Old Capitol exhibit pulls opioid crisis from the shadows

IOWA CITY — When Ann Aschoff heads to work every morning, she brings her son along.

Sitting across from patients as a University of Iowa nurse practitioner — now certified in addiction medicine — Aschoff turns to Zach for advice. When she heads home, to the store or interacts with neighbors, strangers and friends, he’s there reminding her of their humanity.

“He was just a wonderful adviser to me,” she said. “And I feel like I know him well enough that even though he's not physically here, I'm pretty sure I know what he would say.”

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Zach Aschoff died of a heroin overdose early Feb. 27, 2016, at the age of 27.

The loss was stunning for its surprise and for what it took from his family and friends and the Iowa City-Coralville community — where he grew up catching frogs and riding bikes as a kid, skateboarding and snowboarding as a teen and finding his passion for boxing and mixed martial arts fighting as a young adult.

“This was not something we thought was going on,” Aschoff said of her philosophic, musical, athletic and funny son — who went to West High and then Drake University before returning to Iowa City, where he was working as a cook at the Iowa River Power Company. “It just completely pulled the rug out from under me.”

In his loss, though, Zach gave something, too.

“He left me a world that I was completely unaware of — ignorant to,” Aschoff said. “I was in my own little world. I didn't know about any of this.”

But she does now — inspired by her son to get certified in addiction medicine.

And knowledge is power for family members, for communities, for health care providers and for the men and women — sons and daughters, moms and dads, brothers and sisters — battling drug addiction and the mental health challenges involved.

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“With mental health and with substance use, it’s the stigma that kills,” Aschoff said. “It’s the hiding it from people that they love.”

By bringing the challenges, the faces, the names and the stories to light, she said, communities can learn, individuals with dependency can get care and families and friends touched by overdose can grieve — and celebrate.

“The ‘Into Light’ project gives people permission to celebrate that person that they loved,” Aschoff said of a nationwide effort with an exhibit at the UI. “And that’s so important because when there's stigma associated with a type of death, like an overdose death, people don't talk about it — don't feel that they can talk about it freely because there's a certain amount of shame.

“And that is such a big part of why people don't seek help.“

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‘Every corner of Iowa’

Zach Aschoff is among hundreds remembered and celebrated through the “Into Light” project aimed at “illuminating the human impact of drug addiction” through portraits of people who’ve died from drug-related causes.

Aiming for exhibits in every state — with each featuring up to 41 original graphite portraits — Iowa’s gallery opened in January in the Old Capitol Museum on the UI campus and will run through the end of the year.

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The Iowa exhibit includes 31 portraits — including the son of the project’s founder, who is included in every exhibit.

“He is not from Iowa,” Pentacrest Museums spokeswoman Jessica Smith said. “But the other 30 that are on display are all Iowans. They’re from every corner of Iowa, and they all have very different stories, but their families have something in common — which is that they lost a loved one to drug addiction.”

Other Iowa portraits include a stay-at-home mom, a varsity soccer player, a carpenter plagued by chronic pain and a beloved daughter who’s battle with addiction had brought her through a treatment program before she later succumbed to substance missuse.

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“These things that a lot of people are going through are really being experienced in the shadows,” Smith said. “There is stigma attached to it and blame to individuals making choices, and this is an opportunity to reframe scientifically and bring into light the idea that drug addiction is a disease, and the things that the individuals go through and the families or loved ones of folks are going through are in many ways shared experiences.

“And we're able to heal and do better and learn more when things are not in the shadows.”

The Iowa exhibit’s university base has allowed for curricular components and partnerships with instructors and students on campus — like those studying public health, psychology, nursing and literature.

A member of the UI music therapy faculty, for example, brought her students to the exhibit and asked them to compose a piece of music inspired by a portrait from the gallery.

“With its goals to confront the stigma and marginalization experienced by those suffering from addiction, and to promote a more understanding community that respects and supports those individuals in their humanity, the project models the core values that underpin our efforts to promote a welcoming and inclusive environment and to foster holistic well-being and success,” UI Provost Kevin Kregel said at the exhibit’s opening.

In those remarks, Kregel noted the “urgency of the opioid crisis,” the “crucial need for trained and empathetic health care providers,” and the university’s efforts to help — like through its Rural Health Care Partnership.

That work is focused on reducing rural health care disparities by improving access through collaboration; expanding screening, training and telehealth services related to substance use and mental health; and training future providers.

“Raising awareness about substance use disorders and their impact on Iowans and Iowa communities is crucial to these efforts,” Kregel said.

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‘In an ideal world’

Although the opioid crisis hasn’t hit Iowa as hard as some states, it is prevalent in each of its 99 counties, according to Dr. Alison Lynch, director of addiction medicine in the UI Department of Psychiatry.

“Right now, we have about 1,000 patients that we're taking care of — people coming from all over Iowa, especially the eastern half of Iowa,” said Lynch, who started UI Health Care’s first medication treatment clinic for substance use disorders.

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Opioid addiction — while definitely not new — has evolved over the decades from urban-focused heroin to Oxycodone addiction to fentinyl-laced drugs contributing to a surge of overdose complications and deaths, characterized as an opioid epidemic.

In the face of the crisis, Lynch said health care providers and public health advocates have upped their use and distribution of medications — including Naloxone, which can treat a narcotic overdose in an emergency.

“It blocks the effects of the opioids that are in their system and reverses the overdose,” she said. “They stop having opioid effects and start breathing again.”

Other medical treatments for opioid use disorder include methadone and Buprenorphine — which reduce symptoms of opiate withdrawal and block the opioids’ euphoric effects.

“There's a lot of really good things that happen when people get on these two medications, and yet there's a lot of stigma around them,” Lynch said. “A lot of doctors don't prescribe these medications. We've had to fight a lot over the last eight to 10 years to try to get insurance to cover them and cover them without a lot of unnecessary barriers. So in an ideal world, it would be much easier to access for people.”

And efforts like the Into Light project can help, according to Lynch.

“It’s just that human impact that makes it more relatable — to see that this is not some sort of fictional character,” she said. “This was a person, and it was somebody's child and somebody's loved one and somebody's neighbor.”

Telling those stories can educate the public, inspire those needing help, cultivate community collaboration, compel improved health care, and support the families and friends of those who’ve lost loved ones — like Aschoff.

“The heaviest burden to carry is the story that’s not told,” she said.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com