Cheryle Pacapelli and her dog Nugget

“I say it was divine intervention,” Pacapelli said of the path that led her into the addiction recovery field.

That path began with loss, as she spent years in telecommunications until her company collapsed after the September 11 attacks destroyed its New York City equipment. No work existed in the field. She then met someone in a recovery house who offered a suggestion.

“I had a house, good credit, and I was able to get a mortgage,” she said. “I bought my first recovery house.”

Within five months, she ran 26 beds of recovery housing. “These things needed to happen for me to end up opening a recovery house and ultimately to end up in New Hampshire building a network of recovery centers,” she said.

Pacapelli owned and operated Stepping Stone House in Connecticut for 21 years, serving men transitioning from incarceration or treatment. She helped launch the National Alliance for Recovery Residences and trained house owners on budgets, rules, and operating standards from 2004 to 2012.

She was an early architect of peer recovery support when the work had no formal name. “We were just getting recovery out of the basement of a church to show that people do recover,” she said. While there, she helped design two services still used across the country, telephone recovery support and peer recovery coaching, through The Art & Science of Peer-Assisted Recovery.

When she arrived in New Hampshire, the state had no Recovery Community Organizations. She set out to find people ready to open recovery centers during the early years of the opioid epidemic. “No one understood what it was and how it was affecting people,” she said.

Initially, she worked with six organizations, including White Horse Recovery, providing seed money to help them launch. As of June 2026, there are 21 recovery centers operating across New Hampshire, including four operated by White Horse Recovery located in Center Ossipee, N Conway, Berlin and Littleton. Because all centers share one data system, New Hampshire holds some of the strongest recovery data in the country.

Her personal values shaped the work. “I have my pathway to recovery, and not everyone does the same thing I do, but that doesn’t mean they can’t recover their own way,” said Pacapelli, who noted how the field has evolved. “When I entered recovery in 1989, a musician who drank while performing would have been told to give up the guitar. Today, the approach asks what it would look like for them not to drink while playing – letting people be their authentic selves.”

For the past decade, Pacapelli served as Project Director for the Peer Recovery Support Services Facilitating Organization at Harbor Care in Nashua, the main funder of the grant supporting recovery services statewide.

“Cheryle has shaped the peer recovery movement in New Hampshire from the ground up,” said White Horse Recovery Executive Director Matthew Plache. “Her decades of lived experience and her work training the coaches who walk alongside people every day make her an invaluable asset to our community.”

The 2026 Annual Freedom Event, titled “An Evening of Hope, Community, and Support,” will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Center Ossipee. The evening will also feature firsthand stories from individuals served by White Horse Recovery and a silent auction.

Tickets are $50 per person, with proceeds supporting behavioral health and addiction treatment services across Coos, Carroll, and Grafton counties. White Horse Recovery’s 2026 Annual Freedom Event is sponsored by Eastern Propane, Cobalt Construction Management, and Tony Fallon Architecture.

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 in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

White Horse Peer Recovery Coach Katy Whalen with her son

“It’s a very natural thing, when you’re in recovery, to want to help others,” said Whalen, who is over 13 years sober. “People in recovery have this deep empathy that gets suppressed during active addiction, and once you get some clean time, it comes back.”

For her, that path began at 11 years old. Looking up to an older cousin like a sister, she wanted to connect with her—and that cousin, alongside her own father, was using drugs. It was the height of the opioid epidemic, and Whalen started using OxyContin. The spiral was fast and unforgiving.

An honor-roll student and a talented softball pitcher who had earned a place at a private school for the sport, Whalen watched addiction take it all. She lost her spot at the school within months, was removed from her home at 14, and dropped out of high school. What began at age 11 became a 14-year battle.

By 25, after years of struggle—including a near-fatal overdose and the heartbreak of her parents taking guardianship of her first child—she reached a moment of clarity in a motel in Ossipee at her lowest point.

