Survivors celebrated on International Overdose Awareness Day in Pittsburgh
People struggling with opioid addiction sometimes need more than a second chance, treatment advocates say.
“If we give people one more chance. Every day,” said Dana Gold, chief operating officer of Jewish Family and Community Services. “Sometimes multiple times a day, then they have the opportunity to make their dreams a reality.”
Gold spoke Tuesday at an International Overdose Awareness Day program that packed the Grant Street portico of the City-County building in Downtown Pittsburgh.
Gold, who has been a longtime member of social service agencies, knows that reviving people with naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of an opioid overdose, offers that chance.
“They have the opportunity to try and put those pieces together of life that they struggle with so much and try it a different way, to put it together just a slightly different way that maybe this time it will work,” she said.
If it weren’t for more chances, Gold’s daughter would be dead. Her daughter is a recovering addict who has overdosed several times.
Now she’s attending college and following her dream of becoming an artist. Her daughter and others like her are living testaments to the value of giving people another chance at life, Gold said.
Complimentary doses of naloxone were distributed at the event and there was also a host of social service agencies that had people on hand to talk about their programs.
It’s something that has the full support of Mayor Bill Peduto’s administration, Dan Gilman, the mayor’s chief of staff, said.
“We will never be a city that treats people with addiction as criminal rather than our neighbors in need of love and care,” Gilman said. “We will always be a city that works in partnership with our incredible nonprofit community out there providing services to our most vulnerable residents.”
Tom Davidson is a TribLive news editor. He has been a journalist in Western Pennsylvania for more than 25 years. He can be reached at tdavidson@triblive.com.
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