What You Can Do to Support Overdose Awareness Month
Every year, tens of thousands of people die from drug overdoses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2017, a little over 70,200 people lost their lives due to overdoses. According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, about 130 people die from opioid drug overdoses in the U.S. every day.
The drug problem is a growing one, and the fatalistic nature of the crisis has gotten progressively worse with each passing year. The death toll from drug use has always been a problem. But the last two decades, in particular, have seen the drug problem develop into a health crisis and eventually a full-on national public health emergency.
With the death toll from drug use being as dire as it is, it is of the utmost importance that we raise awareness for it. We have to get the entire nation to the point of understanding of just how severe this issue is. Only with all of us knowing about the drug problem can we effectively combat it.
Why Do We Need to Raise Awareness?
Just a cursory glance at the statistics of drug overdoses in the U.S. will give us a clue as to how much of an emergency this problem is. A problem this significant and this drastic is not going to resolve itself unless we all know about it and we are all taking steps to prevent and reverse it.
Let’s take one drug as an example: opioids. From 1999 to 2017, more than 700,000 people died from drug overdoses according to the CDC report cited in the opening paragraph of this article. About 400,000 of them involved an opioid drug, including prescription opioids. In 2017, the number of deaths involving opioid drugs was six times higher than the number of deaths involving opioid drugs in 1999.
Even though opioid overdose deaths are the majority of drug-overdose deaths, opioid painkillers are still prescribed with almost universal oblivion or carelessness for the type of harm that these drugs can cause. It’s examples like these that show us why we must raise awareness of the drug problem and the lethal nature of the different types of drugs.
Overdose Awareness Day and National Recovery Month
There are already efforts in place to raise awareness for drug overdose deaths. Quoting a CDC publication from last month: “August 31, 2019, is International Overdose Awareness Day, a global event that aims to raise awareness that overdose death is preventable and to reduce the stigma associated with drug-related death. Goals also include providing information about risk for overdose and community services and preventing drug-related harm through evidence-based policy and practice.”
Every year, Overdose Awareness Day kicks off September’s National Recovery Month. That is an entire month dedicated to raising awareness for those who have died from drug overdoses. The event also raises awareness for those who have gotten clean and sober.
National Recovery Month is a showing of solidarity and an effort towards awareness, a month dedicated in observance of the struggle of addiction. One of the key focuses of National Recovery Month is to educate Americans that people who are struggling with addiction can overcome their habits if they can seek and acquire professional help.
According to the National Association for Addiction Professionals, “National Recovery Month is a national observance held every September to educate Americans that substance use treatment and mental health services can enable those with a mental and/or substance use disorder to live a healthy and rewarding life. … The observance reinforces the positive message that behavioral health is essential to overall health, prevention works, treatment is effective, and people can and do recover.”
What Can You Do to Raise Awareness?
Both the CDC and the National Association for Addiction Professionals (cited above) offer resources for people to get involved in Overdose Awareness Day and National Recovery Month. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration also provides resources and data on how to get involved in community efforts towards drug awareness.
But what can each one of us do to raise awareness for the drug-overdose epidemic? To begin, one might consider hosting events in one’s community and using the educational resources that SAMHSA provides to raise awareness for the drug-overdose problem. SAMHSA offers various PSAs (public services announcements) that can be shown as a part of educational events and community programs for raising awareness.
Other options include partnering with local treatment centers to deliver educational programs, seminars, community activism events, etc. Local treatment centers are often state-funded and in desperate need of community support. One could easily connect with a local treatment center and offer one’s time or use the resources provided by the treatment center to get out into the community and inform others about the dangers of drug use.
The National Safety Council is another group that offers a wealth of resources and valuable insights on community action, raising awareness, getting a region educated and informed, etc. The NSC focuses on prescription drug overdoses, and how to get communities to understand that legal, doctor-recommended prescription drugs can be quite harmful.
If You Have a Family Member or Loved One Struggling with a Drug Problem
One of the best ways that we can all work together to reduce the drug problem is to help those we know who are struggling with drug and alcohol addiction to get into and through residential addiction treatment centers. A big part of addressing the drug problem and of observing Overdose Awareness Day and National Recovery Month comes from not just raising awareness for the drug problem but from also helping those who are currently addicted to drugs to get off of drugs.
If you know someone who is struggling with a drug habit or with alcohol addiction, do your best to help them get into and through a drug rehab program. Residential drug treatment centers are anyone’s best shot at creating a new beginning out of the life-and-death struggle that is drug and alcohol addiction.
Sources:
- https://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/epidemic/index.html
- https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/opioids/opioid-overdose-crisis
- https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6834a1.htm
- https://www.naadac.org/national-recovery-month
- https://recoverymonth.gov/events
- https://recoverymonth.gov/promote/public-service-announcements
- https://www.nsc.org/home-safety/tools-resources/rx-community-action-too
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