“I just didn’t want to do it anymore—it wasn’t fun anymore,” she recalled. “It wasn’t about the trouble or the consequences—I was just done. ”

She got sober that day. Now, with over 13 years in recovery, Whalen has built the life she once thought impossible with a home in Ossipee, regained custody of her oldest son, and a family of six children.

“I am very blessed,” she said. “This time around hasn’t been a struggle, because that switch in my brain actually flipped.”

That fascination with the “why” behind recovery drives her today. Whalen is captivated by the science of addiction and brain development. “It’s not about demographics,” she said, “addiction hits people across all groups without regard to socioeconomic characteristics; I think it’s a mix of the brain and the spirit.”

With roughly six years in the recovery field, including prior work at The Ridge in Milton and Green Mountain Treatment Center, she is completing her certification as a Certified Recovery Support Worker (CRSW) this summer and working toward LADC licensure. That licensure progress has delivered perhaps the most poignant full-circle moment of all. Whalen is earning her supervised hours under White Horse counselor Joni O’Brien, a member of New Hampshire’s Board of Licensing for Alcohol and Other Drug Use, who years ago served as her husband’s parole officer—and was a major catalyst in the couple getting clean together.

“Even if you’ve done hard things and made very serious missteps, you can still progress—personally and professionally,” she said. “That individual voice matters.”

Whalen also supports White Horse Recovery’s community programming, including the organization’s recurring Family Night, held every other Friday in Ossipee. She hopes it helps the surrounding community see the organization in a new light.

“I want people in the Lakes Region and beyond to know that White Horse is so much more than they might think it is,” she said. “I’d encourage people to come check it out and learn about the services we offer.”

“We are honored to welcome Katy to White Horse and grateful for what she adds to our team,” said White Horse Executive Director, Matthew Plache, “our work is about restoring lives and Katy, as much as anyone, understands what that’s all about.”

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 in Northern New Hampshire, providing both mental health and substance use disorder services, regardless of ability to pay.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

Cheryle Pacapelli

Cheryle Pacapelli, a nationally recognized peer recovery leader, will deliver the keynote address at White Horse Recovery’s 2026 Annual Freedom Event on July 22 in Center Ossipee.

In recovery for more than 34 years, Pacapelli has served for the past decade as Project Director for the Peer Recovery Support Services (PRSS) Facilitating Organization at Harbor Care in Nashua, where she helped build Recovery Community Organizations across the state.

“Cheryle has shaped the peer recovery movement in New Hampshire from the ground up,” said White Horse Recovery Executive Director Matthew Plache. “Her decades of lived experience and her work training the coaches who walk alongside people every day make her exactly the voice our North Country community needs to hear.”

Pacapelli’s training portfolio includes the Art and Science of Peer Assisted Recovery (PAR), PAR Ethics, Suicide Prevention, HIV/HEP-C Prevention, and Co-occurring Disorders. She serves as a subject matter expert and external advisory board member for the Peer Recovery Innovation Network (PRIN), an advisory board member for NH Peer Recovery Residence, and a board member of the NH Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counselors Association (NHADACA).

She also received the 2024 NHADACA Legislative Advocacy Award, and in 2025, Archways established the Cheryle Pacapelli Lifetime Legacy Award in her name to recognize her contributions to the peer support field. “We could not ask for a more powerful voice to anchor this evening,” added Plache.

The 2026 Annual Freedom Event, titled “An Evening of Hope, Community, and Support,” will be held from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Center Ossipee. The evening will also feature firsthand stories from individuals served by White Horse Recovery and a silent auction.

Tickets are $50 per person, with proceeds supporting behavioral health and addiction treatment services across Coos, Carroll, and Grafton counties. With locations in Ossipee, North Conway, Berlin, and Littleton, White Horse Recovery provides outpatient counseling, peer recovery support, wellness education, and prevention programming.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

White Horse Recovery Coach Nick Hanks and his wife, Stephanie

Originally from Laconia and the youngest of four children, Hanks played sports, performed in theatre, and sang in choir. Then, at 16, his stepfather died of a heart attack in front of him. “My drinking career started the next day,” he said.

