An opioid overdose remembrance in Lafayette drew the mayors of both Lafayette and West Lafayette and officials to Columbian Park in late August. The Drug-Free Coalition of Tippecanoe County organized the Overdose Remembrance and Awareness Event to honor locals who died of overdose and support those in recovery.

Community Events Sit Alongside Treatment

Indiana features many programs to tackle substance misuse, including local Narcotics Anonymous chapters. But remembrance events have extra features. They mark loss publicly in ways that funerals for overdose deaths don’t. They also put local organizations in contact with families most likely to need them.

Hoosiers across the state have known loss, from young mothers to those caught up in prescription drug abuse. People worried over family members could drop by a resource table staffed by peers to talk is often the first step.

Opioid Overdose

Opioids include prescription medication and street trade fentanyl. They act on receptors in the brain and brainstem that control pain and breathing. An opioid overdose kills by slowing or stopping respiration.

Illegal fentanyl has changed the drug scene. It’s much deadlier than heroin and is often laced into counterfeit pills and in powders sold as other substances. Folks might ingest a fatal dose without knowing an opioid was present.

Responding with Harm Reduction

Naloxone reverses an opioid overdose by restoring breathing. It’s available to Hoosiers without a prescription at pharmacies and free through many community distribution programs. It can’t hurt anyone, so still give it even if you’re unsure.

Call 911 first. Indiana’s Good Samaritan provisions protect those who summon help in an overdose emergency. Stay until responders arrive because naloxone can wear off before the opioid does.

Fentanyl test strips let a person check a substance for fentanyl before use.

Treatment Options in Indiana

Medication for opioid use disorders are federally regulated and can be prescribed in office-based settings.

Medication usually goes with peer counseling. Some people use medication and attend meetings. Some use one or the other.

NA a First and Lasting Step

Narcotics Anonymous is a peer support fellowship for people recovering from drug use of any kind. Meetings are free. There aren’t any membership requirements beyond a desire to stop using.

Meeting formats vary. Open meetings welcome anyone, including people who’re simply curious. Closed meetings are for members only. Some focus on NA literature or have an open discussion. Many areas offer virtual options for people without transportation.

For someone in Tippecanoe County who attended the remembrance event and wants a next step, an NA meeting is one of the few that requires no appointment, insurance or paperwork.

Feel free to browse NA meetings for any location in the USA via our online directory.

You can also dial 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to chat with an expert and find local options.

Most conversations about opioid addiction start after something has already gone wrong. Residents in Southern California spent the end of August trying to start a conversation. And this time, some folks listened. 

On August 29, the city of Long Beach hosted a free resource fair at MacArthur Park called “Turning the Tide: Navigating Local Programs and Services.” It was timed to International Overdose Awareness Day. 

All programs were local to Long Beachers, noted Ismael Salamanca of the city Health Department’s Harm Reduction Program. The grassroots effort complemented local inpatient care and even community Narcotics Anonymous chapters.

Opioids in The Golden State

Nationally, nearly 48,000 people died in 2024 in overdoses involving synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.

Long Beach saw a sharp escalation in recent years, even as drug deaths in California have declined. Opioid fatalities in the city rose 326% from 23 in 2018 to 98 in 2022. Fentanyl cases hit 1,640% and were involved in 263 of the 332 opioid deaths in Long Beach.

More recent county data points the other way. Los Angeles County recorded 22% fewer drug overdose deaths in 2024 than the year before. 

Race matters. Black residents continue to die from overdoses at disproportionately higher rates than other ethnic groups. That’s why public health officials decide on targeted outreach to help those most at risk.

The World’s a Fair

Long Beach’s Homeless Services, PrEP and Harm Reduction programs joined 11 local and regional providers, with L.A. CADA as lead sponsor. Partners included treatment centers all across the SoCal region.

Attendees could get HIV and STI testing, enrollment help for CalFresh and Medi-Cal, and naloxone along with fentanyl and xylazine test strips. There were live demonstrations of naloxone administration and rescue breathing. Partners also offered mental health referrals, grief and support groups and medications for addiction treatment services.

