America’s overdose crisis keeps changing shape.

In recent years, provisional CDC data have shown a sharp national decline in overdose deaths — even as public officials warn the street drug supply remains volatile and some communities see signs of a rebound.

That uncertainty is also reshaping the recovery world — especially around opioids. Some people find abstinence-based recovery works best. Others rely on medication-assisted treatment (MAT), using prescribed medicine like methadone or buprenorphine to stabilize a person and reduce the risk of relapse. But MAT has long divided the recovery community, fueling a stigma around a deceptively simple question: 

When is someone sober?

In this encore episode of Us & Them, Trey Kay visits the Clarksburg Mission in Clarksburg, West Virginia — a Christian-centered recovery facility where people pursue different paths toward sobriety — and where debates about medication, morality, and survival are never abstract.