Overdose concerns are consistent across the U.S., but how those concerns exhibit themselves can vary by region, and even between communities.
Livingston County resident Megan Morris is more than five years clean.
The catalyst for change for her was standing outside after law enforcement raided the home of her then-boyfriend, who was a drug dealer, in the spring of 2018.
“I looked down the street one way, and I knew I was like, ‘If I go that way, I'm going to have to go back to all the stuff that I've been doing to try to keep this life alive. And at that point in time, I was just so tired,” she said. “I was so tired of all the stealing, the lying, the selling my soul and myself, everything that I was doing.
“I remember turning and looking the other way down the street, and like, the sun came out of the clouds, and like, fingers of light just started streaming down. And in that moment, I just had this feeling of warmth and love, and hope for the first time in so long. And in that moment, I realized, like, I don't want to do this anymore.”
Morris admitted herself to rehabilitation a few days later, she said, and has been on a journey of recovery ever since.
But not everyone’s struggle with elicit substances takes a positive turn.
The biggest issue with drugs in Livingston County is methamphetamine, largely because it can easily be produced on a local level, said CASA-Trinity recovery specialist Chris Blair.
“It's cheap, and it's easily made, right? (It) doesn't get made over in another country and shipped over here can be made right in their house,” he said. “And so, we've seen an uptick in methamphetamine use. As far as people who use methamphetamines coming in for treatment, we don't see a lot of that, and I'm not sure why. But that is the most prevalent, as far as what I hear on the streets from the people that I work with.”
Fentanyl has been an issue over the past several years, but the difference in accessibility is what keeps meth atop the list of local concerns, Blair said.
Livingston County had 10 opioid overdose deaths through the first four months of 2023, according to the New York State Department of Health, as well as 36 overdoses where patients were hospitalized or taken to an outpatient facility.
Similarly, Allegany County just to the south had 13 overdose deaths through April, as well as 18 overdoses with patients taken to a hospital or outpatient facility, according to NYS Health Department.
One of the most important aspects of recovery is having a safe space to meet with peers, Morris said. That could be support specialists who went through recovery or others who are still in the program.
“Just the idea of a peer right, they’re your equal, we're in this together,” she said. “We've come from the same place, I know what you're going through. I've been there, I've lived it and I've also come out the other side. So that's really important, because it gives hope to people.”
Having that understanding is what allows recovery specialists to build trust with patients, Blair said.
“First, they're built with some trust and safety, and I think being able to share my story, when appropriate, allows that trust and safety to grow,” he said. “And in turn, we can start to build a rapport and start to have some real conversations about addiction, and finding a way out.”
Morris’s experience has inspired her to pay the help forward and pursue a degree in trauma-informed therapy, to assist others through treatment and recovery.
The education process has changed drastically from when D.A.R.E. was the standard, said Chelsea Menio, CASA-Trinity’s senior director of harm reduction and Prevention Services.
“We know that programs like D.A.R.E., that are fear based, do not work,” she said. “Historically, they do not work, so we don't use those kinds of programs anymore. We have more social-emotional learning programs.”
Not having a standard curriculum to rely on means the process often varies by school, which allows CASA-Trinity to adapt accordingly, Menio said.
“We have an extensive (number) of programs, so we go to the schools, we present these programs that we have, we look specifically at … what that school needs, she said. “So, we use, like pretests and post-tests. So, we would give a school a pretest. We would say, ‘OK, the need is here at a level one, two or three, and based on that is what programs we would implement at the school.”
