The pandemic has made addiction exponentially worse. Doctors are worried that those who are suffering aren't getting the treatment and help they need, especially as people turn their focus to Covid-19.

Ashlynn, 25, is two years "clean."

"I love being a mom. It's my favorite thing ever and I love that I’m in recovery,” she said.

It's been two years since she walked away from a life that was spiraling out of control and heading for an extremely dark place.

“I went through stages of functioning addict, thief, manipulator, prostitute, the person that relapses, the person that overdoses, you name it I went through it,” Ashlynn explains.

Her journey with mental illness started when she was a teenager. She was in and out of mental institutions and eventually, rehab.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to party, it was just that I didn’t want to feel anything at all because I felt so terrible. I didn’t want any of those feelings,” she recalls.

It wasn't that she didn't try to break away, it was that she couldn't. She relapsed. A lot. And then she was confronted with one of those life moments in which she realized that her life could go one way or another.

“I remember being in a hospital and thinking, 'I don’t want to die a statistic. I’m more than a statistic. I don’t want to die a statistic.' And I got arrested and that helped me get my life together because I don’t really want to go to jail,” Ashlynn said.

She made milestones for herself. And eventually, became the person she is today, after finding what doctors call "medication assisted treatment," balanced with support groups and counseling. The first step though, says Dr. Adam Rubinstein, is making that call for help.

“My concern is that because we’re all so focused on Covid-19 and it is so scary, patients with opioid use disorder who were already moving in the shadows may be even more marginalized,” Dr. Rubinstein said.

Dr. Rubinstein works in both internal and addiction medicine.

“We take care of people who have a disorder that hijacks their brain, people that are compulsively using a substance and can’t stop on their own," he said.

The behaviors, he says, bring negative consequences. But those who suffer from the disease of addiction can't stop, and end up using so as to not suffer withdrawal.

“They think they’ll die when they’re in withdrawal and will do anything they can to get out of it. Which means using that drug of choice again,” he said.

The disease of addiction doesn't stop even in a global health crisis. The death rate from opioid overdoses is rising.

“The second problem is that Covid-19 brings unemployment, financial problems, isolation and depression. Third, is our healthcare system is now less accessible,” Dr. Rubinstein explained.

When we asked how the problem is addressed during a pandemic, Dr. Rubinstein said, “there is no one answer because addiction requires customization based on the provider and the patient deciding what is most effective.”

As for Ashlynn, she wants people to know there's hope. And a way out.

“I don’t regret what I went through, though, because it brought me to where I am today. I’m a different person than I was before I started using,” she said.

It's never too early and never too late to start the road to recovery, Ashlynn says.

For those who are ready to take the first step towards a new life, doctors recommend visiting www.samhsa.org and rethinkopioidaddiction.com

A judge formally approved a plan Friday to turn OxyContin maker Purdue Pharma into a new company no longer owned by members of the Sackler family and with its profits going to fight the opioid epidemic.

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Robert Drain officially confirmed the reorganization Friday, more than two weeks after he announced he would do so pending two largely technical changes to the plan presented by the company and hashed out with lawyers representing those with claims against the company.

His confirmation took more than six hours to read in court earlier this month, and the written version is 159 pages long, full of reasoning that appeals courts can consider later. Several states among other parties have already appealed the decision.

The deal resolves some 3,000 lawsuits filed by state and local governments, Native American tribes, unions, hospitals and others who claimed the company's marketing of prescription opioids helped spark and continue an overdose epidemic linked to more than 500,000 deaths in the U.S. in the last two decades.

The plan will use company profits and $4.5 billion in cash and charitable assets from members of the Sackler family to pay some individual victims amounts expected to range from $3,500 to $48,000, and help fund opioid treatment and prevention programs across the U.S.

Members of the Sackler family are also required to get out of the opioid business worldwide in time.

Millions of company documents, including communications with company lawyers, are to be made public.

The changes are to take effect when the bankruptcy process is finalized; the earliest that could be is in December.

The attorneys generals from the states of Connecticut, Maryland, Washington and the District of Columbia, as well as the U.S. Bankruptcy Trustee have all announced appeals. Their chief objection is that members of the wealthy Sackler family would be granted protection from lawsuits over opioids.

For many people in recovery from opioid addictions or who have lost loved ones to overdoses, the deal is infuriating.

Ellen Isaacs, a mother whose son died from an overdose, filed court papers requesting Drain not accept the plan. At a hearing on Monday, she gave a passionate some sometimes tearful 40-minute speech on her request. Like other activists, she asserted that Sackler family members — who have never been charged with criminal wrongdoing — are getting away with crimes, and that politicians and courts are not doing enough to end the opioid epidemic.

"The attorneys are playing games on paper and humans are dying," she said.

Drain said the money from the settlement would help avert more deaths, even if it will come too late for Isaacs' son.

"I did not become a judge to get things wrong," he told her.

He stood by his confirmation of the plan.

At the hearing, Drain also said he would approve a request from Purdue to use nearly $7 million to start setting up the funds that will distribute settlement money to victims, government entities and others. He also, for the third year, approved a plan of incentive payments for Purdue executives if they meet certain goals.

RICHMOND, Va. — Jennifer Campbell has faced loss, addiction, and domestic abuse.

“It just took being in the wrong place at the wrong time, at a weak moment, and I used again, and from the next six months was the deepest, darkest hell I've ever known,” Campbell said.

