- Georgia saw a 62% increase in drug overdose deaths from 2019 to 2021.
- The Mobilize Recovery Across Georgia bus tour is helping to educate communities about recovery resources.
- It is funded with $600,000 from the state's opioid settlement.
- Watch the video to hear from those recovering from addiction about why resources like these are so needed.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT
"It's just a special part of Georgia."
Jeff Breedlove loves coming back home to Valdosta to visit friends and enjoy our downtown.
But this time, he comes back on a mission: helping those suffering from addiction.
"I got arrested when I was the Chief of Staff to an elected official in 2016, and then I went to treatment and I entered into recovery, and I've been in recovery, lord willing, this October 26th, 8 years."
Breedlove is now a chief strategist for the Georgia Recovery Council. He has been going across the state as a part of the Mobilize Recovery Across Georgia bus tour to share his story.
"My whole life was… I was just existing. I wasn't living. And now I know hope."
Jeff and others on the Recovery tour are trying to help other Georgians feel the same.
Georgia saw a 62% increase in drug overdose deaths from 2019 to 2021, largely driven by opioid-related deaths.
As a part of our state's opioid settlement, the state has funded $600,000 to mobilize efforts to get recovery sources to communities like Valdosta.
Dexter Sharper, Valdosta's State Representative, tells me this also comes with harsher laws cracking down on the drug trade.
"Everybody that's selling drugs they want what they call the best drugs to sell and by adding these different things into the drugs it's only going to be hurtful it's going to be deadly so we are seeing that and we also from a lawmaker standpoint we're cracking down."
According to data from the Georgia Department of Health, Lowndes County in particular has seen a slight dip in opioid overdoses starting in 2022. In Valdosta, I'm Malia Thomas, reporting for ABC27.
