How to eliminate asthma relapse

â  warning. the following programcontains content and language that may beinappropriate for youngerviewers. there are graphic depictionsand portrayals of addictionthat will be shown. parental discretion is advised. hello, i'm steve kendall. i'llbe your host for wbgu-tv's new series aboutaddiction. in this series we'll be focusing on addictionto prescription opiates, andthe gateway that has led many to heroin. in the past decade,addiction to prescriptionopiates

has emerged as a very seriousproblem in our community,tearing families apart and claiming an average of 5lives a day in ohio. wbgu-tv has made a commitmentto help save our community. in this series, we will talk tomany people that are on thefront lines of this issue,family members, recovering addicts,doctors, therapists, and manymore that are all playing a vital role in thestate of our public health.while many are just finding out that thereis an epidemic, others are inthe trenches searching for answers and trying to makesense of it all. people areasking questions, and we're here to help youconnect the dots. we nowpresent part 1 of our

series, addiction: heroin andpills. ♪ heroin has been used in theunited states for a very long time, a couplehundred years at least. it's a drug thatproduces an extreme, an intenselypleasurable experience when it's taken in the kinds of doses that peoplehave used. it can be snorted like cocaine,

it can be smoked, it can be injected. when it's injected,typically we're talking about intravenously. opium isthe substance from which heroin issynthesized. opium has been around for avery long time, and predating heroin. the realityis, we can go back to thehistory of opiates in the united states that dates far back,even to the day of the asian railway worker. and when theycame, there was no issue with them using,because it kept them productive.

they may have been tired, butthey certainly worked throughit and progress was made. so when the outcome wassomething that benefitedeveryone, there was no problem with it. well thenthere was some suspicion, orconcern i should say, that "oh no, theasians are infiltraiting white american, they'reinfiltrating even urban housewife, and it'smaking her do things that sheshouldn't do." well then doctors actuallystarted prescribing opiates tothe housewife for her hysteria.heroin was actually manufactured first in germany by the company

bayer, like bayer aspirin. andit was made to be a perfect drug for pain. and it didn't take too long before they understandthat it was very addictive. and so that changed its profile. so what initially started as adrug that came over with the asian community, andthen you have the irony of mencoming back from vietnam who were addictedto opiates and continuing to use

once they're here, you werestill talking about an urbandemographic population, and primarilyafrican american. well what we've experienced with thismost recent influx, is young people in suburban and ruralamerica who are becoming addicted topills because they're either doing, and let'sbe very clear, young people are doing exactlywhat young people do. and so what normally a kidwould go to a high school party, and they'd say "oh man, we'regoing to drink a beer" or"we're going to do a kegger",

now you're hearing, "oh, wehave a bowl full of pills, andi got them from the death of mygrandparent" or "my mom had awhole bunch of extra pills, and so we're going to dip intoit, and you take one, and youtake one, and then we're goingto chug after." without very clearunderstanding that that one pill can kill you. [pills clinking] an opiate is any psychoactivesubstance, any drug that affects how youfeel by affecting your brain, when that drug comes from thepoppy plant.

poppy plants are grown invarious locations throughoutthe world, a lot of them aregrown in afghanistan and that region,and they are turned into heroin or other opiatemedications. some of them are prescriptionmedications, and these are thethings that people becomeaddicted to. recently, thepharmaceutical companies have become able to producesubstances that are very similar to opiates, theyact like an opiate in the brainbut they actually don't have any poppy in them. those arecalled opioids. opioids includes all the opiates plus all thesynthetic opiates.