Naloxone and Test Strips

Naloxone reverses an opioid overdose by displacing opioids from receptors in the brain and restoring breathing. It’s safe to give even if opioids turn out not to be involved, requires no medical training and can be bought without an Rx at many pharmacies.

Fentanyl test strips let a person check a substance before use. Xylazine test strips do the same for veterinary sedatives increasingly found in the illicit supply that doesn’t respond to naloxone. An overdose involving sedatives may still need CPR and emergency care after naloxone is given.

Neither strip makes drug use safe. Both give a person information they would not otherwise have.

Opioid Addiction Care Continues Year Round

For people who couldn’t attend, the services didn’t end with the fair.

L.A. CADA’s Long Beach Outpatient and Community Services Center has a low barrier to entry. Staff can provide screenings to connect someone with the care that fits. Services include outpatient treatment and medical care available in person or by telehealth. Enhanced Care Management is available to eligible Medi-Cal members. 

Bienestar Human Services is another partner that offers HIV and STI screening and harm reduction care. They operate a mobile site at MacArthur Park on Wednesdays.

Salamanca noted that community organizations change frequently and encouraged residents to call ahead to confirm hours, services, eligibility and any costs. Most programs are free or low cost, but some involve sliding-scale fees or insurance.

NA as a First and Lasting Step

There’s several ways to start.

Long Beach’s Harm Reduction Program can be reached through the Health Department front desk at 562-570-4000.

Our personal helpline at 800-934-1582(Sponsored) is free and confidential, answered around the clock. Chat with an expert today.

You can also browse our directory of Narcotics Anonymous meetings to supplement treatment. Many people use NA alongside medication rather than instead of it. Search by city and by meeting type, including virtual options.

The sixth annual Vigil of Hope filled the community center in Shelter Island in New York on August 27. Roughly 120 people attended. The event has become the town’s annual reckoning with opioid addiction and overdose. 

Due to community dedication, ranging from local Narcotics Anonymous chapters to inpatient facilities, 2026 marked a new turn from the previous five years: a real decline in deaths locally and nationally.

Rain forced a last-minute move indoors from the basketball courts at Fiske Field, where the first five vigils were held. The program started on time anyway.

The Vigil’s Origins

Gina Kraus founded the Vigil of Hope in 2020, the year her son Evan died of a drug overdose at 36. A retired teacher, Kraus built up Vigil as a way for the community to gather, grieve and find a reason to keep going.

A year later, the scale of the problem became impossible for the island to ignore. In August 2021, Swainson Brown, a Shelter Island resident and chef at The Pridwin, died alongside five residents of Southold and Greenport over a single weekend. All six deaths involved cocaine laced with fentanyl. Kraus opened this year’s program by naming each of them.

The vigil is sponsored by the Shelter Island Health and Wellness Committee, of which Kraus is a member. The Shelter Island PD, Public Library, and HUGS also sponsored.

Speakers From Four Different Vantage Points

Kraus assembled a panel that approached opioid addiction from four angles: someone whose family members and friends didn’t survive, those with many years of sobriety and two people newly sober.

Kraus also emphasized the courage it took some speakers to talk publicly about the reality of addiction.

The final portion directed audience members to the local harm reduction resources to prevent addiction, support people who use drugs and keep them alive.

Fentanyl & Treatment

The 2021 deaths that shaped this vigil share a pattern that remains common. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid music deadlier than heroin and is commonly laced into other drugs. People who don’t use opioids and have no tolerance are at particular risk when fentanyl turns up in a stimulant supply.

Naloxone can reverse opioid overdose and is safe to administer even if opioids turn out not to be involved. Naloxone may have limits in treating other drugs like sedatives.

Vigils like this one do double duty. They memorialize and distribute. Past Shelter Island vigils have included nurses handing out naloxone kits and fentanyl test strips alongside instruction on how to use both.

Peer support is the other half. People in recovery from opioid addiction consistently report that hearing from someone further along in the same process does something that clinical advice does not, which is the mechanism the vigil’s speaker panel was built around.

Narcotics Anonymous meetings offer that peer connection on an ongoing basis rather than once a year. NA is open to people recovering from any drug, uses a 12-step framework and asks nothing beyond a desire to stop using drugs. 

