[00:00:00] SAG Awards: And the actor goes to Michael Keaton. Keaton, Dope Sick. 

[00:00:11] Angela Kennecke: Actor Michael Keaton has won several awards, including his first Emmy, for his performance in the Hulu series, Dope Sick. The Batman actor portrays a hard working doctor in a small mining town who became addicted to the pain pills, that he prescribed.

Today on Grieving Out Loud, we have an exciting interview with the man who was the real life inspiration behind Keaton's compelling character.

[00:00:39] Stephen Loyd: Basically everything you see from the end of episode three until the end of episodes been happened in my life. So yeah, it's kind of weird to see it on TV. He won an Emmy for it and I tell people all the time is my running joke is that he was a hack before he got my role and you know I shot him, shot him started him.

Obviously Batman wasn't anything. 

[00:00:58] Angela Kennecke: All jokes aside, Dr. Lloyd's story is truly worth an Emmy Award winning series. He overcame abuse, wrestled with addiction, and faced heartbreaking losses, all while trying to maintain his composure as a dedicated physician and professor. 

[00:01:15] Stephen Loyd: I was teaching full time, and all four of those years I was voted the most outstanding instructor in the students internal medicine rotations.

And, you know, six weeks before I went to treatment back in 2004, I was at the graduation ceremony. And the students that honored me as being the mentor of the year for their entire med school, you know, all four years and I was using the whole time and I actually used in their ceremony. I went to the bathroom and used 160 milligrams of Oxycontin during the ceremony.

[00:01:50] Angela Kennecke: But Lloyd's story isn't just about challenges. It's a testament to resilience, strength, and the courage to face the darkest corners of life. public opinion. I hope you find this conversation as inspiring and informative as I have. I'm Angela Kennecke and you're listening to Grieving Out Loud.

Well, Dr. Lloyd, it's a pleasure to see you again after bumping into you in Washington, D. C. at some of these rallies that we were attending. It was during a tropical storm that is probably one of the things I remember most about it. 

[00:02:27] Stephen Loyd: Yeah, it was. And thanks for having me, you know, seeing you carrying the picture of Emily that day with, uh, you know, wind blowing rain sideways, which it was, I just couldn't wait to get to talk to you.

I had no idea what you did, but, you know, seeing your daughter and, cause that's a. That's a picture I see way too well. 

[00:02:43] Angela Kennecke: Oh, I know. I know. I'm not alone. And I just am trying to do everything I can to prevent these deaths, stop these deaths, but we're on the same wavelength here. But I had also, I had heard about you.

I had heard in these circles where we all travel now, I had heard about you. So I was so glad you agreed to do the podcast. And I want to start off by letting people know that You kind of have a famous character played by a famous actor based upon you and your life. Can you tell us about that? 

[00:03:09] Stephen Loyd: That's funny.

Uh, yes. The Michael Keaton character in the Hulu series, Dope Sick, is actually based on me from about episode 3 on. Whenever he develops his own addiction. Because I'm in recovery myself, and I'm sure we'll talk about that. But yeah, it's kind of weird to see it on TV. You know, because I told them the stories, and I'm not a writer.

They are great writers. And whenever we did it back in 2020, I didn't know who would be cast in that role. They didn't even have a clue how much of my material they would use, but basically everything you see from the end of episode three until the end of episodes that happened in my life. So yeah, it's kind of weird to see it on TV.

He won an Emmy for it. And I tell people all the time is my running joke is that he was a hack before he got my role. And, you know, I shot him, shot him to stardom. Obviously Batman wasn't anything. 

[00:03:54] Angela Kennecke: He maybe should have given you that Emmy. Maybe you deserve it. Did you get to meet Michael Keaton? 

[00:03:59] Stephen Loyd: You know, I did have the opportunity and it was at the premiere and I actually couldn't go, but Macy, the writer, you know, who wrote the book had called me and, and I was having surgery the next day that I had waited forever for and I don't have surgery.

So I couldn't go and it was interesting because. The next day I came into work and I don't run any of our social media stuff. I write content and you know, we got a whole team of people that does that stuff. And so one of our social media folks came up to me and goes, Hey doc, are you in trouble? And I thought, well, it's possible.

I mean, you know, my past, I said, no, I don't think so. Why? And he said, well, your LinkedIn page got like, you know, 2000 hits last night or some crazy number. And I was trying to think, you know, what happened? And so at the press conference afterwards, Beth told him, 

[00:04:40] Angela Kennecke: do you think they did an accurate job of portraying you and everything in that series?

[00:04:47] Stephen Loyd: Yeah, I thought it was phenomenally well done, even if I wasn't involved in it. The book itself follows a central character who's real. Her name is Tess and I actually know Tess's sister and Tess's daughter. Tess wound up, you know, like a lot do, lost her battle with addiction. And, and so the character on the Hulu series was not Tess, but it was rotated around a female character who wound up losing her battle as well.

And the depiction of her and her addiction and her family's, you know, reaction to that addiction. She was a lesbian when rural West Virginia. So you can imagine what that was like. And she worked in the coma and then, you know, her parents understanding of what was going on with her and the battles that took place in the house.

They were so well done. And then, you know, for my addiction, how they portrayed my own addiction, it was just perfect. I didn't have a single complaint about any of it. There's no Hollywood there. There wasn't anything that was over dramatized. I thought it was very, very well done. And the interaction with the pharmaceutical reps was accurate as well.

I experienced that. That wasn't me, but I had the same experience. So I thought it was well done. 

[00:05:49] Angela Kennecke: You would hope this series like Dope Sick, Painkiller, The Pharmacist, you know, we know, we know Dan, that they would make a difference or wake people up or at least educate people on the disease of addiction, how we got to this place in our society.

[00:06:06] Stephen Loyd: You hope that, you know, it's what I tell about the best book. Best book was a New York Times bestseller. The last time I looked, it sold, you know, half a million, 750, 000 copies. It's a lot, right? 20 million people saw Dope City. 

[00:06:18] Angela Kennecke: Wow. 

[00:06:19] Stephen Loyd: Right. And so, you don't, you realize the scope of this thing. And it's still going.

I mean, people still watch it now. It's very well done. You know, as, as the others, you know, painkiller. And I think that's based on Barry Mayer's book from back in the day. And, and then of course, you know, Dan's story with the pharmacist. And so I've had patients come to me whose parents were resistant to them seeing someone until they found out that I was the dope sick doc, right.

