Plunging For Teen Addiction

11 April, 2025 – HARWICH, MA – From November through April the Atlantic's freezing waters harvest more than fish. Behavioral Health Innovators challenges winter dippers to raise funds for teens with substance use challenges. One of the dippers is Janis McGrory in Harwich, who lost her daughter Liz to the opioid crisis. Janis says the image of who an addict is needs to change.

What Is Cold Plunging?

It's the fourth winter that Janis McGrory is cold plunging in the Atlantic. She has completed 71 winter dips in celebration of her daughter's life. Every 6 January, the date her daughter died, Janis invites others to undress in the freezing temperatures and brave the waters. All in the name of love and fundraising to support teens with substance use challenges.

"First of all it's honoring... I think about Liz." says Janis. " It's just so cold,And as somebody once told me, going into that cold water is very hard to do, it's a challenge. Just like perhaps staying clean and being in recovery."

What Is Substance Use Disorder?

Early January on Cape Cod means pelting, biting winds. Janis has a bath towel around her waist, her legs are red from the cold. She puts her shoes next to a big placard with her daughter's picture. A young woman with long blond hair, smiling at the camera, a dimple on her left cheek. "Elizabeth LeFort" is written above the picture, "4-7-1987 to 1-6-2011" under it.

Around 20 people have gathered on the beach in Harwich. The dippers stand out with their bright pink hats. Before walking out into the water, Janis thanks everyone for coming. As if to instill courage in the dippers she tells them about the mission and about Behavioral Health Innovators, the nonprofit behind the fundraising. BHI fills a gap in resources for young people on Cape Cod struggling with substance use. The nonprofit has preventive and interventive programs in 17 Cape Cod high schools and middle schools.

"We don't have many programs like that on the Cape," Janis tells the small crowd. "So this is really a worthy cause. If Liz perhaps had a program like that when she was going through this in high school, then she might be dipping with us."

Who Is A Drug Addict?

There is another incentive awaiting the dippers – in Janis' kitchen there is a big pot of chowder simmering, waiting to be shared by the group.

In Janis' and her husband's house Liz is everywhere. She is one of the first faces you lay your eyes on in a collection of photo frames on a table by the front door. Always smiling, hugging her mom, her sister. She looks like any teenager, she looks happy. "She is high in this photo," says Janis and points to one of the frames. "This is at the sober house, we were visiting her."

Liz was a cheerleader, she graduated 10th in her class in high school, she was a soccer player, she was on National Honor Society, she played basketball. She was liked by her friends.

"She was one that you would never think would get involved in
substances, and she did," Janis says. "She always thought that she could quit and she said, 'mom, I'll never be that person.' And she became that person who ended up living on the street, who ended up in many, many detoxes and recovery homes. The drug was bigger than she was. The drug owned Liz. Liz no longer had control of her own life."

Drugs has an especially hard grip on teenagers. Liz's drug of choice was opioids. Janis believes her daughter started using in junior high. By the time Liz graduated she was using heroin.

"She had a presidential scholarship to college. I deferred that until she was clean, till when I thought she was clean, but she was never clean. And then she went to school for one semester. She was on the dean's list while she was using drugs," Janis says. "Then she kind of disappeared."

Liz got involved with someone. Her parents did not know where she was.

"And then from that point on, she never came home," Janis says.

Is There Help For Substance Use Challenges?

Liz tried to get help, but during the second wave of the opioid crisis around 2010 there were a lot of gaps in substance related services for young people on Cape Cod.

"One being that when Liz wanted to go into detox, she had to be high to get into detox. So we had to get her drugs so she could get high and then they would accept her into a detox program," Janis says.

"And the detox would typically be five days because that's what insurance covered."

BHI collects data in clinical assessments of students enrolling in their programs. Stephanie Briody, CEO, says BHI sees substance use among kids as young as fifth graders. So far 292 teens have come through BHI's high school program. A total of 61 percent had substance use problems, 84 percent had mental health challenges and 61 percent showed signs of both. Of the 31 middle schoolers who have finished the program 25 percent had substance use challenges. For Stephanie the correlation between young people's substance use and mental health is clear.

"I think really the substance use primarily shows up as self-medicating
and really the kind of the tail of the dog rather than the dog anymore," Stephanie says.

Lana Atamian was one of them. She describes a kind of social anxiety dominating her self-image as a teenager.

"I always felt like a sense of dis-ease with myself.I always felt like I was comparing myself to other people around me. You know, that sense of just like uncomfortability with myself," Lana says.

"And when I did that drug that day, I walked into school like everyone was my friend that day. I was like smiling and waving to everybody."

Lana had never tried alcohol or drugs up until two months before her 16th birthday. She was into sports, poetry and dancing. She had a crush on a kind boy. One morning at the back of the school bus she tried opioids, painkillers, with him. She instantly thought, was this what she had been missing?

Can You Get Sober From Drugs?

Lana couldn't self identify with the image of drugs the adult world portrayed. She did not get addicted immediately, and she did not experience withdrawal. The painkiller she took on the school bus came from her mom's toilet cabinet prescribed by a doctor. Lana says she did not think that could be dangerous, it seemed safe.

"It's a progressive disease and that's what they should tell you. They should tell you you're gonna like it and you're gonna wanna do it again. And you might do it a couple hundred times before it turns into your life. But they don't tell you that," she says.

Two months later she tried heroin for the first time. But it wasn't until her last year of college that she realized she couldn't stop and that she needed help. Her mom had kicked her out of the house, she was working at a strip club, she overdosed around four or five times, until "something clicked" and she decided the last time was the last time.

"I'm going into sober houses. I wanna be clear, I didn't go to treatment," Lana says.

Just like Liz, Lana's insurance did not cover detox programs. Lana went in and out of sober houses, staying clean for a couple of months at a time before relapsing.

"I just had like a moment of clarity. (...) Every time since the first time I came to recovery, using got harder. When you have a little bit of recovery, you do have like a little bit of wow, there really is some hope.
If I really wanna stop, maybe I could do this thing."

Today Lana has been in recovery for 11 years. She has opened her own sober houses for women and girls on Cape Cod.

"You never think the first time that you're going to use that you're going to be that person, right? No one aspires to be a drug addict or alcoholic, right? None of us planned on it. Nobody actually wrote that in our yearbook," Lana says.

"A lot of people think that drug dealers are like, you gotta go to the corner and go and get your drugs," she says. "That's not where people get their drugs from the first time. You get your drugs from the first time from your friends.

Janis also wants to change that stigma, denial and stereotyping.

"People's vision is a bum in an alley in New York City. That's an addict," Janis says. "So when I look at my daughter's picture and I speak about this, I say, 'no, that is your addict today. That girl right there is your addict.'"



For More Information

• Behavioral Health Innovators' Website
• MA Substance Use Helpline
• Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)