“I’ve been there, and I’m here to help,” says Jeremy Byard.
Executive Director of the Louisville Recovery Community Connection, Byard is in long-term recovery from opioid use disorder. Community-based recovery organizations like his help people create a unique path to recovery that can work for them long-term.
Like Byard, everybody that works at Byard’s organization is a peer support specialist — someone with lived experience who has been trained to support those struggling with mental health, psychological trauma, or substance use.
Personal accounts of working through an addiction, wrapped in the trust of sharing a lived experience, can make a huge difference for someone struggling with the mental anguish and physical pain of trying to stop using drugs.
“Every aspect of life is recovery,” Byard says, explaining that avoiding opioids isn’t realistic if an individual’s basic needs aren’t met through access to food, transportation, housing, and a job — or even just the need for emotional support on a tough day.
“We’ll give you a place to sit on the couch when it’s cold and rainy outside, get a warm cup of coffee, and just have compassionate conversation with somebody.”
Community recovery organizations like Byard’s in Louisville, Kentucky, are teaming with the HEALing Communities Study, part of the Helping to End Addiction Long-term Initiative®, or NIH HEAL Initiative®. This research aims to facilitate translation of research to practice for the treatment of opioid addiction.
The HEALing Communities Study is a novel team effort: it joins together scientists who specialize in addiction medicine, state and countywide organizations, individuals within community coalitions, and other key community partners to build and test approaches to dramatically reduce deaths from opioid-related overdoses (see HEALing Communities Across America).
A connected community is a strong community
A fundamental challenge is that often lifesaving medications to reverse overdose and treat opioid use disorder don’t make their way into the hands of people who need them. In addition, those who do work with people with addiction — emergency department physicians, judges and parole officers, recovery support providers like Jeremy, and other community members — often don’t know the best way to integrate these lifesaving treatments into their work.
The HEALing Communities Study seeks to change that.
HEALing Community Study coalitions work alongside those in the healthcare, behavioral health, and justice systems. In some states, the National Guard has been involved in providing valuable data and resources for community planning.
“Data is our connection to the street, showing us where opioids are being spread,” says Staff Sergeant Julio Fernandez of the National Guard Counterdrug Task Force Drug Demand Reduction Civil Operations team. He and his colleagues work on drug prevention inside communities to build, strengthen, and sustain community coalitions.
Knowing precisely where people are in trouble helps communities know where and when to direct resources to save the most lives.
“In 30 years as a paramedic, I’ve woken up hundreds of patients from opioid overdoses. Some wanted to change but didn't know how or where to start the process,” says Jeffrey Crutcher of Hudson Valley, New York, who has seen many stories of tragedy and recovery.