Interview With Remarkable Advocate and Author, Maureen Cavanagh

It is so inspiring to find an advocate who immerses themselves in helping others.

That is why I’m delighted to share my interview with Maureen Cavanagh!

She is lending support around addiction and recovery in several different ways.

Maureen is the founder of Magnolia New Beginnings, and on the Board of Directors for Above the Noise Foundation. She is also the author of a recent memoir If You Love Me: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Daughter’s Opioid Addiction.

Welcome, Maureen!

1. Briefly introduce yourself to people who might not know you. How did you become involved in helping families struggling with substance use?

I started Magnolia before I actually found out that my daughter had a substance use disorder. It was supposed to be an organization that helped people with a new start. I knew it was going to be a lot of people that had substance use disorder issues with drugs and alcohol, but I didn’t think that was going to be all it was.

Then my daughter started to suffer. I had come from a long line of substance use in my family. But when my daughter started to suffer, I started to change the focus to connecting people. We have Magnolia addiction support groups throughout the country. They have closed Facebook groups and you need to request membership. 

We are very careful about who we let in. We try very hard to make sure that it’s all parents helping each other rather than anybody working in treatment. And now we have about 16,00 to 17,000 members across the country in these closed groups. It gives you permission to connect with each other. We become almost experts because you’re trying to do everything you possibly can do to help your own child. So, who better to ask for advice than another parent. It’s the group that I wish was there when I was first experiencing this with my daughter.

The Magnolia Group is a 24-hour, seven day a week group. I have gone on there when I was losing my mind over something at three o’clock in the morning and posted. Ten people answer me immediately because they’re all losing their mind too. So, it becomes this amazing group of people. We wind up meeting each other, but it starts on Facebook.

Our financial mission in Massachusetts is to raise money for sober living and we do that here. And we give about 50 sober living scholarships away a year, currently through donations.

We usually give to the neediest of the needy. They are chosen by staff members at the treatment centers. We take ourselves a little bit out of it so that we are not deciding who is receiving the scholarship. We don’t know who is at what level of willingness and who also don’t have the funds. 

We have no paid staff. We do all this as a labor of love. All the scholarships are named after board members’ children who have passed away. So, it’s a very, very important part of the organization to me.

As my daughter started to become more and more involved, Magnolia grew. It was helpful for me to have someplace to put my energy. As parents, we all know, it’s very difficult to help your child. They usually don’t want your help.

I did help her, but accumulating all this information and having her not want my help, it became a good place to put my energy

We have a strong group in Massachusetts. We have about 1100 people in the Massachusetts group. We try to get everybody to join the national group because typically there’s a lot of conversation in that group.

So, we always say to join your state group and the national group. That way there’s always somebody that is from your home state usually in the national group.

So that’s Magnolia. That’s my heart.

2. What is the mission of the Above the Noise Foundation? I noticed you have Recovery Fest 2018 coming up soon. Who is the concert for? How can readers get more information?

Well, if anyone is interested in going to the concert, they can go to recoveryfest2018.com. If they want to learn more about the foundation. It’s Above the Noise Foundation.Org.

It’s an interesting concept. I was busy working on the book and had no intention of getting on another board or adding anything on my plate. Then on they asked me to join the board because they have a dual mission too. The mission of the foundation is to support grassroots nonprofits. That’s the financial mission.

They’re also putting on sober music festivals as a way of bringing people together. You don’t have to be in sobriety to come to the festival. But you have to be sober that day. There’ll be no alcohol sold. We’ll have speakers all day long, starting out in the parking lot at two o’clock for the whole community.

The concert is in Pawtucket, Rhode Island at McCoy Stadium on the 29th of September. It starts at about two o’clock in the afternoon. We have James Montgomery and friends.  James Montgomery is an awesome blues harpist and harmonica player. He’s going to have 20 different people playing with him.

It’s going to be an amazing show in the parking lot free to everybody. And there’ll be Rhode Island nonprofits out there sharing information.

When the doors open at five o’clock, they’ll be 40 New England and a couple of tri-state area nonprofits in the stadium offering support and help to anybody who is there.

The concert will start at five. We had an indie band contest, so the winner will open the concert. Then we have PVRIS, Fitz and the Tantrums, and Macklemore is the headliner. There will be some amazing speakers and videos in between the performances. So, it’s going to be a full day of information.

We complain so much and, and we’re so heartbroken about how this is affecting our loved ones. There needs to be at this point where everybody stands together and, supports one another. It shouldn’t only be the people in recovery there. We need to have their family members and their friends and all the people that love them standing together for one night. There will be no alcohol. They can enjoy this incredible show while being there for each other.

We’re hoping that this is the start of other places and events to go to where young people can go and not feel the pressure of other people around them getting high or drinking. It’ll become more acceptable. It’s very hard for a young person in early recovery to be strong in their recovery. They’re often surrounded by their friends who can have a beer and it is not a problem for them.

