you are about to meet the person who exemplifies that for dr. sanjay gupta. her name is jjoeanne peterson. she helps families of the loved ones affected by drug addiction. last year the cdc recorded 93,000 drug overdoses in the here s sanjay, how joanne peterson took her personal struggle and turned it into a movement. oxycontin. it was always the opiates. and then, they would turn to heroin. sometimes when we talk about the opioid crvcrisis, we talk at it from a policy perspective. what makes this distinctive is
going to be okay. and i have had so many people say to me they have feel grateful that they were a member of a peer group like learn to cope because they understood the disease. i know a mom, her son had cancer. he had been prescribed oxycontin. because he was in pain. he was taken off it and he turned to heroin and she told me she missed his cancer. she said, you know why? because everyone loved him then. no one gives anything about him now. reporter: even after 20 years of covering these types of is stories i still learn something every time i meet someone like joanne peterson. the idea that the ultimate first responder in this opioid epidemic is usually a family member. we really want to educate the families on how to recognize an overdose and what puts them at risk and make sure they have narcan in their home. reporter: narcan or naloxone is a drug that can reverse an opioid overdose and give families a chance to rescue someone they love. do you have any idea how many rescues