For anyone in New Hampshire who has lost someone to addiction, an exhibit now hanging in Dover offers something that statistics cannot.
Portraits, drawn by hand, of Granite Staters who died from substance use disorder, each one paired with a written account of the person’s life rather than the circumstances of their death.
The exhibit is called “Drug Addiction: Real People, Real Stories,” and it opened July 10 at The Triangle Club at 120 Broadway in Dover.
Admission is free and it runs through Labor Day. For families across the Seacoast and the rest of the state who are searching for addiction treatment in New Hampshire, or who are grieving someone they could not reach in time, the setting itself is part of the point.
What the Exhibit Is
The show is part of a nationwide series created by the INTO LIGHT Project, a national nonprofit. Theresa Clower founded it after her son Devin died of fentanyl poisoning in 2018.
She began drawing his portrait as a way of working through her grief and then kept going, drawing others who had lived and died as he had.
Each state exhibit gathers original graphite portraits accompanied by professionally written narratives.
Families submit their loved ones themselves, sharing photographs, memories, and stories with the project team. At the end of an exhibition, the framed portrait of each person is given to their family.
New Hampshire has hosted the project before. A previous state exhibit ran at Plymouth State University from August to November 2025. This is its Seacoast showing.
Why It Is at a Recovery Club
The Triangle Club is not a gallery. It is a meetinghouse that has provided peer-driven recovery support in Dover since 1984, running dozens of 12-step meetings a week, seven days a week, year round.
It was the first organization in New Hampshire to hold Heroin Anonymous meetings. Attendance is free, and the club was recently named Dover’s Nonprofit of the Year.
That means the portraits are hanging in a room that people walk into on their way to a meeting. Someone in their first week without drugs sees them.
So does someone with 20 years. So does a parent who came in looking for help for an adult child and did not know where else to start.
The project’s stated purpose is to change how people talk about substance addiction and to reduce the stigma that keeps people from seeking treatment.
Putting it in a working recovery space rather than a museum is a fairly direct way of pursuing that.
Understanding Substance Use Disorder
Addiction is a medical condition, not a failure of character, and it changes how the brain’s reward and decision-making systems work.
That is why willpower alone so often is not enough, and why treatment that combines medication, counseling, and support tends to work better than any one piece by itself.
Signs that someone may be struggling include using more than they intended or for longer than they planned, needing more of a substance to get the same effect, withdrawal symptoms when they stop, losing interest in things they used to care about, pulling away from family and friends, and continuing to use despite clear harm to health, work, or relationships.
Secrecy and defensiveness about use are common, and they are usually about shame rather than indifference.
If you recognize several of these in someone you love, that is worth acting on. You do not need to wait for a crisis, and you do not need them to hit some low point first.
Finding Addiction Treatment in New Hampshire
Practical next steps for New Hampshire families:
- Search addiction treatment centers in Dover and across the Seacoast to compare programs by level of care and what they accept for payment
- Ask any program whether it offers medication for opioid use disorder, since that is a standard of care and not every program provides it
- Look into free peer support, including the meetings at The Triangle Club, which cost nothing and do not require insurance or a referral
- Call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357 for free, confidential referrals to local treatment, 24 hours a day
- If someone is in immediate crisis, call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
Addictions.com lists verified treatment centers across New Hampshire, searchable by city and by the type of care you need.
Search the directory for options near Dover, or use it to compare programs elsewhere in the state. You can also call
800-681-1058
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to get in contact with a treatment specialist.