Run Forest
I ran 5 miles with Julio Perez, Mike Udell, and Rory Tulienth this week – the trio have been addicted to heroin, fentanyl, steroids and alcohol – now they run in a club called The Boston Bulldogs. Clubs like this that empower people through movement are gaining traction in society. For the most part, they don’t require a pill or injection, no zoom connection or copay – just a $52 pair of sneakers and an open mind. In Rory’s case, she had tried three to four residential programs at various points in a 10-year battle that started in her mid 20s – “good people, but it just didn’t stick – maybe I wasn’t ready – maybe the addiction was still in charge,” the 36 year old said as we stumbled through a shady stretch in Quincy. “I found a home running – I’m not sure why but it feels right.” I asked her how much it cost to pay for all of the care she had during her 10 years. “How much?” she laughed. “I was in the hospital maybe 20 times, in prison, lost my job, my husband, my relationship with my daughter – is there supposed to be a number?”
There isn’t exactly - the point of course is that the cost of care is high - often 6 figures on just treatment alone, but likely far greater when you factor in family and societal cost.
For some context, access to traditional therapy treatment and medication assisted treatment has greatly improved, but is imperfect.
Just 20% of adults diagnosed with opioid use disorder in 2021 for example actually received medication to treat it, according to federal data. Encouragingly, people who utilized telehealth for substance treatment were ~38 times more likely to receive medication, compared to those who were not treated virtually.
We’ve seen a rise in telehealth companies focused on these disorders over the past several years, which hopefully means the percentage of those treated will continue to rise – especially considering the data also showed disparities by ethnicity, gender and location. For instance, those in urban areas were three times more likely to receive treatment than those in non-urban areas.
If there’s a lesson here, it’s that alternative approaches to addressing drug addiction like running clubs will matter a lot.
Editor’s Note: Some of the actual names protected here for personal reasons