Senator touts bill that would help addicts

Published: Tuesday, 12/2/2014 - Updated: 1 minute ago

BY TOM TROY BLADE POLITICS WRITER

After five years of successfully battling her heroin addiction, Toledo resident Tiffany Brackett joined U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown Monday in support of a bill in Congress to get more help for people like her.

Ms. Brackett, 27, said she supported Senator Browns bill to broaden access to medical treatment of opiate addiction as Ohio grapples with an epidemic of the problem, and even thought it didnt go far enough.

The bill, still awaiting action in the Senate, would increase the number of patients who would be able to get methadone medication to help them break their drug habits.

Senator Brown is co-sponsoring the Recovery Enhancement for Addiction Treatment Act, and said hes looking for bipartisan support in the Senate and the House. We expect bipartisan support. Theres no reason this would not pass next year, he said.

Ms. Brackett told guests and the media at a news conference in the Zepf Center near downtown that medication was an important part of her kicking heroin. She said she started abusing pain bills as a teenager and progressed to shooting heroin. Shes been sober since 2009.

I lost everything. While normal people my age were building their life, I lost everything that I had. I had no job, no car, no real friends, and I had no self-respect, Ms. Brackett said. The medication assisted treatment that was given to me has changed my life. Ive learned new coping skills, Ive learned how to feel again.

I embraced my reconditioning treatment and I used it for what it was intended, to stay sober, Ms. Brackett said. The medication helps me with deterring cravings and withdrawals.

She has a husband and a son and is an assistant department head for Kroger. She credited her husband, her son, her parents, extended family and friends, her counselor, and her doctor with her success.

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Senator touts bill that would help addicts