NA is one path among several. Medications for opioid use disorder work well in combination with peer support for many people. Neither approach requires giving up the other.

NA Remains Top Option

If you or someone in your household is living with opioid addiction, useful next steps include:

• Ask a local health department or harm reduction program about free naloxone and fentanyl test strips
• Talk with a clinician about medications for opioid use disorder

Our browsable meeting directory indexes NA meetings and our content explains NA concepts for a general audience. You can search by state, city and format. 

You can also dial 800-934-1582(Sponsored) for free, confidential guidance. Chat with an expert today.

The federal government spent the first full week of September promoting personal stories to shift public attitudes on opioid addiction in ways statistics don’t. An American composer made a version of that argument in a concert hall a month earlier. The piece is on its way to an international tour.

Missy Mazzoli’s opera “The Galloping Cure” premiered at the Edinburgh International Festival on Sunday, August 9, 2026. It reaches San Francisco Opera in California in the fall of 2027.

An American Composer

Mazzoli traced the project to two family deaths in the United States. 

That story mirrors the American opioid crisis in miniature. Prescription opioids including oxycodone and morphine act on the same receptors as heroin. When a prescription supply ended or became unaffordable, many people moved to the illegal street trade, notably fentanyl.

Mazzoli and librettist Royce Vavrek, who lives in New York, built the piece around a carnival merry-go-round. A charismatic charlatan named Lucky Mack, sung by baritone Justin Austin, arrives in a faded town called Yourtown and sells residents a ride they can’t get off.

The team spent years looking and finally found success by commissioning a treatment in 2022 from novelist Karen Russell, who drew on Franz Kafka’s “A Country Doctor.”

“It wasn’t until we collaborated with Karen that we found a way that wasn’t preachy or predictable,” Mazzoli observed. “Coming at it via this weird fairy tale allows us to bring in all sorts of compassion and allows us to see it in an unexpected way.”

Storytelling Changes Communities

The opera has a long reach beyond the arts pages. Stigma doesn’t respond to data. But people might respond better when they hear about real experiences.

SAMHSA built the second week of its 2026 National Recovery Month campaign to challenge this paradigm. The theme Reducing Stigma Through Storytelling claims that every recovery story has the power to reduce stigma and remind others that recovery is possible. These stories make their way to policymakers, which can change communities.

Music Builds Up Care

Art reaches people who aren’t looking for information. Someone who never opens a public health report might willingly sit through two hours of theater. A character written with compassion can make the audience care about the realities of addiction and how to best treat it.

Recovery Month is all about acknowledging personal experiences. Walks and rallies team up speakers with live music. Benefit concerts fund naloxone distribution and peer programs. Open mics and choirs give folks a reason to show up somewhere, which is its own form of support.

Theater doesn’t replace treatment. But it changes the environment treatment happens in.

Treatment & Peer Support

Signs of an opioid overdose include slowed or stopped breathing, blue or grayish lips and fingertips, pinpoint pupils, limpness and unresponsiveness. Should an overdose happen, call 911 right away.

Medication-assisted treatment remains a strong approach. Meds substantially lower overdose death risk. It works alongside peer support rather than in competition with it.

Speaking of which, Narcotics Anonymous is one of several peer support options. NA meetings are free, open to anyone with a desire to stop using and available in-person and online. Some people combine NA with medication, and that’s okay too. 

Opioid Addiction Meets NA

Those looking for peer support, our comprehensive meeting directory lets you browse NA meetings by city and filter by format, including open and online groups.

You can also call 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to speak with an expert for free. Confidential guidance is given 24/7.

Hundreds of folks gathered in Pacifica in California for the third annual HOPE Memorial Walk. This event is built around fentanyl awareness, overdose prevention and recovery. Participants carried photographs of people they had lost and walked together to share stories of grief and of recovery.

To be sure, states like California have an abundance of programs aimed at curtailing narcotics abuse. Folks can enter inpatient care or enroll in local Narcotics Anonymous chapters. Here, the walk took place on International Overdose Awareness Day.

