MURFREESBORO, Tenn. (WMOT) -- Christina Gray knows that she’s lucky to be alive. More than 80 of her fellow pain medication addicts die in Tennessee every month.
Drug overdose deaths recently surpassed traffic fatalities as the leading cause of accidental death in the state. A staggering three out of four of those deaths are the result of addictions to prescribed medications.
The victim of a violent assault in 2003, Christina Gray’s doctor recommended a pain killer to help her deal with the injuries she sustained in that attack.
“I was prescribed OxyContin by my doctor,” Gray recalled, “which in turn released some type of chemical reaction in my brain to where I just wanted more and more and more and I stopped at nothing to take every opiate out there.”
Gray’s life quickly spiraled out of control. The Williamson County resident was in and out of rehab several times, spent 36 months in jail on drug charges, and then things got really bad.
“(I) started prostituting…escorting online to support my habit, because there was nothing that I wouldn’t do to get that next high,” she said.
Gray now works for a rehab facility where she counsels new patients. She understands she’ll always be an addict. Mary Linden Salter with the Tennessee Association of Alcohol, Drug & other Addiction Services, says Gray's brain has literally been rewired to crave that drug.
“I think people all too often view addiction as a moral failure... What we find more and more as we learn about the brain is that that is really not the case,” Salter explained.
Salter’s comments echo those of the U.S. Surgeon General. Earlier this month the nation’s top doctor released a report on substance abuse. The study states the latest science shows some people are more vulnerable to addiction by nature or nurture and that pain medications can quickly change the way addicts like Christina Gray see the world.
“Her brain has been tricked into ‘I need this opioid to survive. The only way I can be safe is to take this opioid and dull the pain,’ but what that also does is numb her perception of what is dangerous about taking that opioid,” Salter said.
The Tennessee legislature’s response to the addiction epidemic has been largely punitive. For example, in 2014 Lawmakers criminalized giving birth to a drug addicted baby. Tennessee welfare recipients have to pass a drug screening and the state now tracks the sale of every potentially addictive medication sold.
But attitudes about addiction may be changing here. Knoxville Chief of Police Dave Rausch says that while crime must be punished, law enforcement and prosecutors are coming to realize Tennessee can’t arrest its way to a solution.
“We’re looking at this differently” he told WMOT recently. “Now law enforcement and the criminal justice system are looking at addiction as a brain disease. And so the first move now is not so much incarcerate, but let’s try to get them help.”
Rausch says that one bright spot in Tennessee’s battle against addiction has been the opening of a number of drug courts across the state.
“What’s interesting about drug courts is you have two different kinds right now. You have the first offense opportunity and then you kind of have the last chance opportunity. And I think both of those work. I don’t think you can separate them. I think you can do them both. I think the first chance opportunities are the most effective,” Rausch said.
Drug courts routinely make treatment part of any plea agreement. But Mary Linden Salter says the problem with that is that Tennessee has nowhere near the number of treatment beds needed to adequately care for the tens of thousands of addicts living in the state.
“We have this great abyss between people who want treatment and the available treatments,” she said. “They can’t just quit. They may want to quit, but without access to treatment that’s not going to happen.”
This past week Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services Commissioner, Marie Williams, asked Gov. Bill Haslam for an additional $6 million annually to treat roughly 3200 more addicts each year. Christina Gray says she’s living proof that treatment can work. She says she’s been clean for about five years now.
“Nobody says when they’re a child, ‘I just think I’ll grow up and be a junkie.’ Nobody wishes that. Things happen in life and once you make that step and use a drug, I mean there’s no turning back. However, there is hope,” she concluded.
Gray took her story to the Tennessee legislature back in the spring, testifying against the Tennessee law that punished mothers for giving birth to addicted babies. State lawmakers have now allowed that law to expire.