The Carbon County Commissioners and the Carbon-Monroe-Pike Drug and Alcohol Commission have held COVID-19 focus group meetings every other week to discuss the difficulties many are facing during the pandemic.

Executive Director Jamie Drake joined the commissioners on Thursday to continue the discussion, stressing that services are available for those in need.

“The big thing that I really want to get out there is that, even though COVID is going on, our services are still available,” Drake said.

“And we understand these stressors people are experiencing; there might be a lot of people out there that are having substance use disorder issues that are worried if they can get help. All of our services are open, our 24/7 hot line is there to help people after hours, and that number is 1-866-824-3578.

“In addition, we are doing all telehealth at this point. So we are seeing folks utilizing teams where we can do video sessions as if someone doesn’t have that, we can do it by telephone to provide support services to individuals. But we do also have some folks that are in the office if somebody doesn’t have the capability. So they can still walk in and access any kind of services. And we also have all of our funding is available. So if somebody is uninsured and doesn’t have the funds to go to services, we can help pay for that.”

Drake noted that there has been a reduction in the amount of people that are coming in, emphasizing that people can still get help if they need it.

Carbon-Monroe-Pike has also been tracking overdoses in the same time period from 2019-20 as required by the state, as well as usage.

“At this point, it’s holding pretty steady,” she said. “We aren’t really seeing a drastic increase in overdoses from the same period in 2019, but we’ll continue to look at that.

“As far as with drugs, there’s a lot of focus on opiates, and we still are seeing opiates. But we are seeing much more in the way of methamphetamine use, even in our collaborations with St. Luke’s Hospital and the emergency department where we would do handoffs for people to get into treatment for people who present in the emergency room, there’s much more methamphetamine, as well as alcohol. Alcohol is actually the primary reason people are accessing the ED after hours. But we do also have a process in place there where we work with St. Luke’s to get people right from the hospital into a facility.”

Commissioners’ Chairman Wayne Nothstein also pointed out the increased number of referrals for homeless children over the last several months, something that will be addressed with the homeless task force.

“And many times all of those other issues, in many cases behind the scenes there is substance abuse disorder going on in the home,” said Drake.

“We work collaboratively with all the other human service agencies within the county to try to address all the issues that are happening.”