How America’s go-to holiday spot became a shoreline of addiction

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Coke on the Cape –

May 28, 2018 – Cape Cod, Massachusetts is a difficult place to stay sober. In this “summer” community, the population hovers around 750,000 from late May to early September, and can spike to 1 million on the 4th of July. Post-Labor Day, however, only 250,000 residents call Cape Cod home, and it becomes one of the country’s most addicted stretches of coastline. Amid a national opioid epidemic, Massachusetts is designated as one of the top 10 states in the US with the highest rate of opiate addiction.

Melissa Peace, though, has weathered the pressures that many who struggle with addictions here. Peace came to Cape Cod in January 2010, newly sober and on parole. She secured a bed in an unmarked house, hidden behind pine trees and sand. This house is one of the only residential treatment programs for women in the area. And Peace has not left Cape Cod since.“I’ll never forget that day. It was 10 January 2010,” says Peace. She has a tiny dog named Prince who jumps into her lap whenever she sits down. “We got to the house and had a little bit of a meltdown. I was trying to hold onto the car door because I kept thinking, I can’t leave and walk home. This is so far away. We had to come over a bridge to get here.”