DDC_Opioid Awareness_032819

Opioid Awareness Safe Keeping

A Parent’s guide to opioid crisis

Stigma as a factor in the Opioid Epidemic

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• Love through addiction • National Prescription Take Back Day

Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com • Thursday, March 28, 2019

| OPIOID AWARENESS

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By Greg Tierney, PhD Licensed Clinical Psychologist

youth.

With any disease, early identification and treatment improves treatment outcomes.

If you know someone who is misusing a prescription pain reliever or using any substance in a manner that negatively impacts his or her life, then speak with them empathically and offer support to explore treatment options. If you are personally experiencing increased motivation toward and focus on use of a substance, then recognize this as a sign of a disease process that can be treated. It is, in the end, our full acceptance of the fact that addiction is a disease that will allow us to reverse the trend of the opioid epidemic and decrease the rate of substance use disorders overall.

• Thursday, March 28, 2019

The number of deaths associated with opioid use, including heroin, prescription pain relievers, and fentanyl continues to rise with devastating effects on families and communities. According to the most recent available data from 2017 more than 130 people die every day in the United States due to opioid overdose. Just two years earlier in 2015, opioid overdose accounted for 115 deaths per day. The increase in deaths has been even more impactful on the Midwest, which recently saw a 70% increase in opioid overdoses.

People continue to misunderstand the disease that is resulting in the death of more than 47,000 Americans related to just one class of drugs. When considering all drug classes, there were over 70,000 deaths in the United States related to drug overdose. This misunderstanding and the manner that we talk about and react to substance abuse is a major factor in the continued increase in deaths.

One significant factor in the rise of this epidemic is an over-utilization of prescription pain relievers. In 2017, 1.7 million Americans were prescribed prescription pain relievers.

Studies have shown that 21 to 29% of those people misuse their prescription leading to 8 to 12% of them to develop an Opioid Use Disorder. Many who develop an Opioid Use Disorder will transition to heroin use due to cost and availability. Sadly, only 28.6% of people with an Opioid Use Disorder in 2017 received Substance Use Disorder treatment.

Another factor contributing to this epidemic is the illegal drug trade. The Mexican drug cartels, since the 1990’s have been flooding the united states with heroin that has increased in purity and potency. More recently heroin supplies have been laced with fentanyl and carfentanil. The latter of which can be 4,000 times more potent than heroin. Between 2013 and 2016 overdose deaths associated with these substances has increased by 540%. The increased purity of heroin and the subsequent addition of substances to further increase the effect of the drug has led to greater addiction potential and death.

The high utilization of prescription pain

relievers and increasing availability and potency of heroin are both major factors in the increase of the number of people who develop an Opioid Use Disorder and related deaths, however, we tend to ignore the fact that addiction is a disease process in the brain.

Improvements in brain imaging prove that the presence of alcohol and drugs promote structural changes causing a change in brain functioning which is at the heart of the opioid epidemic. While addiction has long been misunderstood, similar to most behavioral health issues, as a character flaw, the truth is that these changes manipulate the automatic survival functions of our brain to cause drug use to be sought more than anything else and at the expense of anything or anyone else. In an over-simplification of addiction, it is this drive that leads those who develop a substance use disorder toward behaviors that are at odds with their values and personality.

Society’s continued misunderstanding of the disease of addiction has many negative consequences that contribute toward the opioid epidemic. First, the stigma that people face when struggling with any behavioral health issue can be a barrier to seeking treatment and why so few people receive treatment for substance use disorders. For example, research has shown that when a physician changes from using stigmatizing language, such as “drug abuser”, and begins using more accurate terminology that respects the individual who is suffering a disease, that the rate of accepting treatment increases significantly. Also, when those with a substance use disorder wrongly accept the notion that they simply need to make better choices and use will-power, then there is limited motivation to learn skills needed for long-term recovery. It is the acceptance of the disease model of addiction that can motivate people to live an active life of recovery and maintain effort in recovery, which is associated with abstinence. Finally, having a better understanding that all addictive substances create similar brain modifications that can increase the likelihood of transferring addictions from substances that are viewed as more benign, including nicotine, to more life-threatening substances may influence how we parent and establish policies that effect our

OPIOID AWARENESS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com

Stigma as a factor in the Opioid Epidemic

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Dr. Gregory Tierney is the program director at Gateway Foundation Aurora and in private practice as a Licensed Clinical Psychologist at Associates in Counseling (AIC) in Sycamore, Illinois.