To not have a beer shouldn’t be a problem for one night. We’re hoping that it serves that purpose. All the donations, sponsorships, and money raised during the concert will go to forty New England and tri-state area grassroots nonprofits. Many of whom have no paid staff like myself.

I took the job as the executive director, even though I didn’t think I wanted a position on the board because I believe so strongly in what this group is doing.

The founder is Kristen Williams-Haseotes. She is an amazing individual. Kristen had this idea of bringing people together. Barbara Lodge who is out in California is also on the Board. She is an author as well.

Kristen believed very strongly in this whole concept of supporting people. The grassroots organizations that are trying to fill the gaps that the government doesn’t allow for, like the sober living I provide.

Of course, we only make a dent in what’s needed. It’s going to be lots of organizations and they’ll benefit with a grant process. The goal is that they’ll all be able to benefit in donations raised.

3. Tell us about your memoir, If you loved Me: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Daughter’s Opioid Addiction? What motivated you to write it? How was the writing experience for you?

I was always the person that went to the We have Learn to Cope in Massachusetts. It has been a phenomenal organization that has live meetings. I’d go and I would sit in the back and near the door, in case I felt like I had to run out of there. I never lifted my hand to say anything. So, the idea that this is me writing a book and telling my entire story is, nope, if anyone had told me that five years ago. I would have told them they were out of their mind.

Somebody needs to show what it’s like to go through this as a parent. We love our children, and yet substance use can grab them and take them. There’s no way of protecting yourself against it.

Parents out of fear think well, I went to church, and we had Sunday dinner. Their family loves them. They did well in school, and they volunteered. Well, so did my daughter. And it still happened.

Because we think we can insulate ourselves with all these things, we tend not to get involved until it happens to us. I want people who think it can’t happen to them to read this book. We need to all join together.

We’re losing 200 people a day. Every eight minutes somebody is overdosing and dying. And these are all our beautiful children that we love with all our hearts. This is happening, and it’s getting worse and worse.

People can’t wait until it happens to them. They have to get out in front of it. They have to get out in front of it with the people that have gone through it. Because we can’t do it by ourselves, or we would have done it already.

We need everybody to be on the same page with this. So, I wrote this book so that people can see how this happens. Because I would have never believed that this could have happened in my family.

That’s why I wrote the book.

I mean, you know, it’s this whole heartbreaking journey that my daughter and I went through. And, you know, as bad as it was for me, it was much worse for her. I hope it opens some eyes.

4. When you were going through this with your daughter, you had the group. Was there any other help that you got for yourself during that time? What did you do to help yourself cope?

Oh, I was a maniac. I didn’t do anything in the beginning. I acted like a complete and total lunatic. I don’t know if you can keep anybody from doing that in the beginning.

Because you know what? It’s your child. I did every single thing wrong and every single thing, right. I came to realize that I needed to take care of myself. Then I started to go to meetings. I started, and I kicked it up a notch with going to my therapist.

I did things right. But if you read the book, you’ll see that I was crazy. You know, I went after people with baseball bats. I was a maniac. This is a woman with two masters degrees and I went to law school.

I was a nice respectable mother of four children who never acted out. I was a special education teacher. I was a nice special ed teacher. Yet, I was chasing people with a baseball bat by the middle of this. So, all bets are off when it’s your own child.

Hopefully, people will see that this was not helpful. None of the crazy things were helpful at all. But what became helpful is when I realized that this was not mine to fix. I could love her. I told her I loved her every single day. I could be there for her when she was ready. But you know, acting like a maniac was not helpful.

5. What final message or suggestions do you have for parents who have kids that are struggling with substance use? Any thoughts about what you would say if they are just trying to cope.

Maureen Cavanagh is the Executive Director of The Above the Noise Foundation. She is also the Founder and President of Magnolia New Beginnings, Inc.  She holds an M.P.A. in nonprofit management from Suffolk University, an M.Ed Special Education/ESOL, is a CCAR trained recovery coach, and is currently pursuing her CADC 1 at the University of Massachusetts Boston. 

Maureen is currently on various Massachusetts task forces and on the parent advocacy committee for Facing Addiction and subcommittee to end the stigma through changing the language around substance use disorder.

Maureen founded Magnolia New Beginnings in 2012 hoping to give opportunities to those struggling to reach their full potential. Within a short time of incorporating, Maureen discovered that her daughter had a substance use disorder. Having come from a family of those with the disease, Maureen tried to take action but found it extremely difficult to find help and negotiate the healthcare system surrounding substance use treatment, or the lack thereof. The lag time acquiring knowledge contributed to the quick progression of her daughter’s disease which had escalated by 2014 into full-scale heroin addiction, homelessness, and multiple overdoses.

Maureen has focused the efforts of Magnolia New Beginnings on helping to offer support and knowledge to as many people as possible along with advocating for changes in the healthcare system, legislation, and the current perception of substance use disorder in general.

Maureen is the author of the recently published book If you loved Me: A Mother’s Journey Through Her Daughter’s Opioid Addiction. She is originally from New York but currently resides in Massachusetts. Maureen has four children.