Taner Milazzo is outside Project Safe Point in Albany and just picked up four doses of nasal naloxone, or Narcan. What he has in his hands may save a life.

He knows firsthand as someone who has overdosed more times than he can count.

“Back when heroin was just heroin, one or two Narcans, and usually people would come back,” Milazzo said. “Now it’s taking a lot more, because of the stuff they cut the drugs with, the fentanyl, the tar fentanyl.”

Milazzo is from Watertown and moved to Albany earlier this year for a fresh start. For most of his life, he’s been battling a drug addiction which led to serving time in prison and even living on the streets.

“I knew I was at a point in time where if I didn’t get sober now, my life was going to end,” Milazzo said.

He is hoping a new environment and new faces will finally kick methadone out of his life for good. But he’s coming to the area at a time where Albany County is seeing a concerning trend of opioid overdose deaths.

County Executive Dan McCoy says so far, through the end of May, there have been 37 confirmed opioid overdose deaths.

“On the ground is where we need help the most. On the ground is where we’re losing people,” said Ashley Radliff, a former heroin addict who now works to help others going through what she once experienced. “On the ground is where it matters, and it gets people where they need to be.”

She always carries naloxone just in case it’s needed, which is crucial now with overdoses continuing to rise.

“Even if I just see somebody I think could use it, I will hand it out,” Radliff said. “I always keep some in my bag. You never know when people are going to overdose.”

There are also 13 additional suspected cases still awaiting final toxicology reports, which means the county could have as many 50 deaths in the first five months of this year. Last year, the county saw 99 opioid overdose deaths.

But Radliff is doing her part to try and change that trend.

“I’ve seen Taner make hard decisions that I was praying so hard that he would make, and he made them on his own, and it’s been very impressive,” Radliff said.

“I’ve found happiness in sobriety being in Albany, which I never felt anywhere else,” Milazzo said.

He is now three months clean. Seeing that progress is what motivates Radliff to continue making sure people are getting the right services and treatment.

“Human lives are important, and once you can invest in that, we can help people get to the other side of what their recovery looks like to them, not you,” Radliff said.