And I don't care. I'll use it however we got to, right. And so I think that it's built some roads there. And for me, when that came up was. We're going to use your stories if you will let us. And I was thinking, well, I planned on taking those to my grave. Right. But I had this thought, what if you had a disease, you never saw anybody get better, you know, what would that be like to be out there and struggling with addiction?

So has anybody ever get better? Because everybody wants to know the dirty underbelly. You know, that right. I want them to see this side of it, this side of me and you interacting and us running into each other in Washington and the other families who have taken this tragedy and come out on the other side and are doing positive things moving forward and how we put together these lives that we have in those pieces are still missing, right?

We're never going to fix that, but how, you know, how we are able to recover. And that's the message I always want to bring. And if they want to know the dirty underbelly, I'm fine with that too. But this is the message that we want out there. 

[00:07:42] Angela Kennecke: Right. Right. Well, let's start at the beginning for people that don't know your story.

Lloyd's battle with substances began in college. When he decided to drink, he had a tough time stopping until he passed out or ran out of alcohol. Despite his use, Lloyd managed to still earn excellent grades and get into medical school. 

[00:08:09] Stephen Loyd: In med school itself, I actually didn't use, I'd never been a successful drinker in my life.

And the weird thing is, is I had no idea that my. issue with not being a very good drinker would put me at risk to misuse these pain pills. I mean, no clue because we aren't taught it in medical school and residency, believe it or not. But that's why I loved your ideas so much with the books and the education you're doing.

Those kids are probably better educated than the doctors in their community, which is a really strange thing, but I promise you it's true. And so when I got to med school and I met my classmates, they were the most impressive bunch of people I'd ever met in my life. And I didn't want them to see me drink because I was embarrassing.

And so I didn't drink all the way through med school. They actually elected me their class president on the second or third day of med school, and I just couldn't embarrass them. And so I didn't. But at the very end of medical school, when everybody went their different directions, I was back drinking pretty quick after that, and then, you know, not long after, found opioid pain medication.

So I was towards the end of my residency when I picked up for the first time. 

[00:09:07] Angela Kennecke: And it was an opioid? I'm afraid. And did you know much about opioids at that time? And I agree with what you say about physicians not getting the training when it comes to addiction 

[00:09:17] Stephen Loyd: at all, really. Right. It's weird. You know.

I'll guarantee you this, you know, more than 95 percent of the doctors in your community. I mean, I bet my life on that one, but you know, we really don't get training. We don't get training on the proper prescribing of controlled substances for both acute and chronic pain. And we get almost no training on the recognition of risk factors for and referral to treatment for people with any type of S.

U. D. You know? And so when I say issued, I mean, substance use disorder. You know, we don't get training on that and it's really embarrassing. So I didn't, I didn't know very much about it. You know, I knew opioid pain medication. I knew what we used them for in the clinical setting. You know, also knew that they were highly abused.

I mean, this is like 2000, 2001. So Barry Mayer's book, Painkiller hadn't come out yet, right. It was still down the road, but we already saw, I grew up in rural Appalachia. So in rural Appalachia, we were already seeing this, right. We were getting news reports on the radio at night of these overdoses secondary to this drug called OxyContin.

So I was aware of that, obviously. And then the promotion of the drug in my offices. But when I picked that thing up, did I realize that within a matter of months. that I would have to have that over everything else in my life, including my wife, my children, my career. No, I didn't have any appreciation for that at all.

I just thought it was weak minded people. 

[00:10:35] Angela Kennecke: And so the first time you took an opioid, what did it do for you? Was it something I asked this because I personally don't suffer from substance use disorder, but I have shared a stage with many people who have suffered from opioid use disorder who told me. Like the first time or the second time they did something like this, they found their answer in life.

I find that to be so interesting. 

[00:10:58] Stephen Loyd: No question. That's what I was going to tell you. I came from a background of a lot of addiction in my family and of trauma. I'm a survivor of physical and sexual abuse. And I had no idea that those things put me at increased risk. And so the first time that I took that pain pill, it was a Vicodin.

Broke it in half, so it was two and a half milligrams. It made me feel normal. I'm It made me feel like I had found the answer to what I had been looking for to relieve this thing I had inside of me my whole life and I, I was successful. I mean, I, I did pretty good, right? I mean, I did well in school and had an MD degree and I'm getting ready to, you know, step out into a career that I've trained for for a long time.

And really financially, I probably wasn't going to have to really worry a whole lot until, you know, the day I lied, unless I somehow messed it up. But it felt like it completed me, and so I would agree with those people wholeheartedly. I know exactly what that feels like.

[00:11:56] Angela Kennecke: That feeling soon led to an addiction that would take over his life. Days after taking his first pill, Dr. Lloyd stole a few of his aunt's prescription painkillers and then later began keeping the prescriptions his patients brought during a visit and writing them a new one.

[00:12:18] Stephen Loyd: Within three years, I was using 500 milligrams of Oxy's a day, and so if you think about that, I went from One half of a Vicodin, five milligrams to 500. So that's a hundred pills a day that accelerated pretty quick. I got there in about two and a half years and you know, I wasn't living underneath the bridge.

I was seeing your friends and family and relatives in the hospital. I'm a hospitalist, internal medicine physician. So I'm working in the ICU medical step down units, you know, taking care of patients every day. 

[00:12:47] Angela Kennecke: Addiction among these high stress fields. In the medical profession, it's really not unusual whether people are turning to alcohol or pills, whether it's a doctor or a nurse.

It's not unusual. 

[00:12:59] Stephen Loyd: It's not. It's actually higher than the general population. The lifetime prevalence is about 18 to 20 percent, which as you think about it, it's about 1 in 5, and point prevalence is around 2 percent. So just think about that in the community you live in. For every hundred medical providers out there you have, two of them are in active addiction.

Right, Nat? And so it's not, but it's this shame thing, right? No, and we kind of talked a little bit about that in DC, you know, I have access to basically anything that I need yet. I can't tell anybody I've got this problem or I'm going to lose everything I've worked my entire life for. And so the denial potential there is really, really high because you want to protect this license that I worked really hard for in this board certification.

I worked really hard for. I don't want it taken away from me, and it, oh, by the way, it's also how I provide a living for my family, so denial in these professional populations is, is really high because of what you stand to lose. 

