Feelings of joy, strength and resilience radiated throughout the East Meadow Public Library, as Serene and Grateful Entertainment, or SAGE, hosted a creative showcase, highlighting the talents of musicians, poets, artists and more.
SAGE, a nonprofit organization that champions music and art therapy as tools for individuals recovering from addiction, was founded by Sean Mullady, with the same name of his son, Sage Mullady, who died in 2022 from a drug overdose.
“It was devastating,” Mullady said. “I didn’t have any coping skills. I’d always been a functioning addict, but when that happened, I completely spiraled out of control. Long story short, one day I woke up, and I was like, ‘I’m either going to have an act two in life, or I’m going to go down in flames.’”
Mullady went to St. Christopher’s Rehabilitation Inn in upstate-New York.
“I found a higher power, you know, I found God, and started getting clean,” he said at the event on March 29. “But what I realized that there was a void that needed to be filled with music and art. And that’s where SAGE comes in.”
After leaving rehab about three years ago, Mullady, who is originally from Oceanside, began working on building what would become SAGE. The nonprofit is based in Levittown but regularly engages in workshops and programs across Long Island and New York state, as well as holding events open to the public — such as the creative showcase in East Meadow.
In rehabilitation centers, Mullady combines music and storytelling, which he feels resonates with those who attend his programming.
“I do these workshops where I speak my story, and then I also play music, which is very interesting — usually people don’t have both,” he said. “Usually, you either have the music, or you have somebody lecturing. It’s not really combined. That’s what I did, I combined the two, and it’s amazing. People seem to get a lot out of it. I always say it’s a lot more fun than a hepatitis lecture.”
Andrew Kase, SAGE’s LGBTQ+ outreach director, said Mullady’s approach is unique.
“I have had my own journey through recovery, and I’ve been in a bunch of facilities, and what Sean and SAGE do is something, and I think it really brings hope to all the patients inside,” Kase said. “It basically shows people there’s life in recovery. There’s life after active addiction.”
Over the course of two hours in the East Meadow Public Library’s community space, attendees experienced dozens of performances that included music, poetry and comedy that spoke to healing and renewal. An art exhibition near the stage showcased drawings and paintings created by individuals in recovery. With exhibition tables and resources available, the showcase embodied Mullady’s hope that life after addiction can be both meaningful and beautiful.
“It’s almost like an extravaganza of art,” Mullady said of SAGE’s events. “There’s just a little bit of everything for everyone. Every song isn’t about recovery because the people are the recovery.”
At the event, Danielle McNicholas, SAGE’s therapeutic director, said a big part of the organization involves providing instruments to those in recovery.
“New people coming in might’ve sold their instruments in their active addiction,” she explained. “We like to give a few instruments away at every SAGE event.”
At the event in East Meadow, two guitars were distributed to musicians.
“It’s a such a beautiful thing, because a lot of times, people that are struggling with addiction, especially if they are musicians, they’ve sold a lot of their instruments, and they’ve kind of lost their mojo,” Mullady said. “I give them a platform where they can step on stage, get their juices flowing. I try to give people a professional space where they can share their stuff and feel like a rock star again. I would say 99 percent, if not 100 percent, of our performers are all in recovery, which is an amazing feat.”
SAGE’s events are attended by people in recovery, the family members of performers and often just members of the general public, especially in spaces like a public library. Concert spaces will be filled with families and children, which brings a lot of hope and light to the event itself, Kase said.
“I’ve been working in the field for a while,” Kase said. “I tell people this message: The opposite of addition is connection. It’s always a beautiful mess, but there’s always so much love. Every single one of our shows, we always grow.”
As Mullady likes to say, SAGE puts “the fun in dysfunctional.”
“There is usually such a negative stigma attached with recovery,” Mullady said. “I feel like the public perception of that is changing — people are much more accepting, because I don’t think there’s a family in the United States that isn’t somehow affected by this disease. So, I feel like SAGE is really doing its part.”
“I think there’s now so much more awareness and education when it comes to addiction, and we’ve been slowly chipping away at the stigma,” Kase added. “It’s not perfect, of course, but we’re doing our part and we’re helping out.”
To donate and learn more about SAGE, its offerings, workshops and upcoming events, visit SAGESite.org.
