a second and joe curley and tammy and joe are from the washington county opioid coalition drug and alcohol coalition which i'm a part of one of the subcommittees as well and they're doing such a wonderful job on educating people and treating people with various addictions and there are some issues that that occur because of added to attitude basically i look at it is people that lack some knowledge and awareness and so you develop these concepts and you attach those to people that are actually suffering with these addictions and in a sense a disease yes so you're you've been with the washing co can washington drug and alcohol commission is actually the single county authority in washington county we provide prevention intervention treatment services to individuals who are looking for and seeking jobs and i'll call treatment so it's for we provide a wide variety so we're doing this through the county as employees of the county right we're actually five one c three nonprofit organization addressing the residents of washington county and then the washington county overdoes task force county in washington county yes very active and how did you end up joining the well i mean honestly i ended up joining a by did the fall the lady who was doing it who's this  and then your title is prevention supervisor i oversee the prevention department so we provide services within the communities and school districts related to prevention we educate students anywhere from elementary all the way to senior citizens and that's the key to what you're doing and i think the key to the answer to this this problem that's going wrong worldwide basically yeah of course we're both focusing here on washington county but we're actually setting the standard treatment but most importantly early education doing to prevent chian so in a broad view is are there certain ages that are have a tendency to be more addicted to the drugs that we're talking about both illegal illegal drugs and people to become addicted to prescription medications yes well i mean personally i think you're younger gen generation you're eighteen the maybe therapies are forty's are using opioids or prescription medication her when you get into the older crowd it's one how kahan we're seeing a shift and that in the county where now the older population is starting to progress for a long time it was alcohol population and now  think happens is people go to the doctor the older people go to the doctor because they have a pain and they they genuinely need the pain medication but they may take it for too long or molly becomes the pattern and the doctor anymore and we're talking about people in their sixty's seventy's and eighty's doing that and so they have some type of surgery or there's some type of injury back injury him injuries so forth and they get they were prescribed some painkiller which some people need  for some sort of injury from that injury been prescribed an opiate and then then turn into an addiction problem so they are not necessarily somebody that has ever tried anything before but then turns to that opiate as a result of the pain that they're you know they enjoy or whatever and what a lot of people don't realize medically speaking one drug can impact yooper example and not have some of those side effects are doing it for a week or three weeks doesn't make you addicted but somebody else and joe takes one and joe could be addicted in within a couple days so no physician knows that right and the physician is prescribing it because you're obviously in pain you know and i you know i had a surgeon few months ago all you know and they're like shocked because i was obviously in trouble and in pain and so yeah one of the great things about the over this task force in the work that they're doing is a lot of the things that they don't want to that's one of them is so it's really getting prescribe being practices out to physicians teaching them about what is proper prescribe and practice as a lot of great things happening to address that op unfeigned has adopted a new prescription monitoring program which allows doctors to make sure that individual's not doc well actually rick of all say this requires us to do that we are just right to go in and then we're we have to log on look at that patient's record and then log on that we're doing this and see if anybody else has given because some people do shop opioids yeah a lot of great things are happening as a result of the coalition i didn't personally want to take them you know and there are some things like this like tramadol for example which is very powerful and and said you know it doesn't have an addiction possibility you can't take it too long but because it's tough on your liver but there are alternatives yes but i think privately tammy and i have talked and i said when i chose i could have a blockage on an opioid which is one of a side effect that people aren't talking about you actually it changes your your chemistry in your brain and you it affects your intestinal tract that peristalsis that we have and people have ended up with i would have been say perception having addiction within my own personal family and being a parent to that i was embarrassed somewhat to share with other people and within my family whatever that an individual suffering i think it's a lot of things to different people depending if you're the individual who is suffering with the addiction or you know even a family member you don't want to share that so i think until some of that's addressed and more and we begin to discuss that we're not going to fix the problem so it's clean no one's ever going to help me they don't care about me and i absolutely people carry with them and a lot of times it keeps them stuck into some stuff absolutely and that was the word that i was going to mention so no one cares because a lot a lot of people hide their addiction that are addicted and what they say the first time you could ever become healthier become well whether that's physically or mentally of those types of stigmas attitudes perceptions of these people place on people that have a declare something we've learned from the stigma worker of we recently did a county wide survey and within that to were saying that a lot of for example in the locks on and if certain of them are can they want to associate that why are we doing it all of these things when our can itself is a big help to the individual so it's not that it's you know all something personally i hear compared a lot to someone who suffers with diabetes and what i what i always try to say is the narc can is a life that's sustaining device much like the thing that would be used for you to bring you back from a heart attack so it's not like it's medication to welcome back to healthy pets healthy owners undoctored so koskinen we're here with joe curley and tami taylor this discussion we're having is fascinating because you know as a medical professional we're kind of taught these things and we're actually talked to to try to determine whether someone is as i mentioned earlier shopping for medications or and so forth or somebody that might have something addiction problem whether that be alcohol or drugs but you do develop your own perceptions  especially if you're not you know someone who drank alcohol or you know