Having HOPE

HOPE is an acronym for Healing Overdose Prevention and Education. Pacifica residents Rondel and Clarence Davis started the nonprofit after their son Tyler died from fentanyl in 2023.

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The Davises put their grief into advocacy to prevent other people from going through the same thing they went through.

Christina Hill traveled from Santa Rosa to remember her brother, Clemmie, who died from overdosing. The loss is still hard to absorb. “To think he’s really gone hurts too much.”

After walking, the participants gathered at Tyler Davis Memorial Garden near Highway 1. The space is dedicated to reflecting on those lost to overdose.

Fentanyl Kills

Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid used medically for severe pain. But illegal forms run throughout the drug supply. It’s frequently pressed into counterfeit pills or mixed with other substances. This means people often expose themselves without knowing.

Signs of an opioid overdose include slowed or stopped breathing, blue or grayish lips and fingertips, pinpoint pupils and unresponsiveness. An overdose qualifies as a medical emergency. When it happens, call 911 immediately.

Harm Reduction & Treatment

Attendees learned about Narcan, the brand name for naloxone. This overdose-reversal medication restores breathing during an opioid or fentanyl overdose. Naloxone is available over the counter and is distributed free in many community organizations. It doesn’t work on non-opioid and synthetic overdoses and is safe to administer even if you don’t know what someone took.

Fentanyl test strips let people check substances for fentanyl before use. Both tools reduce deaths without requiring anyone to be ready to stop.

Medication-assisted treatment remains a top tier approach and works alongside peer support rather than in competition with it.

Peer Support Matters After a Loss

Sharing personal stories helps reduce stigma and encourages people to seek help. That’s also the mechanism behind peer recovery groups.

Jodi Landi attended HOPE to support her son in recovery. “There’s hope out there because people do recover,” she observed. “I have a son who is in recovery, so I’m here to say recovery is possible. There are some wonderful resources available.”

Narcotics Anonymous is one of several peer support options for people recovering from drug addiction. NA meetings are free, open to anyone with a desire to stop using and available in most communities as well as online. Some people use NA alongside meds; others find a different framework fits better. Both work.

NA Still a Top Option

Those looking for peer support anywhere in the country, our searchable directory lets you browse NA meetings by city and filter by format. There are open and closed meetings and Spanish-language meetings.

You can also dial our helpline at 800-934-1582(Sponsored) for free and confidential assistance from an expert, available 24 hours a day.

Surviving an opioid overdose may take you from death’s door but it isn’t the same as getting out of the danger zone. People who reach an ER after an overdose face an 8.6% risk of dying within the following year. Even worse, the opioid addiction med that can improve those odds reaches almost none of them.

Psychiatrist Mark Gold compiled that data. Gold traced what happened next to victims after naloxone brought them back from the brink.

The Year After an Overdose is Dangerous

The good news is overdose deaths tumbled 41% from their peak in 2023. However, 70,000 people still succumb to drugs each year.

Follow-up care rarely gets there in time. One Medicare group of 136,762 individuals who survived a non-fatal drug overdose showed only 4.1% received meds the following year. About 6% filled a naloxone prescription with much of the gap taking place in the countryside.

Another group of 6,000 people who started buprenorphine after an overdose, a mere 8.8% stayed on for 180 days. Even if you include those who tried multiple times, the figure hit less than 11%.

Prescriptions That Never Become Doses

A CDC study noticed that a quarter of people who receive a buprenorphine prescription never fill them at a pharmacy. That number climbed up to 37% in 2024.

Gold says many patients change their minds or pharmacies lack stock. Personal costs, stigma and simple confusion also made people not want to get their prescriptions filled.

Retention is the Real Bottleneck

Buprenorphine lowers opioid use, but only when taking it. So folks need to stay on their meds as directed.

A study of nearly 10,000 overdoses survivors who started medication assisted care stayed an average of 25 days on methadone and 16 days on buprenorphine-naloxone. Gold says people decline the treatment rather than as a failure of the drugs.

The scale of the problem shows in a large trial as well. The HEALing Communities Study aimed to cut opioid overdose deaths by 40%. The final result was a statistically nonsignificant reduction of 8%.

