As a professor, the last thing you want to see is a student nodding off during one of your lectures.

In 1999, Dr. Perilou Goddard, a professor in the Psychological Science department specializing in addiction science, was teaching her drug policy course when she noticed one of her students dozing off. She was disappointed—were her lectures that uninteresting?—but then the student approached her afterward to explain why he kept falling asleep. He didn’t struggle to stay awake because he found the class boring, but, rather, had started methadone treatments after back surgery left him addicted to opioids. He was tired because he was still adjusting to the doses. 

Dr. Goddard’s mood changed from disappointment to joy over her student feeling comfortable enough to discuss his disorder with her.

“We should make a connection on a human level,” Dr. Goddard says. “Instead of treating you like vermin, I see you as a human being trying to get better.”

The experience emboldened her, but it wasn’t until 2013, as the nation’s opioid crisis reached a boiling point (the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would officially declare two years later that opioid-related overdose deaths had reached “epidemic levels”) that Goddard’s life changed when a second student, Mary Jo Schmidt, approached her after class with a challenge.“

She said ‘Dr. Goddard, you can’t just sit in your classroom anymore,’” Goddard remembers. 

That’s when Goddard’s real-world activism began. She started booking public speaking appearances, presented a Six@Six lecture called “Heroin Hits Home” and got involved in any other area she could find. “I won’t change the world,” she says. “But I think I can make a bigger difference talking about it.”

Goddard’s not-so secret weapon is awareness, and discussing addiction with both the general population and those undergoing the challenge is central to how she tackles the opioid crisis. And, as a psychologist, she makes sure her communication about the issue is backed by science, which she’s always eager to help people understand.

“I can read the science and translate for them,” Dr. Goddard says. 

She’s passionate about the need to adjust how we think about addiction, which is often wrongly assumed to be based in choice, minimizing how humans struggle with the disease. Goddard explains that numerous factors in a person’s life can lead to addiction, from a genetic disposition to past experiences of trauma. She cites ACEs (Adverse Childhood Experiences)—traumatic experiences that happen before the age of 18—as similar to PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in how they can create internal “voids” that opioids too-easily fill.

In addition to bringing awareness to the realities of addiction, Goddard also spreads the word about options available to people with substance-use disorders, including controversial programs such as needle-exchange outreaches. “[People say] that’s enabling,” she says. “But research shows it doesn’t lead to more injecting.” 

She also encourages people to carry naloxone (Narcan), a nasal spray that can be used for the emergency treatment of suspected opioid overdose. And there are other ways to help people who have overdosed; one of Dr. Goddard’s students used rescue breathing techniques to help someone before emergency vehicles arrived.

Goddard refers to herself as NKU’s “Educator at Large” when it comes to opioid problems, and her talks have created additional opportunities for the university. A new post-graduate certificate program in Addictions Research and Practice was, in fact, recently launched for students with a bachelor’s degree who want to learn more about addiction and innovative ways to offer treatment.

Unfortunately, the opioid crisis isn’t going away anytime soon—too many lives have been affected to right the ship overnight. But with people like Goddard working on raising awareness and educating the next generation of addiction specialists, there’s every reason to hope things will soon start to improve.