When Amy Johansson’s son needed a local transitional facility where young adults could receive comprehensive, supportive post-rehabilitation assistance for their new, sober lifestyle, there was none to be found. Sadly, her 24-year-old son, Eric, subsequently died due to substance-abuse induced suicide, on March 28, 2013.

Now, as founder and president of non-profit Smile Anyway, Amy, her board, and many supporters are working to raise funds to provide the type of structured facility and community Eric needed, so they can help save the lives of countless shoreline residents aged 18 to 28 who are battling addiction.

“If I can prevent one family from suffering the pain and grief that goes with dealing with this, it’s worth it,” says Amy, a Branford resident.

On Friday, Aug. 24, Smile Anyway invites area residents to share their support by attending a music festival Eric would have loved. Tagged “Love is Louder,” the festival will run from 2 to 10 p.m. at the Owenego Beach and Tennis Club, 40 Linden Avenue, Branford. The rain or shine day of music features live performances by Zach Deputy, Kung Fu, John Spignesi Band, Spaghetti Westerners, and Ziiiro|The Comet. The festival will be emceed by radio personality John “Cadillac” Seville.

Amy and her team have also gathered plenty of generously donated prizes from local merchants, restaurants, and professional services that will be raffled away throughout the day. Festival tickets, $30, can be purchased online through www.smileanywaybranford.org. Children aged 12 and under enter free.

Incredibly organized and motivated, Amy only recently started up Smile Anyway and achieved non-profit status as a 501c-3 organization. As a psychiatric nurse, Amy first turned to her expertise to try to help young adults with addiction issues after Eric passed away. She took roles such as helping families with plan of care for their young adults, and also assisted at a Bridgeport correctional facility to help young adults in detox.

Partially due to professional boundaries that kept her from taking steps she felt were needed to assist further, “I wasn’t happy where I was,” says Amy. “I wanted to make a difference, and I wasn’t doing that where I was. That’s when I decided to start a non-profit. I saw the numbers, and I knew what was happening, because I saw it firsthand.”

Young adults are especially at risk because there’s a feeling of invincibility at their age, Amy says. She also notes the brain’s frontal lobe, which is responsible for reasoning, isn’t fully developed until about age 27.

“You add a little alcohol [or drugs] to it, and reasoning goes out the door. They don’t think, because they’re invincible at that age. They’re taking risks,” she says.

When her own son was going through addiction to alcohol, compounded by drug use, “I made the hardest decision I ever had to make, and told him to leave the house [and] that when he was ready to come home and get help, we would be there. It took a day, and then I brought him to High Watch,” an addiction and drug rehab center in Kent.

Eric flourished at the center and even hoped to find work there.

“He was so motivated, he stayed an extra week,” says Amy.

Following rehabilitation, most young adults next head to a “sober house” and receive some intensive outpatient care, or IOP, Amy explains. None of the local sober house sites she visited gave her the sense that the young adults’ welfare came first. She also noted Eric didn’t feel confident enough to assist himself by attending programs such as AA meetings.

Without a supportive sober house or meetings to assist him, “I couldn’t do it for him, so slowly, he went back to drinking,” says Amy.

Instead of a typical, peer-to-peer sober house, Smile Anyway’s facility wants to provide what could have helped Eric and so many others like him: a continuum of care that takes place following rehab, ahead of IOP, during IOP, and beyond.

“Right now, kids coming out of rehab, a week and a half later, they’ll usually start IOP,” says Amy. “They might go to IOP three days a week for a couple of hours. What about the weekends, the mornings, the evenings? If we can get them before [IOP] and have a continuum of care, they’d still go to IOP, but they come back to us and we work together. What I want to do is create a facility that works as community.”

That community would also give its residents household responsibilities—from grocery shopping to washing clothes—as well as education on nutrition, life skills, job interview techniques, continuing education, exercise, and mediation programs and regular and on-the-spot support meetings.