Understanding Opioids, Naloxone & MOUD

Opioids include prescription medications, legal and otherwise. Overdosing suppresses breathing to the point of stopping.

Naloxone reverses that respiratory suppression within minutes. It wears off after 30 minutes, so emergency care is still needed after a reversal. A second dose is sometimes required with fentanyl.

Medications for opioid use disorder are a separate thing. The FDA has approved methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone.

Each one has a drawback. Buprenorphine is the easiest to start but people don’t fill it or quit altogether. Methadone tends to hold patients longer but is harder to get. Extended-release naltrexone is often limited to a month of coverage.

Medication Works Better Inside a Program

Prescriptions alone aren’t treatment plans.

Many clinicians combined methadone with structured residential and outpatient programs. Meds keep people alive long enough for a community to help them recover. Care systems pair medication with peer support like Narcotics Anonymous and help with housing and employment.

That plays a part in why people leave. Not because the medication stopped working but because they lacked reliable transportation or housing. Folks may run into other health problems or have stopped seeing the point.

NA a Consistent Presence

Narcotics Anonymous meetings and MOUD don’t compete. Use what helps.

Our browsable NA directory covers all 50 states with specific meeting types.

You can also call 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to explore opioid addiction treatment options with an expert.

Pain care and opioid addiction have been treated as separate problems for most of the opioid crisis by different clinicians in different appointments. A gathering of pain and addiction specialists among the military branches in August 2026 put the case for treating them together.

The National Capital Region Pain Initiative hosted the 2026 Combined Pain Care Skills Training and Substance Use Disorder Symposium for its 16th year. The event drew physicians and researchers in person and virtually. Dr. Christopher Spevak directs the region’s Opioid Safety Program and the pain management fellowship and pointed out how effective pain care ties directly to readiness and recovery for active-duty members to veterans and civilians alike.

Withdrawal Itself Feeds Opioid Addiction

The first lecture came from Dr. George Koob. He’s director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Koob discussed how pain and emotional pain during withdrawal push people back toward use.

Koob focused on “the increased intensity of negative emotional/motivational symptoms” that show up during withdrawal. For folks who’ve tried to quit opioids, that framing is relevant. The physical symptoms get most of the attention. But flattened mood, irritability and an inability to feel pleasure can last well past the first week and tempt people to relapse. 

Naloxone Co-Prescribing and Medication Safety

Dr. Abigail Brooks is a clinical pharmacist practitioner at the West Palm Beach VA Healthcare System in Florida. She covered drug interactions and cardiovascular complications in pain management. Her goal is to reconcile a patient’s full medication list before starting any pain drug. If a patient has a prescription for opioids alongside other central nervous system depressants, they should receive a naloxone kit and the education to go with it.

That combination matters for overdose risk. Opioids taken with benzodiazepines, sleep medication or alcohol can make respiratory depression worse. This is what kills in an opioid overdose. Naloxone reverses that effect, so have it in any household where opioids are prescribed.

Dr. Stephanie Weiss of the National Institutes of Health addressed opioid metabolism, explaining that how a person’s body processes a drug determines what a given dose actually does. Patients react differently to identical opioid doses, so people need to be candid with any clinician when considering opioids.

Alcohol and Pain in the Same Picture

Dr. Diana Martinez from Columbia University described how chronic pain and alcohol use disorder feed each other. Long-term alcohol can shift pain thresholds. People living with chronic pain often drink to self-medicate. Both conditions need treating at the same time. She also discussed transcranial magnetic stimulation, a noninvasive procedure using focused magnetic fields to stimulate specific brain regions, now in use at Walter Reed.

Army Lt. Col. Dr. Connie Thomas of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research covered sleep. Sleep loss is widespread in the military. Unfortunately, sleep problems and chronic pain travel together.

Dr. Mark Lumley from Wayne State University presented neuroplastic recovery therapies that help patients unlearn persistent pain. He teaches the brain to read safe body signals as non-threatening. He also covered Emotional Awareness and Expression Therapy to address avoided emotions, trauma and stress.

