HealthyPlusno2Aug30pages (1) - Flipbook - Page 20
Harm-Reduction Bags
Helping people help
themselves
With the aim of reducing deaths
from overdose, Harm-Reduction Bags
(HRBs) are available FREE throughout
Bennington County and beyond.
HRBs typically include:
• (2) doses of NARCAN
• Mouth guard
• Chapstick
• Gloves
• Wound care kit
• Hand sanitizer
• Fentanyl test strip
• Information from
state and local
substance
use disorder
organizations
HRBs are available
on a no-questions
asked basis at the following locations
or by contacting the following
organizations:
VT:
Bennington County:
Free delivery of HRBs available by
calling:
802-440-6776 Samba
802-246-7729 Loni
Turning Point Center of Bennington
465 Main Street, Bennington
United Counseling Serice (UCS)
100 Ledge Hill Drive, Bennington
Voices of Hope
Wilmington
802-490-5645
MA:
Berkshire County:
Berkshire Harm Reduction Mobile
Unit
413-822-6876
Berkshire Harm Reduction
6 West Main Street, North Adams
413-398-5603
Berkshire Harm Reduction
510 North Street, Pittsfield
413-447-2654
NY:
Naxolone Now
Text ‘NARCAN’ to 21000 to schedule
delivery of a HRB within 48 hours in
Rensselaer County
18 | HEALTHY+ | SUMMER/FALL 2022
Addiction and Recovery (continued)
where he did whatever he could to
1 million
earn cash. “I was hard into heroin,
and counting
In 2021, the number of overdose deaths
cocaine, and then added benzos
in US was an estimated 107,622. The
(Benzodiazepines) to the mix. I was a
highest number of overdoses record
mess, and everyone knew it. I would
in a single year, it represented a 15%
increase over the previous year and
try to get clean on my own, but it
pushed
the total number of recorded
never worked. I decided to try rehab
overdoses since the CDC began
again, this time on Long Island.
collecting data about two decades
ago over the 1 million mark.
I was in Penn Station with
Source: US Centers for Disease Control
five bags of heroin in my pocket
and Prevention
when I got a call. A close family
member had OD’d and didn’t make it.
That just broke me. My family insisted I go to rehab instead
of coming home for the funeral. I understood but I haven’t
forgiven myself for missing that. After I got off the phone I went
in the bathroom and set up my shot. I remember looking at the
heroin and for the first time ever feeling scared. But I did it anyway.”
Phil’s sobriety post-rehab didn’t last long. Over the next three years,
he continued to use, spent time in and out of five different rehabs, and
ended up in the SVMC Emergency Department* where he was put on
life support for seven days with complications from withdrawals. Before
he was discharged from that ordeal, a representative of the Turning
Point Center in Bennington paid him a visit. “They told me about their
services and all they could do to help me work a recovery plan. I made
an appointment and kept it, and a couple of other appointments after I
got discharged. They were easy to work with and even came to my new
apartment with some items I needed to furnish it. But I wasn’t ready
and started skipping the appointments.”
Six months later, he found himself in long-term intensive care at
Albany Med for withdrawal and overall poor health. For a time after that
experience, he managed to stay clean.
“But the urge to use was really strong. The violence I witnessed, the
people I loved that died, the fact that I could die the next time I used…
none of it mattered. I just wanted to use. And I did. Until the police
stepped in.”
Hitting bottom, going lower
Having been caught with a sizeable amount of heroin and cocaine,
Phil spent seven months in jail, including the first three weeks in
withdrawal without the benefit of Suboxone. “It was absolute hell. Once
the pain stopped, I started to really think about everything that got me
where I was. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than what I was facing.”
* See resource box, p. 19