"Recovery Is Real In Georgia" - GA Recovers Bus Tour Stops In Dalton
Monday, September 8th, 2025
September is National Recovery Month, celebrating the hope for recovery for those suffering from drug and alcohol addiction and their families. On Monday, the Georgia Council on Recovery brought the celebration to Dalton as part of its 75-city Georgia Recovers Bus Tour. The tour stop included a chance for those in attendance to sign the side of the bus with their own messages of hope and to hear from those who are celebrating their own recovery. The visit to City Hall also included a public meeting of a state subcommittee on addictive disease.
Mayor Annalee Sams welcomed the bus tour to Dalton, thanking participants for visiting and for their work to help those suffering from addiction. Kevin Tanner, the commissioner of the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD) presented Mayor Sams with two Narcan drug overdose reversal kits. The kits will be added to supplies of Narcan that are kept in City facilities in compliance with a state law requiring public buildings to be equipped with doses of Narcan which can be used to stop an opioid overdose.
Caption: State Representative Steve Tarvin, Commissioner Kevin Tanner, and Mayor Annalee Sams (center) pose with Georgia Recovery Bus Tour staff (in green) and State Senator Chuck Payne (right) after the presentation of new Narcan overdose reversal kits to the City of Dalton
State Senator Chuck Payne also welcomed the tour participants to Dalton. As he spoke, Payne, a former caseworker with the Department of Juvenile Justice, held up a picture of a young man named Chase Noah. Noah grew up in Ringgold and worked with Payne while he was on juvenile probation. Noah later died of a drug overdose at age 22. More than 15 years later, Payne still communicates with Noah's mother.
"He was a bright young man. He was a baseball standout coming up in high school, and colleges were already looking at him for baseball during his freshman and sophomore year. He lost the baseball because of his addictions," Payne said. "This young man was worth saving... everyone is worth saving. And there isn't a family in this state that doesn't have somebody that has addiction issues. They're all worth saving. So let's keep working, let's keep trying. Let's do everything that we can, because I tell people all the time... mental health is physical health... as long as we all understand that, then you understand that drug addiction is a doorway to mental health issues that we need to help people through."
Monday morning's tour stop was announced by the Georgia Council For Recovery as a "policy stop" which means that in addition to having a photo opportunity with the Georgia Recovers Bus, the event also included a policy discussion. The DBHDD's addictive disease subcommittee held a meeting at City Hall which was open to visitors. The subcommittee heard a presentation on recovery community organizations (RCO) that help those in recovery to access needed services in their communities. Brian Kite, the RCO development program manager with the Georgia Council For Recovery, urged the subcommittee to support legislation that would define and support the work of RCOs.
"Recovery community organizations have done a tremendous job to try to connect services together so that we're not operating in silos, and their aim is not to duplicate services but to find what is missing and to help lift up that need," Kite said. "That may be housing, it may be transportation, it may be getting people to and from their recovery meetings and it might be having more options for more pathways to recovery. Because that's another goal of recovery community organizations, that they support multiple pathways to recovery. Because there's not one way that gets you well, there's not one way to get well. There are many different ways."
Caption: Local leaders welcomed the Georgia Recovers Bus Tour to Dalton Monday, posing for pictures and signing their names on the side of the bus
"I realized I needed more than just one meeting a week," Shelly Roche told the subcommittee. Roche has been in recovery for four years and is a certified peer specialist and director of Unified in Recovery, a RCO in Lafayette. "I needed a lifestyle change. I needed a meeting, I needed connections with people, I needed fellowship, and I needed a recovery community as support with events and features."
At the end of the subcommittee's work, Chairwoman Taylor Peyton thanked the meeting's participants.
"It's incredible that we're all here and it's incredible that we're able to have these conversations. I'm so grateful you are able to attend and be a part of this," Peyton said. "Ten years ago, we weren't even able to have these conversations. You couldn't even say you were a person in recovery and keep your job. The changes that we've made thus far are immense, and I'm grateful that you all continue on the journey with us."
The Georgia Recovers Bus Tour will continue throughout the rest of September. For more information and a complete list of the remaining tour stops, click here.
