Phish's Trey Anastasio Opens Addiction Recovery Center with Caseworker Who Helped Him Get Sober 17 Years Ago (Exclusive)

The jam band frontman — who struggled with opioid addiction for years — opened Divided Sky, a residential recovery center, in Ludlow, Vt., late last year

• Phish frontman Trey Anastasio struggled with opioid addiction for years before he got sober in January 2007

• In late 2023, he opened Divided Sky, a residential recovery program in Ludlow, Vt.

• Melanie Gulde — who was Anastasio's caseworker after he was arrested for heroin possession and driving under the influence in 2006 — serves as program director at the facility

Trey Anastasio is giving back in a big way.

After a years-long struggle with opioid addiction, the Phish frontman founded Divided Sky, a residential recovery center, in Ludlow, Vt., that opened late last year.

“I’ve seen people in dire situations come back from this. It’s never too late to have hope,” Anastasio, 59, says. “Families can be saved.”

The rocker’s own family (including wife 58, and their daughters Isabella, 27, and Eliza, 29) was saved when he finally got help more than 17 years ago.

By 2000, Anastasio got hooked on OxyContin after first taking prescription painkillers for dental surgery.

Four years later, “I lost my band, then I almost lost my family,” he says of how his issues forced Phish to go on hiatus and caused tension at home. “Drinking and drugging, for me it was a slow death of isolation.”

Anastasio got the help he desperately needed on Dec. 15, 2006, when he was pulled over in upstate New York and arrested for heroin possession and driving under the influence.

“The minute I got arrested, I was relieved,” he says, growing emotional when thinking about how he could have harmed someone while under the influence. As he was cuffed, “I knew it was over,” Anastasio says.

He pleaded guilty to a reduced drug-possession charge and spent 14 months in meetings and community service ordered by drug-treatment court. The regimented program helped him get sober; he hasn’t touched a drink or drugs since.

Now, opening Divided Sky is a meaningful full-circle moment for Anastasio: His caseworker from nearly two decades ago, Melanie Gulde, serves as its program director.

“She saved my life,” Anastasio says of Gulde. “She’s a badass, but she’s also very loving.”

Together, Anastasio and Gulde hope to save many more lives at Divided Sky, a nonclinical, abstinence-based center that follows the 12-step program. The 46-bed facility costs $7,500 for 30 days, with financial aid available.

“We want to be available to everybody that needs help. It’s a place of healing,” says Anastasio. “Everybody who works there is in recovery. Virtually everyone understands, and there’s no judgment.”

Divided Sky’s model — which is based on The Retreat, a recovery center in Wayzata, Minn. — does not include detox, which is “one of the ways that the price stays down,” says Anastasio, who recently released a new album, Evolve, with Phish. “So basically, you know you're a drug addict, you're an alcoholic when you walk in the door. If you need to do detox, we are connected in the local Vermont sober community with places where we would send you to a medical facility to detox. Some people need longer than others. There's a staff that assesses the condition that your loved one is in, and some people would come 20, 30 days, other people might need 90. It's based on your individual situation. Some people might need longer and that's perfectly fine.”

For Anastasio — who began raising money for Divided Sky in 2020, when he played his “Beacon Jams” virtual residency at the Beacon Theatre in New York City — sobriety has been about reclaiming his joy. And he has a message for any family facing addiction: “This can end. Anyone can get off drugs and stop drinking. Your loved one is a sick person trying to get well, not a bad person trying to get good.”

Gulde hopes fellow addicts can find comfort in Anastasio’s experience.

“Trey’s story is strikingly similar in that what starts out as experimental substance abuse turned into full blown addiction including the ramifications that go with it,” she says. “Self-loathing, physical repercussions and family discord are all side effects of active addiction. Everyone’s story is unique to their specific backstory, but addiction doesn’t discriminate. In Trey’s case, the arrest was the end of the line, where he was able to embrace the opportunity, do the work and do better for himself and his family.”

Gulde adds: “I hope people take away the fact that humans are resilient. Recovery is the greatest gift we can give ourselves. Divided Sky came about as Trey’s desire to give back on a bigger scale. I have had countless people tell me that Trey has been an inspiration for their own recovery. We must do the work, and that is exactly what he does.”

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.

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