Southwest Georgia officials ‘breaking the silence’ on opioid crisis

ALBANY — Legislators and leaders in the health sector are coming together on Thursday evening for the purpose of “breaking the silence” on substance abuse.

A town hall meeting on the matter is planned for 6-8 p.m. at the Flint RiverQuarium. Organized by Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital and Aspire Behavioral Health and Disability Services with the help of the Albany-Dougherty Community Opioid Task Force, the meeting is meant to start a conversation on how the issue is to be confronted.

Officials say the goal is to facilitate a greater understanding of addiction, identifying someone in crisis and where to find support.

Dana Glass, chief clinical officer for Aspire, said the agency has seen the opioid crisis impact the community significantly over the last two years. On a nationwide level, it has grown to cause 78 deaths a day.

“A lot of people start out needing (opioids) for a reason,” Glass said. “It controls emotions and the level of ‘feel goods.’ It is hard to go without that. (This) leads to that dependence. It expands into addiction.

“It is highly abused, highly addictive.

Glass said more funding and care need to be available to address the epidemic, and that there needs to be a stricter prescription drug-monitoring program that does not allow people to “doctor shop” in order to get access to multiple drugs.

She said there also ought to be education about prevention, starting with the younger population.

“This needs to be in the schools,” she said. “We need to start having those conversations as part of preventive care.”

Addiction is not the only issue that needs to be combated. The lifestyle that comes with drug dependency is loss, which causes depression and anxiety — so there is a mental health component.

The town hall will include remarks from Atlanta native Ryan Layfield, who once suffered from opioid addiction. In the room will be state legislators and officials on the frontlines of the crisis.

“When we open up conversations, it opens the door for unique participants to come together,” Glass said.

Layfield, 32, has been sober for three years. When he was in high school, he got involved with alcohol and marijuana. He attended the University of Georgia, and his drinking increased. A friend of his introduced him to a pain pill.

“It became the answer to all my problems,” he said. “I was not hung over, and I made everyone think I was sober.”

He moved back to Atlanta still using opioids. He was in and out of jail and rehab. He lost a girlfriend, his house, two jobs, his car and the trust of his parents. He later got connected to the Anchorage, a substance abuse program for men based in Leesburg.

“I had a spiritual experience there. It changed everything about me,” Layfield said. “I knew my whole goal and purpose was to help people just like me.”

He is now active in the Anchorage program in order to pass on what he has learned from an experience that “feels like several lives ago.” He said he wants participants to take home the point that anybody is prone to getting into a situation they did not anticipate and cannot control.

“My thing is to raise awareness as much as possible,” Layfield said. ” I think eyes are closed (to how significant it is).”

Brittany Berry, nurse manager for the neonatal intensive care unit at Phoebe, said she sees the opioid crisis impacting Albany’s youngest residents. She said she is hoping more awareness on the infant impact can come to light, and that more support is made available to affected mothers.

Many babies undergoing withdrawal do not start experiencing the effects until after they leave the hospital, making the circumstances particularly frightening.

“Research shows that the best (form of) treatment involves the mother’s (participation),” she said.

State Sens. Freddie Powell-Sims, District-12, and Renee Unterman, District 45, are participating in the town hall, as well as emergency medicine physician Dr. Eddie Black and Kathy Brinson, maternal education coordinator at Phoebe. After Powell-Sims provides opening remarks, Black and Brinson will make presentations on their perspective of the addiction epidemic.

Remarks will follow from Dr. Eugene Sun from Aspire, discussing the disease of addiction. Layfield will share his story, and Unterman will give a call to action and legislative update before a video and question-and-answer session.

The reception area of the theater will host vendor tables sharing resources as well as recovery-focused artwork from Aspire’s participants.