The Opioid Epidemic: The Impact to First Responders

Aaron Matthew Laxton, LCSW
8 min readSep 23, 2019
Aaron Laxton, Washington, D.C. (Photo by Mark S. King)

(Warning: Below is a description of the opioid crisis that some people might find triggering and traumatizing.)

I waited for the police and the fire department to come to my location. There was a report of a dead body, another casualty of the opioid pandemic. It was a person that I had worked with, and…

Aaron Matthew Laxton, LCSW

I am a psychotherapist who writes about mental health, addiction, recovery and the impact of substance use from personal experience. Views are my own.