[00:00:00] Maura Jamie: I tried heroin for the first time when I was 13. 

[00:00:02] Angela Kennecke: Maura Jamie battled drug addiction for nearly two decades. She's been in recovery for 12 years, but she's lost more than she ever could have imagined to drugs.

[00:00:14] Maura Jamie: the rug was literally ripped out from underneath me, and all of my hopes and dreams were just shattered. Now I'm a widow at 22. 

[00:00:29] Angela Kennecke: And at 43, she's now also childless.

So Carter knew that his dad died from a heroin overdose?

[00:00:37] Maura Jamie: Yes. 

[00:00:37] Angela Kennecke: And he knew that his mother struggled with heroin addiction 

[00:00:41] Maura Jamie: Yes. 

And was on methadone and, yes. Yes. 

[00:00:45] Angela Kennecke: And knowing all 

that, you would think he would never touch drugs. 

[00:00:49] Maura Jamie: Mm-hmm. , right? You would think.

[00:00:52] Angela Kennecke: I'm Angela Kennecke your host of Grieving Out Loud, and the founder of Emily's Hope, a charity. I started in my daughter's name after she died of fentanyl poisoning. Today I'm talking with Maura about how the drug epidemic has shattered her life. I spoke to Maura who lives in Florida right after Hurricane Ian hit.

Maura, I'm so grateful that you've joined me for this episode of Grieving Out Loud. Thank you for being 

[00:01:22] Maura Jamie: here. Thank you Angela so much. I'm incredibly grateful to be here and share my story. 

[00:01:29] Angela Kennecke: And you survived the hurricane in Florida. You're down in Florida? 

[00:01:32] Maura Jamie: Yes. I actually live in Fort Myers about 30 miles from the Gulf.

And it's. It's indescribable. I moved down here three years ago. I grew up in the Northeast and I have never experienced a storm of this magnitude and just the complete devastation and loss on top of my grief. I'm coming up on a year in about a month, and it's, it's just so heavy.

. It's been a really hard two weeks, 

[00:02:03] Angela Kennecke: I must say. Like one more 

[00:02:04] Maura Jamie: thing to go through, right? It's one more traumatic event to like pile on and it's, is your 

[00:02:11] Angela Kennecke: property okay? Or people that, are 

[00:02:13] Maura Jamie: you okay? Everybody's okay. Like, my family is safe. I do have friends that lost everything.

But my home, we had no damage. We had no uprooted trees, A hibiscus tree I had planted for Carter on his birthday. I planted it and it. Didn't even move . And the next day it bloomed, you know, after the hurricane passed, it made like three beautiful blooms and I just knew that Carter was with us during that storm protecting us, so.

[00:02:41] Angela Kennecke: Well, I'd like to start by going back to the death of your husband. Tell me a little bit about what was happening at that time and what happened with him. So 

[00:02:52] Maura Jamie: my husband Chris we actually met in a NA meeting and, 

[00:02:58] Angela Kennecke: Narcotics Anonymous you met, and this was on the East coast. 

This was 

[00:03:01] Maura Jamie: actually up north on Long Island. We met in 1998 and it was instant connection and you know, a few months later I found out I was pregnant. We were both in recovery and very involved in NA and working the steps. And you know, I was pregnant and we just had this amazing life ahead of us.

And he was going to school to become a funeral director. We were living out in east Qu on, on the bay. Like, it was just, I was raising Carter like life. I was 20, I was 20 , and my whole life was ahead of me, you know, and like I had everything I wanted. And and it was beautiful. And then he got into a accident he shattered his elbow and was prescribed Vicodin.

 That's when he started using them and, you know, he relapsed because 

[00:03:54] Angela Kennecke: of what had been his drug of choice, what had been 

[00:03:57] Maura Jamie: drug of choice with heroin. And you too. Me too. My drug of choice is heroin. Yes. Yes. I I started, I tried heroin for the first time when I was 13. 13. Yes. I grew up in a very wealthy area in New Jersey.

I went to a fabulous school. The only trauma, childhood trauma I have or, you know, abandonment issues with my mother. But I had a very loving father, very loving and supportive stepmom, siblings. I tried it once and it just, it made me feel what I wanted to feel, which was nothing.

And by the time I was 16, I was physically addicted. I was shooting heroin before school. And I was in my first detox in rehab right after I graduated high school in June of 97. And came out relapsed and then my dad had had it sent me off to Long Island to live with my grandparents.

