A scourge worse than Covid

 

Author Beth Macy talks about the opioid epidemic

As the world watched the numbers of cases and deaths caused by Covid rise, casualties of an older, more insidious pandemic mounted with little notice by the media.

Opioids, drugs designed to ease excruciating pain, became an instrument of a peculiar kind of torture that destroys lives and families and all to often leads to death. The highly addictive nature of these drugs was downplayed by the sales force of pharmaceutical giants as they encouraged doctors to freely prescribe them generating creating millions of addicts, immeasurable misery, and huge profits.

Opioids and other addictive substances destroy lives across the socio-economic spectrum. Parents and family members who battle the dark forces of addiction save their loved ones are often left exhausted, bankrupt, and bereaved. Addicts will do anything for their next fix to avoid becoming “dope sick” during withdrawal.

The Rural Substance Abuse Awareness Coalition (RSAAC) is a multidisciplinary coalition established in 2013. Its primary goals are promoting programs that address substance use disorder, prevent substance misuse, and raising awareness of recovery resources in Goochland, Powhatan, and surrounding areas.

RSAAC works to inspire, educate, and equip local residents by providing community education including for prescribers, awareness programs; school-based prevention activities; parental education to help parents be aware of addiction threats to their children; and the sharing of valuable resources through its website rsaac.org.

Partnering with local groups including faith-based organizations; businesses; law enforcement; public health; k-12 education; and non-profits RSAAC operates on the ground in our communities.

It has also implemented program to combat substance misuse including drug take back days, and local drug disposal boxes.

On August 28, RSACC held its second annual virtual overdose awareness walk and event at Rassawek. Goochland Commonwealth’s Attorney Mike Caudill is RSAAC Chair. Recovering addicts bravely shared their heartbreaking stories of addiction and their daily struggle to stay sober.

Keynote speaker for the event was Beth Macy, a Roanoke journalist, who followed the opioid epidemic that destroyed hundreds of thousands of lives and continues to kill and trap people in the downward spiral of addiction.

Macy’s book Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that addicted America has been made into an eight-episode HULU movie, filmed locally, that will air later this year.

She told the story of a promising high school football player with a bright future whose addiction led to an early grave. His headstone is a replica of his game jersey.

Macy told of high schoolers getting hooked at “pharm” parties where bowls of pills, sometimes harvested from the medicine cabinets of grandparents, were passed around. A cheerleader overdosed in the high school library. Soon, those addictions lead them steal from their families to fund their next high. A woman who had lost her own son to opioids, grew tired of watching mothers bury their children and sought ways to help.

Macy contended that drug overdoses killed 300,000 people in the past 15 years and are projected to kill an equal number in the next five years, with 95,000 deaths in the past year.

Addiction, she explained, is a chronic, relapsing disease that takes four to five treatment episodes over a period of eight years for a person to get one year of sobriety. Types of treatment vary from total abstinence to medication assisted treatment (MAT), which Macy contended has the most success. Twenty percent of addicts receive no treatment.

Every dollar spent on treatment, Macy said, saves $12 or more on reduced criminal justice and health care costs. Money coming from a settlement with Purdue will enable greater treatment and mitigation options at the very local level.

Macy condemned pharmaceutical giant Purdue Pharma for its role in the opioid epidemic. “They wanted you on that drug. The longer you were on it, the more money they made.” None of the settlement money will go to families destroyed by opioid addiction. The Sackler family, according to Macy, even after paying $4.5 billion in settlement costs, is still worth more than $10 billion.

Substance use disorder is a real disease, Macy said. Pulling addicts back from the abyss is a complicated process. Putting them in jail for crimes committed to feed a habit does little to solve the problem. Punishment for dealers who feed and encourage addiction cannot be harsh enough.

The Root (Rural Overdoes and Outreach Team) Project provides a safe space for friends and family of those living with the disease of addiction to share and exchange support in navigating unique relational and social challenges.

ROOT meets on the first and third Wednesday of each month at the Powhatan County VRS (Reception building) 3920 Marion Harland Lane, Powhatan, Virginia 23139. Doors open at 5:30, the meetings run from 6-7 p.m. A Zoom option is available - meeting ID 980 9078 6354 Password: family. For more information call 804.613.8856. ROOT motto: alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.

Robin, ROOT coordinator, herself a recovering addict, explained that the “pain in my body became an ache in my soul” when the drugs she took to deal with pain from an injury took over her life.

“There is a beautiful life on the other side of addiction. If there had been someone to help me, could I have spared my family the pain I caused them?” Robin asked. She said that to help and addict, you have to meet them where they are and remove the stigma from addiction. She looks for the day when this disease is eradicated and her friend stop doing drugs.

“Addiction is strong, but together we are stronger.”

Amen.