A few days later, we heard from Mark*, a community member who had attended the event and had just used his Narcan kit to save the life of a friend named Abe* who was struggling with drug addiction. Things had been tough for Abe and while the drugs temporarily numbed the pain, they were taking a toll on his life in many ways, prompting his long-time girlfriend to end their relationship. Mark called Amudim to share how happy he was that he knew how to reverse the overdose and, thankfully, instead of shrugging the episode off, Abe took his near death experience as a wake up call and reached out to our office for help. One of our case workers got him into an appropriate treatment program and Abe stuck with it, returning to Woodmere determined to get his life back on track. He started with a new therapist and a new job and through it all, Abe’s Amudim case manager has been there for him.
The Abe of today has been clean and sober and is a very different person than the one Mark rescued from the brink of death with Narcan two years ago. Having earned a promotion at work, Abe is earning nearly twice as much as he had previously and now that he is drug free he and his former girlfriend are back together again in what appears to be a promising relationship.
To date, we have done nearly 200 Narcan trainings and given out over 5,000 Narcan kits. Chances are good that there are many more stories like Abe’s that we don’t even know about, people whose lives were saved because someone took a few minutes to learn to admiNISter a lifesaving drug. Want to schedule a Narcan training in your community, office, shul or home? Call us at (646) 517-0222 and we’ll make it happen so that together we can change lives and build futures
*Names changed for privacy
