This is the last episode of Season 2. For people addicted to heroin and other drugs, how do we keep them safe and prevent them from overdosing? We look at the idea of harm reduction and focus specifically on needle exchanges. Those are hundreds of places across the US that hand out clean equipment, the overdose reversal medicine Narcan and other he…

Addiction is a family disease and family members of people with addiction need help, too. Research shows that helping family members helps their loved one who has an addiction. We look at an approach that is more effective than an intervention or Al-anon to get family members into addiction treatment. It’s called CRAFT, or Community Reinforcement a…

Emergency rooms are the last safety net for the sickest, most marginalized people. People with addiction often end up in emergency departments following an overdose, during withdrawal, or with other health problems. A new approach is linking people with addiction to drug treatment from a hospital emergency department, instead of just sending them o…

Trauma and pain and addiction are tightly woven together. But, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is treatable and treating the wounds of trauma can help treat pain and addiction, too. We must pay attention to the toxic effects of trauma if we really want to help people stay away from drugs, if we want to really help people with chronic pain. In…

Medical marijuana is now legal in dozens of states. Some chronic pain patients now rely on it in place of opioid painkillers. But, in the absence of formal medical guidance, many patients are going it on their own, with informal guidance from their peers. Some experts are not convinced though. They caution against potentially harmful side effects. …

What's the appropriate role of opioids in treating chronic pain? For years doctors have used opioid painkillers as the go-to solution for all kinds of pain. Now that U.S. society is saturated with these pills and so many people are dying of overdoses, medical consensus and even laws are changing. Doctors are getting the message to cut back. But som…

SOLUTION: The more opioids you get after surgery, the more likely you are to be dependent on them down the road. And it doesn't take very long to become dependent on opioids – days to weeks. The solution Washington State and others have enacted are tighter guidelines advising doctors how many pills can be dispensed following surgery, getting them t…

SOLUTION: The best ways to prevent young people from getting addicted don’t necessarily focus on the drugs themselves (forget “Just say no.”) Research shows the more young people are surrounded by risky environments, including stress, poverty, and violence, the more likely they’ll get addicted. But other factors in their environment can protect you…

Our team is hard at work on Season Two, which drops fall 2019, but in the meantime we wanted to answer a question a lot of people ask us: Why are we making this podcast? Why make a podcast about solutions to the opioid epidemic? On this bonus episode, we bring you excerpts from interviews producers and co-hosts Anna Boiko-Weyrauch and Kye Norris di…

For Shannon McCarty, two things were crucial in her recovery: connections and timing. It started with timing – a key encounter just when she wanted to get off the drugs. And then it was the connections that kept her going. A police officer she could depend on. A sister who stayed in touch. A dog who gets her out of the house a few times a day. Shan…

SOLUTION: Make incarceration an opportunity to get help and start healing. Make detox easier, get people with addiction drug treatment behind bars, and connect them to help as soon as they’re released. STORY: Opioid withdrawal is like the worst flu you’ve ever had. Now, imagine you’re responsible for dozens of people as sick as can be. What do you …

SOLUTION: Create teams of social workers and police officers who help homeless people with addiction get drug treatment and housing. Break the cycle of drug use, crime, and jail time by reaching out to people on the streets and in the woods, and asking them what help they need. STORY: Marshmallows in Kevlar and a foul-mouthed social worker. Coffee …

SOLUTION: Get government to work more effectively. Use a disaster response playbook to organize county government around the opioid epidemic. Approach addicted people with compassion, as you’d approach a person with any other medical condition. STORY: Addiction hits home for the top dog of a disaster-prone county. An old-school cop gets a wake-up c…

Download instructions on how to recognize the signs of an overdose and administer Narcan to stop it. Drawn by Julia Drachman.

SOLUTION: Get the overdose reversal drug, naloxone (aka Narcan) into the hands of everyone who needs it, and train them how to use it. Family, friends and people with addiction themselves can play a big role in stopping overdose death. STORY: A life lost, a life saved. The main character of this episode isn’t a person. It’s a nasal spray. Naloxone …

SOLUTION: Treat addiction using evidence-based medication, like buprenorphine (aka Suboxone). Expand access to treatment through telemedicine. STORY: At a clinic in Everett, Washington, a nurse pushes his patients to work hard, and the patients embark on their road to recovery. Do they have a chance? (Yes, and we’ll tell you why.) This season we’re…

Finding Fixes is the first podcast dedicated to solutions to the opioid epidemic. Each episode we dive into one solution. The first season we're in Snohomish County, Washington, which is treating the opioid epidemic as a state of emergency like a natural disaster. As communities across the country struggle with rampant opioid overdoses, we seek to …