Seeing Death in the Face of Opiate Addiction

I was doing a little research on the statistics of heroin addiction and came across this graph when it really hit me, people I knew make up these "numbers". I could have been one of these "numbers".

This picture hit me so hard I just had to stop for a second and two things immediately came to mind. One, how incredibly lucky I am and two, these aren't just numbers, they're people.

This makes me think about the times I overdosed and how grateful I am to have had a person there that truly cared for me to save my life.

These statistics and numbers are scary, and as anyone can see they are drastically going up by 2014. My mother even witnessed an overdose just the other week in the parking lot at her place of work. Luckily for the man overdosing he was in front of a rehab with Narcan (a drug used for opiate overdoses).

I don't have an answer on how to completely stop addiction but I believe we start by tearing down stigma and building more resources to rehabilitation.

I want to throw out a few questions to the community, would you be interested in hearing more about my struggle with opiate/heroin addiction? If so would you be interested in hearing these stories in video format?

I would also like to put out there that I am open to communicate fully on this subject so any questions are welcome.

Thank you,
Jenombie