Campbell has even been on the brink of death.

“He beat me so badly, he put me in a body bag in a river and I was unconscious, but I kept waking up," Campbell said. "I don't know if the cold water, but I kept waking up and I try to fight my way out of a body bag. And someone pulled up into these woods, by the grace of God, and he saw them. So he came and got me out of the river and took me back to the house. So God saved me once again.”

It wasn’t until she was arrested for drug distribution that she finally got away from that man. She says she believes God used the time she served behind bars as an opportunity to press the reset button.

After jail, Campbell went to a long-term residential facility called the Mercy House. She’s now been sober for four years. Rosalinda Rivera is the executive director of Mercy House.

“Our home represents probably about 90% of women that have been through sexual abuse, through some kind of physical abuse," Rivera said. "They are victims of violence, domestic violence, who have many of them have turned to addiction to find a way of an escape.”

Rivera says the women go through a series of family classes, job-related training, and relapse prevention. She says a recent study done by the University of Maryland shows 65% of the women who finish the program never go back to their addiction.

“For the 50 years that we've been doing this program, we have seen that the core issue is a lack of hope.”

As the U.S. opioid crisis continues to get worse, Rivera says it was heartbreaking to turn ladies away at the beginning of the pandemic.

“Once we realized that we could do testing and let people in the door, the phones, well, the phones never stop ringing,” Campbell said.

Campbell says there are many reasons people facing addiction have been struggling more throughout the pandemic.

“Probably they lost their jobs and they were struggling financially," Campbell said. "Maybe someone in their family was suffering from COVID-19 and maybe someone in their family passed away due to it. And I mean, that just brings on so many different aspects of grief. And some people don't know any way to deal with that other than to run to drugs.”

According to the CDC, a record 93,000 people died from a drug overdose in 2020.

Dr. Nora Volkow is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health. She says the opioid crisis has basically been put on the backburner during the pandemic.

“The number of people that have died from opioids significantly rose during the pandemic year of 2020," Dr. Volkow said. "The estimate is that there was at least a 30% increase from 2019. And so this is the largest increase in overdose deaths that we have ever recorded.”

She says the health care system was saturated because of COVID-19 and there’s been a rise in more dangerous drugs like fentanyl.

“The people that are mostly affected are between 24 and 54 years of age, so they are at the prime of their lives,” Dr. Volkow said.

In order to make these numbers go down, Dr. Volkow says we need to end the stigmas surrounding addiction so people aren’t ashamed to seek medical help. She also would like to see an expansion of access to naloxone – a medication that rapidly reverses an opioid overdose.

Places like the Mercy House help these women to view themselves in a more positive light giving them the chance to start a new chapter.

“It's a battle that they're going to deal with the rest of their life, and so if they plug in a community that's thriving, if you get plugged and if they have purpose, so many people are just looking for a purpose," Rivera said. "And when they find purpose, that is what kind of separates them and helps them stay on the path to recovery.”

Advocates say there's a huge need for expanded access to medication as the number of victims affected by opioid use disorder continues to rise.

Looking at pictures of Adam Black in a bodybuilding competition, you'd never know that he's 7 years in recovery from opioid addiction.

“I hit a spiritual bottom and everything around me was falling apart. I couldn’t keep anything together in my life, the drugs become everything to you,” said Black.

When those drugs truly become everything to you, Black says, you "lose yourself."

He describes running out of money and says, "I couldn’t feed my addiction anymore, so I started breaking into unlocked cars, stealing change, trying to feed my addiction and, being an addict, I couldn’t do anything right, couldn’t even be a criminal right.”

He went to prison for three years, and then he ended up in the hospital.

“(I) Got heart surgery. I was like 150 pounds at the time, that was one of my rock bottoms, right there, that changed my life, that I can’t keep going this way.”

It was then that he was able to change. It wasn't overnight, but eventually he found Groups Recover Together, and received medication-assisted treatment.

He says, “I don’t have cravings anymore. I’m able to maintain a job, a family, everything I was working so hard to get, I’m able to have that now, and I owe it all to Groups.”

Dr. Gus Crothers is an addiction medicine specialist. He treats people with substance abuse disorders.

“The treatment is a combination of medication, counseling, and lifestyle changes. And those are the same core treatments we use for managing any chronic disease," said Crothers.

He says one of the treatments has tight, and some say, outdated restrictions. It's known as the "X-Waiver" and it requires doctors to get extra training before they can prescribe buprenorphine.

It's a legal hurdle that dates back to the early 2000s.

“When we have such an access gap to medications, people are thinking we should get rid of the data waiver and get rid of those restrictions that limit access to treatment,” Crothers said.

We asked the Department of Health and Human Services about the waiver, which has become confusing for some.

The Trump administration removed the X-Waiver shortly before President Joe Biden's inauguration. Recently, the current administration reversed that decision. A spokesperson for HHS says the previous announcement was made prematurely, but they are committed to "examine ways to increase access to buprenorphine."

Which means, doctors still need extra training to prescribe the treatment, which people like Black say, is life-changing and lifesaving.

“I still take the medication. I’m weaning down as we speak. I sponsor a couple of other guys, I check in with 3 or 4 other people at our group. You can’t do this alone, you need to be there for the people who are going through this," Black said.

You can't go it alone, and Black says, you can get help.