Unregulated Store Drugs and Overdose Risk

Dr. Arwen Podesta warned about substances sold at gas stations and convenience store counters. Products containing kratom, tianeptine and other emerging compounds are often marketed as natural or herbal supplements for pain, mood or weight loss. Podesta flagged unpredictable potency and habit-forming effects and overdose as core risks.

These products are widely assumed to be safe because they’re sold openly. Tianeptine acts on opioid receptors at high doses and has produced dependence and withdrawal that people describe as indistinguishable from opioid withdrawal.

Harm Reduction & NA for Opioid Addiction

If you or any folks you know have an opioid prescription, ask for naloxone. For those using non-prescribed opioids or any pill from an unregulated source, fentanyl test strips and not using alone lower the odds of a fatal overdose.

Medication for opioid use disorders means buprenorphine, methadone or naltrexone. They cut down on overdose mortality and work with counseling rather than compete with it.

Narcotics Anonymous meetings give people of all backgrounds a peer community that understands withdrawal and the long tail of early recovery. 

That’s where our services come in. Our directory maintains a nationwide NA directory searchable by location and meeting type.

Feel free to also dial 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to speak with an expert about options anywhere in the country.

SAMHSA published its 2026 National Recovery Month toolkit on August 21, ahead of the September 1 start, and built the campaign around a single idea: recovery happens together.

For anyone weighing whether to walk into their first NA meetings this month, that framing is more useful than it sounds. The toolkit is a free public resource, aimed at organizations planning events and at anyone who wants to mark the month, and it carries the position that meaningful connection supports resilience and long-term recovery.

What the Campaign Actually Is

Recovery Month is an annual September observance that dates to 1989. SAMHSA describes recovery this year as REAL, standing for Restoring Every Aspect of Life, and frames the month around the message that with treatment, support, and resources, recovery is possible for anyone.

The toolkit itself contains key messages and weekly themes, social media graphics, digital stickers, email signatures, and virtual backgrounds. The campaign hashtags are RecoveryMonth2026 and RecoveryIsREAL.

Awareness campaigns are easy to be cynical about. This one has a practical edge, because the thing it points at is available in most places tonight.

Why Connection Is Not Just a Slogan

For drug addiction specifically, isolation is not a side effect of the problem. It is often part of how the problem sustains itself. Using alone is also the single largest risk factor in a fatal overdose, because naloxone requires another person to administer it.

That makes connection a harm reduction measure as much as an emotional one. A person who is in contact with other people is more likely to be found, more likely to hear about treatment options, and more likely to have someone carrying naloxone nearby.

Where NA Meetings Fit

Narcotics Anonymous is one route to that connection, and September is a reasonable month to try it. NA meetings require no insurance, no referral, and no commitment beyond showing up.

Most areas have several formats, including open meetings that anyone may attend, closed meetings for people who identify as having a drug problem, discussion meetings, literature study meetings, and virtual meetings.

NA is not the only path. Some people recover through medication for opioid use disorder, some through counseling or residential treatment, some through SMART Recovery or other secular programs, and many through a combination.

Peer support and medication are complementary rather than competing, and any framing that treats them as rivals gets the evidence wrong.

Understanding Opioid Treatment Options

If a Recovery Month event or a first meeting leads someone toward treatment, it helps to know what the options are. Three medications are approved for opioid use disorder.

Buprenorphine and methadone are opioid agonists that reduce withdrawal symptoms and cravings without producing the effects of illicit opioids at therapeutic doses. Naltrexone blocks opioid effects but requires completed withdrawal before it can be started.

Methadone is dispensed through licensed opioid treatment programs. Buprenorphine can be prescribed by certified clinicians in ordinary office settings, which for many people is the shorter path.

Harm Reduction Through September and After

The same state of the field points to naloxone as a parallel piece of the response. Naloxone reverses opioid overdose and works within minutes. It is available over the counter, and many state and local programs distribute it at no cost.

If someone in your life uses opioids, or uses stimulants in a supply where fentanyl now turns up routinely, carrying it is a reasonable precaution rather than a statement about anyone.

Fentanyl test strips can detect fentanyl in a sample, though they cannot tell you how much is present. Neither tool replaces treatment. Both keep the option of treatment open.

