Addiction treatment facility opens in Westbrook
Guardian Recovery Pine Tree Opens New Westbrook Facility, Expanding Maine’s Addiction‑Treatment Options
WESTBROOK – On Tuesday, Guardian Recovery Pine Tree inaugurated a new addiction‑treatment center at 40 Park Road, bringing together detox, inpatient, and outpatient programs under one roof. The 35‑bed facility offers 24‑hour medical monitoring for withdrawal, a 28‑day residential program, partial‑hospitalization, and intensive outpatient care in both in‑person and virtual formats.
Executive director Kerry MacDonald welcomed visitors and said the move “hopes and believes that with this change comes improved continuity, quality and access.” Pine Tree has served clients in Maine and nationwide since it launched in Portland in 2018 as a standalone withdrawal program. Over the years it expanded to include inpatient residential care, partial hospitalization, and intensive outpatient services.
“The location allows us to provide all of these services under one roof while adding capacity for more patients,” MacDonald said.
The new center also hosts a monthly alumni meeting to celebrate former clients’ sobriety and a weekly virtual family meeting for loved ones of those in treatment. The expansion reflects a broader push to keep up with rising demand, especially after the COVID‑19 pandemic intensified the opioid crisis. In 2014 Maine recorded 208 overdose deaths, a record at the time, which grew to 504 in 2020, according to state data.
The building at 40 Park Road has a history of addiction care. It once housed Mercy Hospital’s Recovery Center, which closed in 2015 after years of financial losses. At that time, 250 patients, mostly treating opioid addiction, were displaced, creating a gap that the state and private providers struggled to fill.
“Back then, they never gave you any warning when they prescribed you medications,” said Tyler Hanson, now executive director of Zysk Recovery Partners and former staffer at the Mercy Recovery Center. Hanson, who began using alcohol and prescription drugs at 17 after a fall while working construction, recalled a nurse who told him, “You don’t need the pills.” He added that the staff he met there remain in his heart.
At the opening ceremony, Hanson reflected on attending his first Narcotics Anonymous meeting in a hospital gown and praised the new facility’s “bones of the place that’s helped thousands of people.” His words were echoed by Gordon Smith, director of the Maine Opioid Response, who noted the sadness of the Mercy Recovery Center’s closure and welcomed its return to the community.
Mayor David Morse, whose mother died from substance abuse eight years ago, emphasized the site’s healing legacy. “This location that we’re in has a long history of being a place of healing and recovery,” he said.
Guardian Recovery Pine Tree’s new Westbrook facility signals a significant step forward for Maine’s addiction‑treatment infrastructure, offering a continuum of care that can accommodate patients from withdrawal through long‑term recovery in a single, integrated setting.
