Ted Fessides, deputy chief of administration for Cranberry Township EMS, outlines the Hope Program during a training session Tuesday.

CRANBERRY TWP — There are days when Melissa Coblentz feels the frustration.

A certified recovery specialist, she spends her time working with those battling through addiction, trying their best to stay on the road to recovery. Often, those same people relapse, falling victim to the familiar pangs of addiction.

“You get tired and worn out,” Coblentz, who is in recovery herself, told a dozen people gathered Tuesday in the Cranberry Township Training Center. “You have to remind yourself, 'I come from this.'”

Still, that doesn't always work to silence the familiar question: “why can't you just stop?”

Those gathered Tuesday were first responders and emergency medical personnel who will take part in the township's Hope Program, a pilot initiative aimed at helping people in their recovery efforts. The program is funded through a $5,000 grant from Magellan health, and is being implemented county wide through various EMS and police organizations and treatment facilities.

According to Ted Fessides, deputy chief of administration for Cranberry Township EMS, the program has been in the planning stages since earlier this year, and plans call for action to begin Nov. 1.

Under the program, law enforcement and EMS agencies will have release forms to get people signed up for the program. It might be overdose patients or people that police encounter through their jobs that are identified as needing help with drug addiction. Fessides noted that while opioid overdoses are down in the county so far in 2018, other drug overdoses are slowly increasing, and while the program was created with opioid addiction in mind, all addictions will be handled.

This is an excerpt — read more about the program in Sunday's Butler Eagle.