As a new Recovery Coach at White Horse Recovery, Hanks is helping to build a platform for prevention, education, and peer support in Mount Washington Valley. “I want to help people,” he said. “I want to get into schools and teach kids about the dangers of alcohol. I did not have that growing up.”

Expelled from high school his senior year due to his drinking, he became a father at age 19 of premature twins who spent six months in Maine Medical Center. Over more than two decades of addiction, he lost two marriages, jobs, and relationships with his children.

On his worst days, he drank an 18-pack of 24-ounce beers and a pint of liquor a day. He drank on the way to work. He drank at work.

“In school, no one talked about alcohol,” he said. “I did not have that education. I did not have anyone in front of me who had been through it.”

As his condition deteriorated, doctors asked him during a transplant interview in the fall of 2023 what he would do with a new liver if he received one. The question stopped him cold.

“There was no right or wrong answer,” he said. “I had to think. I decided I wanted to help people.”

His desire to help, however, was contingent on receiving a new liver, which was not a given. In fact, his mother and girlfriend had already been told to prepare for his passing.

On November 12, 2023, however, Hanks underwent liver transplant surgery, within a week of what doctors believed would be the end of his life. “I got on the transplant list Wednesday night, and then Friday I was offered a liver,” he said.

Recovery from the transplant was “brutal,” as he dropped from 275 to 144 pounds, contracted pneumonia, and required surgery after a lung collapse. He kept going, however, attending AA, working with a sponsor, and meeting regularly with a therapist, who first mentioned White Horse Recovery.

“I was honored to be interviewed for this job,” said Hanks. “I had spent most of my life not in the professional world.”

“We are launching a school-based support initiative across our service areas,” said Matthew Plache, executive director.

The initiative will be staffed by a team of White Horse professionals, including Hanks, whom Plache described as “incredibly dedicated to helping others, especially youth.” “His perspective on his lived experience will inspire and change lives—and if we are able to shift people’s relationship with substances while they are still young, it could help them step off the path to addiction before suffering devastating consequences.”

In his first week at White Horse, Hanks’ story has already helped move a local woman into a seven-day detox and a 28-day treatment program after she met with him.

“I told her, ‘This will kill you,’” Hanks said. “I asked her, ‘Do you want to be a memory, or do you want to be present?’”

Currently, Hanks is completing SMART Recovery facilitator training, beginning coursework toward his Certified Recovery Support Worker (CRSW) credential, and he will receive his high school diploma in June. “If this program can be what I did not have,” he said, “that is everything.”

With locations in Ossipee, North Conway, Berlin, and Littleton, White Horse provides outpatient mental health and addiction counseling, peer recovery support, wellness education, and prevention programming.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.

White Horse Recovery Annual Event Dinner

Serving the northern half of New Hampshire, nonprofit White Horse Recovery will host its 2026 Annual Freedom Event on Wednesday, July 22 from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. at the First Congregational Church in Center Ossipee.

Titled “An Evening of Hope, Community, and Support,” this year’s event invites guests to hear powerful firsthand stories from individuals whose lives have been reshaped through the community-based supports offered by White Horse Recovery.

“Every person in recovery is on a hero’s journey—one that requires tremendous courage, resilience, and a community willing to walk beside them,” said White Horse Recovery Executive Director Matthew Plache. “When we remove barriers to care, we write stories of triumph that ripple through families and communities for years to come.”

In addition to inspiring testimonies of transformation, the evening will feature a bold vision to expand access to life-changing care and a silent auction with exclusive experiences and items. Tickets are $50 per person, with proceeds supporting White Horse Recovery’s behavioral health and addiction treatment services for individuals and families across Coos, Carroll, and Grafton counties.

With locations in Ossipee, North Conway, Berlin, and Littleton, White Horse Recovery provides outpatient counseling, peer recovery support, wellness education, and prevention programming. 

If you or someone you know is struggling, you are not alone. White Horse Recovery offers services for those ready to start their journey to recovery. For more information, call 603-651-1441, Ext. 1.