If you’re at a loss for what to do with your Thursday night this week, let us help you out. Take a trip to Slippery Rock and participate in a public forum on Pennsylvania’s opioid crisis.

Late last year Butler County embarked on a mission to confront the opioid crisis head-on with information about everything from why police departments use the anti-overdose medication naloxone to what state officials want to do to help pull opioid users out of their spirals of addiction.

So far two forums have been held. The third is slated for 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday, in the auditorium of Slippery Rock High School. And if you can, you should attend. There’s no better use for that two hours of your life.

This month’s forum will feature health professionals talking about the stigma associated with drug addiction, as well as how people can best help drug addicts and abusers. People will get a chance to hear directly from members of families who have members in drug recovery and have firsthand experience with opioid addiction.

That last part — hearing the stories of drug addicts and the people who love them — is particularly vital to people struggling to gather information and form opinions about how Pennsylvania (and Butler County) can best address the opioid epidemic.

Stepping forward and sharing painful or embarrassing information can provide its own inertia. One person taking the initiative can spur others to speak up as well. And as more people share their experiences, they both widen and deepen the scope. It’s no longer the story of just one or two people, or the story of drug addicts. It’s the story of entire families; entire communities.

That aspect of these forums is just as important as people hearing about the physiological particulars of addiction, or a talking-points rundown of what law enforcement and government agencies want to do to address the crisis.

At its core, this epidemic is being measured in human costs: the preventable deaths of thousands of overdose victims, the suffering of thousands whose lives have been derailed by addiction, and the misgivings of communities caught within this whirlpool of social decay.

There’s no better way to honor the courage of the people willing to pull back the curtain on that suffering than to set aside a couple of hours on Thursday night, open yourself up and hear what they have to say.