LUDLOW — Addiction specialist Melanie Gulde helped Phish frontman and guitarist Trey Anastasio after his 2006 arrest for driving under the influence and drug possession. More recently, she teamed with him to open this town’s 46-bed Divided Sky Residential Recovery Program.
Gulde knows the frontman for the Vermont-formed band isn’t the only person who needs some backup.
“Women recover from addictions differently and face more barriers to treatment, often leaving them feeling overwhelmed and discouraged,” she said.
That’s why the nonprofit retreat center is launching a new women’s scholarship fund to assist those dealing with substance use disorder.
“It is more than just financial aid,” Gulde said of a fund that’s already raised $300,000 toward its $500,000 goal. “It’s a statement that every woman is worthy of a sober life, and we are here to support them.”
Women are more likely than men to face traumatic life experiences that can lead to substance use disorder, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reports. Yet because of a lack of money and support, they account for only one-third of admissions to recovery facilities.
Enter Divided Sky. Anastasio had become dependent on opioids after dental surgery before he began a court-mandated recovery program under Gulde, a licensed counselor who specializes in abstinence-based, 12-step work.
The musician went on to create a nonprofit foundation, collect more than $1 million through a 2020 series of online “Beacon Jams” concerts, and purchase Ludlow’s 18-acre Fox Run at Okemo property, which features a 20-room lodge with a commercial kitchen, meeting space and exercise facility.
“I started Divided Sky Foundation to offer people the same help that I was fortunate enough to receive,” Anastasio told Ludlow leaders during a 2021 review hearing. “I’ve talked to a lot of people in the incredible, progressive, forward-thinking Vermont recovery community and there’s one place that they all agree, and that’s that we don’t have enough beds.”
After some neighbors voiced concerns, Divided Sky dropped its plans to offer medical services and medication-assisted treatment to help with withdrawal (Vermont has three such providers: Recovery House in Wallingford, Sana at Stowe and Valley Vista in Bradford). Instead, it opened in 2023 as a “nonclinical program grounded in compassion, mindfulness and the 12 steps” for long-term wellness, according to its website.
The cost of a 30-day stay is listed at $7,500. Because Divided Sky isn’t a detox or rehab center but a next-step recovery retreat, it can’t bill Medicaid, Medicare or private insurance and instead relies on scholarships.
“We don’t turn people away for lack of funds,” said Gulde, who has welcomed 265 attendees in the past two years. “Our mentality is what do you have and let’s work together to get you in the door.”
Divided Sky is establishing the scholarship fund with the help of Tamara Holder, a women’s rights attorney and advocate who covered the cost of the program’s first female participant in 2023.
“I know it’s already working,” Holder said of the center’s efforts.
Several Phish fan groups are planning to collect money for the cause in advance of Anastasio performing a sold-out set of fifth-anniversary Beacon Jams concerts in November. The frontman has good words for the new fund.
“This program,” he said in a statement, “can give more women the chance to heal and start fresh.”
