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TIME's 'Opioid Diaries' puts addiction in focus

LOWELL, Mass. – The opioid crisis has been gripping the United States for more than two years, but on Monday, President Trump unveiled his plans to curb the problem.

The speech in Manchester came just a few weeks after TIME Magazine published a full-issue photo essay by James Nachtwey called The Opioid Diaries.

“It’s sad but it’s reality,” David Hanley, a recovering addict, said. “It’s going to be startling to some people, but to me I see it on a daily basis.”

The photo series features images taken across the country, including many right here in New England.

>>RELATED: TIME Magazine presents 'The Opioid Diaries'

This area has some of the highest overdose rates in the country, but for some it’s startling to see the reality.

Hanley spent more than a decade using opioids after getting hooked on drugs prescribed to him for a surgery.

“I mean, everyone wants to talk about heroin and fentanyl which is the problem right now. But, Percocet and Oxycontin are the Trojan horse that those two drugs rode in on,” he said.

TIME’s special report shows addicts shooting up under bridges and trucks, a man high on drugs stumbling in Roxbury and women passing out in the streets of Boston. “The images are stark it brings the whole problem right to you,” Bill Garr, the CEO of Lowell House, a treatment center for those struggling with addiction.

Garr said he’s glad these pictures are bringing awareness to the epidemic that’s killing so many people… but he says they don’t show the whole picture.

“The piece it didn’t show and the piece we would like to show is the kids from nice families that overdose,” he told Boston 25 News.

Hanley’s brother was one of those nice kids. He was captain of his football team and a state champion wrestler. He died in 2016.

“My family’s still feeling the effects even though I’ve got better, but family’s still deeply wounded by this,” Hanley said.

The powerful images are putting a much-needed spotlight on the crisis, especially in New England, Hanley said. But he hopes families realize the opioid crisis goes way beyond these photos.

“It doesn’t have to look like that. You know it can look much more subtle and they need to look out for signs way before it looks like they’re under a bridge shooting heroin,” he said.

Hanley now works to help addicts find a path to recovery. He’s been clean for seven years and he says with the president visiting this area today he hopes more resources will go towards those fighting this disease.

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