Addiction Treatment Week

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Editor:

April 23-29, 2018 is Addiction Treatment Week! With the opioid crisis we are experiencing in our country, especially in our community, I want to share information to spread awareness for addiction treatment.

Addiction is a disease. It is defined as a primary, chronic disease of the brain reward, motivation, memory and related circuitry. In 2015, more people died from drug overdose than car accidents, An additional 88,000 people died from alcohol related causes that same year. This disease is treatable for those who seek treatment. With over 20.5 million Americans having a substance use disorder, whether that be an addiction to alcohol, opioids, or other illicit drugs, only 1 in 10 of these individuals receive treatment.

Recovery from addiction is best achieved through a combination of addiction counseling and medical care provided by trained and certified clinicians. These treatment options are available jn our area. Contacting your primary care provider about your addiction is a great way to initiate the treatment and recovery process.

People not seeking treatment is not the only problem with our opioid crisis, there is also a shortage in addiction treatment providers nationwide. With nearly 2.3 million Americans suffering from opioid addiction in 2015, there was treatment capacity for only 1.4 million people. This leaves a treatment gap of nearly 1 million people. Also, only 2 percent of our country’s providers are trained to provide medication assisted treatment for addiction which leaves around 30 million people living in counties that do not have a single provider to provide medication assisted treatment for addiction. We are fortunate that in Darke County Family Health and Greenville Recovery and Wellness both have trained providers.

So, April 23-29, let’s try to help spread the awareness of the epidemic that our region and country is facing. If you know someone, or know someone who knows someone, who could benefit from addiction treatment, encourage them to seek the treatment that they need and deserve. Also, ask your provider about getting the training that they need to be able to treat this growing problem in our society so we can fight this as a collective group,

For more information about Addiction Treatment Week and statistics on addiction visit treataddictionsavelives.org

Sincerely,

Tyler Deitsch

Ohio Northern University student

By Tyler Deitsch

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