“I was getting prescribed handfuls by the doctor. My opioid use skyrocketed,” the 32-year-old Orem resident said Thursday.
Within three years, he had transitioned to heroin. His only friends were addicts, too. Alverson wasn’t allowed to see his children. He felt caught in a never-ending cycle — all because of a back procedure and access to too many potent pain drugs.
Now clean for three years, he told his story Thursday morning in the lobby of Mountain View Hospital in Payson, as officials launched a new opioid public-awareness campaign in 11 major healthcare facilities across Utah County, where the opioid epidemic has been especially deadly.