“He turned blue. He. Was. Dead.”

Ashley is standing in between two giant monitors at the front of the training room. She’s telling us about her lived experience. Her voice carries the weight of it. Slight pauses. A serious tone that says more than the words. She lived through this. So did other people still on staff at Gibson.

A woman drove her boyfriend to Gibson because he was overdosing. She panicked and didn’t want to go to jail. He wasn’t breathing. Scared he was going to die, she could’ve driven to Mercy or St. Francis. She drove here instead.

Nurses got him out of the car. Melissa was there. So was Ashley. They kept giving him Narcan. One dose. Two. Six doses before he woke up.

Bracing for impact, everyone stood back, expecting him to come out of it swinging. Coming out of your high against your will turns violent fast. That’s what those around him were expecting. Experience said brace for impact.

It’s not what happened.

His eyes opened, zeroing in on the nurse closest to him. And he reached out for her, hugging her. He held on.

Harm reduction is all about staying alive. Abstinence works for some treatment plans but each person is different. What harm reduction does is allow the patient to direct their own care. It’s their personalized treatment plan. The institution serves the patient and the plan, meeting people right where they are, not where the system thinks they need to be.

For some it’s Narcan close by. Or a needle exchange program keeping diseases from spreading and preventing one more person from disappearing. Maybe it’s the center itself that doesn’t ask you to be better before you walk through the door.

The argument against harm reduction is that you’re enabling continued use. Giving people permission to keep destroying themselves. It sounds reasonable, until you meet the woman who drove her boyfriend here because she felt safe. Until you watch six doses of Narcan bring someone back from death. Until you see a man reach out for a nurse instead of swinging at her.

People who access harm reduction services overdose less. They seek treatment more. They stay alive longer.

You can’t take the next step if you’re gone.

What if Gibson wasn’t that place?

What if she didn’t feel safe enough to drive there?

What if the Narcan wasn’t there when she arrived?

We don’t know what would’ve happened. But he could’ve died.

No judgement.

Just care.

That’s why it works. That’s why he’s alive.