Gateway Foundation is Illinois’ largest and longest operating substance use disorder treatment program. Gateway Foundation services, including residential, day treatment, intensive outpatient, aftercare, and medication assisted treatment, can be accessed by calling 630-966-7400.

Services with Dr. Tierney at AIC provide the opportunity to gain confidence and skills to effectively manage life stressors and symptoms of behavioral health disorders. Services at AIC can be accessed by calling 815-899-0501.

“HAD I KNOWN ... “

Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com • Thursday, March 28, 2019

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Brenda Jergens sits in her Malta home with a picture of her son Kurt Hudson who died of a heroin overdose in his upstairs bedroom on Sept. 29, 2013.

By Christopher Heimerman cheimerman@shawmedia.com DeKALB – The scourge that is opioid addiction hasn’t waned in DeKalb County. There are, however, interventions keeping that monster at bay.

About a year ago, State’s Attorney Rick Amato spearheaded the pilot of a program aptly named HOPE (Heroin and Opioid Prevention and Education).

Modeled after the Safe Passage program in Lee County that’s put 300 people into treatment, the local version has gotten seven people on the road to recovery

by getting them into treatment centers.

Additionally, in October 2018, the county’s probation program landed a $900,000 grant for a diversion program, the DeKalb County Drug Overdose Prevention Program, which will work to help addicts get straight after people have been charged.

Despite the timing difference between DOPP and HOPE, all parties are working closely together, Amato said. Steve Lekkas, the DeKalb Police commander who runs point on the program for the department,

agreed.

“I think eventually, it will be a great partnership, where referrals can go back and forth,” Lekkas said.

Logistic issues

The biggest hurdles to clear in getting someone help are logistic: transportation to treatment centers well outside the county – think Hoffman Estates, Bloomington and such – as well as identifying, intake, and screening people who need help.

While opting to not name local nonprofits, Lekkas said many have

stepped up to help with those struggles.

DeKalb County Coroner Dennis Miller, who sits on the DOPP board, said the county has seen three opioid-related deaths so far in 2019, compared to 12 last year, 19 in 2017, and 25 in 2016 – a major spike after eight in 2015.

The reason that number has dropped again, he said, is Narcan’s availability.

“The epidemic is still there, but the availability of Narcan is more so there than it was three or four years ago,” Miller said.

The HOPE program, Lekkas said,

Brenda Jergens, surrounded by photos of her son who she lost to opioids, talks as DeKalb County States Attorney Rick Amato looks on Tuesday at the courthouse. Amato, Jergens and DeKalb Police Commander Steve Lekkas were meeting Tuesday to discuss opioid addiction and diversion program HOPE, which stands for Heroin and Opioid Prevention and Education. The program, spearheaded by DeKalb County States Attorney Rick Amato and local law enforcement, advocates placing addicts into treatment rather than jail. drove back to town, in her car, and she drove Hudson and his friend to another friend’s place, with the understanding he’d call when he needed a lift home. That call came around midnight. Jergens picked up her son, who passed out in the passenger seat.

She had a hard time waking him up when they got home, but once she did, he and his friend went upstairs to crash, she presumed.

He never woke up.

“Had I known he was really starting … he went to bed, he just went to bed and just never woke back up. If I’d known he was overdosing, I could have done something, called 911, or called the emergency room,” Jergens said. “But I just thought he was tired. I didn’t truly believe he’d used that evening.”