experimented with drugs or whatever and you develop these these concepts in your own mind so we're going to focus the last half of the show on what the stigma that stigma jim that just takes that medication or that nutrient or whatever and this medicine which is really inexpensive knocks that off and you can literally take someone who's about to die from usually respiratory arrest and knock those that drug off the receptor sites and they come back so it's kind of amazing but why is there a stigma attached to that so there's no there's many reasons why th skyrocketed like to the moon several hundred times what it used to be i have to pay for what why does someone who's drug addicted not have to pay for their market but they do have to pay for and while they don't pay out of pocket i don't hand you my dad car or my credit card or my cash and say thanks for saving my life sir but what how many as they get that hospital i mean the hospital bill attaches to the credit report and i mean when you used to save someone it's for the purposes of bringing that person back it is not something that is you know something that is just being used as an ongoing thing there's many perceptional things about before having our camp parties and all this other kind of stuff as is from what we've heard from and i'm sure joe can tell you that's not what an individual who suffers with the hair when addiction is doing because mark it isn't creating a buzz creating you to be higher in that letter out it's it's saving the life of someone who's taken too much of the medication or reactive medication and again the the work of the stigma workgroup the biggest thing we're trying to do is change the stigma associated not even just with narcan but with addiction as a whole that individuals who suffer with addiction who get the recovery support services that they need to recover and to become productive citizens of washington county and you know everywhere else i think recovery is possible i got a lot of credit goes goes to the coalition what washington county is doing with drug and alcohol i mean we have a d a that doesn't want to keep her put people in jail because they got hooked up on drugs once then they've a quality of life and not be a burden on society an burden on the taxpayers and the whole program is designed yes for that also many things in place we have a treatment court a drug court that happens saw under direction of our clinical director eric are now we have an awesome judge that is helping with that that's running  at with so yes i don't know so much to sow so there's a there's many factors that are going into place to help him change you know a lot of what's happening on washington county our overdose deaths are down dramatically in the whole state washington with first responders i mean there's just a multitude of thing that's happening things that are happening through the county and we welcome anybody that would love to hear more about that to come in so how to how do people do that and well we have on february twenty seventh at six pm the coalition will host we do quarterly open meetings to the public so anyone that wants to hear more find out more about some things that are happening can come to that meeting it's at the courthouse square six o'clock on and again website so there's there's many things going on in individuals who would like to know more want to get involved can reach out definitely find out more so the part of the healing in which what this committee's doing i've said on your committee  another community but what you're doing is actually changing the the attitude of not only well first of all the drug user the person who's who has this addiction problem and that's the biggest step in the healing because you're making pathways available for anyone who has addiction not to be afraid of the law not to be afraid of the medical health there's an avenue for them to come to us and get that help and get the treatment and get back to a normal life amazing and we say i have attendance in these meetings where we you had people come that have gone through this program peak and i'm always amazed at the courage we on my radio show healthy pets healthy people i'm going to applaud when i  and to to expose their heart and soul basically but then to say where they are not out it is absolutely amazing i mean i remember twenty one meeting tammy and the silence in the room was was auto bill that's how  yeah because everybody was so focused on the story and the change and her life and yeah we're very fortunate that joe and his staff have helped with come into schools talking in schools about you know what has happened in their path to recovery we've been fortunate enough that they've we've used them and outlets that at our monthly meetings like you've said so it takes a lot of courage but only can stigma change when somebody can stand up and talk about the recovery as possible that's where the real benefit comes so that's where we're going to make a difference so then with the anti stigma you you talk about prevention you talk about treatment and then you talk about perception and attitude and often it's the families of a hard time because yes they have they've been dealing with it yes and sometimes ashamed you know the financial costs are great i know that his family's pretty heavily and some people even lost their family members as a result yes and they're even more embarrassed about it but that's the whole purpose is to change this perception of the set of tude it's really educating because as a parent like i said enabling you don't realize what you're doing when you're trying to protect as a parent's instinct to protect i went in when in reality you're really doing more harm than good but then it's the knowledge i didn't know anything about addiction i didn't know any of that stuff so really being able to do the work that we do and educate the the support services and through the direction of our executive director i think we're getting that round picture i mean i really fail the warm handoff that are happening having somebody on all occasions at the magistrates at the hospitals all of this have been is a bit more desirable of helping those individuals to begin that road to recovery is so what you're doing and i think education is everything and that's what we try to do on healthy pets healthy owners use it's all about education and we do that on healthy pets healthy people because there's power and education yes and then this stigma go again as just goes on not to mention that for every dollar you spend in prevention you can save so much in treatment and health care related costs so really prevent a early prevention so so early education you take it as a you become proactive proactive in that you want to take and educate someone whether the they're the addicted person or the family member or friend should i feel guilty if i know someone's addiction addicted i call i call the agency and so you think you know help this person should i have a problem with that no but that's part of the stigma having a problem yeah so how to how do people get a hold of the organization again so multiple  course our website is w d a c i n c dot org they can call our eight hundred number it one eight hundred two four seven eight three seven nine you can go if you have