It took a near-fatal overdose on painkillers for Chastidy Diaz to decide she was done abusing prescription drugs.
“I told them to put me in a program or I was going to run into the street and get hit by a car,” Diaz said. “I felt there was nowhere else to go. This was the end of the line.”
Diaz’s addiction was the result of multiple painkiller prescriptions to fight fibromyalgia. For others, it can result from easy access to narcotics, particularly those left over in homes from unused or uncompleted prescriptions.
The two routes lead to the same result — prescription drug abuse is on the rise in the state, and the Drug Enforcement Administration is trying to combat it by asking the public to turn in their unused, expired or unwanted prescription drugs on National Take Back Day on Saturday.
The drugs may be turned in — no questions asked — from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at locations throughout the state. To find the closest location, go to .
Diaz checked herself in to Arapahoe House’s New Directions for Families and has a year of sobriety. The 35-year-old Littleton mother of eight lost custody of her children before she got sober but has since regained them.
Art Schut, deputy director of Arapahoe House, said part of the reason prescription-drug abuse is on the rise is because of easy access to the pills.
“We have a higher rate of it at this point than we have had at any time than we have in the last five years,” he said.
Schut says the medicine cabinet is a prime spot for addicts to get their hands on drugs, or even teenagers who are curious and experimenting.
“People often go into homes they visit or relatives’ homes and there are often lots of prescription drugs available in cabinets and people get those and some folks go through the trash and find them,” he said. “Folks also share their prescriptions with others.”
Those selling their home who hold open houses or remodelers who have unknown contractors in their homes may also unknowingly have their cabinets raided.
Kevin Merrill, acting special agent in charge of the DEA in Colorado, said statewide, the public turned in 4.5 tons of prescription drugs at last year’s first National Take Back Day.
“People brought bags and bags of stuff,” he said. “They don’t know what to do with them, especially after a loved one passes.”
Prescription drugs contaminate groundwater and shouldn’t be thrown in the trash, Merrill said. The DEA incinerates the drugs turned in by the public.
Diaz knows the intense pull prescription drugs had on her and said leaving pills around the house is not safe.
“You don’t have a hold on that drug; it has a hold on you,” she said. “The first day coming off, all I could do was lay down under a blanket. And then there is night sweats and the worst anxiety.”
Diaz said she was always careful about where she hid her medications and that she locked them up. She hopes her children don’t ever abuse drugs and that her overdose influenced them the right way.
“If you don’t want this with all of your life, you won’t make it,” she said about getting clean. “You have to reach a point where you say, ‘I want my life back.’ “
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
