Because the drug is so strong, they need to use about twice as much naloxone to save you, Mr. Giordano said.

In February she founded the Solace Foundation in southern California to distribute the naloxone among addicts, many of them homeless, their relatives and friends.

If clients overdose — and people do, multiple times a day — they’re revived immediately with naloxone, a drug that reverses the effects of opioids.