Opioid crisis continues
Preliminary data for 2019 shows 121 overdose deaths
At the close of 2018, those involved in the world of substance abuse treatment in Berks County semi-celebrated, Stanley Papademetriou told a crowd gathered inside Sts. Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church’s social hall on the afternoon of Feb. 17.
There was tepid excitement, the executive director of the Berks County Council on Chemical Abuse said, a sense that a corner may have been turned. After two years of record-high, tripledigit overdose deaths fueled by a growing opioid epidemic, 2018 saw a drop.
At 95, the number was only 11 lower than the year before. But it was a step in the right direction.
Turns out, the epidemic is still alive and well.
Preliminary data for 2019 shows the county saw 121 deaths, with the number expected to climb as information on the last few cases rolls in.
There’s still a lot of work to be done.
Papademetriou was the featured speaker at the St. Xenia Philoptochos Society of Reading’s February meeting. He spoke about the rise in the opioid problem in the U.S. and across Berks, what’s happening to fight it and what people can do to help.
Addiction is a disease
Papademetriou’s presentation began with a discussion about what, exactly, addiction is.
It’s not a choice, he said. It’s not a test of willpower or a weakness or a punishment from God.
It’s a disease.
“No one chooses this, no one chooses addiction as a path for themselves,” Papademetriou said.
Addiction changes the way the brain works. It taps into our base instincts, like the need to breathe or eat or seek shelter, he said.
“For them, using is not something they want to do, it’s something they have to do,” Papademetriou said.
And it’s something that 40 million people age 12 and over across the U.S. — one out of every seven of us — is facing. Of the millions who need treatment for addiction, he added, only one in 10 is getting it.
While the numbers are bleak, Papademetriou said, it isn’t a lost cause. Hope, help and healing are possible.
“People do get better from this, they really do,” he said.
The rise of opioids
Opioids are nothing new in the U.S., or Berks, Papademetriou said.
Narcotics made from the poppy plant or synthetic varieties created in labs have been commonly used for pain relief for decades. They come with names like Vicodin or morphine or Percocet or OxyContin.
People overdosing on them date back just as far.
To illustrate his point, Papademetriou turned to the classic 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz.” In particular, the scene where Dorothy is running toward the Emerald City and the Wicked Witch of the West declares “poppies will put them to sleep.”
“Pretty much, Dorothy had an overdose,” Papademetriou said of Dorothy’s sudden slip into slumber.
But opioid abuse began moving from a problem to a full-blown epidemic only a few short years ago.
Papademetriou said that 2016 saw the first wave of skyrocketing overdose deaths, with 63,600 across the country and 4,643 in Pennsylvania. The numbers have stayed near those levels ever since.
After hovering around the low to mid-60s for several years, Berks has had at least 116 overdose deaths in three of the past four years. That’s more than two each week.
“Two times a week there’s someone not here who was here,” Papademetriou said. “Two times a week a family has its heart ripped out.”
Fighting the fight
Battling the opioid epidemic is a team effort, Papademetriou said.
In Berks, one of the early steps was to stop treating people struggling with addiction as criminals.
“In 2015 or 2016 District Attorney John Adams said, ‘We’re not going to arrest our way out of this problem,’” Papademetriou said.
Those with addictions who spend time in jail are actually at greater risk of suffering an overdose, he added. Not able to use while behind bars, people’s tolerance drops. When they get out and go back to their preincarceration usage levels it can shock their system.
What those suffering with addiction need is treatment. For opioids, there’s medical assisted treatment through which they can be weaned of the drugs with the assistance of things like methadone or buprenorphine. That helps with withdrawal symptoms that Papademetriou said can be like an extreme case of the flu.
The state has introduced prescription monitoring, which tracks what medications people are being prescribed and helping to fight “doctor shopping” where someone gets the same or similar medication from several physicians.
The state has also made naloxone, a nasal spray that counteracts opioid overdoes, easily available. Anyone in Pennsylvania can go to a pharmacy and get naloxone, commonly sold as Narcan, without a prescription.
Papademetriou also urged people to properly dispose of their unused medications.
Other efforts in Berks include warm hand-off programs at local hospitals where a drug treatment specialist is automatically brought in when an overdose patient is treated.
Similarly, a program called Blue Cares has been introduced. When a police officer is involved in reviving an overdose victim, an officer and a treatment specialist make a follow-up home visit within 48 hours.
Something that everyone can do, Papademetriou said, and something that COCA is now focusing on, is removing the stigma from addiction.
He said we should all try to move away from using terms like “addict” or “junkie,” instead saying someone has “a substance abuse disorder.”
“Words matter, words are powerful,” he said.
Substance abuse is something that people need to feel comfortable talking about, feel comfortable asking for help with. Recovery shouldn’t be something that happens in the dark, but with the support of the community.
For more information on substance abuse and addiction recovering visit cocaberks.org.