HOPE Sheds Light, an organization dedicated to providing communities with an understanding of the disease of addiction, specifically regarding such drugs as heroin and other opiates, including prescription drugs, is joining forces with the Ocean County Prosecutor’s Office for a Narcan distribution seminar at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Brant Beach on Jan. 6, from 6 to 8 p.m. The event is geared toward family members and friends living with a drug addict. A total of 50 kits will be available, and training will be provided on how to use the intranasal device.
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| Photo via Press of Atlantic City 50 kits will be available to anyone living with a drug addict, including family and friends. |
Narcan, also known by the generic name naloxone, is used to temporarily reverse the potentially fatal effects of opiate overdose. Due to the area’s drug epidemic, police officers and EMTs in all of the county’s 33 municipalities have been equipped with the opiate neutralizer through a program spearheaded by the prosecutor’s office. The hope is to now get Narcan in the hands of family members.
“When a person stops breathing, you typically have three to four minutes to do something, to save their life,” said county prosecutor’s office representative Al Della Fave. “We love that police officers and EMTs have it, but that’s a critical window – three to four minutes. So if a family member has it, it definitely raises the revival rate of the individual, if they’re able to administer it immediately.”
According to the prosecutor’s office, there have been 122 Narcan reversals in the county since April 6, when the Narcan program officially rolled out. There have also been 77 overdose deaths, 76 of which were opiate-related. During this time last year, the county had 108 overdose deaths, a “majority” of which were opiate-related.
“We believe that’s mostly in part to the naloxone program,” said Della Fave. “If you consider that those 122 people reversed may have died, our numbers would again be up hovering where they were last year. We understand it’s just a temporary fix, just like the finger in the dike, until we can work with health department people and social service folks to get these individuals into rehab and break the cycle of addiction.”
HOPE Sheds Light, a group of local business people, law enforcement and mental health agencies, drug rehabs, churches and other nonprofits, is working to do just that. Formed in 2012 by the Rosetto family, who lost their son to substance abuse, the organization is dedicated to helping anyone in need.
“It’s just a bunch of people who’ve come together to say, ‘You know what, this heroin situation is a monster, and we’re going to do our best to just come together and bring in all the different skills and talents that everybody has,’ said the Rev. James Jacob of Holy Trinity Church, a HOPE board member. “The recovery groups are there. Narcotics Anonymous is represented. There’s people from AA. And we’re just saying, ‘Enough is enough. This has got to end. It’s just crazy.’
“All of us, we can’t just turn our heads and say, ‘It won’t be my kid’ because it’s everybody,” he added. “My sons are young, and as a parent you have to think about it. These are good kids. These are kids that just got started experimenting, and it takes hold, and it takes hold fast. ... Unfortunately we (Ocean County) have the dubious distinction of being real big in heroin overdoses.”
Of course, using Narcan as a form of help has its share of attached stigma, said Jacob, a Manahawkin resident who has been in recovery for 20 years from heroin addiction.
“I had one public official, I won’t say who, who told me that these people are just going to go out and do it again. That’s one sentiment you run into,” he said. “What I always say to people is ‘Suppose it was your son.’ Some people actually say to me, ‘Just let them die,’ and I’m like ‘OK, well, first of all, I’m a person of faith. We don’t go that route; we don’t just let people die. My feeling is I don’t care if they use it 10 times. Hopefully we keep trying until they get it. Each death is just not acceptable.”
To help enforce the message of recovery, Jacob will begin leading a recovery service “for families and people that are in addiction situations” at Holy Trinity Church every Sunday at 12:30 p.m., starting Jan. 11.
“It’s another way to reach out and support people and say, ‘We’re here for you,’” he said. “What HOPE Sheds Light is doing, and what we’re doing, is we’re forming teams of people to say, ‘When someone gets out of drug rehab, or when someone gets out of jail, or when someone ODs, there’s that crucial period of time between when they walk out of the hospital.’ A lot of times they end up going back to their former life. What we’re saying is ‘Lets have a team of medical professionals and law enforcement people and churches to say, ‘You know what, we can help you get a job, we can help you get clean, we can send you to Narcotics Anonymous, we can help you get into a rehab. We can help you with your family life, we can counsel you, we can pray with you. We can be here with you so that you can turn your life around,” because most of the junkies that are out there, that I know, are people who don’t really want to go on with this any longer. They really do want to stop; they just don’t know how. I say that from experience.”
For more information about the seminar and service, call Jacob at 609-494-6888.
— Kelley Anne Essinger
This article was published in The SandPaper.
This article was published in The SandPaper.
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