[00:13:53] Angela Kennecke: I think what people don't understand about addiction is that they don't understand when you have so much to lose, why you'd continue.

I actually am friends with an eye doctor who started breaking into people's homes to steal their medicine, and she has since gotten her license. It's vicious. In recovery, she's gotten her license back, but boy, was it a shameful thing and people don't always understand why when you have so much to lose, do 

[00:14:18] Stephen Loyd: you continue to 

[00:14:18] Angela Kennecke: use?

[00:14:19] Stephen Loyd: It's what I didn't understand. I mean, you know what I do now and, and this is my life. If you told me I had to go back and work in the hospital and do what I used to, I'd quit because I really feel like this is why I'm here. I mean, I went through this right at the start of the opioid crisis. I have MD after my name.

I think it positioned me to fulfill what I was put on this earth to do. I mean, I believe that with everything I have and I'm not one of those dudes. I just, I'm just telling you. And so what I didn't realize is that in addiction, you lose access to the frontal lobe of your brain. Your frontal lobe of your brain is about insight, judgment, and empathy.

So if we take any of us and we get rid of our frontal lobes, basically did a lobotomy, right? Just cut all the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of our brain. We'd be driven solely by our pleasure center. And I don't think any of us have a really hard time if we're honest with ourselves and figuring out where we would wind up if we were driven solely by pleasure, right?

We'd all wind up in jail basically by noon. And so I didn't realize any of that. I didn't realize that the part of my brain that controlled my desire and my will to live, which is pretty strong, would be overcome or hijacked by this. I didn't get that right until I lived it. And then when I lived it, I got it wholeheartedly.

I love my wife. I love my kids, but the truth is in the throes of my addiction. I had to have this thing, or I thought that I would die. And what would you do to get the thing you thought you would die without? And the answer to that's anything. So your friend, who's the eye doctor breaking into houses, still a medication.

I get that. I'm not condoning it. I get it. 

[00:15:44] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. 

[00:15:44] Stephen Loyd: Right. If you look at dope, sick Keaton taking his patients pain medication and just riding them more, I did that. I mean, that's my story. 

[00:15:51] Angela Kennecke: Here's Dr. Lloyd's story in the Dope Sick trailer.

[00:16:01] Dopesick trailer: I can't live like this anymore. Let's start you on this. Call on a miracle drug. You only take two a day. I think I can make this the biggest drug in the world. You think maybe that medicine might be just a tad more addictive than you said? That's not what we're hearing. 

[00:16:19] Chazz Smith: Something is happening here.

[00:16:24] Stephen Loyd: Would I do that today? Heck no, right? It's unethical. It's, you know, stealing, right? There's a lot of things wrong with it, but in the moment, I felt like I had to have it or I was going to die. 

[00:16:33] Angela Kennecke: And it was lucky that you were using in the time period, if you want to use the word luck, I'm sorry, but it was lucky it was during that time period and not now because now the drug supply is so deadly.

[00:16:46] Stephen Loyd: I think about that all the time. I've done a lot of these. You're the first person to ever ask me this. I think about that a lot, you know, because before my use got so high, I had access. Right. I mean, all my buddies are doctors and they don't look at me that way. And so I had access, people's medicine cabinets, right.

But when you get up to a certain amount, there's no choice but to go to the street. And, you know, think about what I could have gotten ahold of then. It wasn't around and the things that were on the street were diverted pharmaceuticals. And so, you know, I just didn't get ahold of it. I would've more than likely gotten ahold of it.

Right. If it had been now. So you're right, it's a timing thing for sure. 

[00:17:26] Angela Kennecke: So what was your life like at that highest level of use, three years or so into your active addiction? 

[00:17:33] Stephen Loyd: It's so funny, you know, to think about because when I hear people talk about their bottoms, mine wasn't that at all. And sometimes I, you know, I have imposter syndrome about being in recovery because.

I haven't had it as tough as other people in recovery yet. No matter what, and there's a certain amount of forgiveness that comes along and seeing MD after my name. It's almost like I'm really not one of them, right? Whatever they are. And basically, I had about a four year run. I was teaching. I'm still an assistant professor of medicine, but back then I was teaching full time.

And all four of those years I was voted the most outstanding instructor in the students internal medicine rotations and you know six weeks before I went to treatment back in 2004 I was at the graduation ceremony and the students that honored me as being the mentor of the year for their entire med school all four years and I was using the whole time and I actually used in their ceremony I went to the bathroom and used 160 milligrams of Oxycontin during the ceremony and so People couldn't see it from the outside.

There were some physical changes, but people thought it was just because I was overworked and I did have some things that looking back on it, people would have seen, but I didn't have any of those things. Nobody knew I was living a big time secret life for sure. 

[00:18:48] Angela Kennecke: That must've just eaten you up inside.

[00:18:51] Stephen Loyd: Terrible. You know, sometimes I maybe minimize my own addiction because I didn't have those consequences. I didn't go to jail. I didn't get in trouble with the DEA, you know, none of those things. But. I did go to bed half the night's praying I wouldn't die because I knew how much I was taking every day and the other half praying that I would because I'd finally be free.

I know this is going to sound strange. But I really didn't know that there was anybody that could help me. 

[00:19:15] Angela Kennecke: I think most people feel that way when they're in active addiction, or even with mental illness. People feel like there's no one that can help me. 

[00:19:24] Stephen Loyd: I didn't feel like there was, you know, and the things I'd seen in my life and people that I'd seen struggle with substances, all of them died and part of my motivation for doing Dope Sick, right?

You know, hey, we can live. There's actually more people living in active recovery right now in the United States than there are in active addiction. Now that number's skid a little bit because of the ones we've lost. But it's true. And I had no concept of that. It was, it was hopeless. 

[00:19:46] Angela Kennecke: What made you go to treatment?

[00:19:48] Stephen Loyd: My dad. My dad saw changes in me. I wasn't the son that he knew. And he actually chased it for a little over a year, trying to ask my nurses and see what was going on. And he got the blue wall, right? They weren't going to do anything. Even things they saw, they wouldn't tell him because they didn't want to feel like they were hurting my career or, you know, hurting my name within the community.

