FRC medical director: ‘This is our busiest year we ever had’

By Julia Laude
WCJB

OCALA, Fla. (WCJB) – The war on drugs has raged since the 1970′s and while it has changed over the years it isn’t slowing down.

It’s an epidemic that runs deep and has rooted itself in north central Florida.

Scott Teitelbaum
Scott A. Teitelbaum, MD

Even I had no idea just how rampant the opioid epidemic is in our community.

“This is our busiest year we ever had, and we’ve seen an increase in every substance. There’s nothing that we haven’t seen an increase of,” Medical Director of UF Health’s Recovery Center, Scott Teitelbaum said.

Doctors at UF Health’s Recovery Center said isolation from the COVID-19 pandemic has likely exacerbated the problem.

“Substance use disorders, addiction is a disease of isolation, and we were being that people are a lot more isolated and then you throw in financial stressors, losing jobs and worrying about money. You throw in medical stressors with loved ones being sick and dying,” Teitelbaum said.

And these stressors can happen to anybody.

“Addiction does not care about how smart you are, how much money you make, how successful you are, race, color, sex, it just doesn’t care,” he added.

But treatment centers aren’t the only places feeling the strain.

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