Stronger drugs

Adding insult to injury, first-

responders are seeing more heroin laced with the more powerful opiate, fentanyl, or worse yet, the veritable monster truck that is carfentanil.

Lekkas said the hours, or days, after an overdose might not be the time to seek help, ironically, but that anyone can call anytime.

“Our goal is to take advantage of that window where people are willing to admit they want help,” Lekkas said. “That goes by quickly.”

Amato urged that there’s no need to rush the process of turning the HOPE pilot program into a fullfledged program.

“Would we love a grand opening, and drop balloons and banners?” he said. “In our vision, that’s what we’d love to do, but we don’t need a balloon drop to get somebody help.”

The major step will be training more officers at DPD, so it isn’t

just Lekkas answering the call as more people seek help. He’s quick, however, to point out that one call can change, and even save, a life.

“If anybody calls today, we’ll help them,” Lekkas said.

Amato said at the moment, the DeKalb Police Department is the point agency. Anyone who needs help with addiction or wants more information on HOPE can contact Lekkas at the DeKalb Police Department at 815-748-8400.

Amato hopes in the future, an agency in the southern part of the county – Sandwich, per se – will be brought into the fold, so there’s a central location in that part of the county.

“The big picture is to get these people back out there as productive members of society, instead of keeping them in jail,” Lekkas said.

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Jergens’ story

One of the issues addicts run into is relapsing after doing time.

For instance, Brenda Jergens of Malta lost her son, Kurt Hudson, in September 2013, shortly after he’d gotten out of prison.

She’d picked him up on a Friday morning from Vandalia Correctional Center, where he’d done three months to finish out his parole. He was free. No more parole. Only a wide-open future.

“He had a new lease on life,” Jergens said.

The next day, however, Hudson invited a friend, and his friend’s girlfriend over for a cookout. His friend had cleaned up, he told his mom. They were expecting a baby.

Hudson convinced Jergens to let him go to a strip club in Rockford that night, where she said he and his friend bought heroin. They

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OPIOID AWARENESS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com

is only funded by the allocation of officer time – hence the need for more partnerships in order to help addicts get where they need to be.

Since the inception of the pilot program, in-roads have been made with residents and social workers seeking help with not just opioid addiction, but other crippling vices: alcohol and cocaine, to name a couple.

Then there’s the root of many of those addictions: mental illness.

“A lot of addiction problems, 50 to 75 percent of them, there are underlying mental health issues that might be undiagnosed or on different medications that affect what the treatment’s going to be,” Lekkas said. “It’s a jigsaw puzzle, when it comes to the screening process.”

He said in one case, a person’s mental health diagnosis disqualified them from getting into a treatment center – hence the need for more partnerships, more screening and more work done before someone is brought through a facility’s doors that can lead them to a new lease on life.

Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com • Thursday, March 28, 2019

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Safe Keeping A parent’s guide to the opioid crisis

By David Caraviello CTW Features Madelyn Ellen Linsenmeir was 16 when she first tried oxycodone at a party, and her life from that point on became a battle with opioid addiction. Intervention by her parents, treatment efforts, even becoming a mother — nothing could stop it, and the disease of addiction gradually overwhelmed a vibrant, talented person until it took her life.

It was every parent’s nightmare, detailed in an obituary written by her family after Linsenmeir died in October.

Opioid addiction is a national health crisis, forcing many other parents to combat the same, terrible problem. Some cut their kids off financially, others refuse to pay mounting legal costs, others kick them out of the house.

But the battle begins much earlier, experts say, and starts with honest conversations with children. “Children of parents who talk to their teens about drugs are 50 percent less likely to use,” says Dr. Erin McKnight, who works with opioid-dependent youth at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio. “Just having that conversation in and of itself is very powerful.”

