The Weight of August

I recently read an article on NPR that reminded me August is National Overdose Awareness Month. For some, it may sound like just another awareness campaign in a year crowded with ribbons and hashtags. But for millions of families who’ve lost someone to substance use, it’s a time when memory and grief come rushing back, sharper than usual, demanding to be acknowledged. And for me, it hit personally this year.

The article I came across was, “Hospital staff said he was faking it and released him. He died from an overdose soon after.” It covers the tragic story of a 26-year-old man named Jean Descamps who was evaluated by medical staff at Providence Milwaukie Hospital in Milwaukie, OR and released, only to die of an overdose shortly afterward, despite the reluctance of local police officers who expressed doubts about whether or not he was healthy enough to be released. According to the NPR article, “Records show the hospital’s medical staff believed Descamps — emaciated, covered in feces, and often unresponsive — was experiencing symptoms of chronic street drug use, a leading cause of death for young Americans.”

The officers eventually complied with the hospital’s request and rolled Descamps’ limp body in a wheelchair to the dark hospital parking lot, still expressing their concerns. They covered him with a blanket to help protect him against the winter cold and left, returning to their shift. Descamps died not long after from an overdose caused by the drugs still in his system.

Descamps’ story underscores the article’s central message: too many people with substance use disorders leave hospitals without receiving evidence-based addiction treatment that could significantly reduce their risk of overdose and death.

Reading that article hit too close to home because my nephew, the one I’ve written about in previous mental health articles, overdosed in July.

He’d recently returned to Iowa after disappearing in California for nearly a year, and was seemingly doing better. He’d reconnected with his family, had cleaned up, and was making plans for the future. A job, maybe his own place.

Then, he was found unresponsive in a suburban alley by a passerby, drug paraphernalia on the ground around him, on a day with a 115-degree heat index. The stranger called 911 and he was rushed to the emergency room where he was evaluated, and his condition was taken seriously. He was running a dangerously high fever and his labs showed critical issues with his kidneys, liver, and heart. He was placed in a medically induced coma and put on a ventilator.

He survived.

I can only imagine the fear and pain his parents endured during those agonizing hours of waiting, praying for his recovery. But, he did recover. His medical team took his condition­—despite his clear addiction and drug use—seriously. They admitted him to the hospital, provided aggressive medical care, and he survived. He gets another chance.

Which brings me back to Jean Descamps, who won’t get a second chance. Whose medical team was, for whatever reasons, hardened to his addiction and gave him the bare minimum treatment before returning him to the streets.

According to the CDC, over 100,000 Americans die each year from drug overdoses, a number that has doubled in less than a decade. National Overdose Awareness Month isn’t abstract when we can see the face of the crisis in own family photos. Every purple ribbon pinned to a lapel will now remind me of my nephew, of Jean Deschamps, and of the countless others whose stories ended too soon

People with serious alcohol or drug addiction in the U.S. regularly go to doctor’s offices, clinics, and hospitals, only to leave after receiving insufficient or no treatment, often with devastating consequences. According to the NPR article and the latest federal data released last month, “Addiction is widespread in the U.S., affecting more than 40 million people. …While drug overdose deaths have dropped in recent years, alcohol- and drug-related disorders still kill more than 250,000 people every year. Meanwhile, research shows alcohol-related deaths have doubled over the last 20 years, while nonfatal overdoses from fentanyl are rising.”

Despite those statistics, the same data showed that more than 80% of people who needed help got no medical treatment of any kind for their addiction in 2025.

Dr. Judy Chertok, interviewed by NPR, said, “Many who ultimately die from their [addiction-related] illness have had significant contacts with healthcare and social services agencies in the few months leading up to their deaths.”

Clearly, my nephew’s case was an outlier.

What makes overdose grief unique is the stigma that shadows it. When someone dies of cancer, the world rushes to comfort the family, and I know this personally as a cancer survivor. But when someone dies of an overdose, whispers or outright silence replace condolences. As a society, we still frame it as a failure of character, as if the person chose their death rather than being overcome by a serious illness.

My nephew and Jean Dechamps are and were just people—both of them a son, a cousin, a human being who struggled.

This is why National Overdose Awareness Month matters. It’s not simply about remembering the survivors or the dead, but about reshaping the conversation around addiction and recovery. Substance use disorder is a disease, not a moral failing. Overdose is a medical crisis, not a punishment for bad behavior. And grief, when it stems from overdose, deserves the same dignity as grief from any other cause.

So from this August forward, I will try to do something to honor that truth. Whether it’s writing about it, attending a local vigil, or hugging my nephew just a little bit tighter the next time I see him.

But awareness must also extend beyond remembrance. National Overdose Awareness Month must call us to action. It should ask us to confront the policies, practices, and gaps that make overdose so pervasive. Why is naloxone—the medication that can reverse an opioid overdose in seconds—not yet universally available in every school, library, and workplace? Why do so many treatment centers turn people away for lack of insurance, when the cost of their deaths will ripple far wider? Why do we still criminalize substance use more often than we treat it, filling prisons instead of clinics? Why have we become hardened to it all?

The truth is, every month should be Overdose Awareness Month. The crisis doesn’t pause on September 1st, and grief doesn’t follow a calendar. At least having a dedicated month does create focus, amplify voices, and draw media attention to what too often hides in alleys.

The purple banners and hashtags should help us all feel part of a collective insistence that these lives mattered, that this epidemic cannot be normalized, that hope is still, and should always be, possible. ~