But, I actually took my son down to meet my dad. My dad's a hiker, still is, in his 80s, and took my son down to meet him to go hike, and he was nine at the time, and he was standing at my truck window, and I used to just carry my pills. I didn't give a crap who saw them. I didn't care. And so I had them in the cup holder of my truck, and it was bowled over.

I mean, just hundreds of pills there, and I could have sworn I saw my dad walk away. I mean, in my mind's eye, telling you the story right now, I can see it. And I reached over and I grabbed 15, 10 milligram Percocets. So 150 milligrams of opioids threw him in my mouth all at once. And when I turned around, he was standing right there.

I mean, right there. And he looked at me and he said, Steve, he said, did you just take a handful of those pills? Do you know what I told him? I said, no. Well, hell, he just saw me, right? I mean, just happened. And he shook his head and he said, all right, be careful. And the next day, when I got home from work, I drove around the corner and my house was up on a hill and I saw his truck sitting in my driveway and I knew what he was there for.

So he put me in the truck and he said, we're going to go see your sister. And I hadn't seen her in 10 years. And by the way, she and I are great friends and I love her very much, but we had struggled with my mom and dad's divorce. And I said, I don't want to go see her. And he said, well, we're going to see her.

And we got up to interstate a little bit and he looked at me and he said, Steve, he said, do you have a drug problem? I said, no, daddy, I don't. I said, I'm working really hard. I was trying to pay back med school loans. I was working two or three jobs and, you know, working a hundred hours a week. And he didn't say anything.

And we drove probably another five minutes. And this time he was crying and he put his hand over on my knee. And he said, Steve, he said, you have a drug problem. This wasn't a question. And this was a statement and I started crying. And the weird thing is, is that I felt an ungodly sense of relief. I felt like somebody else knew I had no idea what the future held, but now somebody else knew.

And I said, yeah, daddy, I said, I do. And I said, I can't, I don't see any way out. I said, I'm gonna lose my, my medical license. I'm gonna lose my wife, my kids. I'm gonna lose my car, my house, everything I worked my entire life for it. He shook his head and he said, well, he said, none of this stuff is going to do you any good if you're dead.

I didn't have a comeback for that one. I still don't been 20 years. I don't have a comeback. And I said, okay. We. Basically got over to my sister's. She had seen me at Walmart. I hadn't seen her. She'd called dad and said, dad, I'm worried about Steve. He doesn't look like my brother. And they intervened on me.

We got on the computer and Googled, no doctors with addiction. And we figured out that there's programs and I live in the great state of Tennessee. And one of the things we are progressive about is treatment for professionals. And we had one of the top programs in the country and I got to take advantage of that, it changed my life.

[00:22:56] Angela Kennecke: Well, thank God you went. That's what I'm thinking about because we were about to do an intervention with my daughter. We were three days away from our family holding an intervention when she died, and I was so scared to do that. I mean, your dad must have felt like I felt. I was afraid of her anger. I was afraid she would just walk out.

What if you wouldn't have gone? What if you would have said no? 

[00:23:18] Stephen Loyd: Well, I've talked to dad about this, you know, many times over the last 20 years and he felt just like you did. He was really scared. He told me it's the hardest thing he ever did in his life. My dad's, you know, born in 1941. He's done a few tough things in his life.

The least of which is providing for a family with a high school education, which he did.

[00:23:41] Angela Kennecke: Thankfully, Dr. Lloyd's father not only found the courage to speak up, but his intervention also came at a good time, when Dr. Lloyd was finally ready to admit the truth about his substance use disorder. 

[00:23:57] Stephen Loyd: I was so desperate. I was to the point where I just knew I was going to die. And I had no idea. I had no idea what treatment was.

I didn't know what withdrawals were. I I didn't know any of that. I just knew that I was going to die. And I knew that I wanted my kids to have a dad and my wife to have a husband. And I knew that. And so there was never any question. I was like, you know, I'm crying. I'm, I'm devastated. And thank God somebody knows.

[00:24:29] Angela Kennecke: And what was your wife and children? What were their reactions to you going to treatment? 

[00:24:33] Stephen Loyd: I had to call Karen and she just didn't believe it. You know, how can I be sleeping in the same bed Right. And so really Karen, even to this day, we'll drop her head with this because she thinks she should have saw it.

And really she's going to be the last one to see it. And the reason I say that is, is that I'm her husband. I'm the father of her children. I'm the provider for our family. I've got to be okay. If I'm not okay, our family's okay. So by God, I'm okay. Right. And that's the mindset of, you know, of Karen, even though she wasn't conscious of it.

So she didn't do anything wrong. It's not her fault. This is me. You know, I picked up. I have the disease of addiction, you know, she was just, couldn't believe she didn't know. And she really didn't believe it at first. The kids were young enough. Heath was nine. He was scared. He didn't know where his dad was going.

My little girl Haley was six and she doesn't even remember 

[00:25:22] Angela Kennecke: it. 

[00:25:23] Stephen Loyd: And so, you know, I guess for them, it was just fear. You know, what am I going to get back? Is he going to come back? Is he still going to be a doctor? Is he going to be dad? You know, all those things. Interesting thing. Heath, who's now 30, confronted me when he was about, I don't know, 20, 21.

He and I were alone and he said, Hey dad, I got something to talk to you about. And he confronted me about leaving for treatment. He said, I was nine. He said, I was scared. He said, you're my best friend. I was his little league coach. He said, I was scared. I was like, all right. So, you know, we, we worked through that and, and he knows the dad he has now.

And he actually works in this field, believe it or not, but I guess it's kind of understandable because his life was changed so much by it, but yeah, it was a weird thing for my family. And Karen, you know, when we were watching Dope Sink together, cause I've done this a bunch. And you're right. I mean, Talked about my story.

I've met awesome people like you and shared things with you and you shared things back. So we've done this for a while and I'm not saying it gets easy, but it's not what it was 20 years ago. So we're laying there watching dope, sick in bed at night. And I can just see the look in Karen's eyes sometimes like, wow, you know, I didn't know that, or I didn't know that you were that desperate, or I didn't know that, you know, one of the scenes in there is the Keaton character buying drugs from a patient.

And that really happened. And You know, I didn't know that, and I didn't know that's how you learned that, and it's been interesting going through the years, because even now, you know, 20 years later, things will pop up every now and then that I can see the look on her face and still see the hurt. 

[00:26:56] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, sure.

