How To Save Someone Who Overdoses

STATS’ addiction and recovery expert Maia Szalavitz has some practical, no-nonsense advice on the Huffington Post about how to deal with drug overdoses.

If someone is just out of rehab, be aware that they can’t handle the same high doses they were once taking – and that they may not realize their bodies have a much lower tolerance for drugs.

Don’t let someone “sleep it off” if they lose consciousness; if they are unresponsive and start turning blue, call 911 immediately.

But most importantly, if someone you know or live with is taking opioids -

“obtain some naloxone (brand name: Narcan). This is the antidote to opioid overdose and it can save lives even if the opioid is just one of many drugs in the mix (it will not work if opioids are not involved, however).

The Chicago Recovery Alliance has handed out over 10,000 doses of naloxone since it began its overdose prevention and reversal campaign– and some 800 people have reported back to them that they used it in an overdose situation, according to founder Dan Bigg.

Of these 800 cases, remarkably, there were only one or two deaths and no cases where the person seemed permanently harmed– and in one of the deaths, the person was apparently already dead before the naloxone was tried. This is an extraordinary recovery rate: one study found that 10% of overdoses managed at home without naloxone ended in death.

For more practical information on what to do in overdose situations, check out the rest of Szalavitz’s article.