Processing & Preventing Drug Overdose
A wise man once said, “If you want to go fast, run by yourself, but if you want to go far, bring a team.”
The time is now, as a community, to rally around the issue of addiction and healing through recovery in Christ. We need freedom from this bondage. Addiction in 2022 is on a trajectory towards more lives lost and families ripped apart than ever before. Data from the CDC shows in 2021 nearly 108,000 people died from drug overdose, the highest level on record.
This makes our story that much harder to share. Our recovery community lost another young man to overdose just a few months ago on April 20. Two doors down in a recovery house, Rob had come home from work, did his chores, picked up dinner, and was later found unresponsive in his room.
I was in bed about 10:30pm when I heard the sirens, with bright lights flashing through our bedroom window. When I hear sirens I look up Delco Dispatch, an up-to-the-minute listing of 911 calls. I knew something was wrong when I saw the address, and immediately got out of bed. “What's wrong?” Emily asked, and my gut response told me someone overdosed and died.
As I sat with neighbors outside to be a support, one man said he tried to resuscitate him, but stopped trying because he was stiff and cold. A few minutes later the paramedics arrived, along with the police, and they went immediately to help. We were all in shock.
Addiction doesn’t discriminate: it’s everywhere.
The stats from 2021 sit at a rough 15% increase from the number of overdose deaths in 2020. Nearly 94,000 died in 2020… the population of a small town. Most of the opioid related deaths involved illegally manufactured fentanyl, which is typically mixed in with a range of illicit drugs.
Can you imagine how many families and lives have been destroyed? Not only by an overdose, but through daily addiction. I hear so many parents pray, “God, please give me back my little boy or girl.” The pain is corrosive.
Addiction breeds the lie that there is no hope.
I’ve felt and said it many times. I thought I was going to die. After overdosing three times, I knew that it was only a matter of time before death would get me, but I did care. When I was in my addiction, death seemed like the only way out. I tried recovery so many times and felt it didn't work. Just the other week a friend’s son said those exact words, “Recovery doesn't work for me, i can't do it!”
In Matthew 19:26 But Jesus looked at them and said, “With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”
All things are possible through Jesus! I believe it because I have experienced it. More than that I know of hundreds and hundreds of God stories of people being redeemed from life-eroding sin and addiction.
Addiction recovery is not only possible, it’s happening.
When hard, difficult things happen like the loss of life, we dig deeper and go harder. We do not give up.
Did you know: Greenhouse Project hosts free recovery Coaching and Counseling? We help people that have loved ones in addiction. We run Monday Night Recovery meetings and introduce men and women to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
We are helping in the restoration of individuals, families and communities. Recovery is a community issue and with your support we are able to meet with people that have no hope and introduce them to the living hope: Jesus.