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Jessica Wong, a youth and addiction specialist with Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation in Plymouth, Minn., has seen kids get hooked at 8. “If you haven’t had conversations about substance abuse by age 15, kids have already formed very strong opinions what’s safe and what’s not,” she says.

That opioids are prescribed makes kids think they’re safer than street drugs. Seventy percent of youths who abuse prescription medication steal them from their own homes, or those of friends. Wong knew of two youths who would hit open houses, one chatting up the real estate agent while the other raided the bathrooms looking for pills.

“The first thing you need to do is secure them,” McKnight says. “I recommend that everyone have their medicine in a lockbox or a locked cabinet that only adults in the house can get into. You can even get a tackle box and put a padlock on it. It doesn’t have to be fancy.”

If opioids are in the home, parents should know how many pills are in the bottle relative to how many have been taken. Those using the medication should transition to something like ibuprofen as soon as possible. Take the remaining pills to a disposal drop box, or grind them up with an undesirable substance like coffee grounds or kitty litter.

“Don’t throw the prescription bottle in the trash can,” McKnight says, “because teenagers who really want this medication with go through the trash and pick them out.”

But not even keeping the home opioid-free is foolproof. Signs of opioid use include sweating, nausea and contracted pupils. Also watch for sleeping too much or too little, loss of interest in hobbies or friends, secretiveness and missing money.

And when confronting the child, “It’s important for the parent to not get overly emotional,” McKnight says. “Their response needs to be measured, quiet, and serious. Not shouting and yelling. You need to have them realize it’s a serious moment. The parents have to stay calm, which can be very difficult.”

If substance abuse is suspected, experts suggest starting with the family physician. Treatment centers become an option once drug use begins to have consequences such as police involvement. Addicts are not always willing patients, but Wong urges parents to exert all the leverage they have. It can be painful and uncomfortable, but also save their life.

“You’re dancing around the possibility of upsetting your son or daughter to an extent where you’re going to lose contact with them,” Wong says. “But that doesn’t mean parents should back off. … You have to live in that discomfort that comes when you’re a parent pushing your child toward seeking help, and they’re absolutely refusing it, because that’s part of this disease.”

OPIOID AWARENESS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com

CHOOSE THE SAFER WAY TO MANAGE PAIN!

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A doctor prescription is no longer required to see a physical therapist!

This means you can start feeling better today!

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Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com • Thursday, March 28, 2019

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Love Through Addiction 6 steps to help your loved one get treatment

By Lisa Iannucci CTW Features A few weeks ago, actress Amanda Bynes announced that she was four years sober, combated the drug addictions that derailed her career and is ready for a Hollywood comeback.

She admitted, in an interview with Paper magazine, that she was high on Adderall on the set of her last movie, Hall Pass in 2010.

She quit that movie and proceeded to make very provocative and questionable Twitter posts before publicly announcing that she was retiring from acting.

She continued her downward spiral of drug use before deciding that she wanted to get well, but openly credits her parents for “helping me get back on track.”

If you have a loved one who is struggling with addiction, you may want to help them get back on track too, but how do you do it?

“If you are concerned about a family member or loved one who uses opioids, urge them to talk to whoever prescribed their medications.”

Tammy Slater Assistant professor, Johns Hopkins School of Nursing

1. Urge them to talk to their doctor

“If you are concerned about a family member or loved one who uses opioids, urge them to talk to whoever prescribed their medications,” says Tammy Slater, assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Nursing in Baltimore, Maryland.

Their doctor might be able to provide medications to help treat their addiction.

“Opioid use disorder is a chronic disease,

much like diabetes or heart disease. There is an evidence-based approach for treating opioid addiction using medications that have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration along with counseling and other supportive service,” says Slater. “Prescribers such as nurse practitioners, physicians and physician assistants who are specially trained to provide treatment for opioid addiction can prescribe medications, such as buprenorphine and naltrexone.”

