America’s substance abuse issues was already a tinder box before COVID. There was some sign of progress under the economy of former President Donald Trump. Abuse was still high, but former addicts were WORKING in many stable fields.

That doesn’t mean everything was grand, but you have to get people working in order to tackle their desires to be high. December 2019, the federal reserve had reported that the economy was so “hot”, many people with drug convictions were still getting jobs, good paying jobs, because there was so many openings. This was confirmed by a friend of mine in the construction industry. He was hiring people with felony drug convictions at $35/hr just to clean up trash and scrap. A job is a sense of purpose.

Almost a year ago, this all changed with the communist style of “lockdowns”. Now the online pro COVID lockdown nerds will say, “it wasn’t a lockdown”. Okay, but shit was still closed and options were limited. On top of the local, state governments creating COVID Nazi’s in its citizens, telling on each other.

Indiana has released devastating data in how drug overdoses spiked big time. Give people no sense of hope psychologically, bad things happen:

Preliminary data show that compared with 2019, last year had nearly a 50% increase in overdoses seen in emergency departments in Indiana

This is closely linked with what he and local health officials know about addiction — that isolation like what was experienced during the lockdowns can have a devastating effect on a person trying to enter or maintain sobriety.

“For Hoosiers with substance use disorder, the pandemic has really exacerbated those feelings of isolation, stress, fear and it leaves many to cope the only way they know how,” he said. “They say the opposite of addiction isn’t sobriety, it’s connection and we know how difficult it’s been to stay connected over the last 10 months.

Another indication of the rise in overdoses has been the use of the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone — in 2020 alone, there was a 67% increase in the medication being used compared to the same time in 2020.

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