Facing Fentanyl

Part 2 of Dylan’s story is about what comes after stabilization: rebuilding relationships, finding work, and discovering community through peer-recovery meetings. We talk about what long-term recovery actually looks like two years in — the slumps, the wins, and the...

Dylan shares how casual weekend use in high school turned into daily heroin dependence, then into fentanyl exposure through contaminated supply. Part 1 covers the school years, the first overdose, and the family intervention that pulled him out of Oregon...

Part 2 of Sam’s story follows the road from detox through three treatment attempts, the relapse that almost killed him, and the medication-assisted treatment (MAT) plan that finally held. We talk about buprenorphine, naloxone access, and what made the difference...

Sam walks us through the slow slide from a prescribed opioid after a sports injury to buying pills on social media. In Part 1, we hear about the early warning signs his family missed, how counterfeit M30s entered the picture,...

In this opening segment of the Breath of Life conversation, a family member shares the early hours after losing a loved one to fentanyl poisoning — what the phone call felt like, what the coroner said, and how the silence...

Part 2 of Dylan’s story is about what comes after stabilization: rebuilding relationships, finding work, and discovering community through peer-recovery meetings. We talk about what long-term recovery actually looks like two years in — the slumps, the wins, and the...

Dylan shares how casual weekend use in high school turned into daily heroin dependence, then into fentanyl exposure through contaminated supply. Part 1 covers the school years, the first overdose, and the family intervention that pulled him out of Oregon...

Part 2 of Sam’s story follows the road from detox through three treatment attempts, the relapse that almost killed him, and the medication-assisted treatment (MAT) plan that finally held. We talk about buprenorphine, naloxone access, and what made the difference...

Sam walks us through the slow slide from a prescribed opioid after a sports injury to buying pills on social media. In Part 1, we hear about the early warning signs his family missed, how counterfeit M30s entered the picture,...

In this opening segment of the Breath of Life conversation, a family member shares the early hours after losing a loved one to fentanyl poisoning — what the phone call felt like, what the coroner said, and how the silence...

“Not everyone makes it back. I’m lucky”. Bill gives us advice for parents, loved ones, and family on how to help, support, or intervene with someone suffering from fentanyl addiction. Listen to the season 2 finale of Bill’s story with...

learn the hard way with everything". Jail makes it possible for Bill to get off Fentanyl. Facing prison is an incentive to want to stay sober. I've tried to get sober before but I try a program that is embracing, becomes a community, and blessed to have been picked up after jail.

Pain pills are not enough. Who are these people around me? What am I doing around them? How did I get here? I’m offered heroin. It’s cheaper and stronger. I’m still able to hold a job. Things start slipping away...

You’re lucky you are alive, Bill gets told. But I have a game in 2 days? There’s no medicine strong enough for the pain. The pain in my body, but more in my heart. The painkiller prescriptions of Oxycontin, Xanax,...

They prescribe Bill painkillers. After 11 days in the ICU, being on crutches and being told to have other dreams other than football simply doesn’t hit home. The pain of a life outside of football and living on crutches is...

Fentanyl was not in the landscape of Bill’s dream. He was an up-and-coming local football star waiting for a college scholarship. His identity revolved around this game. Waking up in a hospital had it all come to a halt. We’d...

How exactly can you help a loved one who is suffering from Fentanyl addiction? Hear it from the personal story of Rob, the windows of opportunity, how his family helped by stopping getting him out of consequences, and the anti-intuitive behavior of supporting addiction by letting go and what this letting go really means.

"My esophagus was burning from throwing up so much. I couldn't help. I couldn't sleep." Rob gets sober at a detox. He embraces a 12 step community. People help and love him. He shares the variables that brought him to a place of regaining trust from family and friends.

Rob wakes up on the floor with her girlfriend on top of him. "You overdosed!" This wasn't the first time. Snorting Fentanyl keeps crossing the line, and thanks to Narcan, he can come back to life. Rob opens up about his past dealing with parents suffering from alcoholism and addiction. Dad commits suicide. Mom gets sober. "It's not why I got high. Did it probably play a part? Absolutely." The gateway drug was the traumatic environment.

Rob took his friend's grandma's minivan to drive down to Florida to get legally prescribed opiates.

This is the story of Rob, a student exposed to opiate prescriptions from a friend's parent medicine cabinet and furthered later by doctors

This is the story of Rob and the first time he experienced Fentanyl. This is a personal narrative podcast series delving into the roots of substance use disorders as a social and cultural documentary to understand the history of the...