Forum focuses on drug addiction treatment options

For Dylan M., the road to recovery was long and winding.

He had been through the criminal justice system four times. Each time he got out, he relapsed. Old behaviors remained ingrained. The drugs seared them there.

“I went back to the streets and went right to what I was doing before,” he said.

It started small. The effects were immediate, fast then slow, leaving a void. It was bottomless, like a hunger that would never cease.

“Your need hierarchy becomes drug, drug, drug,” said Karlene Shugars, a treatment program coordinator for the Centre County Drug and Alcohol Office. “This is where people cease to have a choice.”

Dylan wasn’t alone. He and Brenda Lee Goldman, whose sons are also recovering addicts, shared their experiences at Mount Nittany Middle School on Tuesday, telling the crowd how opioid addiction nearly cost them or their loved ones their lives. Their testimonials opened the town hall meeting organized by the Centre County Heroin Opiate Prevention Education, or HOPE, Initiative, the second in a series of four covering the problem of heroin and drug addiction in Centre County. The first, held at Mount Nittany Medical Center in July, was standing-room only.

Dubbed “Understanding Treatment and Recovery,” Tuesday’s meeting focused on how those affected by addiction can get help. A panel discussion followed the testimonials and outlined the many pitfalls addicts can succumb to with repeated use. The panel included representatives from the state Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, the Centre County Drug and Alcohol Office, Pyramid Healthcare, Mount Nittany Health and Dylan, an individual in recovery.

“In 2016, we’ll have a 30 percent increase over 2015 of folks who will die from overdose,” said Centre County Commissioner Steve Dershem, who introduced Dylan. “And that is a frightening number.”

Natalie Corman, the Centre County Human Services administrator, moderated the discussion. She asked the panel what resources are available, how treatment works and how patients detox, often the hardest part of recovery. From daybreak to day’s end, for instance, Dylan went through a gamut of treatment options to fight his addiction.

“It is a constant barrage of detox experiences,” said Dustye Sheffer, a community relations representative for Pyramid Healthcare, where Dylan got help.

Dylan watched his father fight the same demons. About 3,400 Pennsylvanians died of a drug overdose in 2015, according to the Philadelphia division of the Drug Enforcement Administration. His father was one of them.

At 25, Dylan has a lot of choices left to make. He’s glad he can.

Come October, he will be two years clean. After he was admitted to a Pyramid treatment center, his life began to turn around.

“There are so many other resources I have in the community,” he said. “They saved my life.”

This story was originally published September 13, 2016 at 11:22 PM with the headline "Forum focuses on drug addiction treatment options."