cIt\u2019s always a little nerve-racking when you can\u2019t reach people.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Stearns has seen similar patterns play out repeatedly, particularly among people who are unhoused. Access to medications like Suboxone or methadone often depends on the policies of individual jails, and incarceration can bring people back into environments where drugs are readily available. \u201cI\u2019m not totally sure who it\u2019s supposed to be helping,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n In Buncombe County, community health worker Brandi Hayes has seen how quickly this turmoil can unravel recovery. She works with the county\u2019s Post-Overdose Response Team, which checks on people who have recently survived an overdose and steers them toward treatment. Like many in this field, she has a family history with addiction that makes the work personal.<\/p>\n Brandi Hayes (left) works for the Buncombe County Post-Overdose Response Team, which works with recent overdose survivors. Her organization offers treatment services, like Suboxone (right). Jesse Barber \/ Grist<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n In the weeks after Hurricane Helene, she and her colleagues slogged through the muck to check on patients, deliver essentials like food and water, and keep people connected to treatment and care. Some stayed on track. Others disappeared. One case in particular has stuck with her: A man who had been doing well in his treatment for opioid use, and had even gotten his license and a car back after a period of suspension for legal issues.<\/p>\n \u201cThen the storm came,\u201d Hayes said. \u201cHe had to take care of someone else that wasn\u2019t in the sober mind state that he was in.\u201d He quit going to treatment, started using drugs again, cycled through jail several times, and lost his car.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t even know where he\u2019s at right now or what he\u2019s doing, \u2019cause he\u2019s fallen off so bad and not going to appointments and things like that,\u201d Hayes said. When that gets harder for the people she serves, she takes notice. \u201cIt\u2019s very easy to backslide.\u201d<\/p>\n The same pattern has played out across Appalachia before. When floods tore through eastern Kentucky in 2022, Jeremy Haney lost nearly everything: his apartment, most of his belongings, and Troublesome Creek Stringed Instrument Company, where he built mandolins by hand. He is in recovery from addiction to painkillers and methamphetamines. A recovery-to-work program had led him to the factory in 2019, and building the instruments had become the bedrock of his life. When the floodwaters receded, the factory was temporarily closed, and it didn\u2019t look likely to reopen soon. He wondered what he\u2019d do next.<\/p>\n \u201cMy first initial thought is, \u2018OK, our factory\u2019s gone. We\u2019ve got no job,\u2019\u201d Haney recalled thinking. He didn\u2019t want to go back to where he was from in Morgan County, all the way across the state. \u201cI\u2019ve put all this work and effort into relocating and rebuilding my life here in Knott County, and now I\u2019m going to have to start all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n Doug Naselroad, who runs the recovery-to-work program, dreaded telling roughly a dozen men that their jobs had disappeared. Instead, he found funding from the Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program, a combination of state and federal Department of Labor funding, that allowed them to work in disaster relief. \u201cNobody missed a paycheck,\u201d Naselroad said. \u201cBut they had to rethink what they did for a living, you know, and for months they just slogged away in the mud.\u201d<\/p>\n Haney spent that time cleaning and reorganizing the luthiery and its instruments, determining what could be kept and what had to be thrown away. But the flood had upended the rest of his life. He received $1,800 from FEMA to replace his lost possessions. But after his landlord opted into a FEMA program designed to reduce future disaster risk, the building was cleared and everyone had to move out. Haney spent months searching for a new place to live. The factory eventually reopened, allowing him to return to his usual job as a luthier, but much had changed.<\/p>\n Nearly 9,000 houses and apartments were destroyed in the Kentucky flood, and about 31 percent of the homes in Knott County were damaged. Rental housing was scarce. Even after being approved for federal homeowners\u2019 loans, he struggled to find something within his budget. \u201cThere just ain\u2019t that many homes around here that would be cheap enough for me to be able to afford the payment,\u201d he said. His landlord had another apartment come open, but the situation felt unstable.<\/p>\n He worried he might have to return to Morgan County, where he could fall back into addiction. The cleanup job helped keep him grounded. He eventually qualified for an unusual state post-disaster housing program for flood survivors that allowed him to buy his first home last year. He moved in just before Christmas, more than three years after the flood. He credits his support network with helping him get through the long stretch in between \u2014 helping him move, find new furniture, and giving him social support.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s a big thing in recovery,\u201d Haney said. \u201cAsking for help.\u201d<\/p>\n For Devon, community connections have made all the difference. He has struggled with depression and long bouts of hopelessness over the last year and a half, but he hasn\u2019t gotten high.\u00a0<\/p>\n The waning afternoon light moved across the gray carpet of Devon\u2019s apartment as he tried to recall a time when he really felt tempted to use again.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve thought about it, but very rarely,\u201d Devon said. \u201cIf I do, I have a support system where I can call somebody. I would really have to be in a bad place to use.\u201d<\/p>\n He leans on people who\u2019ve survived their own crises \u2014 divorces, bankruptcies, other disasters. While some friends have returned to drug use, he\u2019s been grateful for his sponsor and fellow members of Narcotics Anonymous. \u201cThis is, like, why we do what we do \u2014 when shit hits the fan,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n His life now is quieter. He keeps up with appointments and stays in touch with friends in recovery. He attends weekly meetings, which he sometimes leads. He\u2019s also returned to individual therapy, which helps him cope with lingering anxiety from the hurricane.<\/p>\n It isn\u2019t the life he once imagined, but for now he has made peace with it. \u201cI try to focus on my daughter,\u201d Devon said. \u201cI\u2019m just doing the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n Being with her gives his days purpose. He looks after her while his ex-wife is at work, and he\u2019s structured his life and routines around her activities \u2014 ballet, gymnastics, kickboxing. For Devon, the structure helps him keep moving forward.<\/p>\n This coverage is made possible through a partnership between Grist and BPR, a public radio station serving western North Carolina.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Addiction-26.jpg?quality=75&strip=all\")
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\n Jesse Barber \/ Grist<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\nHow to support people with substance use disorder during and after disaster\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Grist\u2019s Disaster 101 Toolkit<\/em><\/em> \u2014 a comprehensive guide to extreme weather preparation, response, and recovery \u2014 includes a<\/em> detailed section on how people with substance use disorder<\/em> can stay safe during disasters and how community members, volunteers, and other responders can best support them. Read, share, and easily customize it for your community.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Brandi](\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/Addiction-09.jpg?quality=75&strip=all\")
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