Her addiction grew in the brocaded living rooms of Lower Merion, not the razor-wired alleys of North Philadelphia. "It doesn't matter very much where you're located," Sarah said. "It's easy to find dealers. Cocaine is a classy drug, so young rich kids are dealing it on the Main Line."
What isn't so easy, she discovered, is getting and staying sober. The mantra in recovery is "One day at a time." Some days are harder than others. And one of the most challenging is Dec. 31. So this year, for the fourth time, Sarah and her family are throwing a sober New Year's Eve party open to all.
"New Year's Eve is a rough night for people in recovery," said Casey Duffy, founder of Sober Samaritan, a nonprofit in Malvern that funds scholarships for alcohol and drug treatment. "It's the one night where you kind of have to run and hide. Everything's centered around drinking."
Duffy met Sarah three years ago at the annual sober Christmas party he gives for fellow alumni from the Caron Treatment Center in Wernersville, Pa.
"She stood up in a room full of 40 people, most of them adults, and said, 'I have this dream, I hope you will help. But even if you can't help, I hope you'll support it. But even if you don't, we're doing it.' "
The dream, she explained, was to organize a substance-free New Year's Eve party, solicit donations for the food, decorations, entertainment, and soft drinks, and use the admission fees to pay for a teenager like her to go to rehab at Caron.
She wrote down a condensed version of her descent into addiction and the path back she had found, printed it on Sober Samaritan letterhead, and began making the rounds of law offices, restaurants, and businesses in Center City and the suburbs, asking for donations in cash or in kind.
She was willing to be frank, she said, hoping it would show people that addiction can affect anyone.
