Online Support Groups Near Providence

Too small a state to stay anonymous

Rhode Island is the kind of place where the person at the next table went to school with your sister and the pharmacist knows your mother, which is wonderful until you need to talk about a divorce, a drinking problem or a diagnosis you have not told the family about. In-person groups here can put you across the circle from a coworker or a neighbor, so plenty of people decide it is easier to say nothing. Old mill towns like Pawtucket and Woonsocket and the fishing and factory communities down toward Fall River and New Bedford have their own quiet, where generations stay close and keep their troubles in the house. The winters are long and damp, and the state is small enough that there is nowhere to go to be a stranger.