In Loving Memory
Father to a darling 9-year-old daughter and husband of a gorgeous wife, son of adoring parents - Jarrett Presant, 37, was a successful real estate broker living in sunny Florida.
What should have been a dream life was a living nightmare for him and all of those around him, because Jarrett was also one of 21 million Americans battling a substance use disorder.
On October 15, 2017, Jarrett Presant lost his war on drugs when he died from an overdose of opioids and alcohol.
If you or a loved one is struggling with narcotics or alcohol abuse, you are not alone.
This website, created by Jarrett’s dad, Sandy Presant, honors his Jarrett’s legacy by providing free and reliable resources for families and friends of people in the throes of untreated addiction and alcoholism.
About Sandy
We Need Standards in Addiction Treatment
My son, Jarrett, died on October 15, 2017, at age 37, from an overdose involving opioids and alcohol. Tragically, he went to a methadone clinic that never tested him for alcohol and/or other substances and he had alcohol and Xanax in his system, and the mixture killed him.
I am working to help get two bills passed which deal with requiring treatment standards at all residential treatment centers in our state. SB 823 would require the California Department of Health Care Services (DHCS) to require all licensed addiction treatment facilities to adopt and maintain evidence-based treatment criteria in order to receive and maintain a license to treat in California. The other, SB 275 would establish standards for Youth Substance Use Disorder treatment & prevention. Next year, we plan to follow up with the same requirements for outpatient treatment programs.
As it stands now level of services licensed addiction treatment centers provide varies and not enough of them have obtained the two levels of certification which require evidence-based treatment. Evidence-based treatment simply means treatment that is based on science. It means that my son would have been tested for other substances in his body before given what turned out to be a lethal dose of methadone. These bills will require that treatment providers adopt and maintain an agreed upon standard of care in order to officially provide treatment in the state of California.
As we are all painfully too aware, solutions for the opioid epidemic are not on the fast track. The rates continue to rise. 2018 has proven to be the worst year on record for overdose deaths, and sadly an even larger number of parents will have to bury a child in 2019.
Share Your Story
In order to improve lasting outcomes and help our loved ones find their true selves in recovery, it is imperative that we need to improve the quality of treatment.
My greatest wish is to spare other parents from getting that late-night phone call that I got last October. Drug and alcohol Treatment needs to be standardized across the board and providers need to be held accountable to these standards.
Sanford C. Presant
November 18, 2018
