While the numbers are finally starting to decline, more than 74,000 Americans are still dying every year from opioid overdoses.

Despite that, very few people struggling with addiction get treatment.

Tonight, William Brangham looks at the renewed focus on methadone, one of the oldest and most effective medications in this fight.

They give me 27 days at a time.

For Natalie Knight, what's in these little white bottles has turned her life around.

It's nasty.

That pink liquid is methadone, and it's helped her tame an opioid addiction that she has struggled

with for close to a decade.

Actually, such a small amount, but it really is, it's amazing that I don't get the highs,

I don't get the lows, I don't get anything that I would get on a normal opiate.

Her path to addiction was like millions of others, a legal opioid prescription to help

with chronic pain caused by an autoimmune disorder and a difficult pregnancy.

At first, it really helped, but within a few years, she could not stop and her life began

to unravel.

I was still trying to be a wife and a mother, which I was failing at both.

And I was not able to hold a job because when you run out of pills every three days,

opiate withdrawal is excruciating.

It's excruciating.

And you're sweating and freezing at the same time.

I can't imagine doing anything like that. Yeah. And every single day revolved around finding what I

needed, even if it was just to get me through the next day. I got a manza puppy. She tried several

other treatments, including Suboxone, a medication that helps curb the cravings

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