International Overdose Awareness Day 2018

Submission Date: August 19 2018
Attributing Author: Leslie Renken
Source: Journal Star

IOAD Event Specifics

What: Stop the Stigma, Central Illinois Overdose Awareness Walk.

When: 1 to 3 p.m. Aug. 19.

Where: CEFCU Center Stage on the Peoria riverfront, 200 NE Water St., Peoria.

Details: The free event will feature a memorial walk, music, and substance use resources, including free naloxone training and distribution. Speakers include Sam Snodgrass, board of directors for Broken No More/GRASP, and Chad Sabora, executive director for the Missouri Network for Opiate Reform and Recovery.

Sam Snodgrass will be speaking at the International Overdose Awareness Day event on August 31. 

As someone who knows what it’s like to suffer from substance use disorder, Sam Snodgrass is on a mission to help people understand.

At the drug abuse treatment clinic in Little Rock, Ark., where he works, Sam Snodgrass helps his clients understand their condition. In his role on the board of directors for Broken No More, a group working to effect policy change in the failed war on drugs, Snodgrass is working to help lawmakers understand. And, when he comes to the Peoria riverfront to speak during the Stop the Stigma, Central Illinois Overdose Awareness Walk on Aug. 19, he hopes to help loved ones understand — opioids literally change the brains of people who abuse them.

For Snodgrass, the mission is deeply personal — understanding the changes helped him stop using opioids after a devastating 22-year journey in which he hit rock bottom again and again.

The revelation happened in the winter of 2012 in the library at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, where, years before, Snodgrass had completed a postdoctoral fellowship and became a faculty member and researcher. It was much more than an ah-hah moment, Snodgrass said.

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