COLUMBUS (WCMH) — Any discussion about the growing drug overdose epidemic in Ohio eventually gets around to the shortage of treatment beds and aftercare resources.

Much of the focus in recent months has been on increasing the availability of Narcan, the opioid overdose reversal drug. If administered in time, Narcan can be a bridge to life. But health officials and first responders say that without adequate treatment opportunities, Narcan becomes a bridge to nowhere.

An aftercare program in Reynoldsburg called Summer Rays is trying to give recovering addicts the time and support needed to remake themselves. Executive Director Chuck Kirk, a recovering alcoholic, started the program 8 years ago. “This program is designed around not allowing you to be alone, left up to your own thinking,” Kirk says.

Kirk says the program now has more than 100 recovering addicts living in more than two dozen homes around Reynoldsburg. Participants all have jobs and pay their own way through the program. They get access to a personal training center and a gym. They have their own church and café and lots of group activities. But most of all, they have each other.

Recovering addict Dustin Holder says he’s luck to be alive and lucky to be in the Summer Rays program. “Positive stuff with positive people and I think that’s what keeps everybody here – seeing everybody else do good and wanting to do good with them,” Holder says.

Nathan Donald, 24, says it was important for him to stay away from old friends.”It’s got me away from all the people and things I’m used to being around and the people I associate getting high with,” Donald says.

Logan Michell says she’s been to jail and been to treatment but needed the environment at Summer Rays to get her life turned around. “I wanted to be in sober living around other sober people or else I knew I wasn’t going to make it,” Michell says.

Kirk says the program gives the recovering addicts a way to stay away from old friends or old places associated with drugs. “I like to think we’re an extension of treatment programs,” Kirk says.”It’s that middle step – rather than going back home or going out on your own.”

The rules at Summer Rays are fairly strict. Chuck Kirk says anyone who can’t stay clean is dismissed.  And, he says, while they’re all addicts they are all very unique. “Taking each individual person and making it work is very tricky,” Kirk says. “I don’t have a day off let me tell you.”