White Horse Recovery Board Member is on a Mission

For Board President Tony Fallon, White Horse Recovery’s mission to support individuals facing mental health and substance use challenges is deeply personal.

After offering pro bono services to White Horse for several years, Fallon found himself turning to the organization when his own son sought help for addiction in 2021. White Horse helped facilitate his son’s placement in a treatment facility—and today, he is in recovery.

This experience, according to Fallon, helped shape his own mission, which is to destigmatize addiction by reframing it not as a failure, but as a process of navigation. “We all navigate all sorts of stuff—financial, grief, etcetera,” he explained. “How about we just let addiction be another thing to navigate rather than thinking of people as an addict first as opposed to a person…People are not things, not labels, not diagnoses.”

Another component of his mission is to increase annual fundraising revenue at White Horse to $1 million. “I know in New Hampshire we can get there because so many people are touched by this—addiction affects everyone,” he said.

His mission has already begun in earnest, as he recently “took a leap of faith” and publicly pledged $10,000 in support of White Horse at the Mount Washington Chamber Expo in April. “Other people started donating on the spot,” he said. “I value this organization a lot, and I want it to succeed.”

Fallon’s architectural firm, Tony Fallon Architecture, is also a sponsor of White Horse Recovery’s Annual Benefit Event, themed “Unshackled: Breaking Barriers, Building Futures,” on Friday, June 6. The event will feature several speakers, including keynote Suzanne Thistle—a licensed alcohol and drug counselor with over 20 years of clinical leadership who is a three-time author and adjunct professor at Plymouth State University.

“It’s going to be a wonderful event with inspiring stories,” added Fallon. “Addiction can be challenging and disheartening, but White Horse provides a hopeful way to help people navigate it with compassion and care.”

Founded in Center Ossipee, New Hampshire, White Horse Recovery has grown from a small organization into a leading nonprofit with 28 employees across four locations, providing mental health and substance use disorder services.

Click here to buy tickets for the Annual Benefit event on Friday, June 6.