My name is Sid Nandiwada and I am currently attending Marlboro High School. As a resident of New Jersey, I am gravely aware of the dangers of opioid addiction and the opioid crisis, as in New Jersey opioid overdose is the leading cause of accidental death. My goal is to spread awareness of the dangers of opioid addiction, provide unique insight on the many facets that form this problem, and define the blurred lines of the opioid crisis by removing misinformation and misconceptions. I plan to not only focus on the medical aspects of how addiction changes a person, but provide information on the politics and economics behind this public health crisis. This will be accompanied by the words of people who have first-hand experience of addiction, overcoming addiction, treating addiction, and others leading the front of the opioid crisis.

I decided to focus my efforts on this because of my passion for educating people of ideas that can often be overlooked or stigmatized wrongfully. If I can come out of this experience educating one person about the misinformation they unfortunately trusted, I will consider this blog a success. Secondly, we live in a world saturated with addiction, and though this is a wide spectrum, learning how to overcome something that a person can be dependent on can inspire anyone to strive for change in any capacity. People live their lives in comfort and I would like to offer the ability for a person to understand that no one can grow without struggle. This is encapsulated in opioid addicts, as they live their lives anchored by a single substance and to call quitting that substance extreme discomfort would be an understatement. However, if an addict were to endure the withdrawals of quitting their addiction, they would experience a period of unprecedented growth. Though this blog focuses on mainly the idea of overcoming and understanding opioid addiction, mastering the ability to remove our own anchors to grow is a skill all of us would be grateful to learn.