in our brains we havereceptors, in our nervous system that are finely tunedfor naturally occurring opiate chemicals thatour brain produces in response to anumber of different stimuli but including pain.that's also involved with pleasure and kindof the natural reward system of our brain. in themesolimbic reward area of the brain is the release ofdopamine. and dopamine is, you can almost call it thereward chemical or the pleasure

chemical. and this is reallywhere the important situationis, that everybody when they havethat surge of dopamine, thatsurge of dopamine is different fordifferent people. and thememory of that, the conditioned association isdifferent for different people.so some people remember that surge of dopamineand the reward in a sense that it created, so they goback for more. as we take more and more of themedication our nervous system adapts. andso it develops more and more receptorsites. and as

then the medicine is there tofill those receptor sites, you need to build a toleranceand so we need to take more and more ofthe medicine. and so it's notuncommon to hear, as one friend of minesaid, "you know, yeah i used to take vicodin youknow once a day and it was really helpful." andthen like a couple months later, shesays, "oh i have to take 3vicodin for it to even touch my pain." same pain, but she needs to take three times asmuch in a short period of time

in order to get the relief shewas getting earlier. and so that whole tolerance occurswith the brain developing more receptor sites. well thenwhen you withdraw the medicine, then there is theexperience of the withdrawal symptoms. now withdrawal is somethingthat occurs once your body is used to an opiate medicationand it's tremendously painful anduncomfortable. it can causeshaking, vomiting, diarrhea, sweating,it's like the worst

fever that you've ever had. soin order to avoid going into withdrawal,people are left to their own devices. the body goes intothis state of mass confusion.so you'll see people who literally arecrunched over in thisexcruciating fetal position because theyfeel like they're going to die. the difference is, theywon't, so it's torture. last time i withdrew, it was so bad that i had to crawlto the bathroom multiple timesa day, just to... and diarrhea

is like hand and hand. it'spainful diarrhea, it's not even like a normal, i've got astomach flu, it's like i don't understandhow water coming out of my butt hurts so bad. in order to stop feeling sick,you know what you have to do,so then your body is telling you, "hey man i'msick, we need to do this in order to make it through." it's like the flu, it's like 20 times worse, you know, youthrow up,

you piss, you shit, you can't move, you're cramped up,it's a cold sweat. and you can't stop. if itwasn't for withdraws, i probably would have stopped a long timeago. the lack of control, not beingable to say, "okay today i'm going todo it" and then "this weekend maybe i'll do it." it's more of, "okay today ihave to do it." "12 hours from now i have to doit."

"6 hours from now i have to doit." that's the worst part of it, isnot having the control to say, "alright i'm not goingto do this today." heroin being readily availableand low in cost, it's easy then toswitch from the medication, somepeople use theminterchangeably. you know whenthey can get a pill they'll use the pill. if theycan't get the pill they'll usethe heroin. if you're spending 40, 50, 80, 100 dollars a day for one pillto keep you from getting sick,

initially you can get someheroin to keep you from feeling sick. and 10 dollars'worth may last you a few days. doesn't take agenius to figure out the economiceffects. "well gosh, 10 dollars, 100 dollars, this ismuch better!" these opiate addictions startoff very young, i mean you'llbe 14 years old going to a party, you got somedrinks, then all of a sudden somebody bustsout a pill, they break it upand everybody's snorting lines. i mean that's how people reallystart is slowly.

you know they don't do wholepills themselves. but i meanit's anybody. it's that pretty girl down thestreet who's a cheerleader,it's that jock, it's anybody will doopiate pills nowadays, there'sno taboo against it. do they understand that what i'm taking in terms of apill form is going to lead meto heroin? and the answer is no. if you talked to a lotof these kids in high school,for instance, or even young adults, if youwere to go and offer them at aparty, say, syringe of heroin, they wouldrecoil from that. they wouldsay, "no,

i'm not going to stick a needlein my arm just to have a goodtime tonight." and yet they are more thanwilling to go down and have askittles party at their friend's house, where everybody goes toa grandparent's medicinecabinet or their mom and dad's medicinecabinet, they pull out themuscle relaxants, they put it all in a bowl, and they pass itaround. and each kid takes apill and kind of see what'sgoing to happen to them while they're drinkingalcohol. so they think that it's safe, theythink that it's a good time."it must be safe, right? itcomes out of the medical system! i mean my mom wasprescribed this for her pain,how can that possibly not be safe for me to take andhave a fun time with?" their

brain figures out very quicklythat it's activating those sameresponse signals that give us feedback on thingslike food, water, and exercise. all the naturalthings that our brain is conditioned to tell our bodyare good things. they'reconvinced that the drug is essential fortheir survival, and they beginthis process going from the prescriptionpain killers toward heroin as their addiction progresses. from 2000 to 2012, unintentionaldrug overdoses in the state ofohio

increased by 366 percent. it's reported that of all theseoverdoses, roughly two thirdswere related to prescription opiates or heroin. there's noquestion that there's a huge early onset, like that 18 to 25 year old. there is a huge early onset inthat late middle school, early highschool. and then the next big use age that wesee are in that 40, 45- 60 range.

