FARGO-Chad Mayers has been opioid-free since 2011, but before that his life was wracked with drug overdoses and other health problems related to his drug use, including an infection that required doctors to remove one of his lungs.
On Monday, the Bismarck man was in Fargo to attend an opioid symposium organized by several groups, including the North Dakota Department of Human Services.
The gathering of more than 100 people from a variety of health care and law enforcement agencies was the latest in a series of community efforts aimed at reducing deaths and injuries from a growing heroin and opioid crisis plaguing the region and the nation.
Mayers was there to learn and to share his own hard-earned lessons regarding prescription drugs. He became addicted to opioids when a doctor placed him on painkillers after he was run over by a motorcycle.
Mayers said that for him, the answer to quitting prescription drugs was deciding to seek treatment and then finding a support network that helps keep him from relapsing.
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"Don't keep it a secret. Ask for help," said Mayers, adding that no one beats addiction by themselves.
"You can't do this alone, you're going to end up dying," Mayers said. He estimated that when he was abusing prescription drugs, he ended up in the intensive care unit about every three months.
But with treatment and people supporting him, Mayers said his life today is very different.
"I haven't been to the hospital in five years," he said. One way for people to avoid the addiction path is to be mindful about how much medication they are taking and to know that with pain management they don't need to take pills just because they have them, he said.
"The amount of pain pills prescribed is too much," Mayers said.
Whether to prescribe opioid painkillers and how much to give patients is a question on the minds of many doctors these days, said Dr. Andrew McLean, medical director at the state Department of Human Services.
McLean, speaking at Monday's summit, said physicians can find it tempting to skip over less-risky pain medications and go directly to powerful opioids when patients are desperate for pain relief, especially in today's competitive health care environment.
"Consumer satisfaction is very important, but particularly for controlled substances and addiction issues that's not necessarily the way to go," McLean said.
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Erin Winstanley, a nationally recognized researcher in the field of opioid addiction and treatment, told the summit audience that only about 10 percent of people who need treatment get treatment and the consequences of that are becoming increasingly apparent across the country.
Seventy-eight people a day die from opioid overdoses, and addiction gives rise to a variety of other problems, including drugged driving, she said.
"It's gotten to be pretty startling," said Winstanley, who added that communities are fighting back in numerous ways that include better monitoring of how prescription drugs are being used by patients and providing patients with better education on the dangers of misusing prescription drugs.
Once a person has an addiction, treatment is key, Winstanley said.
"We know that addiction treatment works," she said. "We just need to help ensure that the funding and access is available, particularly in rural areas where geographic distances can be quite hard."
