AILSA CHANG, HOST:
For many anglers, the practice of fly fishing is about much more than catching fish. From member station GBH, Craig LeMoult reports that for some people in addiction recovery, fly fishing can be therapeutic.
JIM FAUST: So with this amount of line out, I want you to go ahead and cast that.
CRAIG LEMOULT, BYLINE: Jim Faust and Noreen Finnegan stand knee-deep in the Deerfield River in the northwest corner of Massachusetts as he shows her how to fly fish. Her wrist pivots the rod forward, and the line creates an arc that drops gently into the river.
FAUST: Yes, there you go. Now, you feel that?
NOREEN FINNEGAN: Yeah.
FAUST: OK, good.
LEMOULT: Faust is a retired anesthesiologist, and these days, shares his passion for fly fishing with people in addiction recovery. He tells Finnegan to pause for a moment on the back swing of her cast.
FAUST: We have a pause, right?
FINNEGAN: Yeah.
FAUST: A pause. And you think that when you pause, nothing's happening. Probably the same thing in life. Sometimes when you pause, all the important stuff is happening, and that's what's happening with a fly cast.
LEMOULT: The two met at a rehab center. Finnegan was getting treatment for alcohol addiction. Faust came in to teach how to tie flies, the tiny lures that are used for fly fishing.
FAUST: You're doing great.
FINNEGAN: This is great. Thank you.
LEMOULT: And Finnegan knew then she wanted to get out here on the river to see those flies in action.
FINNEGAN: It's so peaceful. It really just gets you. Like Jim says, time to pause, you know? It's perfect. It just gives you time to focus on just what's around you and just, like, drop everything.
LEMOULT: Faust's nonprofit is called Adam's Parachute, in honor of his son, Adam.
FAUST: When he got into recovery - and he had two years and two months in recovery - he devoted his life to helping other people who were seeking recovery.
LEMOULT: Two years ago, Adam saved the life of a young man who had overdosed.
FAUST: And I think that triggered him.
LEMOULT: The next morning, Adam overdosed himself.
FAUST: So Adam passed. And he's still with me. He's with us right here. I can promise you. But then came the how do we move forward, you know? Do we move forward?
LEMOULT: That's when he came up with Adam's Parachute. It's actually the name of a fly fishing fly, and Faust sees it as an apt metaphor for his son's final moments. Adam had one parachute, and he gave it to someone else. Now the nonprofit shares fly fishing with people in recovery.
FAUST: I'll probably get 200 people out fishing this year. I got 100 out last year.
LEMOULT: Among them is Jared Freeman.
JARED FREEMAN: I never was comfortable in my own skin. So when I was alone by myself, my mind would just race, and I'd use substances to deal with reality in my own thoughts. With fly fishing, it forces me to be okay with my own thoughts.
LEMOULT: Faust has recruited other anglers to help him teach. Amy Delaney, who's in recovery herself, discovered fly fishing through a program for veterans called Healing Waters.
AMY DELANEY: Jim was one of my mentors that taught me how to fly fish. And then when he started Adam's Parachute, I immediately offered to help.
LEMOULT: She knows too many who didn't make it.
DELANEY: I just want to be able to save one. That's all I wanted to do. I just want to be able to do for somebody else what was done for me. I have to.
(SOUNDBITE OF WATER TRICKLING)
LEMOULT: Faust says being out on the river and sharing it with others is helping him process his grief.
FAUST: The Irish call it a thin place, you know, the place where the veil between the heavenly and the earthly or between the human and the spiritual is thin, and, you know, maybe it's even transparent sometimes, but you can feel it. These are my thin places.
LEMOULT: He says many people in recovery haven't found their thin place yet.
(SOUNDBITE OF LINE BEING CAST)
FINNEGAN: All right.
LEMOULT: And he's trying to help them do just that.
FINNEGAN: Hey.
LEMOULT: For NPR News, I'm Craig LeMoult.
CHANG: And if you or someone you know may be considering suicide or is in crisis, call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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