Growing up in Kennebunk as an honors student and star athlete, Kaitlin MacKenzie never worried about becoming addicted to opioids.
“I always said I’d never do drugs, never smoke a cigarette,” she said. “That was always below me, I thought.”
This year marks a decade since MacKenzie, 28, graduated from Kennebunk High School, and six years since she graduated with honors from Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island, with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and marketing. It also marks two years since MacKenzie broke free of the grip of an opioid addiction she has struggled with since her senior year in college.
“I just try to use it all as a learning experience, and something to grow from,” she said.
MacKenzie is the daughter of Kennebunk Police Chief Robert MacKenzie. Her story is similar to so many others across Maine — desperate souls struggling to defeat the crippling world of opioid dependency. She wants people to know addiction takes hold easily, even in more affluent communities like Kennebunk.
The opioid epidemic has taken hold in Maine’s southernmost county. According to annual reports from the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center at the University of Maine, York County went from just six drug-induced deaths in 1997 to 74 in 2020.
Today, Robert MacKenzie is proud of his daughter for speaking out about her experiences. He hopes her story will send a message to the public.
“I want people to know it can happen to anyone,” he said.
From honor student to the ‘mission’
Kaitlin MacKenzie grew up in Kennebunk. Her parents divorced when she was 2 years old, but the split was amicable. Everyone still lived in town and got along well.
She was, in many ways, the ideal child: Driven and ambitious, MacKenzie knew she needed to work for what she wanted in life, and she did just that. Along with earning top grades, she played softball, ran track and cross-country and swam. She enjoyed theater and music class, focusing on singing, playing the flute and piano. She participated in the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program and was a member of The Captain’s Club — a local extracurricular program for kids who were drug and alcohol free.
Even in college, where many people her age experimented with narcotics, she said she drank a little, but never got into drugs.
“I did see some drug activity going on, but I wasn’t really around it,” she said.
That changed in her senior year after she underwent surgery to repair an old injury.
When she was in pain, doctors prescribed opioids for pain management. When the pills ran out, she found herself wanting more. It didn’t help that she had a boyfriend at the time who had had surgery on his knee, and found himself in the exact same position. They began, as MacKenzie put it, “seeking” a high, at any cost.
“It’s like this mission that you need to find that (high) anywhere you can, any way you can and you’re not going to stop until you do,” she said.
It wasn’t enough to stop her from finishing school, nor did it keep her from making the dean’s list. She broke up with her boyfriend after graduating in 2015, and was able to stop using for a time. All of this, MacKenzie said, fooled her into thinking she was in control.
When MacKenzie met a new boyfriend who had a similar history with drugs, they started using together.
“Once we tried it again, we didn’t stop,” she said.
‘You’re dancing with the devil’
After college, MacKenzie moved in with her mother in Kennebunk, but she and her new boyfriend kept using drugs. As time went on, it became harder and harder to hide her addiction from her family, especially her police chief father. Robert MacKenzie didn’t go into detail, but said he started noticing little signs of what is now called substance-use disorder.
“I was really concerned that there could be opioids involved,” he said.
Chief MacKenzie said he has confronted drug addiction in other people in the past, but those were strangers. This time, he said, was different.
“It hit me hard, because it hit me at home,” he said.
Chief MacKenzie first tried talking to his daughter about the problem after she had hidden herself away during a family event. The chief told her he was worried about her, and she needed help.
“I said, ‘You’re dancing with the devil. If you don’t stop, you’re going to die,’ ” he said.
At the time, MacKenzie said, his daughter was defiant and wouldn’t accept help.
Even in 2017, when her mother confronted Kaitlin, MacKenzie said, she moved out of the family home and into an apartment with the new boyfriend in Farmington, New Hampshire.
She had a job as a bank teller and he worked in masonry, but they both kept using opioids. Kaitlin MacKenzie would max out credit cards and borrow money that she never paid back to keep getting high and to avoid the crushing sickness of withdrawal.
She got arrested twice, both times with the new boyfriend in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and both times while they were trying to get high (they both ultimately received probation in both cases). Still, aside from a three-month stint in rehab following an intervention session led by her parents, Kaitlin MacKenzie could not kick the habit. She hit bottom in October 2019, when she and her boyfriend were at home getting high and she suddenly felt lightheaded.
“All of a sudden I fell to the floor, and I was trying to talk and no words came out,” MacKenzie said.
Luckily, she recovered, and didn’t even go to the hospital that night, but the experience frightened her and her new boyfriend so much that they both went out the next morning and sought help. Since then, Kaitlin MacKenzie said, both have stayed clean and stuck with their ongoing recovery programs.
“It’s crazy that it’s been almost two years,” she said.
The greater problem
Kaitlin MacKenzie is not alone in her struggle. Drug abuse has plagued York County for years, and not everyone’s story ends as happily as hers. According to annual reports, opioids are blamed for more than 80% of drug-induced deaths in the county from 2016-2020.
“It’s something that touches every area of the county,” York County District Attorney Kathryn Slattery said. “There’s no town in York County that isn’t touched by it.”
York County Sheriff William King agreed, noting that the opioid crisis is about more than just drugs. It’s about the crimes people are willing to commit to feed their habit.
“The vast majority of people that come into the jail, it’s somehow drug-related,” he said.
King said he understood why someone wrestling with opioids might break into a home or steal. It’s not just about getting high, he said. It’s also about avoiding the physical hell that comes with withdrawal.
“When you have that type of withdrawal, you get sick,” he said.
Road to recovery
Having close family support has made Kaitlin MacKenzie’s ongoing recovery efforts easier. Chief MacKenzie knows not everyone is so lucky. Some people don’t come forward, he said, out of shame, especially those who live in a circle of family and friends who insist on believing this sort of thing only happens to other people.
“Stigma’s the number one thing preventing people from recovering,” he said.
Today, Kaitlin MacKenzie still lives with the boyfriend she met after graduating college. They share an apartment in Arundel, and both continue to get help and counseling. Neither of them, she said, has gone back to using.
As to others who may be struggling with substance-use disorder, Kaitlin MacKenzie has a simple message: Get help, and don’t try to do it by yourself.
“Just reach out to someone who can relate and understand,” she said. “Having a connection with someone is the biggest step toward recovery.”
If you or someone you know needs help, call ‘211’ to get access to a statewide network of support services, or visit www.knowyouroptions.me.