in a rural area, you have more people who have jobs and as aresult have insurance, as a result goto see a doctor, and so are morelikely to have a prescription. or because of that health carecoverage, had surgery and so on. so would have received aprescription opiate and may have taken them for too long or too manyand become addicted to them, and then when theycannot get that prescription

turn to heroin because heroinis an opiate as well. it's not anymore what wasconsidered or thought to be by societystigmatizing addiction adowntown disease, it actually is a verymuch suburban disease nd crosses all lines of race and ethnicity and profession. sothe scope is very seriousbecause of the incidence of the overdose deaths, which is happening atepidemic levels. in the state of ohio, in 2007overdose

deaths began to eclipse allother forms of accidental death in the state,including traffic accidents. and shootings, so for instance incleveland you're more likely todie of a drug overdose than you are of being shot orbeing in a traffic accident. it's a very, very seriousproblem in our state, and we'renot alone. it's a problem throughout theunited states, but certainlyit's a problem here in ohio. there are across our country 130 people that die everysingle day as a result of an overdose to opiates.

in ohio, we're losing 5residents every single day to thisdisease. so it's a tremendous loss in all aspects. it's a loss of a loved one to a familymember, it's loss of workers, loss oftaxpayers, loss in our communities.they're fathers, they're mothers, it's just a loss. and one that we all need tostep up to

turn that trajectory. me and my baby mama, we got together, and drug is hard, so she was prostituting. i had herout there pulling tricks, prostituting. anyway,she comes back and as soon as she got out ofthe car, i told her i had asurprise for her. and we went to somebody'sbathroom, she's setting up herrig, i'm setting up mine. i give hersome, she does hers, whatever i had my back turned.well, she ain't telling menothing, because usually

she'll say, "man this is somegood shit" or "this is garbage". well, nothing. so i turn around. eyes in the back of her head,she falls into the tub, ifreaked out. i didn't know what to do, i'mpumping on her chest, you know,i was breathing in her mouth and like next thing youknow, snot coming out, she breathing a little bit.then it like stopped again. soi called 911, later they're on theirway. i've never been that scared in my life. it's like i've seensomebody die over heroin, andit felt like i did it, you know because i gaveher the stuff, so i killed mybaby mama. that's how

i feel. back in 1970, in the early 70s when we would talk aboutpeople overdosing, we werereally specific about that population.so we were talking about 200, 210 people who had overdosedbecause of heroin or opiate related issues. 2012, i believe we were talking about 1,917 individuals who had overdosed because of heroin oropiate related issues.

epidemic kind of implies it'smoving at a rate that we can't get aholdof or control of. and it's expanding beyond ourmeans and our resources. i can't say that it's beyondour means and resources, but it's happening at such afast, at such a quick rate, webarely have time to catch our breath and gettogether and come up with asystemic approach. but that's exactlywhat we have to do in order to overcome this issue. we haveto look at young people, elderly peoplewho have chronic illnesses,

we have to look at familyhistories, people withhistories of trauma, we have to look at urban,rural, suburban communities. so when people sayepidemic rates, so imaginethose communities i just identifiedfor you, that on average in thestate of ohio, we are having 5 overdosesper day. 5 overdoses per day is epidemicif you look up the definition by the rural healthorganization, ohio has reachedan epidemic point. as has most of the nation. 10years ago, we would have an occasional heroin death, butit was

pretty much an occasional sortof thing. in 2010, i signed out 8 cases that had died of a drug overdose accidentally fromheroin. in 2011, the 8 jumped to 15. in 2012, the 15 became 31. and then last year, we had 80. so we went from 31 almosttripled to 80. through october, we've had 123.