2. Be honest

In some cases, a good long talk might pull at their heartstrings and encourage them to seek treatment. “People make the decision to enter treatment based on their assessment of how their addiction is affecting their life, including their family and the people around them that they care about,” says Dr. Stefan

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6. Understand you can’t fix it

3. Stay present, with limits

Instead of using tough love, Kertesz suggests that staying present in the addict’s life is very important, but setting limits with them is a must.

“Tell them you’ll bail them out of jail, but won’t give them money, or that you can talk to them anytime they want, but can’t do something else,” he says. “Drawing boundaries while you remain connected is a way to walk the line and provide love, but make it clear that there is a problem and that they need to get help.”

4. Provide resources

Finally, your loved one might not know where to turn for rehabilitation, so provide them with a list of resources, including local therapists. Your list can include the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (www.niaaa.nih.gov; 301443-3860); and The Center for Substance Abuse

Treatment, a part of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (24-hour National Treatment Referral Hotline (1-800-662HELP and www.samhsa.gov/about-us/who-weare/offices-centers/csa).

5. Find a treatment center

“If you have money and can get your loved one into treatment and they are open to it, it’s a possibility but just know that it’s not a guaranteed fix,” says Kerstesz, who recommends the research of addictive behavior by author

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Kertesz, University of Alabama at Birmingham professor and addiction specialist. “Reiterate how important it is to them, and how harmful it is to their relationships with their loved ones, that they seek out help for their addiction.”

Forget about getting tough: For years, Kertesz says that we were schooled that addicts needed tough love and rejection in order to show them they have a problem and get them help. That’s not the case today. “There is no evidence that a highly confrontational intervention with a threat is particularly helpful and, for some people, it spirals them along,” he says.

It’s hard to watch a loved one suffer from addiction and as much as you may want to help, it’s not up to you and it might not work. They may refuse to go to treatment and refuse your support.

“We don’t have the power to make the recovery happen,” says Kertesz. “Family has more power than doctors, but unless you have the power of the law on your side, you are waiting for the individual to recalibrate, but that doesn’t always work. In some cases, if they are suffering severe memory loss because of years of drinking, they can’t even remember their own intentions.”

Kertesz says to remain loving, direct and clear with your loved one and hopefully, like Amanda Bynes, they will get help and ultimately succeed in their recovery.

OPIOID AWARENESS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com

William Miller.

In his book, “Motivational Interviewing: Preparing People to Change Addictive Behavior”(The Guilford Press, 2012), Miller writes, “Making a change, however, does not guarantee that the change will be maintained.

Obviously, human experience is filled with good intentions and initial changes, followed by minor (“slips”) or major (“relapses”) steps backward.

Maintaining a change may require a different set of skills and strategies than were needed to accomplish the change in the first place.”

Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com • Thursday, March 28, 2019

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Hope is real.

Healing is possible.

In the biblical biographies of Jesus in the Bible, there is an account of a woman who suffered for 18 years. She had heard about this Jewish teacher, Jesus. She had heard that he healed people. She heard that, through him, getting better was possible. When she heard Jesus was nearby, she did whatever she had to do to get to him. She dared to believe and to hope. And she was healed.

At Christ Community Church (ccclife.org), we recognize that life can be hard. We, like that woman, can suffer. Pain can be overwhelming.

We make decisions we regret. We live with guilt. We want to get better, but we may have lost hope in that ever happening. No matter how you’re struggling, you are not alone. We are here to walk through struggle with you--but also offer help to not stay there. Hope is real.

Healing is possible.

Each of the four Christ Community Church campuses in the western suburbs offers a weekly collection of support and recovery groups we call Care Night. It a place for help, hope, and healing. Here, many have found healing--like the suffering woman--through Jesus.

At every Care Night, we offer the Surrender & Win recovery group for a wide-range of addictions from drugs and alcohol to food, gambling, pornography, and more. No matter what you are struggling with, we want to help set you free and provide you with the tools

necessary to be restored to wholeness.

