Metro Atlanta church wants to provide help, hope when it comes to dealing with addiction

GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga — A brand new report out by the Georgia Division of Public Well being exhibits overdose deaths because of medicine combined with fentanyl are on the rise.

However therapy and restoration are doable.

Channel 2′s Lori Wilson visited an space church that’s reaching out to the neighborhood to offer assist and hope.

“Destroyed a number of jobs, my well being, my household, had authorized issues.. you title it, it affected every thing,” Joel Lindquist, who’s in restoration, mentioned.

Lindquist says a part of his restoration helps others perceive that drug use, even dependancy, doesn’t need to be the tip of the story.

“I’ve lived it out myself personally, and right here I’m. I simply don’t need folks to lose hope,” Lindquist mentioned.

His minister at Snellville Church of Christ, Harold Savage, needs folks to have hope too, and he says open, sincere dialog will help folks perceive they’re not alone.

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“We’re all on this collectively. All of us have issues we’re working by. No household is immune from this,” Savage mentioned.

Licensed therapist and addictions skilled Dr. Lucy Cannon says there are warning indicators mother and father can search for.

“They’ve quite a lot of hassle concentrating, they both sleep an excessive amount of or rarely sleep… they’re very irritable, the varsity work begins to actually deteriorate.”

At a time when medicine are being laced with fentanyl, Cannon says mother and father can open up a dialogue with their children, utilizing some fundamental questions like these:

“What have you learnt about medicine? Have you learnt any children that experiment with medicine? What do you discover about them? You then wish to allow them to know there may be loads of misinformation about medicine being okay, you wish to be very simple, they’re not.”

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Cannon says many children begin experimenting with medicine they’ve easy accessibility to at residence at across the age of 9 they struggle alcohol or ache drugs. Lindquist mentioned he began ingesting with buddies when he was an adolescent after which years later turned hooked on opioids.

“We should always discuss it extra as a result of it impacts all of us… it’s a part of our household drawback,” Lindquist mentioned. “We wish to assist as a result of life will get higher…and there may be this factor known as hope. It’s actual, they usually can have it.”

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