[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi, everyone, Steve Adubato.

We kick off the program with Robin Lavorato, who is Executive Director of Essex Health and Wellness Recovery Center.

Good to see you, Robin.

- Thanks, Steve, nice to see you as well.

- You got it.

We're putting up the website of the organization right now.

Describe the work at the center and why it's so significant.

- Sure.

We are the Essex Health and Wellness Recovery Center, and what we do is recovery supports.

We really and truly do a lot of work with individuals and families who are struggling with substance use disorder.

We assist families to help their loved ones get into treatment, if they need detox, if they need treatment centers.

We help them to find sober livings, which are so very important.

We also will help them with recovery supports after they are successfully discharged from treatment.

We will help them get into programs for housing, clothing, food, and education, occupation, things like that.

- I should also thank our mutual friend, Judge Jose Linares, former Chief of the federal courts, Judge Linares, who reached out and shared about your work because he's deeply concerned personally, as well as professionally, about these issues of addiction.

And one of the issues he talked to me about that I know you're dealing with very directly is, now, I was gonna say the opioid crisis, but connect for everyone the opioid into the fentanyl crisis and why it's so incredibly significant and terrible.

- Absolutely.

First of all, yeah, thank you to Judge Linares.

He's been amazingly supportive of our work at the Essex Health and Wellness Recovery Center.

He has seen the devastation of opioids, fentanyl firsthand on the bench.

- In the courts, as a judge.

- Yep.

Yes, absolutely.

He has seen more than his share, and he knows the devastation.

He also knows that treatment is very important, and then, locking people up and throwing away the key is not really the answer.

So there has to be a combination, right?

We wanna keep those drug dealers off the street for sure, but people that are struggling with it, we wanna make sure that they get the help they need.

To answer your question, the opioid crisis really started back, you know, about 20-something years ago.

The pharmaceutical companies were strongly pushing the oxycodone to doctors, telling them that they really need for their patients to have no pain.

Insurance companies shouldn't be paying for doctors who can't get rid of pain.

And these doctors were prescribing oxycodone like crazy.

People were getting addicted left and right, as well as doctors themselves.

And they, at some point, had to get something a little bit cheaper, so they would go to the streets and get heroin, which is an opioid-based drug, illegally.

And what happened from there, we did start seeing some overdoses because of the heroin and also the large use of oxycodone and other opioids.

But all of a sudden, the drug dealers wanted something cheaper.

It was very expensive to make the oxy.

So they were getting the chemicals from China, which really just threw a whammy on us.

Coming in through the Mexican border, and we have drug dealers who are just mixing things up like they're a pharmacist, and they're not.

We see the DEA going into the, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration going into these drug dealers' homes, where they have these fake pharmaceutical labs set up.

And they're just putting the fentanyl in with oxys, in which cocaine, in with heroin.

It's even been found in marijuana.

We know these drug dealers, they're not really too worried about their clients, right?

There's many out there.

And they're bagging heroin, fentanyl, cocaine, marijuana all on the same table, in the same room.

And one speck of fentanyl getting into the marijuana can cause an overdose and a death to any of our people.

- Yeah.

That's what I was gonna ask.

Anecdotally, and it's funny, when you use the term anecdotally, it makes it sound like it's somehow less significant, but we hear these stories, these examples of this speck, as you say, of fentanyl that's someone's first time.

They didn't know it was in marijuana, whatever it is.

First of all, what is fentanyl, and why is it so deadly?

- So fentanyl is a synthetic opioid.

It's a man-made opioid.

And obviously, when it's man-made in a pharmacy, in a pharmaceutical lab, and distributed through a pharmacy, it helps.

It helps people, especially at the end of their life, if they're struggling with cancer.

It's a very strong drug.

It takes away the pain.

We have fentanyl patches for people who are struggling at the end of life with intense pain.

But when it's made in a basement lab or an apartment lab by a drug dealer who does not know what they're doing, yes, one speck, one little salt speck, one little sand speck of fentanyl can kill somebody.

We have Drug Enforcement Administration agents going in to make these arrests in these labs, and sometimes they get knocked down just by the fumes of the fentanyl.

It's a very, very- - Hold on, Robin, let ask you.

I'm sorry for interrupting, let me ask you this.

So you and your organization, we'll put up the website right now again of the Essex Health and Wellness Recovery Center.

You and your colleagues dealing with this every day.

When someone comes in addicted to fentanyl, how much more difficult is it for them to get the treatment that they need that would be effective to hopefully avoid them relapsing again?

Is it different than any other rehab?

- So an opioid, fentanyl detox is very, very, it's very trying for the person who is detoxing.

It's very different.

You have to go into withdrawal in order for them to start giving you the medications that you need to help you through the withdrawal symptoms.

But you have to go into the withdrawal first.

A withdrawal symptom is something like the flu times 1,000.

Withdrawal symptoms are probably one of the worst symptoms that I've ever heard of in anybody.

We have a great video up on our website.

Montclair High School students called me in to help them with the opioid documentary that they wanted to do, and we have three or four individuals on there explaining what a withdrawal feels like.

And it just, you feel like you're freezing cold, and then you're sweating hot, and you feel like there's bugs on you.