Finding NA Meetings and Support

Narcotics.com’s directory lists NA meetings nationwide, searchable by state and city. Call 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to get in contact with a treatment advisor today.

For families who have lost someone to opioid addiction, the last weekend in August has become a fixed point on the calendar. The Baltimore City Health Department will hold its International Overdose Awareness Day event on Saturday, August 29. The event promises to bring city agencies, community organizations, peer recovery specialists, and Baltimore families into one park for the afternoon.

The event runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Catherine/ABC Park Playground in the southwest corner of the city. The observance marks Maryland’s commitment to combating substance misuse on multiple levels, from inpatient care to local grassroots Narcotics Anonymous chapters. Indeed, Overdose Awareness Day is open to all ages and complete with free community resources, food and treats and children’s activities.

The Event

A resource fair runs the full five hours, with agencies and community groups on site. The published schedule includes a poetry performance at noon and remarks from invited guests from about 12:10 to 1 p.m.

The health department describes the day as an opportunity to honor lives lost, share the stories of people who died, and connect attendees to resources. Nevertheless, although pharmaceuticals have improved opioid distribution and prescriptions to cut down on dependencies, each loss still means a grieving family and devastated communities.

International Overdose Awareness Day is observed annually on August 31. Cities frequently hold their public events on the nearest weekend, which is why Baltimore’s falls on the 29th.

Baltimore’s Overdose Numbers

Baltimore has carried the highest overdose mortality rate of any large American metro area for years. That’s beginning to change.

Fatal overdoses in the city fell from 1,043 in 2023 to 777 in 2024, with an estimated 568 in 2025, according to Maryland Department of Health data. Statewide, Maryland recorded a decline of roughly 26% in fatal overdoses in 2025, reaching a 10-year low. These counts are preliminary and typically rise somewhat as medical examiner investigations close.

The city’s Mayor’s Office of Overdose Response published an Overdose Response Strategic Plan to cut fatal overdoses in half by 2040. The program revolves around expanded naloxone distribution, mobile treatment, peer overdose response programs and harm reduction services.

Public health officials have cautioned that citywide declines can conceal sharp increases in individual neighborhoods. Holding the gains depends on sustained investment where risk remains highest.

Behind the Decline

Officials haven’t attributed the drop to any single cause. The city’s strategic plan commits to a public dashboard and a two-year review cycle so the city can report which pieces are working.

Naloxone supply has expanded sharply alongside those declines. Maryland distributed a record 440,000 doses statewide in 2025, according to state data. Maryland’s Special Secretary of Overdose Response has publicly described the trend as measurable progress rather than chance.

Fentanyl and a Shifting Drug Supply

Still, the crisis continues. Opioids include prescription medications and street drugs like fentanyl. Fentanyl is significantly deadlier than heroin and is often present in other drugs without the person knowing. That’s why overdoses can occur on a first exposure or after a period of not using.

Signs of an opioid overdose include stopped breathing, unresponsiveness, blue or gray lips and fingertips and gurgling or choking sounds. Call 911 without delay and give naloxone if available.

Fentanyl remains the principal driver of overdose deaths, but the supply itself is changing. Laboratory data found the share of patients testing positive for methamphetamine more than doubled between 2023 and 2025, rising from 2% to 5%, with stimulant use appearing more often without fentanyl alongside it. Cocaine still accounts for most stimulant use in Maryland.

For anyone using or supporting someone who uses, keep in mind that a supply that constantly changes makes any single assumption about what a substance contains unreliable.

Treatment and Peer Support for Opioid Addiction

Naloxone, sold under the brand name Narcan, reverses an opioid overdose. It has no effect on someone who has not taken opioids. If you administer it to someone who doesn’t need it, nothing will happen.

Medications for opioid use disorder remain the most effective treatments available for opioid addiction and are supported by extensive clinical evidence. They’re frequently combined with counseling, and Maryland Medicaid covers them.

Peer support works alongside medication rather than in competition with it. Narcotics Anonymous is a free, member-run fellowship for people recovering from drug addiction, and Baltimore has an active meeting network including open meetings that anyone may attend and closed meetings for people who identify as having an addiction. 

