BATON ROUGE — Across the Baton Rouge area, dozens of recovery centers provide critical addiction services help that resident Samuel Webber says saved his life after years of escalating drug use.

Webber credits local advocate Tonja Myles with helping him turn his life around.

"They gave me a lot of hope," Weber said. "They respected me just like I was somebody who never used drugs." 

After 20 years of grassroots work in Louisiana, Myles now serves in Washington, D.C., as director of the Office of Recovery at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. 

Her national role comes as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports a multi-year decline in U.S. overdose deaths  dropping from 106,881 in 2023 to 70,646 in 2025, and reaching 65,351 as of May.

While overdose numbers continue to drop across the country, Myles says that the progress is only a starting point for further action.

"I want to put recovery on the forefront to let people know that recovery is real," she said. "The data shows that when we started doing that work, the numbers are now down. And we're still not satisfied."

For Myles, a native of Baton Rouge's 70805 and 70802 ZIP codes, the fight is personal. She is a survivor of drug addiction and mental health struggles who has been in recovery for 39 years.

"The fact that I'm doing this work is to let anybody know: if I can do it, you can do it."