at the age of 22, i've known 4people that have died fromopiate overdoses, whether it's fromstrong pills like opana or heroin. parents like to thinkthat heroin addiction is only for homeless people or somebodyliving under the bridge when in all reality, nowadayskids are starting off heroin when they're 16 yearsold and they're from uppermiddle class families. they got everything wrapped uptight in their suburban homesand you know these parents justhave no idea that it'severywhere. when they go to school, itdoesn't matter how nice yourschool is, sometimes the nicermeans there's even more

going around, because they gotthe money for it. so you knowthey'll go to school and kids are in their lockersselling drugs. we're your everyday middleclass family. my daughter grew up in a suburblike any other, in pickerington, ohio. i'vealways been a working mom, my husband and i have alwaysbeen involved in our children's lives, their school work, theirsports activities, just your everyday middle class family. when we first learned that ourdaughter was using heroin,

it was because she was involvedin a traffic accident. it was a boy that she reallyliked that introduced her to a whole new group of friends.because she dealt with self esteem issues, she made thatbad choice. once she made that bad choice, and once thatdrug entered her veins, there was nothing else thatmattered. we were great parents, she hada great life. and if she were here,she'd tell you. she didn't want

to die. but the grip that thishas it is so hard to beat it. by abusing everyday opiatessuch as vicodin, oxycontin, and percocet to treat pain, alot of times the path that istaken to heroin addiction is unintended andunintentional. new research has shown a direct correlationbetween the distribution ofprescription opiates and the rate of overdose deathsin ohio. the very vast majority of allindividuals who abuse a substance, it starts as aresult of pain.

that can be physical pain or itcan be emotional pain. but most of us don't wakeup one morning and say, "i'm going to abuse asubstance." you're trying to solvesomething, you're viewing thatsubstance as a way to solve something.the opiate epidemic is an iatrogenic disease. iatrogenicmeans a disease that is createdby the medical system. back in the 90s when wewere told that we should treat painas a fifth vital sign, if youwent to a hospital, they would take pulse, bloodpressure, respiration,temperature, and then theywould ask you about

pain. and they started treatingpain very easily. and certainly they werevery well intentioned physicians, i thinkthe system intended to be verywell intentioned, but in every group of peoplethere is the good the bad and theugly. and when pain as a fifth vital sign startedto be established, and opiates were being prescribed, theywere prescribed responsibly andirresponsibly. if you look at a graph of thesale of drugs like vicodin and percocet,

oxycodone, hydrocodone, other dromethadone, other drugs inthis class, you see that the number of accidentaloverdoses is increasing geometrically veryrapidly, exponentially. and the sale hasincreased at the same rate. they'reactually parallel lines. and so for that reason, webelieve that it is the aggressive treatment ofpain with narcotics that has spread to a lot morepeople and

continues to spread that hasled to this problem. in the year 2003, the state hadabout 80 million doses areprescription pain killers for11 and a half men, women, and children. 2013,the state dispensed 833 million doses of prescription pain killers inohio. so that's for 11 and ahalf men, women, and children. soobviously not everybody'sgetting prescription. not allthe kids are getting aprescription, not every adultis getting a prescription.that's an enormous dosage of opiates that arecoming out of our medical system

and what has happened is,there's a direct correlationbetween that and the number of people that are addicted toheroin. they start out on theprescription pain killers, they end up on heroin as theiraddiction progresses. i had back problems and istarted taking pain pills. and thenbefore i knew it, i was addicted to painpills. and then after having four back surgeries, ijust kept taking stronger and stronger painpills, from i started atvicodin and i went all the wayto oxycontin. and then once you'redone having surgery,

they eventually cut you off.and then i was cut off from pain pills and so i started buyingthose from the street, whichbecame very expensive. and then i wasturned onto heroin before i knew it and i was up and running with heroin. the problem i see is that it'stoo easy to have access to thepain medications. they might be well intentionedint he beginning, but it keepsgoing and going and going. in my own personal opinion, weare scared of pain. we thinkthat we should not feel anymore, we should numbeverything. and i don't thinkit's good for us.