I understand, Karen, because as Emily's mom, I didn't know she was using heroin, and I feel like I should have known. earlier how bad it was. Do you know what I mean? Like I should have known sooner. And so as a loved one, you do feel like, how did you miss something? How did you not know something of this magnitude?

But I also do know now logically that people suffering from substance use disorder are very good at hiding things, are very good at denial and all of those things. So I get that part of it, but still a part of me always thinks I wish I would have acted sooner. I wish I would have known sooner. I wish I would have seen all these obvious signs.

But when you're that close to someone, you don't always see it and they don't want you to see it. 

[00:27:37] Stephen Loyd: You know, I didn't want anybody to see it. I never knew Emily. I have a ton in common with Emily. A lot. And those are where my mind goes. You know, you're her mom. What's mom going to think of me if she sees this?

Right. And how desperate would you be to prevent that? And very desperate, right? I mean, you'd do anything to not let that happen. I'm going to be a disappointment. I get it. Right. I mean, the denial is there. It is so high and we just can't see it. Right. I mean, I couldn't see it. Because looking back on it, what do I think Karen would have done if I'd have went home one day and said, Hey, honey, I'm struggling.

She would have helped me. Yeah, right. She would have. I just couldn't get there. I didn't want her to see me that way. 

[00:28:23] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, I understand that.

When Dr. Lloyd decided to enter treatment in 2004, he received a lot of support from his family. But sadly, the same cannot be said for many other people in the world.

[00:28:43] Stephen Loyd: Even when I was in detox, keep in mind, I didn't know what detox was. There were 24 kids on my floor and none of them knew I was a doctor. And they were all young. I mean, I was in my early 30s. They were all 19, 20, 22 years old. And I assumed that we were all there as part of a program. I was at Vanderbilt in Nashville.

And I assumed that we would all go from detox to treatment facilities that were going to help us. Do you know how many of those 24 got to leave that detox facility and go to a treatment program? How many would you guess? Half? 

[00:29:17] Angela Kennecke: One? It 

[00:29:19] Stephen Loyd: was me. I was the only one that got to, and this is even before I got any treatment, even while I was in the throes of horrible, you know, dope sickness, I started to see this.

It's weird, but it's true. I realized that there's two different treatment systems out there. There's a treatment system that if you've got the means or you've got a license that you get, And then there's the treatment system that everybody else gets. And I started to see that right then. And the little girl that was in the room next to me, I'll never forget her.

I've told her story a million times. I don't know where she is today. I think about her every week. She never gets off my mind for longer than that. But the day before I left, the day before I got out to go to my treatment center, she came up to me and she was a prostitute. She had abscesses up and down her arm from injection use.

She had HIV disease and Hepatitis C. And she had a picture in her hand. She said, Hey, Steve, she said, I want you to see me when I was clean. Her words, not mine. And the picture she showed me was her junior year at Mount Julia High School, just outside of Nashville, at her junior prom. She looked like Emily.

Beautiful. I mean, stunning. And I think about her because she wanted me to see her in a way other than how she thought I saw her. Those kids, I would hear them talking at night. They, again, they had no idea it was a doctor. And I would hear them talking at night when they were supposed to get out the next day.

And they were trying to figure out what kind of symptom they could come up with where they could stay one more day. 

[00:31:04] Angela Kennecke: Because they knew if they got out, they would use again. 

[00:31:06] Stephen Loyd: They did. That has never been off my mind for longer than a few days in a row because it's what motivates me. I cost too much money to make.

I'm a doctor. Taxpayers of the state of Tennessee paid for my education and I was expensive. So instead of recreating me, it's better to rehabilitate me and put me back in my job. And that's what I got. I got world class treatment. We kill kids. We kill them all the time. We send them to detox for five days and then turn them loose, which is, we might as well sign their death certificate.

Or we send them to a 28 day treatment program, expect them to come back normal in 28 days, which is a fairy tale. And we don't tell families the truth. We don't give them the resources that they need in order to, to support their loved one. You know, when they do get home, they don't stay in treatment long enough.

And basically we turn them out to die because, Right. 

[00:32:01] Angela Kennecke: The whole system is broken and failing people every single day. You're right. And I encounter this as much as we try to help people and we help people at a 28 day treatment center, you know, because the insurance company dictated the 28 days, right. And we aren't able to help people who don't have insurance because that's a state issue.

And so we don't run treatment centers. We offer treatment scholarships, but. It frustrates me every day that I can't help everybody. And I don't know how to get these systems to change. And I'm sure you feel the same way. So what do we need to do? I mean, I want to be hopeful, Emily's hope. I want to hope that we can change as a society, that we can value every human being because every human being is valuable, which is why I do the work that I do, it's not reflected, like you were just talking about.

It isn't reflected in how we treat people and the access we give people to health care. 

[00:32:56] Stephen Loyd: It's not. It's not equal. There's, there's another way out of the opioid crisis and we won't ever say it, but there is. We can kill our way out of it, right? We can let enough people die that eventually, you know, it gets better.

And sometimes I'm afraid that's the approach that, that I see. And I told you about the physical and sexual abuse. I didn't come clean with the sexual abuse when I initially got into recovery. But I'd been in recovery double digit years and my life was straight up. I mean, I couldn't have dreamed it right.

And I'd never dealt with the sexual abuse. And I started having PTSD symptoms and not used enough, didn't relapse. And I wound up on the edge of my bed. With a loaded 45 pointed at my right temple and the hammer back, I was going to take my own life. And I thought about two things in that moment. I thought about one who's going to find me.

I don't know why that was important, but it seemed to be. And the other one is I remembered to ask for help and I didn't know anybody could help me, but I'd been in recovery long enough that I knew some folks. And it turned out that there was a place not far from me in Nashville that specialized in that kind of trauma.

And I went there and, As much as drug and alcohol treatment changed my life, this changed my life even more because I was able to start to deal with the sexual abuse. I almost hate knowing it exists. Now why would you think I would hate knowing it exists? Because the girls and people that I work with don't have any chance of ever getting that level of treatment.

They don't, it was 40, 000 for four weeks and now I think it's more cash, might as well be 40 million. My patients don't have access to that. My patients don't have access to the things that made such a big difference in my life. So the reason I was in D. C. and the reason I met you, that I'm going to keep pointing out the disparities in the system and I'm going to keep making people tell me, you know, that it's okay to let people die because that's what they're saying.

