Overdose Basics

Overdose Basics

Life in this world can be stressful at times for everyone -young and old. Sometimes people want to escape and use various substances to numb the pain.

It’s very risky these days, if to take too much prescribed medication or you take the chance of buying illicit drugs, overdose is a potential reality. Opioids, whether prescribed, or illicit can kill you. Opioids act on your brain’s respiratory receptors, and a high dose can stop your breathing.

Opioid overdose can be life-threatening and requires immediate emergency care. People who take excess doses of opioids, are statistically speaking, middle-aged, have a history of substance abuse, or are taking other sedatives are at the highest risk.

Symptoms may include shallow breathing, confusion, diminished alertness, and loss of consciousness.

Opioid overdose is a medical crisis and emergency services should be called immediately. Treatments include medications like Naloxone (Narcan) that reverse the effects of opioids. CPR and/or a breathing device can help if breathing is impaired.

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Primary Prevention

Prevention is critical to reducing overdoses and overdose deaths. The strategy promotes tiered, multidisciplinary prevention activities, ranging from population-level strategies to targeted interventions aimed at high-risk individuals. These activities engage health and human services providers directly and facilitate cross-sector collaboration on prevention.

Harm Reduction

Individuals inherently deserve services that promote health, regardless of whether they use drugs. Evidence-based harm reduction strategies minimize negative consequences of drug use. These activities further expand access to harm reduction interventions and better integrate harm reduction into general medical care.

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Evidence-Based Treatment

Evidence-based treatments for substance use disorder can reduce substance use, related health harms (for example, infectious disease transmission), and overdose deaths. High-quality treatment can also increase social functioning. The strategy therefore focuses on reducing barriers to accessing the most effective treatments, using motivational and cultural enhancements to encourage those who might be reluctant, advancing strategies to improve engagement and retention, and continuing to develop new therapeutic approaches.

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Recovery Support

The strategy recognizes that treatment alone may not be enough to support long-term recovery. Despite the demonstrated benefits of recovery support services — such as peer supports, employment and housing services — various challenges impede their availability and uptake. Enhancing coverage and integration of recovery support services is critical to promoting access to and use of these services. Strengthening the recovery support services workforce is also essential to promoting access and quality.