i think the pain lets you knowyou're alive and lets you knowwhat's going on. but when they added pain as avital sign and then tied funding to whether you complain aboutpain, you see the amount ofpain pills just going through the roof. there'ssimple fixes to it and i hopethe legislature acts on them, but there are simple fixes tothose things. the medical fieldhas every intention of doing the rightthing by their client.unfortunately with this particular drug, andas i said all of the other issues thatfeed into this dynamic, what may seem like the right thing,the risk is too great. andyou're never going to

establish that within a tenminute visit at the doctor. andso this person who came in with aninjury, got their pills, doctorsaid, "you should be through", "okay i"m out", starts using itfrom other people, and then thestory repeats just like that for thejuvenile, for the young person.now i'm telling you you can get one pill for 80dollars or i can get you 8balloons of heroin for 80, and i'll deliver it toyou. and if you tell me you neverwant another badge, i'll say noproblem, take this one it's on me. the grip ofheroin and opiates is destroyingfamilies and communities. theeffects

on the body and the brain aretremendous. from middle agedadults, young adults, and even teenagers, no one issafe. heroin addiction knows no bounds and one dose is enoughto hook you for life. one of the things that i thinkpeople need to understand about these drugs is that theywill make you do things you never thought that youwould do. most of us have anexperience at having difficulty with willpower. i couldn't stay on my diet, i couldn'tquit smoking, i started an exercise routine and then ifell off after a few weeks.

take that and multiply it times2,000 and that's what you're looking at with heroin. i dideverybody dirty, it didn'tmatter what it was if i had a chance to takesomething from somebody that'sgoing to get me high, i wasdoing it. you know if my mom left thepurse on the table and therewas 200 dollars in it, there was only going to be adollar left in her purse and199 in my pocket. i took everything i could. thegrip on heroin, is like no other grip you'llnever encounter, another grip like that, it'sthe strongest thing i've everhad. it took the jobs, the family,the

clothes, my housing. i even sold the shoes off myfeet, drugs took everythingfrom me. [underwater sounds] if you can imagine yourselfunder water, and you really want to breathe,but you have to swim to the surface ofthe water in order to breathe. you're swimming and you'reswimming and you're swimmingtrying to get there. getting to the surface tobreathe in the water is theirnext use of the drug, their nextfix. so imagine

how desperate that you could beto try to gasp for air. that's how desperate people areto use the drug. the high of heroin is what isso enticing and attractive. i mean just look atmy own demeanor when i talkabout it, right? so the euphoria, the high thatyou get from heroin is like, i want you tothink of the most pleasurable,enjoyable experience you've ever had, andyou're going to stay that way for hours.

when it gets ahold of you,there's no coming back. there's no willingness to comeback. as a parent you wonder what youcould have done differently. should i have done more? and you'll never know, you know? once you get past the denialbecause i thought before i learnedabout heroin was that this was just a badchoice that she made.

and she's going to get over itand she's going to be fine. and then as i read about it andi realized as i was overwhelmed with the knowledgethat her life was never goingto be the same again. and that this was a chronicbrain disease and that basically she would belooking at trying to stay inremission for the rest of her life. andthat everyday was about keepingher alive. and that in itself was very, very difficult.sometimes it feels like a nightmare, but then iknow because she's not hereanymore.

we often think of becomingaddicted as those people that have used thesekind of drugs time and time and time again. what we're seeingnow, these drugs are sopowerful, so pure as they get to these folksin the street, that even what we have seen onetime, people become addicted because of theeuphoria that these drugs cause, the strength of this. soit's so dangerous compared to when ireminisce about the 1970s, the power of these opiates noware so strong

that we have to be concernedabout even experimental drugs. and i think that anumber of us that grew up in the 60s and 70s don'tunderstand the intensity ofwhat we're facing out there now with heroin andopiates. i don't think people realize how bad of an epidemic this is. ithink it's until we start talking, people like me starttalking and more people start talkingin the communities, and we getrid of the stigma of addicts, what an addict is,

we're never going to get pastthis. because addicts can beanybody. addicts are seniors in highschools that are jocks in sports thatget hurt and get on painkillers and then become addicted. addicts can bejust anybody. sometimes youthink, "well it's just people that are downon their luck or they're poor."that's not the case at all. there's a lot of peoplewho are struggling withaddiction, they have had everything takenfrom them. they were a lawyer,a banker, an attorney. i mean verysuccessful professionals, butthey become hooked to the substance. it doesn'tdiscriminate. it acts the sameway