I think that everybody deserves a level of treatment that I got and we have to figure out the way to do it. 

[00:35:00] Angela Kennecke: One thing I do have to say though is the patients you work with have you. Thank God they have you because you have experienced all of that top notch treatment for both addiction and mental health and recovering from that kind of trauma.

Do you think almost all addictions are rooted in, I think about this a lot with my daughter because I'm like what happened? What did I miss something somewhere? What happened or does it just happen to some people or because I feel like she had sort of other than a divorce of her parents had sort of a storybook childhood, right?

[00:35:31] Stephen Loyd: So, so getting into this with Emily, pure conjecture, right? And I'm always hesitant to talk about that because I know how much you love her. I get that. Because I have a dog. We don't know what goes on in our kids lives. I mean, we think we do, right? They live in our house, and we think we have control, and you know that's an illusion.

We don't. Yeah, right. We don't have control. And we like to kid ourselves and think we do, and our own codependency will tell us we do sometimes, but we don't. And so when I see pictures of, you know, young people like Emily, usually there's a story there. There's a trauma story there. There's a genetic story there.

So when I teach addiction, I teach it as genetics, trauma, and opportunity. All right? Slot machine. Three sevens come down on the payline. That's when the money comes out the bottom. And people can see that in their mind's eye and they get it. So a lot of times the root of it will be that trauma. You know, you and your husband got a divorce.

And how it was Emily when you got a divorce, right? Right. And so that is a trauma for a child because you can talk about God and Jesus or whatever religion you are all the time. The truth is for kids, who's God? Mom and dad. Skin gods, right? And then that world gets disrupted and it's not, I'm not casting blame on you or your ex.

It's reality, right? Right. In my, a divorce too. So there are parents out there that stay married for their kids that should have gotten a divorce a long time ago. And we know that as well. I know that too. 

[00:36:56] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:36:57] Stephen Loyd: Well, I'm not throwing shade here. I'm just saying that in particular, my abuser was in my own family.

Tell anybody that, right. And I've got pictures of us at Christmas, right? Abuser's right next to me. And so we don't know. And so when I think about young people like Emily and I see what the story was, I always wonder, you know, what is the story? You know, what happened, 

[00:37:24] Angela Kennecke: right? And also sensitivity. I think personality also has a lot to do with it.

There's millions of kids whose parents get divorced and they don't wind up addicted to something, right? So it's just such a complicated thing, I think. But I do believe like I have. My ASIC score is super high and I don't steal from addiction, so why is that, you know, and so I try to piece a lot of things together, and I know I won't ever know all the answers.

I do this all the time, it drives me nuts. So, 

[00:37:52] Stephen Loyd: I was just at a wonderful place last week, a National Federation of Families, and we talked about this, you know, it was basically the title of my talk, and I am not my ASIC, my ASIC score is me, I mean, I have that score, those are the traumatic things that happened in my life.

But I'm looking at you somewhere along the line. If you go back to when you were a little girl and you're coming through school and you know, you're proceeding throughout your life, you had people in your life that made a difference. You had people that gave you resiliency in some form or another, somewhere along the line, we all have protective factors.

So what is that balance of protective factors that protects people who are genetically and traumatically predisposed? I don't know what they are. You know, why do some people develop it and some don't? Usually it comes back to those resiliency things, those protective factors that they had along the way.

And I had protective factors as well. And so, you know, where's that line there? And I think that's the kind of stuff that we can make ourselves crazy with. But I think if you go back in your own life and you look at your traumas, which you've obviously done, and then you look at their protective factors, who was that person you had in your life that made you realize at some point you were capable of stuff, right?

We all have that person somewhere. Hopefully we do, and I think a lot of times with some of the young ladies that I deal with, they didn't have that person, or their protector was their abuser, or they never had any guidance from day one, and their boundaries were broken through without them having any say in it whatsoever, and I see that a lot, so a lot of times when I see it, it's not only the trauma, it's the lack of those protective factors they had along the way.

[00:39:30] Angela Kennecke: I have a grief specialist on this podcast from time to time, and he believes that a lot of addictions are rooted in grief. 

[00:39:39] Stephen Loyd: Good point. For me, it was always hard to separate grief from trauma, right? Right. 

[00:39:44] Angela Kennecke: It could be the grief of the loss of your innocence. 

[00:39:46] Stephen Loyd: No doubt. Well, I was thinking you, I mean, your trauma score is what it is, but now your trauma score would be even higher because the charts, right?

Right. Right. 

[00:39:55] Angela Kennecke: I get up every day and I just go through life, you know, I don't know. 

[00:39:59] Stephen Loyd: But I look and see what you, what have you done with that? And I look and see what you're doing right now. So you've got this education series that you're getting in K through five with. You carry this big, huge picture of Emily around in a damn tropical storm.

So you get to use her story to help others. You have this podcast that you're trying to reach hurting families out there. These are all protective. You didn't dive into a bottle of wine or go down the prescription route. You channeled this. These are resiliency things about you that somehow you built along the way.

I don't know how you do that. Right. I mean, if we did, we'd go out and do that for everybody, but I think there are protective things and you're channeling this in a way to try to use Emily's story to help other families out there and not have to suffer what your family has suffered. 

[00:40:46] Angela Kennecke: Right. And when I just spoke to a group of families at the DEA family summit as a regional thing in the Midwest here, I said to everybody in that room, we're all here for the same reason, because all of them had started something, right?

And I said, we're all here for the same reason, because we don't want to see anyone else go through this horrible pain that we've been through, right? So I don't know why some people respond in that way and other people do turn. And I have known people who have completed suicide or drank themselves to death or.

Even taking fentanyl to die, which just seems shocking after their child died in that way. But I do know those stories and and why some people go down that route and others don't. I guess we won't answer that in this podcast. But 

[00:41:26] Stephen Loyd: what we can answer some the lack of value placed on lives by people in corporate positions.

These are somebody's kids and I'll look we get some of the other work that I do and some of the things that I've seen. It's even more damning than what's public because when these companies settle the lawsuits, one, they never admit guilt, and two, the evidence is sealed. So some of the sealed evidence I've gotten to work with, and I can tell you that we actually had to stop meetings around our litigation because I, I couldn't handle anymore.

