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Today is International Overdose Awareness Day, 2015, and we invite you to join us in our ongoing quest to educate the public about the dangers of opioid drug use.

At TTC, our primary goal is to help addicts get off alcohol or drugs, and to start a new life of long-term sobriety. Getting and staying clean is what we lead every patient toward. Since opioid cravings are so strong, though, an overdose will often occur before the addict is motivated to quit using drugs. And the problem with that is that one likely outcome of an overdose is death.

Because of this, we also provide services like Methadone and Buprenorphene Maintenance that are meant to reduce the possibility of an overdose. Medication Assisted Treatments (MAT) like these also help addicts to focus more on treatment since they are not using heroin or prescription pain killers. While these programs have proven to be a safe path to abstinence, there is still a percentage of these clients that will relapse and use again.

Naloxone may be the only answer for addicts that relapse over and over. This drug is given to someone that is overdosing, and it immediately stops the effects of an opioid. They lose the high, but the body returns to almost normal functioning and respiration. They go into withdrawals, but they get to live another day. A recent program aims to increase distribution of Naloxone into public and private facilities, with the goal of reducing deaths from overdoses.

Where there are opioid addicts, we can conclude that there will be one or more overdoses among them. It’s inevitable and it’s sad. A cure for addiction is a dream for the future, but, right now, we can greatly reduce the amount of overdoses. It starts with you and your friends being educated, and you can get more information at the International Overdose Awareness Day website.

If you know someone that uses opioid pain killers like Vicodin, Oxycontin, or Norco, you may know a future overdose victim. Please learn and you will see that this statement is not an exaggeration.