You're scratching away.

You know, your stomach is upset.

You know, you're just, you're sick.

- But they have to go through this, sorry for interrupting, Robin, they have to go through this in order to get to what?

- So what happens is, so they'll go into the detox center, and they have to wait 'til the withdrawal symptoms start.

Most people come into the detox center high.

They wanna get that last high in before they get sober.

They go into the detox center.

The doctors there have to wait for them to go into this withdrawal.

So and that can take up to two days.

So sometimes, at that second day, where the withdrawal is so bad but they're not ready to give the Suboxone or whatever drug that they're gonna give them to relieve the withdrawal symptom.

And then what they do over the five, six, seven days that they're in the detox, they start weaning them off of it.

And then, that's how they stop the withdrawal, and that's how they get them sober from the heroin, the fentanyl.

But- - But how common is relapsing?

- Well, first of all, what's even more common, which is very, very sad, is AMA, which is called, which is like leaving against medical advice.

- They just leave?

- Yeah, they, so after a second, you know, I'll drop somebody off.

I'll pick somebody up, drop them off at a detox center, get 'em in there, they're excited to be there.

By the second day, they're so sick, they can't take it.

All they wanna do is go out there and get their drug, and they actually leave.

They're in a nice, warm place, getting three meals, getting the care that they need, people that are compassionate, ready to help them.

The withdrawal symptom is so horrible, by that second day, they're just like, "I'm out."

And sometimes they walk right out in their hospital garb, not even waiting for their clothing.

They just wanna get that drug inside their system.

So we have that.

After somebody does come out of detox, they stay in for the six, 10 days, whatever it may be, depending upon their situation, we see about six to seven relapses before we see somebody really be able to grasp recovery, or unfortunately, pass away.

It's not something- - Robin, let's do that again.

I wanna make sure that's really.

Six or seven people that you treat who are dealing with, who are addicted, will relapse before you have, I don't even know how you define a success story.

And then some will die.

- Let me redefine that.

So when we have people coming out of treatment, detox, and even a 30-day treatment center, we see them relapse six or seven times until they really grasp recovery, or they die.

I mean, this is what we see.

Or they continue use.

It's very rare are you gonna see an opioid addict, someone who's struggling with opioid use disorder, get it the first time.

The drug is so strong.

It has affected the brain so intensely that it's something that I've never seen before.

I've worked with alcoholism.

I've worked with cocaine addiction.

I've worked with so many other things.

This is something I've never seen before.

We see, go ahead, I'm sorry.

- Robin, I'm sorry.

Only 'cause I- - I'm just very passionate, and I don't stop, so I'm sorry.

- No, listen, you're passionate for good reason.

But I'm also trying to manage time here.

Also, folks, our website will come up, SteveAdubato.org.

Go back and look at the interview we did with author Beth Macy, who wrote the book "Dopesick."

It is a corollary to this conversation.

Let me follow up.

Is there any silver lining here?

Where's the positive news?

And I'm not gonna say fake positive news, let's just come up with some positive news.

Is there reason to be hopeful, A, and B, what would cause us to be more hopeful as it relates to this opioid/fentanyl crisis?

- Steve, I wish I could tell you that I saw a silver lining.

I really and truly wish I could tell you that.

I don't right now.

What are we seeing?

So back in 2017, we had these big laws made, right, great laws- - Right.

- That, you know, the prescribing physicians had to keep a database.

- That's right.

- On who was prescribing, so the doctors weren't overprescribing.

- To keep track.

So people were not involved in a pill mill, if you will.

- Yep.

- Or and were potentially stopping, trying to stop people from shopping around to different.

So why that hasn't been overly effective?

- Well, we've arrested a lot of doctors, and we've gotten the doctors off the street that were illegally prescribing, which was great.

And we have seen, in America, we've seen our five million opioid prescriptions drop to about three million.

- Okay.

- But with that said, so from 2017, we've seen, from five million opioid prescriptions prescribed down to three million at this point, but our overdose rates are still up 'cause of the fentanyl.

- Okay, real quick, before I let you go.

What does Narcan have to do with this conversation?

What's Narcan and why is it relevant?

- Narcan, naloxone is the name.

Narcan is a brand name.

Narcan is a medicine that reverses an opioid overdose.

And it is extremely important.

We have saved thousands and thousands of lives.

In Essex County alone, we have saved 13,000 people by administering Narcan.

- What is it?

- So what it does, it's a medicine that goes into your brain and it attaches to your receptors.

And it redoes the opioid overdose, so the overdose goes away, the opioid comes outta your receptors in your brain, and hopefully you can survive.

Nowadays, when we see the fentanyl, sometimes we have to give two, three doses of it now.

- We haven't done enough from our platform with the Caucus Educational Corporation.

We haven't done enough.

I assure you, we'll continue these conversations with you and other leaders in this field.

And I cannot thank you enough for joining us.

Robin Lavorato is the Executive Director of Essex Health and Wellness Recovery Center.

Go to that website, find out more.

Robin, important work.

You're doing great work.

You are making a difference, and we'll continue the conversation.

Thank you, Robin.

- Thank you, Steve, thank you.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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