Eastern Idaho leaders discuss the opioid addiction problem facing Eastern Idaho
The problem is bigger than anyone can image. One in seven people will face an addiction. One in 10 will beat it. Ninety-one Americans die every day, the result of an opioid addiction, according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention.
For David Pinegar, it took hitting rock bottom to turn his life around.
“I hurt my wife. I hurt my kids. I hurt my parents. I hurt my brothers and sisters all along the way,” Pinegar said. “I was spending $200 to $300 a day on Oxycontin.”
Rock bottom for Pinegar was overdosing on a mixture of prescription and illicit drugs. He woke up in the hospital, after being saved by paramedics who administered Narcan.
“At the time, I just thought that I was weak and I just needed to get tough and get over it,” Pinegar said.
Between 2010 and 2011, Idaho ranked fourth in use of prescription opioids, according to a national survey by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
Idaho Falls has 50-plus addiction centers, according to Pinegar, now an addiction specialist who runs Renaissance Ranch Addiction Treatment Centers.
“It is a huge problem,’ Pinegar said. “From Bishops to prominent community leaders. I have treated doctors, nurses, and physician assistants.”
According to numbers from the CDC, more than 52,000 lives were lost to addiction in 2015. At the height of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, the annual U.S. Death toll was just over 50,000.
“Prescription drug abuse is a much-misunderstood problem,” Andra Hansen, a BYU-I professor said “It is far more prevalent than people realize. It is affecting people profoundly.”
On Wednesday, the Trump administration took steps to help combat the problem of opioid addiction. President Trump announced New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie would chair a panel on opioid problems. He also proposed a $500 million increase in funding to help battle the problem.
“There is a lot more that needs to happen,” Hansen said. “The lack of awareness is a huge problem to addressing the issue successfully.”
Hansen, along with a group of her BYU-I students, put together a roundtable discussion Wednesday evening to talk about the issue first hand.
Pinegar was among those who attended, sharing his story.
“I am grateful,” he said. “I am thankful for my addiction because it has brought me to this point in my life and it has taught me things I may not have learned otherwise, however, it is a risky risky road to learn the lessons I feel like I have learned.”
To help combat the problem, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued new opiate prescription guidelines for health care providers nationwide in 2016. The guidelines promote using non-opioid drugs and prescribing low doses of opiates if necessary.
