Residents lined the pews of Carrollton’s Tabernacle Baptist Church Tuesday evening to hear a sermon that’s of ever-greater importance to our community: the gospel of sobriety.
“If you drove here, statistically, you probably passed someone with a substance abuse problem,” said Sgt. Hunter Etheridge with the Villa Rica Police Department, who described arresting people for driving under the influence of prescription narcotics as early as 9 in the morning, and provided an example. “This was someone who, just standing on one foot, had his arms straight out at his sides like an airplane that was about to crash. But because the substance he was using was from a prescription, he thought it was safe to drive.”
Etheridge was part of a panel of representatives from Willowbrooke at Tanner, the Georgia Department of Education, the Carrollton Police Department, the Villa Rica Police Department and West Georgia Ambulance — all on the front lines of a growing epidemic of substance abuse in west Georgia and communities throughout the nation.
Last year, more than 3,000 individuals received treatment for substance abuse-related issues. There were also almost 200 opioid-specific overdoses in the region. Statewide, from June 2016 to May 2017, more than 541 million doses of opioids were prescribed in Georgia — enough for every man, woman and child in the state to have 54 doses each. More Americans died of opioid overdoses in the past year than died in the entire Vietnam War.
For more than two hours, the panel detailed the increasing numbers related to alcohol and opioid abuse occurring throughout the region. Todd Robinson, who has been with West Georgia Ambulance for almost 30 years, said that in 2014, the service used Narcan — a medication that can reverse the effects of a drug overdose — 31 times. Last year, the ambulance service administered 105 doses of the overdose drug.
“That’s for an overdose where we arrive and the person is not breathing,” said Robinson. “If we arrive at an overdose and they’re breathing, we transport them to the hospital. So these were instances where someone had gotten to the point that they were no longer able to breathe.”
Brian Gibson, LPC, a counselor who oversees Willowbrooke at Tanner’s Regain substance abuse rehabilitation program for working professionals, led attendees through a presentation on the growing effects of alcohol and substance abuse in the community. He detailed a common path of addiction, from someone who uses a substance in social situations — drinking with friends, for instance, or trying a recreational drug at a concert — to deciding that using that substance has become the reason they enjoy social situations. Eventually, they begin to use the substance on their own, and then decide to stay home and use the substance instead of socializing with friends. Eventually, the sources where the individual is getting the substance — the doctor prescribing the opioid, for instance — get wise and cut off the supply, so the individual begins trying to acquire the substance on the street at a much higher cost. The individual begins spending all his resources to acquire the substance, encountering financial difficulty and, potentially, an unsafe supply on the street.
Gibson walked attendees through the chemical changes that drugs make on the brain, providing insight into the biochemical reasons that people who are addicted to a substance have such trouble quitting.
“Take a breath, and hold it as long as you can,” he told the audience. “Keep holding it. I’ve had users describe that this is what it’s like when they’re not using. It’s like their suffocating. Now, take a breath. That’s what it’s like when they use again. It feels like they’re saving their lives.”
The panel took questions from the audience covering issues of addiction, avoiding addiction and how people could find treatment for themselves or their loved ones.
Cheryl Benefield, program manager of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the Georgia Department of Education and one of the panelists, described the effects that addiction is having in local school systems.
“The rates of students addicted to alcohol or opioids are pretty low — those issues tend to develop later — but many students are coming to school dealing with the trauma of having a loved one who’s dealing with addiction, and that definitely affects them,” Benefield said.
Some in the audience wondered if overcoming addiction wasn’t simply a matter of having enough willpower to quit using the substance.
“You can’t out-willpower addiction any more than you can out-willpower diabetes,” Gibson said. “Willpower has nothing to do with it.”
Meagen Thompson, LPC, an assistant director at Willowbrooke at Tanner, encouraged people to keep an eye on their medications and discard substances that they no longer needed. Detective Brandon Podaras, a panelist who oversees the Carrollton Police Department’s Criminal Investigative Division, said the Carroll County Sheriff’s Office has a drop box where people can deposit unused drugs, and that any city police department would take the drugs and destroy them, no questions asked.
“Be mindful of your medications,” said Thompson. “Know what medications are in your home and take steps to safeguard them if necessary. If you have opioid or other pain medicines that are out of date, that you don’t need or use, turn them in.”
To watch a video of the entire educational event, visit www.tanner.org/hotlinesandresources.
More information on Willowbrooke at Tanner is available online at www.WillowbrookeAtTanner.org. Those dealing with substance abuse issues can contact Willowbrooke at Tanner’s 24-hour help line at 770.812.9551.
Photo Captions:
Wayne Senfeld, senior vice president of Business Development and Behavioral Health for Tanner Health System, kicked off the panel session Close to Home: The Sobering Truth About Alcohol and Opioids held at Tabernacle Baptist Church Tuesday night. The panelists included (left to right): Brian Gibson, LPC, a counselor with Willowbrooke at Tanner; Meagen Thompson, LPC, assistant director at Willowbrooke at Tanner; Cheryl Benefield, program manager of Safe and Drug-Free Schools at the Georgia Department of Education; Todd Robinson, a paramedic with West Georgia Ambulance; Det. Brandon Podaras, who oversees the Carrollton Police Department’s Criminal Investigative Division; and Sgt. Hunter Etheridge, traffic unit sergeant with the City of Villa Rica Police Department.
Sgt. Hunter Etheridge, traffic unit sergeant with the City of Villa Rica Police Department, selected an attendee during the panel session on alcohol and opioid abuse to demonstrate the department’s Fatal Vision and Impairment Simulation Goggles. The simulation involved attempting to catch tennis balls and using a grabber tool to pick up the balls and successfully drop them in a bucket, which proved to be tougher than expected.