'You can get off drugs and alcohol': Trey Anastasio of Phish opens Vermont recovery center

Trey Anastasio had hit bottom. The guitarist and frontman for Phish was on his way home to Vermont in 2006 when he was stopped by police in Whitehall, New York, and charged with drug possession.

Anastasio found himself in a felony drug recovery program in the small New York town of Fort Edward. He was away from his wife and children. His once-thriving music career – already altered by the temporary breakup of the band that made him famous – was on hold. Instead of reporting to concert venues for sound checks, Anastasio reported to the Washington County jail for urine tests.

“I was an opiate addict,” Anastasio told the Burlington Free Press in a phone conversation. “My story is exactly Vicodin, oxycontin, heroin – the same wave as everyone else.”

Melanie Gulde, his case manager at the Washington County drug-court program, remembers Anastasio’s gradual awareness of what he needed to do to straighten his life out.

“We butted heads in the program,” Gulde said. “It wasn’t all roses and fun stuff. We had to set boundaries, and he had to learn.” She said Anastasio finally understood that to get back to his wife and children, he had to take care of himself first. Sobriety had to be the priority.

Anastasio and Gulde remain connected. Gulde is program director at the Divided Sky Residential Recovery Program, a facility in the town of Ludlow that Anastasio helped raise more than $1 million for with a series of online concerts during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown of 2020.

The program welcomed its first residents at the end of 2023. People who have already been through rehabilitation come to the site in the shadow of Okemo Mountain for workshops, group sessions and other activities that reinforce their newfound efforts toward a substance-free life.

“It’s an incredible gift to give yourself,” according to Gulde, “to say, ‘I’ve had enough and it’s time for me to be ready to get sober.’”

New York concerts raise $1 million

The felony drug recovery program in Washington County allowed Anastasio to reclaim his life, gradually. It all happened because of Gulde.

“I never would have done this (the Divided Sky Foundation) if it wasn’t the two of us together,” he said. “I watched her for over a year and a half working with 50, 60 local residents of that part of upstate New York, and the amount of care – she’s amazing. I don’t even have the words. I’ve sat in rooms and watched her help so many people get sober on a shoestring budget.”

“She saved my life,” Anastasio said.

Likewise, Gulde said only Anastasio could have pulled her away from the state where she worked in substance-abuse recovery for two decades.

“I wouldn’t be doing this here without him, either,” Gulde said.

After Anastasio went through the recovery program with Gulde, the two spoke at a Phish soundcheck at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center not far from Fort Edward. Anastasio told Gulde he wanted to give back to the recovery community. He started formulating a plan soon after.

“I want to open a place,” Gulde remembers Anastasio telling her, “and I want you to run it.”

During the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020, Anastasio did a series of livestreamed shows from the Beacon Theatre in New York, the city where he now lives. The shows were a fundraiser for his planned recovery center. Viewers commenting in real time as they watched the concerts at home shared their stories of addiction and recovery.

Those viewers contributed more than $1 million to the cause.

“It was a very personal exchange. In the rear-view mirror it was an amazing thing that happened,” according to Anastasio. “I feel such gratitude in my heart. The streams were free, we raised this money and we purchased this property in Ludlow, and it kind of grew from there.”

For a time, though, it looked like the Divided Sky program might not happen.

Divided Sky divided Ludlow

The Divided Sky Residential Recovery Program is in a building that once housed a women’s healthy-eating retreat. It shares a property with a dozen townhouses owned mostly by out-of-town visitors to the nearby Okemo Mountain Resort. Some townhouse owners opposed plans to put in a medical facility that would treat people with substance-abuse problems as they were going through rehab.

Months and months of governmental and legal proceedings ended when Divided Sky decided to change plans. The facility would no longer treat people medically who were starting on the road to recovery; instead, Divided Sky would welcome people already off to what Gulde called “a good running start” who would come to Ludlow for a 30-day program meant to reinforce their recovery.

“That’s fine with me,” she said, “as long as we’re doing something.”

Brendan McNamara, municipal manager for the town and village of Ludlow, was town manager in nearby Cavendish as he watched the debate over Divided Sky. Since he came to Ludlow a year ago, McNamara said he has heard “nothing but positive” response to Divided Sky being part of the Ludlow community.

“Right now it seems to be going very, very well,” McNamara said. “It’s something that is obviously needed in the state of Vermont.”

It was only that segment of townhouse owners that opposed the project, Anastasio said; Ludlow residents have been welcoming.

“We didn’t feel pushback from the community,” he said. “The local community was thrilled.”

Referrals from Turning Point Center

Divided Sky offers opportunities to foster recovery through “daily group sessions, outdoor recreation, and educational programming,” according to its website. “Your peers have been where you are and understand what it’s like to go through the daily struggles of addiction and recovery.”

Attendees pay their own way. Gulde said some residents arrive at Divided Sky after starting at recovery programs such as those offered in Vermont by the Turning Point Center.

“We definitely could use referrals,” Gulde said, as Divided Sky filled less than half of its 46 available slots in its first few months of operation. “We need to get the word out. It’s a different type of program.”

Gulde, who has been in recovery for 29 years, said she has seen people who arrive at Divided Sky leave with joy 30 days later. Still, she holds out hope that the facility could one day become a medical detox center.

“I will never say never,” Gulde said.

Anastasio knows Divided Sky can change lives with the “clarity of mind” that recovery provides.

“You feel your feelings, good and bad,” he said. “The message I always want to share is you can get off drugs and alcohol completely. Anyone can. I’ve seen it over and over and over again.”

One of those people, of course, is Anastasio himself.

“I know so many people who thought all was hopeless, they were never going to get well,” he said. “And then they did. It’s like a miracle.”

Fundraiser: If you go

WHAT: Music on the Mountain, featuring performances by Anders Osborne, Dogs in a Pile and Saints & Liars, as well as food and nonalcoholic beverages and a fundraising Fun(d) Run, presented by The Phoenix and the Divided Sky Foundation

WHEN: 9 a.m. Fun(d) Run, 2 p.m. concert Saturday, May 18

WHERE: Okemo Mountain Resort, Ludlow

INFORMATION: $20 suggested donation; participants in the Fun(d) Run can register for free. https://thephoenix.org/resources/the-phoenix-and-divided-sky-foundation-unveil-inaugural-music-on-the-mountain-festival-anders-osborne-dogs-in-a-pile-and-saints--liars

Contact Brent Hallenbeck at [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Burlington Free Press: Trey Anastasio of Phish opens substance-use recovery center in Vermont