Addiction News

Stepworks Recovery Centers is just about ready to open the doors of our new treatment facility in London, KY. Once again anyone with substance abuse issues will be able to receive the quality of care that has long been associated with the Stepworks name. In the meantime, we would like to clear up a few questions about Stepworks’ location and history.

An ongoing lawsuit in KY seeks to hold pharmaceutical companies accountable for the epidemic of opioid painkiller abuse and addiction troubling many parts of the state. Meanwhile, a new scientific study suggests that non-addictive pain medications may be within reach, offering a much less risky way to help chronic pain sufferers relieve their distress without falling victim to addiction.

Over the last year, efforts to save lives from heroin addiction and drug overdose in Northern KY have met with both successes and new obstacles. While the KY heroin problem continues to do great harm, recovery organizations and advocates are continuing to make inroads in making the region safer and better equipped to deal with addiction. Last year the Northern Kentucky Heroin Impact Response Task Force came together to set goals for tackling the region’s drug epidemic, and in October 2014 they reconvened to review their progress and create an action plan for the next year.

Growing up in an environment of a runaway drug epidemic, teens in southeastern Kentucky counties are faced with unprecedented access to drugs and likely a lot of peer pressure to begin using at an early age. To address this widely acknowledged problem, law enforcement officials and drug prevention volunteers in the state have introduced a new initiative to distribute home drug test kits for parents to administer to their kids in some Kentucky counties.

The home drug test pilot program, nicknamed “Give Me a Reason,” sets out to do just that for Kentucky teens: give them an easily remembered reason to decline to use drugs when they’re faced with that choice. Knowing they can be tested when they get home, the program’s leaders reason, they might be less likely to start using due to peer pressure. The kits allow parents to test for different drugs, from marijuana to highly addictive opiates.

Kentuckians affected by the growing epidemic of heroin abuse and overdose are looking to raise awareness of the problem and urge action from state lawmakers. On May 10 the nonprofit group Walking For Wellness hosted a community cookout in Louisville to raise money for a local treatment center. The fundraiser comes after state legislators struggled to pass a bill that would, among other actions, increase funding for treatment centers across the state.