One signpost on the road of my recovery reads: don’t be an Island. Find the others. Don’t isolate. Beware the siren song of isolation. Share your stories. Recover out loud so that some don’t die silently.

Odds are you know someone who is currently suffering or has suffered from addiction. The Red House is for you and them. Be it a family member, a friend, an employee, an employer — the Red House is looking for community stakeholders, or allies, in the Island’s dance with addictions, both substance and behavioral. We are looking for new members who are recovery-adjacent. Friends in the fight, so to speak.

It’s an important signpost, trussed up in neon, one you can’t miss: don’t be an island. It’s partly why I chose to work at the Red House, the Island’s peer recovery support center. Like any faulty projector, I like to think this is sound advice for most recoveries out there: don’t be an island. Instead, be part of a community to help a vulnerable population self-shackled by perceived shame, among other things.

The Red House is here to be a resource for the community. It’s open to the Martha’s Vineyard community, and implores you to cross our threshold and discover what recovery can be.

Which community? In no particular order: the wives, the husbands, the uncles and aunts of the dispossessed, families of dysfunction, overeaters, the strung out, depressives, uppers, obsessives, the chronically malcontent, drunks, recovered drunks, the stoned, the blurred, the ones who can’t put their phones down.

You don’t have to have a substance use disorder to be a part of the Red House. You can be family of, friends of, teachers of, coaches of, brothers of, sisters of.

Treatment is for those who are sick. Recovery is for those who ask: am I sick?

Anyone in the Martha’s Vineyard community can be a Red House member. Teachers, coaches, bakers, clergy.

This is a plea for community recovery. Community, large and small. Familial community. Friend network community. Town community. Island community.

Dave Ferguson lives in Oak Bluffs and is the program coordinator at The Red House.