One Ohio County May Need Temporary Morgue After Spike in Fentanyl Overdoses
The country’s opioid crisis continues to rage on, as fentanyl (now the deadliest drug in the US) overdoses in one county in particular spiked with 23 deaths in just over a week’s time. Franklin County, Ohio may need to open a temporary morgue to keep up with the bodies piling up as a result of overdoses. This is a county that typically sees one or two deaths daily and has even had a 26-hour period claim 10 lives. Fentanyl, once created for anesthesia purposes, is 100 times stronger than morphine and can be fatal in an instant.
As a former opiate addict, seeing what’s happening causes me to experience both sadness and relief. There is a sense of sadness knowing how many lives this crisis continues to destroy with every passing minute, and a sense of relief knowing just how easily this could have been me, how it could have been my family and my loved ones left to grieve and wonder what could have been for a life gone way too soon. That isn’t how my story ended, and I’m grateful every day that I got the help that was necessary for me to put that life behind me. Unfortunately for so many others, that isn’t the case.
I’ve recently dedicated my life to helping addicts see the other side of things and move towards a life free from addiction.
I wish there was a way I could save every life from the torturous effects created by prolonged drug abuse, but there is no individual cause that can turn the tide for our country. This is a collective problem that was created and then subsequently and collectively ignored for far too long, and it is going to take a unified and collective effort if we are going to save our country and our youth from the opioid crisis. We created this mess, and now it’s time to clean it up. People are dying at an alarming rate, and there must be an urgency across the board if anything is going to change.
While items such as Narcan can be a useful tool to prevent fatalities during overdoses, the only way anything is going to start trending in the right directions is if we start pouring in our recourses to reduce overdoses and the number of addicts that go without the help they need or are thrown into jails without any proper treatment for addiction.
We need to start looking at why so many approaches to treatment and recovery have such a low percentage of success and start looking outside the box for ways to improve our state-funded facilities where minimal care and attention is given. I also want people to know there is more than one approach to getting clean and there are multiple ways for a person to overcome their drug addiction.
Nothing against the twelve-steps, I know it works for a lot of people, but there are countless others for which that program never resonates and there isn’t enough awareness out there for addicts to realize that isn’t the only way. The same goes for drug replacement therapy. A lot of people aren’t comfortable with using highly addictive ‘medications’ they can’t go without to overcome addiction.
That has been our country’s narrow-minded approach to solving the problem, one way or the high-way and more prescriptions.
We are all unique individuals, and every addict needs to find their path to getting clean and needs to be presented with multiple options to find the one that works for them instead of a status quo that isn’t collectively solving the addiction crisis in this country. When the formula isn’t resulting in a viable solution, it’s time to change the formula. Lives are depending on it. If you or anyone you know is seeking help, please reach out.