in everybody's brain. itdoesn't matter what youbelieve, what color you are, whether you're a man or awoman, and anybody can becomehooked. it's in the suburbs of columbusand cleveland and cincinnati. and every city in between. it'sin the small towns and thevillages out here in northwest ohio that wetraditionally think of as kindof just very sacrosanct, almostset aside. but believe me, if it's in a lot of thesesmall, rural communities, it's everywhere. as many heroinaddicts resort to crime, and other drastic measures toget their next high, it'simportant to realize

that addicts need help. heroinaddiction is a disease. addicts should always be heldresponsible for their actions,but it's imperative that the source of the problemnot be ignored. the problem is we're havinglarge amounts of what i callproperty crimes. they're stealing tosatisfy their addiction, i meanthey're not going out to steal to break somebody's house,they're stealing to feed anaddiction. through the court system,28,000 people, i did 7,000cases last year, that's a lot of cases. and we've seen a massiveincrease in petty theft. if youlook all around it, we're spending so much money totreat the issue and not get

to the underlying issue. we'rejust saying here, "we'll savethem today, we'll get them back and we'll put them back out" wedon't ever fix the issue. wenever get to the underlyingissue and deal with their addictionand deal with the problem, wejust kind of put band aids on it. we've done studies nowwhich show that addiction is a chronic, relapsing braindisease. very much like type 1 diabetes andhypertension and asthma. and if you compare theheritability, the relapse rates, the treatment,the monitoring, it's very, very interesting to seethat you might as well betalking about the same disease.

you might be talking aboutinstead of opiate addiction,you're basically talking about type 1 diabetesbecause they essentially arelike mirror images. we can't criminalize thedisease of addiction. and we always draw the parallelof cancer of diabetes. if i said to you that 40 percent of the peoplewith cancer that we treatrecover, i would get a nobel peaceprize, i would get something. but if i say 40 percent of thepeople who have the disease ofaddiction recover, people aren'timpressed with that becausethere's this stigma

they're dirty, they'recriminals, they lie, they cheat, they steal. to criminalize them is alifetime sentence for an action, for a behavior, for a disease that if we truly treat it as adisease model, they have no control over. the firsttime you use, absolutely yourchoice, absolutely. i'm not sure thatthe second time you use,especially a drug like heroin, there'sthat much choice as there isphysical

drive for the high. i believedrug related cases, depending onwhat it is, you know you shouldn't be sentto prison, you should be sentto a rehabilitation center. we're incarcerating too manypeople. we are incarcerating people thatneed treatment. we see justabout 80 percent of the people comingto our prisons have a history of addiction. 80percent. and those are huge numbers. and they're driving our populationup, and those folks

that in some cases use illegaldrugs in this state, that started out of themedicine cabinet, either theirown or their family's medicinecabinet, they are becoming criminals based on our systemand not being treated up front. we have nearly 53 thousand individuals inprison, incarcerated in prison in the state of ohio. so abouthalf that number we accept for less than a year's worth ofa sentence, 24 thousandindividuals.

most of those cases, almost 80 percent of them are related tosome sort of a drug issue,heroin has become the lion share of thosepeople, people's addictions. and it'sgetting to the point where the state literally doesnot have enough beds in theprison system to incarcerate everybody that'sgetting sent to prison on a heroin charge. and so thestate is looking at this andsaying "what do we do? how do we solvethis problem?" because thereality is, we send them to prison for 9months, so we punish themwithout any treatment

to address their underlyingaddiction, what happens whenthey get released? they go back and theyjust do the same thing rightover again because they haven't had anytreatment for their addiction. as a society we have torecognize that this is an illness andsending people to jail isn't going to solve it. theremay be some people who need togo to jail having to do with sellingheroin, but overall, the people that weknow and care about who become addicted to thesemedications have a disease likeany other.

