Joanne Peterson has attended the State of the Union and addressed governors across the country on the opioid epidemic. Senators and attorneys general call her in hopes of better understanding how they can support their communities as they deal with an epidemic of overdoses.

It’s incredibly gratifying work, but when I recently visited Peterson in Taunton, Massachusetts, she told me she would forgo all the recognition for not having had to go through the pain addiction left on her family. “I’d trade it all to just not have … gone through this.”

Peterson’s mission is to help the families of people suffering from addiction. While so much attention is understandably focused on the individual with the substance use disorder, Peterson realized that suffering knows no bounds, because she was such a family member. She says her brother self-medicated with cocaine to deal with his depression and her niece died from a fentanyl overdose. Every time, Peterson felt the personal pain of seeing someone she loved suffer, and the silence that too often followed due to persistent stigma.

Out of her own experience, Peterson founded Learn to Cope in 2004. At first, it was simply a safe place bound together by a few strangers with a shared common pain, invisible to the rest of society. Now, it is a national organization with 11,000 members and growing, providing support to the families of those with loved ones addicted to drugs and alcohol.

With recent news of record-breaking drug overdose deaths across the country and in our own backyards, News 5 Investigators went searching for the cutting edge strategies in this battle against drugs.

Joe and Angie Denes are from Marengo, Ohio, a tiny town in Morrow County surrounded by country life. They thought their teenage son Jordan was just recovering from a farming accident and surgery, but then doctors prescribed Oxycontin with 60-100 pills each and refills.

“I looked at (the doctor) and said, ‘Isn’t this some heavy stuff?’ And they said, ‘Don’t worry about that, they the least of your worries. We’ll address that… we’ll deal with that later, down the road,’” said Joe.

That road was a long, twisting nightmare of addiction for Jordan and the family that tried to avoid it from happening in the first place by warning their kids about drugs.

Instagram says it prohibits drug sales, but accounts advertising the sale of Xanax, ecstasy, opioids and other drugs are still widespread and easy to find on the platform, including for young users, according to a report released by tech advocacy group the Tech Transparency Project (TTP) on Tuesday.

The revelations came ahead of a Senate subcommittee hearing on Wednesday with Instagram head Adam Mosseri, who is set to testify to lawmakers about the platform’s impact on children and teens. It also follows months of reporting on a trove of internal documents leaked by whistleblower Frances Haugen, some of which showed that Instagram can damage young users’ mental health and body image, and can exacerbate dangerous behaviors such as eating disorders.

As part of the report, TTP carried out an experiment in which it set up seven Instagram accounts appearing to belong to teenage users, ages 13 to 17. It found these accounts were easily able to navigate to pages openly advertising the sale of illicit or pharmaceutical drugs.

“Not only did Instagram allow the hypothetical teens to easily search for age-restricted and illegal drugs, but the platform’s algorithms helped the underage accounts connect directly with drug dealers selling everything from opioids to party drugs,” the report states. “The findings highlight another aspect of Instagram’s failures when it comes to children.”

More than 2.5 million people in the United States are struggling with opioid use disorder. Opioids are pain-relieving narcotics that include prescription medicines such as oxycodone and hydrocodone and “street drugs” such as heroin. If you develop opioid use disorder, that means you have a problematic pattern of opioid use that leads to serious impairment or distress. You may be physically or psychologically dependent on opioids, or you may be addicted to opioids, seeking a high and become emotionally attached to the drug. Using opioids inappropriately is dangerous because it can lead to overdose and death. It can be challenging, but getting sober is possible with the right tools.

Every prescription medication comes with benefits and risks to weigh with your doctor. Opioids are effective at relieving pain from major surgery, traumatic injury, and some chronic conditions. A significant downside is the possibility of dependence and addiction, both of which are included under the umbrella of opioid use disorder. Behaviors that signal you may be dependent include continuing opioid use even after your pain has ceased or experiencing physical or emotional symptoms when you stop taking the drug. Signs of addiction include seeking a high, taking more of your medication than prescribed, borrowing someone else’s medication, and using illegal drugs.

If you think you might have opioid use disorder, it’s important to seek a professional assessment. It can be performed by a doctor, psychiatrist, psychologist, or nurse, and usually involves three parts. First, you can expect to have an open conversation about how long you’ve been taking opioids, what other medications you take, and your health issues. A physical exam is typically performed, and a urine analysis test is ordered to check the level of opioids in your system.

The primary approach to treating opioid use disorder is to combine medication with behavioral counseling. You may hear this approach referred to as medication assisted treatment, or MAT. Buprenorphine and methadone are two medicines that can be used early in the treatment process to help curb cravings for opioids and decrease withdrawal symptoms. The World Health Organization considers them “essential medicines.” Once your body is opioid-free, naltrexone may be recommended to help prevent relapses by making it impossible to feel high.