Peer recovery specialists will be present at the August 29 event and can connect people to treatment and support based on their own recovery experience.

Recovery paths differ. Some people use medication, some use NA or another fellowship, some use therapy or residential treatment, and many combine several. No option requires choosing one at the expense of another.

Help in Baltimore

Getting started with NA is often a first and lasting step towards recovery. To find a meeting in any neighborhood across the nation, browse our meeting directory. We have filters for virtual meetings, Spanish-language meetings and beginners meetings.

You can also dial 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to speak with an expert and explore treatment options.

The national overdose picture continues to improve, and the newest federal numbers put a figure on it. Despite the constant threat of new illicit drugs in the market, CDC provisional data predicts 68,641 drug overdose deaths in the United States for the 12 months ending February 2026, a 12.1% decline from 2025. 

For anyone living with opioid addiction or supporting a loved one in recovery, the trend line is real, alongside the number underneath it.

The Opioid Crisis on Retreat?

The estimate comes from the National Vital Statistics System back in July 2026 and based on data available for analysis on July 5. It covers March 2025 through February 2026 and compares numbers against March 2024 through February 2025.

A predicted 68,641 deaths over 12 months works out to roughly 188 a day. Advocates, including grassroots organizations like Narcotics Anonymous, can take heart that the numbers align with a steady drop in overdose deaths nationwide since 2023.

Two caveats matter for reading this correctly. CDC recommends the predicted provisional counts because they’re adjusted for incomplete reporting. The agency also notes those counts are most likely underestimated, typically rising over the first several months after they are posted. Each monthly release also updates all prior estimates, so figures shift between releases.

The Data Doesn’t Show the Whole Picture

The provisional release reports how many people died and over what period. But it doesn’t explain why the number is falling.

CDC maintains separate resources that fill in parts of that picture, including the SUDORS dashboard for fatal overdose detail, the DOSE dashboards for nonfatal overdoses seen in emergency departments and inpatient settings, a clinical drug test dashboard tracking fentanyl, heroin, cocaine, and methamphetamine, dispensing rate maps for opioids, and the Fentalog study, which tests toxicology samples from suspected opioid-involved overdoses.

Anyone reading a single headline percentage should treat it as one measure among several rather than a verdict on the epidemic.

Opioids and Overdose Risk

Opioids include prescription medications such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, and morphine, along with illegal street drugs. Fentanyl is a synthetic opioid substantially deadlier than morphine and now appears throughout much of the illicit supply, often blended in substances a person didn’t intend to buy.

An opioid overdose slows and can stop breathing. Signs include unresponsiveness, slow or stopped breathing, gurgling or choking sounds, and blue or gray lips, fingertips, or skin. It is a medical emergency. Call 911.

Harm Reduction & Treatment

A falling national number doesn’t lower individual risk, and the tools that reduce that risk are the same ones as last year.

Naloxone can reverse opioid overdoses quickly and is safe to give if you are unsure whether opioids are involved. It also doesn’t harm someone who hasn’t taken opioids. It doesn’t reverse non-opioid sedatives such as xylazine, so give it and call 911 regardless.

Naloxone should be on hand for anyone who uses opioids and for the people around them. Health departments, harm reduction organizations, and many pharmacies distribute it free or at low cost, usually without a prescription.

Fentanyl test strips let a person check a substance before use. They’re not a guarantee of safety, but they provide information that was not previously available.

Medication for opioid use disorder, including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, has the strongest evidence base for reducing overdose death. It’s treatment, not a lesser substitute for abstinence, and folks often match it with peer support.

NA Helped the Decline

Speaking of peer support, reach out to those who understand your background if you’re not sure where to start, or if you just need a shoulder to lean on for a rough spell.

NA meetings are free to attend and require nothing more than showing up. Our online directory covers meetings nationwide with filters for open and closed meetings, virtual and in-person format, language, and meeting type. 

You can also call 800-934-1582(Sponsored) to speak to an expert about opioid treatment programs and connect with office-based providers to start medication for opioid use disorders. Some do so on a first visit.