ALBANY — Richard Messina experienced numerous painful overdoses before a final one left him dazed on the streets of Schenectady and with a newfound conviction that something had to change.
That overdose two summers ago prompted him to return to Schenectady’s Drug Treatment Court, which he’d been attending for months before he had relapsed. The incident “scared the daylights” out of Messina, the 54-year-old Rotterdam resident said, and he enrolled in intensive outpatient treatment while attending the court-sanctioned program. After 30 years of struggling with an opioid addiction, something had finally shifted.
“When I was thoroughly exhausted is when I changed everything,” Messina said. “My life twice flashed before me. It’s so hard, it’s so hurtful to even think about, hurts my heart to know that I’ve lost so many people, family members, friends. … But there is a possibility, there is a way out of it.”…