and just as you wouldn't throwa diabetic into jail because they weren't controlling theirblood sugar the way we thinkthat they should control their blood sugar, we also shouldn'tbe throwing heroin addicts intojail unless they're committing bad crimes.we have to look at these individuals as they are individuals and tryand come up with a path fortreatment that isn't just based on lockthem up, but based on maybe lock them up, detox them,get them into treatment, put them back out into thecommunity, hold themaccountable, and provide

them with supports. as theopiate and heroin epidemic continues to surge,the sense of urgency is now. with multiple methods oftreatment available for thosewho are addicted, medication assisted treatmenthas emerged as being the mostsuccessful and effective method of helping people getclean and sober. in my opinion, if we're goingto be successful with this epidemic, we need to create environments where people havethe opportunity

to get well in a way that they think willwork for them when they're ready to do it. there are a number of different waysfor people to get clean fromheroin or other opiates. one way is togo into in-patient treatment. one of the difficult thingsabout this opiate epidemic is that our system of care doesn'thave enough beds for all thepeople who are addicted to opiates. when we havesomebody who

comes into our agency and talksto a counselor for the veryfirst time, the counselor says, "wow,you really need to get into an in-patientsetting and stay over night, and maybe even stay for acouple weeks or a month" thechances of them being able to get intothat kind of a treatmentprogram aren't all that good. even thoughthat's really what they need. we've created these out-patientsolutions that in many cases are as effective as goingin-patient and there are 2 of them inparticular that i wouldhighlight that were developedspecifically

in response to the opiateepidemic. one of them is ourmedication assisted treatment program and that is aprogram which is capable of prescribing suboxone as wellas vivitrol. so if you come to ouragency, you're addicted toopiates and we can't get you in to anin-patient unit, or for whatever reason youdon't want to go into anin-patient unit, you're deemed to be safe to notdo that, we will connect you with our medicationassisted treatment program and you will see a physician aswell as an rn as well asreceiving

counseling and that level ofcare is effective for many people. ten years ago, we would counsel and counsel and counsel. i really feel very stronglyabout medication assistedtreatment because i have seenit. and you know through experiencewith treating patients,counseling helps a great deal in terms ofidentifying the creation of the opiate addiction as well asrelapse triggers and behavioral mechanisms. but medicationassisted treatment has

revolutionized the treatment ofopiate addiction. we went throughout the stateand we found out that our statehas about a 10 percent success rate for heroin addiction. a 10percent success rate. that's a 90 percent failurerate. but we found that therewere some providers throughout the state that were talkingabout 60 percent success ratesor 70 percent success rates. andso we began to look at the things that those providerswere doing. medication assisted treatment is very importantbecause it allows people tokind of come down off those levels slowly. theycan titrate down on

whatever product they choose touse, whatever works for them. and it really helps people withthe physical side of thataddiction. which is what's so powerfulabout the heroin addiction,it's not just a mental condition, a behavioralcondition, it's also really avery physical addiction as well. your body is addicted to it. inspite of the stress and the tragedy that we gothrough with our clients we also get to go through thesuccesses with them. and people truly do recover,they really do go from having their

lives be a complete mess and bevery much at risk of dying to being successful and in someways able to share inspiration andhope with others. i never thought i would be ableto get off of heroin, i never thought i would be able to stoptaking pain pills. i thoughtthat this was it for me. i currently use suboxone and that is taking sublingvalunder your tongue. what it does is it stops thewithdraws. it

takes the thoughts away, thecravings away, it made my life livable,functionable. i am starting to look for a jobagain, i had my family back, i go togroups, because everybody, it seemslike this epidemic is so bad. i don'tknow if i have the right answer or thewrong answer, but i know that'swhat saved my life. i think the medication assisted treatment,usually it's suboxone,

sometimes it's the long actingshot of vivitrol, they workdifferently, really makes adifference in terms of taking away a lot of thecravings. for the most partthey're very safe medicines and they'reessential. but they're not sufficient. they need to begin tounderstand and understand the nature of their addictionand also understand that there is hope, reasonablehope of recovering what that allentails. and

the fact that they will bedealing with this probably therest of their lives, and there's always thedanger of relapse. we are all affected in one wayor another. as we all search for answers,those with addictions need tounderstand that there is hope. it will takehard work, dedication, and passion for change in order totake back our communities. everyone has a role to play,and how seriously we all takeour roles will determine the future ofohio. this addiction is

a public health issue in our community and in our state. and the only option for us to provide the safety andsecurity and hope for change is for usall to come forward and dosomething about it. everyone has to be empowered, feel empowered, willing to dosomething, and there is something everyone of us can do.

