BATAVIA, Ohio — As COVID cases continue to rise, so are the amount of drug addiction and overdose cases, but workers at one drug treatment center are doing something they hope will change that.
For Jessica Mouser there’s one thing she said she’ll always have on her. She carries Narcan, an emergency medication designed to reverse an opioid overdose.
“That is what’s detrimental to keeping my recovering,” said Mouser.
She said she’s been in recovery from drug addiction for the past two years.
“I’ve lost jobs. I’ve lost friends. The people in my family, lost their support for a while,” said Mouser.
And she said she doesn’t want to end up a statistic or a flag in a field of them.
“Each flag represents an individual who’s experienced an overdose in Clermont County,” said Emily Schwarz, community outreach manager for BrightView Treatment Center.
“It took my fiancé and I about an hour and a half to two hours to put these flags dawn and it was a really somber time,” said Schwarz.
She’s part of the team trying to bring awareness to the problem.
“I’ve been in this field about six years and I would say over the last year, it’s definitely gotten worse especially with COVID and all the changes have brought, that’s why Narcan is so important because individuals can’t make it through their addiction if they can’t make it through an overdose,” said Schwarz.
It’s the reason, right next to those flags, they’ve been setting up shop at their centers across southwest Ohio. They’ve been giving out the Narcan medication.
That’s where Jessica Mouser got an extra package to keep with her just in case.
“Having it around could mean saving your life or another person’s life,” said Mouser.
