The No. 1 thing Dr. Annabelle Lipsett wants the public to know about her substance abuse treatment clinic is that it’s a safe space.
Lipsett founded Advance Recovery Center, a private practice facility, a decade ago in Houlton because she had a “calling” to treat addiction. When she sees a patient turn their life around, she gets goosebumps.
“I like to treat my patients as I would treat my children,” Lipsett said in an interview in her wood-paneled office in Presque Isle, where the recovery center established its second location this month.
Lipsett’s expanding Aroostook County service mirrors a nationwide shift toward patient-centered care in treating substance abuse disorder, a model that several of her patients say has worked for them.
There are boundaries in a relationship between a doctor and patient, she said. But they can text and call her outside of appointments. Conversations venture beyond the topic of addiction. A relapse isn’t the end of the road.
“I try to practice harm reduction. If they relapse or they tell me a screen is not going to be good, I want to find out why. I want them to see their counselor. I would not let them go and say ‘I can’t see you anymore.’”
“She basically saved my life,” said Derek Demerchant, who has been seeing Lipsett for about eight years for opioid addiction. “This program has … it’s really turned my life around from being in jail to owning my own business now and having people work for me.”
Lipsett treats all kinds of substance abuse, but a majority of her patients deal with addiction to fentanyl or heroin, she said. Researchers have described Maine’s fentanyl crisis as an “epidemic.”
She decided to open her new clinic at 30 Parsons St. in Presque Isle after hearing from patients who described friends suffering from addiction and dying from overdoses in central Aroostook.
The number of substance abuse-related deaths per 100,000 people has more than doubled in Aroostook County in the last decade, from 19.6 per 100,000 between 2015-2019 to 56 deaths per 100,000 in 2023, the last year with available data. That figure is one of the highest among Maine’s 16 counties.
Presque Isle has several other treatment facilities, including those run by AMHC, a behavioral health clinic, and a new recovery center opened by the Mi’kmaq Nation last week. Lipsett’s practice adds another option to the mix.
She uses individualized treatment plans that typically involve medically assisted treatment, including prescribing Suboxone, the common brand name for a drug designed to reduce cravings and withdrawal symptoms.
“I have patients who’ve gotten their kids back. I have patients who’ve started businesses. I have patients who have gone back to college,” Lipsett said. “I get my satisfaction from them being healthy and sober.”
Lewis Boyce III is an army veteran from Houlton who served in Afghanistan. He enlisted to find structure to escape prescription drug abuse, but fell back into old habits once he left the military. He sought treatment after the birth of his daughter, and connected with Lipsett, whom he’s now seen off and on for around 10 years.
“Ever since then, things have been going great,” Boyce said. “It just does feel nice to have someone in your corner … I have moments where I need someone to talk to and it’s somebody like Dr. Lipsett that I reach out to because she has invested in my life.”
Before she started Advance Recovery Center, Lipsett, who is originally from Brooklyn, worked at the Maliseet Medical Clinic in Houlton. That’s where Courtney London, a member of the Maliseet Nation, met her. She has been sober for more than 18 years, and credits Lipsett with helping her remain on that path. London now works as a secretary for the recovery center.
“Looking back on it, I would have never been able to do it if it hadn’t been for her, because she believed,” London said. “When you have one person that believes in you as an addict, you can conquer the world.”