Take Action Today is a service for people who struggle with addiction.
Benton (WSIL)- Take Action Today provides peer-based recovery support services to people who want to recover from lifestyles of substance use and or homelessness.
Paul Tart is the supervisor for Community Mental Health and Substance Use Liaisons. He says the majority of those deaths are preventable.
"The Most recent statistic from the CDC is that more than 100,000 people lost their lives to an Opioid overdose," Tart says. "75% of people who deal with substance use do end up recovering, and leading healthy and productive lives."
Tart says their liaison program works with first responders, court systems, other community partners, and people struggling with substance use.
"This incorporates the recovery education re-entry support program that we facilitate in Franklin County jail."
Tessa Leech is one of the liaisons in the Benton office.
She says their harm reduction program is very important to her.
"It was my first step in recovery," Leech says. "It's basically accepting the fact that people use drugs and they are still human beings, and deserving of the felling of empathy and compassion."
The program works with first responders to give out overdose survivor kits. Leech says when a person overdoses one time, they are at a high risk to do it again.
"Overdoses can happen to anyone, anywhere at anytime. It doesn't discriminate on age, race, or culture," Leech says.
Tart says they are also working to educate people about substance abuse and the stigma behind it.
"Unless somebody has had their loved ones or themselves have been touched by substance abuse, by homelessness is very difficult for people to understand," Tart says. "A lot of people think its a choice and its not. The American Medical Association classifies addiction as a disease."
Take Action Today is hosting their 3rd annual Walk For Recovery.
The Walk for Recovery is for anyone who's been impacted by addiction -- which includes family and friends.
It's this Saturday, August 26, at the Williamson County Courthouse.
Registration opens at 5, with the "Unity Walk" starting at 5:45. It's free to sign up and includes a t-shirt and an ice cream voucher.
They will be taking donations for the 九游体育 Illinois Recovery Network as well.