While group availability varies by campus, Care Night at Christ Community also offers the following groups and workshops: Family Members of Addicts and Alcoholics.

This group is designed to bring encouragement and hope to family members, spouses, or loved ones of an addict. It will challenge your thinking about the addiction and enable you to best help your addicted loved one.

Re-engage Marriage Workshop. Whether your marriage needs to be reignited, or is in need of a complete resurrection, re-engage is a safe place for couples to reconnect and grow. We explore topics like embracing humility, extending grace and forgiveness, communication and conflict, commitment and truth, expectations and understanding and more.

Divorce and Separation Care. Find help and healing for the hurt of separation and divorce.

Divorce Care is a friendly and caring group of people who will walk alongside you through one of life’s most difficult experiences. Don’t go through separation or divorce alone. Groups are led by people who understand what you are going through and want to help. You’ll gain access to valuable Divorce Care resources to help you deal with the pain of the past and look forward to rebuilding your life.

Grief Support. Grieving the loss of a loved one? Join a group that provides a safe

environment for grieving adults to find comfort and peace in their journey towards spiritual and emotional healing. This group explores topics related to the grief process followed by small group table discussions with others who have experienced a similar loss.

Post-Abortion Recovery. If you’re a woman who has ever made the decision of abortion and now find yourself suffering with fear, guilt, anger, isolation, sadness or grief, join this confidential group to experience a deep healing of freedom and forgiveness. Our St. Charles Campus also offers a post-abortion group for men struggling with the emotional fallout of abortion.

Financial Peace University (FPU). This is a practical, biblically-based nine-week course from Dave Ramsey, which is designed to help you learn to handle money God’s way.

The dynamic, motivational lessons are an essential for people in any financial situation, and cover topics like eliminating debt, saving and spending wisely, and how to give like never before. Engaging teaching, scriptural application, discussion, and practical tools will challenge you to make a plan for your money and change your family tree forever!

Learn more about Care Night in Aurora, DeKalb, St. Charles, or Streamwood at ccclife. org/carenight.

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National Prescription Drug Take Back Day

• Thursday, March 28, 2019

Every day, nearly 90 Americans die after National Prescription Drug Take Back Day disposal events are free and no questions overdosing on opioids, including prescription addresses a vital public safety and public asked. pain medications. Rates of prescription drug health issue. Medicines that languish in home “Our Chicago area communities are being abuse in the U.S. are alarmingly high, as are cabinets are highly susceptible to diversion, affected by a national opioid epidemic. This the number of accidental poisonings and misuse, and abuse. has been spurred, in part, by the rise of overdoses due to these drugs. Approximately “Northwestern Medicine is proud to misuse of prescription opioids,” said DEA 16.7 million people used prescription drugs partner with Lurie Children’s Hospital and Chicago Division Special Agent in Charge for a nonmedical purpose in the past year. Of the DEA for National Prescription Drug Take Brian McKnight. “Partnerships between law the nonmedical users of prescription drugs, Back Day to provide our community with a enforcement and community entities are Every day, more than 90 Americans die after overdosing on opioids. As Northwestern Medicine will host five nearly 70% obtained their pills from family and safe and responsible way to conveniently essential to combatting this rampant issue. the prescription opioid epidemic continues to worsen, Northwestern members to visit from friends, including someone else’s medication dispose of their unused medications,” sites said for community Today the DEA stands with community Medicine and Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago 10 am – 2 pm on Saturday, April 27 being stolen from the home medicine cabinet. Jonah Stulberg, MD, a general surgeon at partners such as Northwestern Medicine and are coming together withmedications the Drug Enforcement Administration Appropriate disposal of unused Northwestern Memorialto Hospital who is Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Northwestern Medicine hostcomponent collection sites for National Prescription Drug Take Back Day. is a critical of curbing the opioid leading Northwestern Medicine’s opioid Chicago to affect a true change by providing Hospital and responsible crisis. The event aims to provide a safe, convenient reduction strategies. way “For to healthcare Valley West our communities with a secure and convenient 1302 North Main Street In andispose effort toof take unused medications outprescription providers, opioids are an important tool unused opioids and other medications. way to dispose of medications.” of the community and to provide a safe and for managing our patients’ pain, but if Sandwich, we Illinois 60548 Medicine, efforts are under At Northwestern convenient method of disposal, Northwestern these medications then we must Unused medications thrown in the trash prescribe can be retrieved and across the health system to reduce the Additional way locations: Medicine and Ann & Robertsold.

