As overdoses continue to surge across Kentucky and throughout the U.S., the team at Addiction Recovery Care (ARC) is continuing its efforts to save lives, reduce risk and remove barriers to treatment.

ARC offers “Treatment On Demand,” assuring that help is quickly available when an individual chooses to seek treatment. The decision to pursue recovery can be fleeting, and a day could be the difference between life and death.

In addition to treatment, ARC encourages overdose prevention. Naloxone, also known as Narcan, can quickly reverse an overdose by blocking the effects of opioids. Since spring 2022, ARC has trained more than 800 employees on how to use Narcan so they can intervene safely and effectively in the event of an overdose.

While the overdose crisis has become a nationwide problem, the impact is personal.

“The hard reality is that substance use is taking human lives, and you don’t truly understand the gravity of it until it’s someone you know,” said Kristi Roberson, ARC’s East Regional Outpatient Director, who has recently lost multiple loved ones to overdose deaths. “For me and so many others, the addiction crisis is personal. I’ve lost family members and friends. When people struggling with addiction don’t get the help they need, it can lead to death. That’s a difficult thing to hear, but it’s so important that we spread the word that treatment is available right now. Don’t wait until it’s too late.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), overdoses are the leading injury-related cause of death in the United States and in recent years have reached record highs.

Approximately 107,000 individuals died from drug overdoses in 2021. That’s a sharp increase from the 92,000 people who died from drug overdoses from 2020. Three-quarters of the overdose deaths in 2020 involved a prescription or illicit opioid.

And despite treatment being more accessible today than in years past, people do not always get the help they need. In 2020, an estimated 41.1 million Americans needed substance use disorder treatment, but only 2.6 million people received treatment.

Research also shows that people who have had at least one overdose are more likely to have another. Through its treatment and prevention efforts, ARC hopes to change that.

“People are losing their lives to addiction, but we are here to prevent that. We’ve got to keep people alive so we can get them into treatment and on the road to recovery,” added Roberson.

ARC is headquartered in Louisa, Kentucky, and currently operates a network of over 30 licensed addiction treatment centers in 22 Central and Eastern Kentucky counties. To find out about treatment options for you or a loved one today, visit arccenters.com or call 888-351-1761.