The Opioid Crisis: A Nation in Peril
Examining the Devastating Impact, Overdoses and Alarming Mortality Rates
The opioid crisis has left millions of Americans addicted.
It has also led to hundreds of thousands of overdoses.
Surviving Overdose: New Hope, New Challenges
And even when addicts survive an overdose – they still face staggeringly high odds (130 times greater) of dying from related causes.
Just what are some of those causes?
- HIV
- Chronic respiratory disease
- Viral hepatitis
- Suicide
Addicts are 45 times more likely to die from HIV than the general population. They are also 40 times more likely to die from chronic respiratory disease, 30 times more likely to die of viral hepatitis, and 25 times more likely to commit suicide[i].
And here’s the critical point.
Thanks to new drug interventions for victims of an overdose, more people than ever are surviving their overdose.
That means that more and more Americans are joining a medically frail, high-risk population of patients – a ticking time bomb for U.S. healthcare.
So, what’s to be done?
The Urgent Need for Comprehensive Treatment
If lives by the tens of thousands are to be saved, new treatment methods must be pursued to care for each addict and their families.
A Call for Action: Redefining Addiction Care
Addiction is not an acute condition – like the flu or bronchitis. It must be treated as a chronic disease.
And in the case of those addicted to opioids (as well as other substances), that means addressing each addict’s full range of physical and mental health problems.
To do any less relegates a generation of Americans to a life of debilitating disease and an early grave.
If you or a loved one is struggling with an addiction to drugs and/or alcohol and need help in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Virginia, Georgia, Florida, Ohio, Kentucky, or Indiana, the recovery teams at Aware Recovery Care are here to help. And we come to you, regardless of where you live. Our unique in-home treatment model of care gives clients a significantly better chance of recovery than traditional inpatient rehab care. Please get in touch with one of our Addiction Recovery Specialists to learn more.
[i] https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2685326
