SAN DIEGO — A good night’s sleep has many proven health benefits, and a new Scripps Research study suggests one more: preventing opioid relapse.
Reflecting on photos from her past reminds Kimberly Knopik how much she has to look forward to in her future.
“Every time my daughter shows me these old pictures I’m like ‘Oh my god, that’s what I looked like,’” Knopik said. “And today, I look at these and I just reflect and I think, ‘Wow, I’ve put in a lot of work.’”
Knopik struggled with drug addiction for much of her life, spending years in and out of prison. She’s been clean and sober for almost four years.
“Every day I feel my mom with me. I wish I could have done this when she was living,” she said.
She now works as a counselor at Father Joe’s Villages, trying to help people overcome their own addictions. She tries to provide things that will help them toward recovery, like mental health resources, snacks and safety kits.
“If you have a mental health diagnosis or you have a heart problem, they give you medication to treat that,” Knopik said. “This is a disease, and it’s a serious disease and people are dying every day.”
According to the CDC, opioid overdoses killed more than 80,000 people in the U.S. in 2021.
A team at Scripps Research is trying to add another treatment option for people struggling to overcome addiction. Professor Rémi Martin-Fardon studies the effects of drugs on the nervous system. Researchers gave an experimental insomnia treatment to rats experiencing oxycodone withdrawal.
“People that have issues with drugs and taking a lot of drugs have problems sleeping, and usually, often, they go back to taking drugs because they want to fall asleep,” he said.
They found that the animals were far less likely to seek drugs again in the future, even after ending the treatment. More research is needed, but they’re hoping their findings could lead to therapies that help prevent opioid addiction or relapse in humans.
“It’s very encouraging, what we have,” Martin-Fardon said. “It’s not the end of the world or the end of your life if you got into this issue. You can get out of it and we found ways of treating it.”
The results are encouraging to Knopik. She knows how powerful addiction can be and wants everyone to have the best chance to beat it like she has.
“Anything that’s going to help somebody take that edge off is important and thank God for our researchers, right?” she said.
Martin-Fardon’s group saw slightly different results between male and female animals. The drug was less effective in female animals and the changes to neuron numbers seemed to be more pronounced in males.
“I think this is something really important to follow up on,” Martin-Fardon said. “It may be that women are much more sensitive to the effect of oxycodone and different doses of treatment are required.”