Because when you're talking about these people, you know, when you're changing the words to the theme song, The Beverly Hillbillies, to The Beverly Pillbillies, And you're the dude who's in charge of diversion and compliance for a major pharmaceutical distributor. And these are the people you've got looking over, and this is what they think of the people who are dying.

I mean, hell, that's me. 

[00:42:17] Angela Kennecke: Well, and the only way that you can be okay with killing people is to devalue human life, right? I mean, that's what, the only way you can live with yourself and justify it is to think that that is the other. 

[00:42:26] Stephen Loyd: You look at them as less than or expendable. I mean, you're going to call somebody a, a pillbilly?

I mean, really that's, that's somebody's son, daughter, mom, dad. I mean, what if this was your kid? You know, that's the thing I never could understand. And how come none of these people were ever called to the mat for it? The guy I just told you about still holds a major corporate position in the pharmaceutical industry.

You know, to me, it deserves to be in jail or better yet, bring him where I am and I'll whip his ass and we won't have to worry about any of that. Right. But the thing is, and what you and I are talking about here today and what we did in DC, even though the weather was terrible, we weren't large in number because of the tropical storm.

But it's about community and relationship. That's what we're talking about here. You know, what can we do? It's about community and relationship, but that's what it's about. I don't know how you'll feel after you and I are done here in a little bit. I know how I'm going to feel. I'm going to feel better.

I'll walk out of this room that I'm in. And just from talking to you today, I'll feel better. We talked about Emily. We talked a little bit about my story. We talked about reaching people with addiction. You and I have formed a relationship here today that's meaningful and more than just scratching the surface and stuff, right?

How you doing fine? That kind of crap. And that's what I'm talking about. And the more that we can build this community and we can start to share in each other's hurts as well as our successes, then, you know, the more successful we're going to be in helping people long term. 

[00:43:48] Angela Kennecke: Right, and I always say it's always going to take all of us joining hands together.

I can't do it by myself. I can do my work in my little corner of the world, but it's going to take all of us.

Dr. Lloyd is currently using his personal experiences to help others battling substance use disorder. He is the chief medical officer at Cedar Recovery, where they combine medication assisted treatment with behavioral therapy and individual treatment plans.

[00:44:19] Stephen Loyd: Oh, I work with all kinds. My favorite patient is Dr. Lloyd. the pregnant patient. It just is. And I don't get to see as many of them as I used to because more people do it now, but they motivate me beyond belief. They're strong, resilient, some of the best people I've ever met in my life. But I basically, uh, kind of switched from concentrating on pregnant patients to concentrating on people who are incarcerated.

And it's so much fun. And I do it every day. Matter of fact, where I am right now is actually our retreat where we're making our plans for the coming year. I'm 56. I figure if I stay healthy and I'm pretty healthy right now, I've got 15 years of working life and I want to spend 15 years working in criminal justice.

I want to reach the patient that's incarcerated in either a county, a federal or state lockup and try to help them find the path to recovery that's right for them. And that's why I'm here. 

[00:45:10] Angela Kennecke: Well, thank you for that because as a journalist, I followed a woman through her prison sentence. She actually became addicted to opioids after gastric bypass surgery.

which people don't always know that people with gastric bypass surgery, huge risk, huge risk, right? She didn't know and ended up overdosing in a car, being saved by Narcan and immediately sent to prison where no help, no help whatsoever. Our prisons do a horrible, what, like 95 percent of the people in prison have SUD and we're not treating that.

And there's drugs in prison as we all know. And I just think that. It's just so awful. It's a part of that whole system problem that we talked about earlier. It's all part of it. I'm glad you're doing that work because not enough people are. 

[00:45:56] Stephen Loyd: It's fun. It's, it's the right thing to do. And here's the other thing about it, and you know this as well.

I'm not sure you're conscious of it, but when you do stuff like this, It helps you. 

[00:46:07] Angela Kennecke: Oh, 

[00:46:07] Stephen Loyd: sure. 

[00:46:07] Angela Kennecke: I always say helping others is the most selfish thing I can do. It helps me most. No doubt. It helps me with my grief, you know. 

[00:46:14] Stephen Loyd: I think that it's why I enjoyed my pregnant, still enjoy my pregnant patients so much because it helps me.

It really does. And then I get to give to them and it helps them too. But the longer I do this, I see the injustices in the system. And I'm not about calling people out. I don't care about that. What I want to do is I want to help build a system that you get the help that's right for you, no matter where you touch it, because you and I both know that's not the case right now.

[00:46:39] Angela Kennecke: We can sit here and we can complain about the system, but yeah, we have to somehow figure out ways to infiltrate it and change it. And I don't know, I don't have all the answers. I wish I did. But I did just do a video with a woman who. Was addicted to heroin and she found out she was pregnant and she got an OBGYN who also was an addiction doctor, which was like a miracle.

That's right. They're 

[00:47:05] Stephen Loyd: out there. 

[00:47:05] Angela Kennecke: And was prescribed Suboxone and she's still on Suboxone to this day. It's been about five years, but it saved her life. The baby and the medication saved her life. 

[00:47:16] Stephen Loyd: I love hearing stories like that. And, you know, if people could get inside my phone and look at my pictures, I think they would smile ear to ear because first pregnant mom I ever helped, her child was actually adopted.

I didn't know the first thing about adoption. She wanted to do that. So I learned about it with her, right? We've helped her. And so the family who wound up adopting the child knows me. I mean, this is all known. There's nothing clandestine. And you know, the kid's getting ready to turn 15 and get his driver's permit.

And he's grown up in a family that's been loving and supportive. His actual birth mom is actually still doing well as well. But you know, I get pictures from grandmoms at Milestones. Hey, there's such and such as fifth birthday or sixth birthday. Thank you. Right. I get those all the time. I never take them for granted, by the way.

Never. 

[00:48:00] Angela Kennecke: So, in addition to having more equanimity among people for services, for treatment, is there anything else you think is the key to really helping people recover from substance use disorder? 

[00:48:11] Stephen Loyd: People always ask me this, you know, what do you need? Well, money, right? Resources. I'm going to give you something that doesn't cost any money, and you don't need any resources for it.

And it'll make the biggest difference of all, and that's to change our mindset. Whenever we're trying to help somebody with this disease when we bring that judgmental approach you brought it on yourself This is your fault three strikes and you're out. This is your last chance or do we come into it?