we've won more rounds thanwe've lost. but if we want tofinish this by knocking it out and putting iton the mat, then it involves usworking collectively across the state,amongst every cabinet and every office.that's the attorney general andthe governor in his cabinets coming together.that's all of the associationscoming together and saying you know what, here's what werecognize, this is what we needto do if we're going to overcome theopiate epidemic in ohio. and if everybody is investedwith those 4 goals in mind, prevention, intervention,treatment, and avoiding deaths

from all departments, weabsolutely can win this fight.but there's a lesson to be learned in termsof how we got here. which is the conversation mustcontinue even after we've laid this to rest. ibelieve we're winning in terms of getting the awarenessout there, to pharmacists, todoctors, to nurses, to law enforcement.we're winning because people are beginning tounderstand that people who are addicted to heroin are notnecessarily losers. that a lot of this is due tothe brain addiction, the braindisorders.

the brain illness that is theaddiction to heroin and other opiates. so i thinkwe're making head room, will we eliminate heroinaddiction? no, i don't thinkso, we're not going to eliminate it. but we cansignificantly curtail it,significantly reduce it. and so i'm extremelyencouraged. we live in a world of instantgratification, you know, you can pretty much buyanything off the internet. every commercial you seethere's a pill, there's a pillfor everything. and so we've lostsight of

those healthy choices andlooking at, that like i said,it's okay to feel some pain. and you knowthis can be a very long conversation going back todoctors not being educated on prescribing. thepharmaceutical companies thatkeep rolling out the drugs that they wanteverybody to buy. so it's avery broad problem that we have in thiscountry, so it's going to take work from the federal level ondown to make a difference. for anyone out there that's ondrugs and they're trying to quit, all you got to do isask. there are plenty of placesthat

is willing to help, that wantto help. but you can't run from it, it don'tmatter where you go. suburbs,country, inner city. heroin iseverywhere, you can't run orhide from no one. but the biggest thing is, ask. and people will help. ever since i started asking toget off heroin, a lot of peoplehelped. recovery does work, people dorecover. [cheering] don't give up hope. you can get clean. there islife after heroin.

once you get through thewithdraws and you start seeing your lifestraighten up, you realize there is hope, you'll get yourlife back, it takes time, ittakes time to get your family back. iknow if i did it you can do it. just ask forhelp. that's the main thing, you justhave to ask and be willing to receive thehelp that they're willing togive you. i would be foolish to thinkthat after we deal with this somethingelse isn't going to come along.what's going to work

for now, it's having an approach that crosses systemsand crosses boundaries and takes the responsibility off ofone system that is a shared responsibility of every system.because these could be my daughters, this could be myfamily, this is our community and we'reresponsible for it. so we really do have to stop, youknow put our egos aside, put down the idea that i wantto be the one who makes thebust, i want to be the one whocauses the recovery, i want to be the onewho they thank. if

you're in this because you'reexpecting a thank you at theend of the day, thank you. now get the workdone. addiction to opiates and heroinis claiming an average of 5 lives a day in ohio,eclipsing all other forms of accidental death. we are allaffected in one way or another. it may not be your familydirectly, but it could verywell be your neighbor, your friend, or your coworker.this addiction is tearing ourcommunity apart and it's ourresponsibility to pick up thepieces and put it back together. through programs likethe one you've just seen andtown hall

forums, we hope to bringawareness to this epidemic. i'dlike to thank you for joining us forpart one of our series,addiction: heroin and pills. for wbgu-tv, i'm stevekendall. we'll see you next time. if you or someone you know is dealingwith an addiction, please callone of the numbers on your screen to get help. recovery isonly one call away. you can also log on to thestate of ohio's start talking website to get more informationand assistance.