At 42, I finally found recovery. Opiates had held my life hostage for decades, a relentless tide of addiction that nearly drowned me countless times. Fifteen times, to be exact, I overdosed. Fifteen times, I was pulled back from the brink of death by the quick thinking and life-saving Narcan administered by someone who cared enough to be there, equipped with the knowledge to act. Each revival was a second chance, a fragile thread leading me toward the path I walk today: a life dedicated to helping others escape the same darkness.

My journey led me from the depths of personal struggle to the front lines of the overdose crisis. I began working in treatment, volunteering with a nonprofit that ventured into the forgotten tunnels beneath Las Vegas, building relationships with those who had sought refuge from a society that had abandoned them. What I found was a landscape of profound need, where dedicated organizations were chronically underfunded, their efforts often measured by input rather than true, life-changing outcomes.

Seven years on, the national narrative around overdose numbers has thankfully shifted, showing a significant decline in overall drug overdose deaths in the U.S. Provisional data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, released in May 2025, projects an estimated 80,391 drug overdose deaths in 2024, a notable 26.9 percent decrease from the 110,037 deaths in 2023, marking the lowest level since 2019. This progress is a testament to the tireless work of countless individuals and organizations.

Yet, here in Las Vegas, the story is starkly different. While the nation sees a downturn, Nevada remains an outlier. Our numbers have not slowed; in fact, they’ve seen a slight increase. In 2024, Nevada recorded 1,528 overdose deaths, a 0.5 percent rise from the previous year. Between January 2023 and January 2024, the state saw a staggering 31 percent increase in overdose fatalities.

Clark County, where Las Vegas is situated, has witnessed an alarming 699.83 percent increase in fentanyl-involved overdose deaths from 2018 to 2024. These aren't just statistics; they are lives, families and communities torn apart. This disparity isn't due to a lack of dedicated people or effective organizations; it's because we are lagging in funding and consistently rank at the bottom of critical systemic benchmarks such as education, number 45 overall, and health care, number 41 overall.

In the lead up to the 2024 presidential election, I was deeply engaged, helping friends with their campaigns, feeling connected to the political pulse. I was energized, filled with a fragile hope that, finally, the recovery community would have a powerful voice. Donald Trump, with his populist rhetoric, seemed to offer that. He spoke about the economy with an infectious optimism, and when he championed figures such as Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who echoed our concerns about recovery, I, like many others, was swayed. Having spent years witnessing the daily devastation of overdoses, I believed we had found an advocate at a level we had never known. In my fervent hope, I overlooked the details, the deeper implications of what his administration truly represented.

That oversight, I now realize, was the biggest mistake of my recovery. I voted for him with a genuine belief that he would champion our cause, that his words of support for recovery were sincere. But just six months into his presidency, that hope has been utterly shattered, replaced by a profound sense of betrayal.

Shortly into his presidency, the true motives became painfully clear. What followed was not just a few cuts, but a systematic obliteration of the very programs that had begun to bend the curve on the fentanyl epidemic. A shocking $56 million was slashed from Narcan funding, turning this life-saving tool, which had saved me 15 times, into one of the first casualties.

This was merely the beginning of an unraveling, decades of painstaking work in wraparound services for youth programming, vital LGBTQ+ services and the entire Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) umbrella. These services, once at the forefront of the fight, became targets of a new, devastating agenda.

The consequences of such policy decisions are not abstract. They are felt in every community, in every family touched by addiction. Reductions in crucial health care funding, particularly for Medicaid, directly correlate with an increase in overdose deaths. Medicaid is often the lifeline for individuals seeking substance use disorder treatment, mental health services and access to harm reduction tools such as Narcan. When these lifelines are severed, or even frayed, the most vulnerable among us are left exposed to a deadly tide.

We are living a new chilling reality: When access to care is diminished, the human cost is measured in lives lost. For states such as Nevada, which are already struggling with rising overdose rates, such cuts are not just detrimental, they are catastrophic. They undermine the very infrastructure of recovery and prevention that we have painstakingly built.

I am at a loss for words when I reflect on how thoroughly I was fooled by the rhetoric leading up to the election. Watching the distressing and ongoing impact of these policies on our recovery community has been a brutal awakening. It has made me realize, with painful clarity and poignancy, that my vote was the biggest mistake of my recovery. It was a vote against the very principles of compassion, support and evidence-based care that define the path to healing.

The fight against the overdose crisis demands sustained investment, not divestment. It requires a commitment to comprehensive, accessible care, including robust Medicaid funding, and unwavering support for the community programs that are literally saving lives on the ground. We cannot afford to let political agendas dismantle the progress made and condemn more individuals to preventable deaths.

My story, and the stories of countless others, are a testament to the power of recovery, but also a stark warning about the unseen, devastating cost of neglect. We must choose to invest in life, not in policies that pave the way for more funerals.

Rob Banghart lives in Las Vegas and is the director of community engagement at Crossroads of Southern Nevada.

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