Many Maritimers have been affected by the opioid crisis, but a Nova Scotia family has found one unique way to help a loved one recover after a near fatal overdose.

They turned to goats as a form of therapy, which has now turned into a business.

Every morning, Brendon Meister feeds and waters the family goats - small chores that are part of something that has made a big difference in his life.

Two years ago, Meister was recovering from a brain injury, caused by a massive drug overdose.

“March the 4th, 2016, I got a phone call from St. Michael’s Hospital in downtown Toronto that my son Brendon was in a coma in ICU,” explains Brendon’s father, Kevin Meister. “They didn’t know if he was going to make it, and that I should get there as soon as possible.”

Brendon had overdosed on tainted crystal meth.

Meister rushed to his son’s side. Doctors told him Brendon had been clinically dead for 30 minutes, and then revived.

He was in a coma for three weeks; as a result, he suffered brain damage.

“First coming out of it there was no control of limbs,” explains Kevin. “There was no speaking, he had a trach. It was a long ways from teaching him how to walk and talk again.”

Brendon came home to Nova Scotia’s Annapolis Valley to start the long recovery, and his step-sister had an idea.

That’s where the goats come in.

“We did a lot of research beforehand, and we have some friends that have goats so we went to visit them,” says Brendon’s step-sister, Jasmine Lomond, “and I took Brendon and he was a little skeptical in the beginning but he came around.”

Lomond had already been helping with Brendon’s recovery, making memory books for him with to-do lists and goals for the day.

She thought working with animals would help, and it did.

The family says as soon as the goats arrived, they started to notice a difference in Brendon’s progress.

“Huge, I mean his life wasn’t really going anywhere in the past,” says Kevin. “He was somewhat lost and to see him come back here now, and to function, and to be happy, he’s basically got a smile every day, and he’s become productive, the change is amazing.”

It’s working so well, that not only is Brendon improving, but they’ve now made a family business out of it.

“We milk the goats, by hand, collect it, and freeze it, and with that we make goat milk soap,” explains Lomond. “That’s how it started, and we now make bath bombs and sugar scrubs also, and Brendon helps with all of that.”

“That was all Jasmine’s idea,” adds Brendon. “And it’s going pretty well, what we do is we make goat milk soaps and bath products and we sell them at markets, and I think they’re in a couple stores.”

Now, Maritime Treasure Goat Therapy and Products make a range of bath products for spas and stores throughout the Annapolis Valley.

Kevin says if anyone had told him this would happen two years ago, he wouldn’t have believed it.

“Goats? Are you crazy?” laughs Kevin. “I just couldn’t picture it. I didn’t know where it was going to go, but I just had faith that things would work.”

“I feel more energetic now,” says Brendon, “because I’m actually getting up and doing stuff every day.”

The goats, and the family business have not only given Brendon purpose, but they’ve given him a new life.

His father says what has happened here is proof that you should never give up.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Heidi Petracek.