‘Lost in your own hell’: As pandemic recedes, worsened opioid epidemic persists July 7, 2021 8:34 PM Madalyn O'Neill Updated: MINERAL POINT, Wis. – The COVID-19 pandemic overshadowed and worsened a deadly epidemic that touches so many in the country. The challenges of the pandemic drove many to substance use, whether it was a new habit or an old one. ‘I had no one to talk to’: COVID disrupts usual support system “I had a really bad life until moving here,” said Shaun Jaco, sitting on a swinging bench outside his Mineral Point home. “I never had friends like I have up here.” It took a change of scenery and a new support system for his life to look brighter.