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<p>KINGSTON &#8212; Carol Coolbaugh spent Sunday night advocating for saving the lives of addicts.</p><p>The facilitator of GRASP, Grief Recovery After a Substance Passing, she is the mother of Eric Coolbaugh, who died eight years ago from a drug overdose. And the mother organized the annual International Overdose Awareness Walk on Sunday at Kirby Park.</p><p>Several addiction treatment centers, support groups, and community organizations had tables at the event with information on their services and many had information on naloxone.</p><p>Coolbaugh advocates strongly for the widespread use of the drug Naloxone &#8212; the generic name for Narcan, a non-addictive drug that, when injected or used as nasal spray, neutralizes opioids and can reverse respiratory arrest in people who have overdosed. It is available without a prescription in Pennsylvania after a March 2016 standing order form Physician General Rachel Levine.</p><p>&#8220;The emergency rooms &#8212; it&#8217;s just a disgrace. If you had a heart attack and was given CPR, you would be admitted. It&#8217;s unbeleivable that they just stabilize (overdose patients) and put them back out on the street with no place to go,&#8221; said Coolbaugh.</p><p>&#8220;We need more political influence, more financing, treatment centers. We need Narcan everywhere &#8212; in the schools, in the libraries &#8212; everywhere, and accessible for every person who has an opioid prescription, even the older people. You can overdose and not be an addict. Your grandmother can take too much,&#8221; she said.</p><p>Tea Simpkins, of the Graniteville House of Recovery and a certified recovery specialist, shared her personal story of addiction.</p><p>&#8220;I&#8217;m in recovery for eight years, and I know when I was active, I didn&#8217;t think my family around. But, see, that&#8217;s what the disease of addiction told me. Substance abuse disorder is like a beast in your brain that tells you things that simply aren&#8217;t true,&#8221; explained Simpkins.</p><p>&#8220;You could stay behind closed doors, but to get out in to the community and say: &#8216;Hey, I&#8217;m over here,&#8217; that&#8217;s when you&#8217;ll be seen. And that&#8217;s what we&#8217;re doing,&#8221; she said.</p><p>Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis also attended the walk.</p><p>&#8220;What I&#8217;m trying to do is trying to put emphasis on addiction and it being a disease and fighting back against the drug dealers that are bringing these things into our communities, but also providing support to law enforcement and the community with Narcan and making sure they have the tools to help and to save lives,&#8221; said Salavanits.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;re all affected by this in some way or another. If it&#8217;s not an immediate family member, it&#8217;s a community member, your neighbor, or it&#8217;s a friend. It doesn&#8217;t discriminate. I think people are starting to see that it&#8217;s not just that random person waking down the street,&#8221; she said. &#8220;It&#8217;s your friend or loved one.&#8221;</p><p>&#8220;In an ideal world, with every case that we use naloxone, I would make sure that they would immediately go into treatment and that they&#8217;re in treatment for an extended period of time, at least a year,&#8221; Salavantis said.</p><p>&#8220;Right now our government and the community thinks 28 days in rehab, which is the most they provide, should help you. That is absurd to me. You are learning to be a different person, surviving without the things your survived with before. You&#8217;re expected to do all of that in 28 days and we need to do more,&#8221; she continued.</p><p>Last year, according to the DA&#8217;s office, there were 142 overdose deaths in Luzerne County, and Salavantis expects that number to rise this year. Nationwide, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that almost 2 million people abused prescription painkillers in 2014.</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">Organizer Carol Coolbaugh and daughter Jen take a minute to talk at Sunday&#8217;s overdose awareness event Sunday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_overdose-walk-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Organizer Carol Coolbaugh and daughter Jen take a minute to talk at Sunday&#8217;s overdose awareness event Sunday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. </caption0><photoCredit0>Katherine Pugh | For Times Leader </photoCredit0></div><div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_overdose_walkCMYK-1-1-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Organizer Carol Coolbaugh and daughter Jen take a minute to talk at Sunday&#8217;s overdose awareness event Sunday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo1>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/web1_overdose_walkCMYK-1-1-1.jpg</photo1><caption1>Organizer Carol Coolbaugh and daughter Jen take a minute to talk at Sunday&#8217;s overdose awareness event Sunday at Kirby Park in Wilkes-Barre. </caption1><photoCredit1>Katherine Pugh | For Times Leader </photoCredit1></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Katherine Pugh</p><p>For Times Leader</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach the Times Leader newsroom at 570-829-7242.</p></shirttailMeta></div>

Overdose Awareness Walk provides inspiration, information