“They’d also have to volunteer their services to the community, so they’ll find out it’s not just about them,” says Amy.

The Smile Anyway facility would also connect its residents with social hours for playing cards, hanging out, or just having coffee, “so they have that new, sober social network. So when they leave, they’ve got friends already that are sober. And then, they come back and mentor others,” Amy says.

As a non-profit facility with grants to support it, the Smile Anyway facility could be made affordable for families with a sliding scale, she notes.

Forming the Fundraiser

Amy thanks her board, including chairman Ken Orsene, as well as the organization’s honorary board members and advisory board members for their continued assistance and support. She also thanks Eric’s many friends for helping Smile Anyway pull together Love is Louder.

“He had so many friends, and he was the center of his group of friends. He was the kind of guy that would give anyone the shirt off his back,” says Amy. “They had so much fun—they would do things like go to the Northford Ice rink and take the ice shavings and have snowboarding in our backyard in the summer.”

Eric and his friends also loved music.

“My son was into music, and he taught me a lot about music,” says Amy. “The night my son died, he saw [singer-songwriter] Zach Deputy at Toad’s Place [in New Haven]. I connected with Zach after that, and we’ve stayed in touch. He’s a good soul and he’s been touched by the drug epidemic, too. So he wants to do this and help shed light.”

While Amy has never gathered a music festival before, she has already lined up some top-notch bands suggested by Eric’s friends. Amy also notes the non-profit is named “Smile Anyway” after a song written by her nephew, who’s band, Ziiiro|The Comet, will perform on Aug. 24.

“He wrote this song, and it was about my son,” after his death, says Amy. “My nephew called me, it was probably last October, when I was just in the process of getting our tax-exempt number, and we didn’t have a name for the non-profit yet. And when he played this song, ‘Smile Anyway,’ I said, ‘...that’s the name of the non-profit.’ And the beginning of the song is about how we’re all human inside, but we’ve all become desensitized. We have to respect each other, and respect each other’s feelings, and not pre-judge.”

Smile Anyway already has the support of State Representative Sean Scanlon (D-98) among others. Through efforts like those of Scanlon, who led 2016 opioid crisis forums in Branford and Guilford, local awareness is being raised about Connecticut’s rise in overdose deaths.

Even though it’s happening right here, Amy says families who’ve lost a loved one to addiction often avoid becoming proactive in the battle to fight addiction due to the stigma attached.

She hopes to see area residents show support for the cause and hopes to draw Love is Louder attendees from not only Branford, but Guilford, North Branford, Madison, East Haven, and beyond. In addition to a full eight hours of music and raffle prizes, the event will also include awareness-raising educational displays from local groups. No coolers or alcohol can be carried into the venue, but food and beverages will be for sale at the Owenego during the event. Love is Louder also offers a free, continuous shuttle running from Branford High School to the Owenego.

“I want to see 1,500 people there having fun, and I want to create this educational event, and really start breaking things down and get conversations going,” Amy says.

Amy and the Smile Anyway board hope proceeds from Love is Louder will help the non-profit fund a CPA, provide for a grant writer and possibly a down payment for the future facility. While the Aug. 24 event is in Branford, Amy stresses Love is Louder and the work of Smile Anyway is there to assist residents in need from across the shoreline area.

“It’s going to be shoreline-based. I think we all have to come together,” says Amy. “I can’t do it alone. It’s coming together, as a shoreline community.”

Smile Anyway presents the Love is Louder Music Festival on Friday, Aug. 24, from 2 from 10 p.m. at the Owenego Beach and Tennis Club, 40 Linden Avenue, Branford. Tickets, $30, are available through loveislouder.ticketbud.com or www.smileanywaybranford.org.

Suicide is preventable. If you or someone you know might be considering suicide, you can get help by calling National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, 1-800-273-8255, available 24 hours every day. For more information, visit suicidepreventionlifeline.org.