We're gonna love you unconditionally. We're gonna forgive you habitually We're gonna demonstrate mercy and we're gonna be here no matter how many times it takes. 

[00:48:42] Angela Kennecke: I love that. I love that Oh, you've written that down, right? I'm gonna read it down after we go 

[00:48:48] Stephen Loyd: We founded our practices based on it. The hardest thing I have to do is hire providers, medical providers that can do those things.

I don't care if you're from Harvard, Yale, you came out of the Ivy league, you went to Hopkins for residency. I don't give a crap. Can you demonstrate mercy? Can you forgive a bitch and can you love people unconditionally? If you can do those three things, we can work together. If you can't, then you can't work here.

And I've hired providers that tell me they can do those. And then when I start looking at seeing how they're treating our patients, it's not that, and I go to them and I say, Hey, this is not what we talked about. It says, well, doc, you know, Steve, I have a three strikes in your out policy. And I love that one because I have a one strike in your out policy for people that have a three strike in your out policy, because it doesn't do any good.

You know, this, if you had known about EMIL and you had chosen the traditional route of laying down, this is your last chance, this and that three strikes, right. None of that would have worked. You know it and I know it. 

[00:49:43] Angela Kennecke: Well, I did it. I did it. I did the tough love. I did all that while she was still in high school.

And at some point I realized None of that worked, it just drove her away from me, and I started always thinking to myself, I have to approach her from a standpoint of love, and how would I want someone to treat me if it was me and I was doing this very same thing. And that transformed everything. So I can say the last words to my daughter were, I love you, and she said it back.

The last text to my daughter were, I love you, and she said it back. Thank God, but I was listening to other people's advice when the, I would say the trouble started with my daughter, you know, the rebellion and the early use. I always say I was taking all this advice. You have to be tough. I was so hard.

You have to play bad cop. You got to punish. You've got to, I called the cops when she was still a juvenile. I did everything that I could think of to try to scare her or change her and none of it worked. None of it. None of it doesn't work. Maybe it works for some people. Maybe somebody can get scared and think, Oh, I'm going to stop doing this now.

Yeah. But it didn't work in her case, and it doesn't work in most people's cases. Our prisons and our jails would not be full. 

[00:50:48] Stephen Loyd: I tell people that all the time because, you know, they say, Well, it helped me. Well, it may have helped you, but you're an N of one. I'm talking over a large scale. And, first of all, you did the best you could under the circumstances.

And I work with families like this all the time because they'll start to blame themselves. That's not why I said that. I said that because it took me a while to see this. Addiction is the only disease I can think of that when you're unsuccessful in your treatment, it's your fault. We don't do that for heart failure or diabetes.

Most people that fail the heart failure treatment are eating too much country ham and most people that fail the diabetes treatment are drinking Mountain Dew Code Reds. But we don't ever mention any of that, right? We look at addiction as a moral failure. And so when you ask me, what can we do? This is the biggest thing we can do.

I agree. And I'm not talking about shoveling somebody money or doing anything like that. I'm talking about letting them know that I'm here no matter what, and I don't run and I'm going to help you until you, until you're dead. And that's a fact. The retreat we're at right now, we built our whole practice on that.

Tell me how sad it is that you can build a practice around treating people kindly and showing them love and it's unusual. Yeah. How sad is that? 

[00:51:58] Angela Kennecke: A touché. Yeah, that is, yeah. 

[00:52:00] Stephen Loyd: It's a matter of meeting people where they are, no matter what. Now, there are consequences. You and I both know that. 

[00:52:05] Angela Kennecke: Right. And that you can set boundaries and not have people take advantage of you.

You don't have to contribute to their use. That's not what you're talking about. 

[00:52:12] Stephen Loyd: I'm talking about being here like you and I are. And I can tell you right now, if you ever develop a problem, you holler at me because I will damn sure help you no matter what. I'm going to do 

[00:52:20] Angela Kennecke: that for sure. 

[00:52:21] Stephen Loyd: If I 

[00:52:22] Angela Kennecke: ever need you, I'm going to call.

[00:52:24] Stephen Loyd: I get patients, you know, that go back out. And I get them back and they come in the office and it's always the same story. They're hanging their head. Oh, Dr. Lloyd, you're going to be so disappointed in me. And they look up and I'm smiling ear to ear. And what are you smiling for? I said, you're not dead and I got you back.

And a lot of times I'm going to say this because it needs to be said. I see the most harsh judgment coming out of people in the faith community. Okay. I see it repeatedly and I'm a Christian and I go to church, right? I don't go to the church that shames the hell out of me. So when I look at something like that, That's a prodigal son story.

I mean, Jesus dealt with this and I get somebody back. I'm so glad they're not dead. And now we got another chance. And they always look at me like I tell them that from the time they come in, but they don't believe me until they see it because it's not how they've been treated in the past. Right. Right.

And that's what I'm saying. This is what we can change. The listeners of this podcast. If you listen to this, what can I do differently? This is it. Do this. And the side effect of it is you're going to like herself better. 

[00:53:34] Angela Kennecke: I think that is a wonderful note to end this podcast on. Let's do that. Let's all try to do that.

Thank you for everything that you're doing. It's such important work. And I'm so glad that I ran into you in the tropical storm in DC. 

[00:53:48] Stephen Loyd: I'm always glad when I stop somebody and talk to them and I've never regretted it. 

[00:53:52] Angela Kennecke: You never know where it's going to lead. 

[00:53:54] Stephen Loyd: I can go out you. So thank you. 

[00:53:56] Angela Kennecke: Thank you.

And thank you for taking the time out of your day to learn more about one of the biggest crises facing our nation, the opioid epidemic. If you found this episode helpful, please leave us a positive review and share it with your friends and family. Stay tuned for a special episode later this month, featuring a unique perspective from none other than music legend Prince's cousin.

[00:54:29] Chazz Smith: My aunts and my relatives, they all encouraged Prince and I to play Fade Together. So we started playing local talent shows at that young age and was winning them against adults. 

[00:54:40] Angela Kennecke: But now Prince's cousin, Chaz Smith, is on a different mission that goes beyond music. He's trying to uncover the truth behind the fentanyl death of his world renowned family member.

Here what he thinks needs to happen. And why justice should be served. That's later this month on Grieving Out Loud. Thank you so much for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wannenberg King and Anna Fye.