H. Lurie Children’s alsothey take can responsibility for ensuring excess abused, or illegally If they are flushed, contaminate number of opioids prescribed and to provide Hospital of water Chicago are coming pills drugs can besaves safelylives disposed the supply.

Propertogether disposalwith of unused and of and taken out safe disposal options for patients, particularly Lavin Family Pavilion Driveway the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to of the community.” protects the environment. after surgeries. (on the Northwestern Memorial Hospital campus) host collection sites for National Prescription Unused medications thrown in the trash can “Surgical providers write nearly 10 percent 259 East Erie Street Drug Take Back Day on Saturday, April 27 from be retrieved and abused, or illegally sold. If of all opioid prescriptions and approximately Chicago, Illinois 60611 10 am to 2 pm. they are flushed, they can contaminate the Please note, sharps and liquids will not be accepted, 80 percent of the pills of those 28.3 million Community members may dispose of pills water supply. Proper disposal of unused drugs prescriptions go unused, leaving a staggering and Take Back Day is for community not forprotects the environment.

Northwestern Medicine and patches at three Northwestern Medicine members, saves lives and number of pills available for diversion and commercial Convenient Care St. Charles locations in the city organizations. and suburbs. No needles, “To address the opioid epidemic in Chicago, them vulnerable to abuse (on the eastleaving side of the parking lot by Kirk Road) or misuse,” sharps or liquids will be accepted. The throughout Illinois, and across the United said Dr. Stulberg.

“Starting in our Digestive 2900 Foxfield Road, Suite 100 locations are: States requires a dedicated team approach Health Center with funding from the Digestive LavinFor Family at Northwestern over the long term,” said Matthew Davis, MD, St. Charles, Illinois 60174 morePavilion information on prescriptiondrug misuse, Health Foundation, we piloted a drug take Memorial – 259 E Erie Chicago, IL MAPP, division head of academic general visitHospital www.dea.gov. back Medicine program where patients could dispose Northwestern (in the Lavin driveway – cars must enter from pediatrics and primary care at Lurie Children’s, of their unused pain pills at their post surgery Forest Hospital Erie St.) who serves as co-chair of the hospital’sLake Opioid appointment.

Following the success of this Task Force. “This Take Back Day event Bays is a Medical Building Entrance Participating organizations: program, we are now working to offer drug Northwestern Medicine Convenient Care great way for clinicians, hospitals, and the 900 North Westmoreland Road disposal St. Charles – 2900 Foxfield Rd., St. Charles, public to do their part together, but it must Lake Forest, Illinoiscollection 60045 kiosks in all of our hospitals and to find other ways to reduce our reliance IL (on the east side of the parking lot by Kirk be combined with sustained efforts on all on opioid prescriptions and prevent diversion Northwestern Medicine Road) other days of the year to use opioid medicines of these addictive appropriately and dispose of unused doses Central DuPage Hospital pain medications.”

For more information about Northwestern Medicine Valley West promptly.” (in the west parking lot across the street on the disposal of prescription drugs or to find Take Back Day Hospital– 1302 North Main St., Sandwich, IL National Prescription Take Back Day is Winfield Road) offered at locations across the country. 25 TheNorth Winfield event, go to www.DEATakeBack.com.

Road

OPIOID AWARENESS | Daily Chronicle / Daily-Chronicle.com

Saturday, April 27

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