Frontline Recovery Advocates: ‘Not One More’ Lost to Overdose

Frontline Recovery Advocates: ‘Not One More’ Lost to Overdose / The Sandpaper / December 20, 2023

By Victoria Ford

Activists and advocates with the “Not One More” campaign are watching every move of the Ocean County Opioid Advisory Council and keeping their faces seen and voices heard at its public meetings, to ensure the county’s share of national opioid settlement funds gets spent in ways most beneficial to those in need of treatment and recovery services.

Ocean County will receive more than $15 million in annual payouts over 18 years from New Jersey’s $641 million, from litigation brought against opioid distributors and manufacturers. The Ocean County Opioid Advisory Council was empaneled by the Ocean County Board of Commissioners last year to direct and oversee the distribution of the funds, which must be spent to abate and remediate impacts of the opioid epidemic. Approximately $1.1 million is expected to be awarded in 2024. View the Ocean County bid portal at procurement.opengov.com/portal/oceancounty/.

“Not One More” is a function of the combined efforts of the Southern Ocean County-based New Jersey Organizing Project, New Jersey Resource Project, Sea Change Recovery Community Organization and Worth Saving, dedicated to ending the overdose crisis and working to expand access to evidence-based treatments and harm-reduction methods in New Jersey. They work collaboratively and in their separate capacities. On the second Thursday of each month, a community meeting is held virtually on Zoom.

“The opposite of addiction is love and community,” and newbies are welcome, the invitation reads. “We come together each month to learn new skills to create change in our lives and communities, build relationships with others impacted by SUD, and take action to end the overdose crisis.”

The next meeting is Thursday, Jan. 11 at 6 p.m. Get the Zoom details at njorganizing.us/NOTONEMORENJMTG.

“We aren’t going away,” Sea Change RCO founder Elizabeth Burke Beaty said during the group’s debriefing after the Nov. 30 council meeting, “and we are going to call out where the monies are going.”

Launched in 2019, the campaign assembles a force – “a boots-on-the-ground Recovery Community Organization providing direct support and services to whoever needs it, and a community organizing group fighting to fix the broken recovery systems that we struggle within in our day-to-day lives” – to fight on behalf of people who use drugs across New Jersey, according to campaign literature.

People with lived experience showing up in numbers at the opioid advisory council’s public meetings (held in the Ocean County Administration Building in Toms River) would show the council where their priorities lie, Not One More’s Communications Organizer Cameron Foster said. A van may be set up to take people to the next public meeting, scheduled for Thursday, Feb. 9 at 10 a.m. Beaty said a “big stink” is necessary to hold decision-makers accountable.

The message they want to keep at the fore: People are dying every day from overdoses. Beaty and her cohorts are on the front lines of the opioid epidemic, she said, Uber-ing people to shelters, helping them get basic needs met.

NJOP organizer and Sea Change board Vice President Elissa Tierney had told the council she doesn’t want to see grassroots organizations left out of the equation, either due to favoritism or because the proposal submission process is too complicated for an inexperienced grant writer to navigate. Council members, all of whom have lived experience or are recovery-adjacent, gave public assurance they are working with integrity, and within the framework set forth, to put the money where it can do the most good.

Since its inception, Not One More has “played a role in passing three key pieces of legislation that expand access to lifesaving naloxone and medication assisted treatment (MAT), and then, as part of a national coalition, worked to pass the MAT Act at the end of 2022 as a federal law, vastly improving access to buprenorphine nationwide,” according to campaign material.

The mission of Sea Change, founded in 2020, “is to #CrushTheStigma of substance use disorder and what it means to be in recovery. We combine evidence-based practices with healthy lifestyle approaches to recovery. With compassion, we support both individuals and their concerned families, friends and loved ones through private 1:1 meetings, various support groups, direct outreach, special events, physical activities, and community organizing.”

Certified peer recovery specialists offer free non-clinical support.

“We believe in all pathways of recovery, and fully support harm reduction and medication-assisted treatment among those pathways,” according to the organization’s guiding principles.

Learn more and access peer recovery services; attend an event or regular recovery group session. Check out the calendar at opens in a new windowseachangerco.org/calendar.

“The New Jersey Organizing Project is a community organization with multiple areas of focus, including ending the overdose crisis, getting NJ’s storm survivors home and whole, and protecting shore and inland communities from extreme weather and rising seas.” Made up of “regular people,” NJOP fights to improve systems that impact quality of life.

Get involved by visiting opens in a new windownewjerseyop.org and joining the list to get updates on meetings, actions and more.

“The New Jersey Resource Project, meanwhile, “educates and connects community leaders to work together for solutions and take action toward an economically just and resilient future, by connecting and training community members to participate in the decision-making processes that affect their daily lives.”

Worth Saving ( opens in a new windowworthsaving.co) is described as “a movement to spread love, acceptance and hope. Our wristbands show support for people who struggle with substance use disorder and let them know: ‘We love you, we value you, and we’re on your side.’”

Wristband sales pay for detox beds. Two people so far have been helped and many more will follow. Buy or donate a wristband.