Opioid Addiction Hits Here

By Don Flattery

Last Labor Day weekend, my family suffered the loss of our 26-year-old son Kevin to an opioid drug overdose. He had been battling and was being treated for issues related to panic attacks, stress and depression. After self-medicating with the drug Oxycontin, he was being treated for dependence and then addiction.

Kevin had returned home to his family in Northern Virginia in the fall of 2013 -- seeking treatment and our support. He was working hard to beat what I consider to be not a crime, not a moral failing, but a serious illness. We hoped and believed he was on a good path.

Like many struggling with opioid addiction, he tried a variety of treatment options, including in-patient, intensive outpatient, medically assisted therapy and abstinence-only step programs. Days before he was to start a program that we felt had great promise for success (a treatment called Vivitrol), he used again, and did not recover.

Kevin is but one example of the scourge of the opioid addiction epidemic before us. There is no stereotypical victim. It is affecting people of ALL walks of life, ALL income levels and ALL backgrounds. This epidemic and my son’s addiction does not respect income, social status or intelligence. That’s what epidemics do.

Kevin grew up in Alexandria, attended a parochial school, was an alter server, played golf, participated in other youth sports, including travel ice hockey and later high school hockey. A good student, he graduated from Gonzaga High School in Washington, DC, and then went on to the University of Virginia (UVA), where he graduated in 2010.

He was intelligent, creative and expressive. He made films/videos and was active in the UVA film community – he was chosen by UVA as its student representative to the Toronto International Film Festival. After graduation, he worked in Los Angeles and New York in film and video production.

He came from a loving two-parent home with a sister he cherished and considered a best friend. He led the quintessential middle-class life, enjoying all of life’s and God’s blessings. He was pursuing his career passion as a working adult when he developed his addiction. He had a lot to live for.

Our nation is facing something that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has declared to be the worst prescription drug and heroin addiction epidemic the country has ever faced – and it has arrived in every corner of our country, in Virginia and yes, in Fairfax County. While not as well reported, we are losing more than 25,000 people in the United States each year to opioid and heroin overdoses – over eight times the total loss of life attributed to the horrific Ebola outbreak in Africa.

Today, prescription drug and heroin overdose deaths are the leading cause of preventable deaths for Americans, exceeding automobile accidents. Overdose deaths from prescribed opioids and heroin have tripled since 1999. While the total number of overdose deaths attributable to prescription opioid drugs exceeds those of heroin overdose deaths, the rate of increase of heroin deaths is alarming. Virginia statistics mirror those same proportions with 468 reported prescription opioid deaths and 213 reported heroin overdose deaths.

I share Kevin’s story because I feel we need to keep personalizing what is happening. We are not addressing shocking, obtuse statistics -- we are speaking about my son, your daughter, our neighbors. The impacted are “PLUs” as my wife and I refer them – PEOPLE LIKE US. They are real people with real lives, and their losses are the face of the epidemic we must stop.

Solutions to this issue will require coordination at the federal, state and community level. And I hope that more people will become better informed and more active in tackling this important public health issue.

We need you to:

• Have heightened awareness about opioid drugs and addiction
• Help in educating parents, students and school system employees in understanding and educating others about opioid drugs
• Become more informed patients – increasing your own involvement in physician discussions regarding your personal pain/medical care
• Participate with the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County and others in making opioid addiction an increased priority in prevention campaigns
• Practice safe storage and disposal of prescribed medicines
• Support county administrators in their effort to focus on prescription drug and heroin use in our county

You can help influence attention to the problem here in our communities. Please do.

Don Flattery, who lives in the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County, is a member of the Governor’s Task Force on Prescription Drug and Heroin Abuse. He was the keynote speaker at the April 13 “Painkillers & Heroin: Our Community Problem” forum sponsored by the Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County and the Fairfax County Neighborhood and Community Services.

The Unified Prevention Coalition of Fairfax County is a nonprofit organization with more than 60 community partners working together to keep youth and young adults safe and drug-free. Visit www.unifiedpreventioncoalition.org and www.facebook.com/unifiedpreventioncoalition. Follow the group on Twitter at www.twitter.com/keepyouthsafe.