And that's when I was able to meet my husband. I was very involved with NA and , I managed to put three years together and then. He, you know, he relapsed and then I relapsed and, you know, the cycle continued. And then, you know, we had Carter who was a baby.

[00:05:11] Angela Kennecke: . What, what made you fall in love with chris? 

[00:05:14] Maura Jamie: Just made me laugh.

He was so, so handsome. He just had an amazing personality, so much passion. He was adventurous. He was a whitewater kayaker. And then when we had Carter, he was just, he was an amazing father. He just loved Carter to death.

[00:05:35] Angela Kennecke: You couldn't stay in recovery. Neither one of you really. 

[00:05:38] Maura Jamie: We were literally in and out of rehab for like, the year of 2000. One of us would go in one month, one of us would go in the next month. I mean, it was a vicious, vicious cycle. 

[00:05:49] Angela Kennecke: And there wasn't any medically assisted treatment like Suboxone? 

[00:05:53] Maura Jamie: This was in 2000, like methadone and suboxone was not really. A big, I didn't know even know about that. When I had gone into rehabs and detoxes, they would just put me on like Darvan and, , then later on in my years, I, I had been in, I think in over probably 15 rehabs in detoxes total.

That's a lot. Oh, yeah. Until 12 years ago, I, you know, this past February I celebrated 12 years 

Congratulations on that

 ......................

[00:06:22] Maura Jamie: .................................I wanna go back to Chris. So Chris injured, his elbow, had surgery, was prescribed an opioid. Right. And that led him right back to heroin, which isn't surprising at all, but this is about the year, said 2000 people don't really, people don't really know that much about it at that point.

Mm-hmm. , what happened? 

 It just spiraled you know, he took the Vicodin and then I took a Vicodin and, and then, you know, we were driving into Brooklyn and, and I remember saying in the car, this is the, we're only doing this once, we're only doing this once, and we just got completely sucked in. An addiction to anything. , your tolerance builds up way faster than the first time around, so, it came to the point where it was may of 2001, and I decided my mother-in-law took Carter.

I decided to go to long-term treatment. Chris decided to go to long-term treatment and he came home from treatment nine 11 hit. He was volunteering, you know, at the cleanup and I was still in the facility I was in. , he was visiting me, but there was tension. He was angry.

 I kind of knew that if we're going to stay married, all the odds are against us. He was going into New York City to go celebrate somebody's one anniversary in aa and then going to watch his cousin play music at a club.

 I was in the facility. I was called into my doctor's office, and I immediately knew that something was wrong because the whole treatment team was in there and they're like, you know, we, you need, we need you to sit down. And I immediately thought like one of my grandparents had passed or, or something like that.

And they told me, they just said we are so sorry. But Chris, they found Chris in lower Manhattan and he overdosed and he didn't make it. 

So he had been in recovery for a while. , so he maybe used the same amount that he had used before and 

overdosed 

yep. Mm-hmm. And how old were you? How old was he at the time? He was 25. I was 22. 22. 

[00:08:35] Angela Kennecke: And I'm in that moment. You had a baby at home? Yeah. 

[00:08:40] Maura Jamie: And. Even though Carter was two when Chris passed, I know that that caused trauma for Carter. 

[00:08:51] Angela Kennecke: What did that do to your world? , 

[00:08:54] Maura Jamie: the rug was literally ripped out from underneath me, and all of my hopes and dreams were just shattered, 

[00:09:05] Angela Kennecke: like a broken mirror on the floor.

[00:09:08] Maura Jamie: My world was flipped upside down cuz I had this whole idea of this life plan for myself, and now I'm a widow at 22. Like, it was incomprehensible to me, me. And so I, after he passed I, I stayed in the facility for about two more months. Came out and then I still struggled for another. Like 10 years, you know, I'd get a year here.

Relapse, you know, a year, you know, six months here, relapse. I also do suffer from mental illness. I, I diagnosed with depression. Wow. You know, ocd, I think, you know, mental illness and drug abuse, a lot of time goes 

That's what I was gonna say.

Don't you think that the two are just Absolutely. But so you were, were you diagnosed with you said depression, 

anxiety and anxiety. 

[00:10:05] Angela Kennecke: Was that later you got that diagnosis? 

[00:10:07] Maura Jamie: I got that depression when that diagnosis actually when I was 19. 

[00:10:11] Angela Kennecke: So you were really self-medicating in a sense?

[00:10:13] Maura Jamie: Oh, absolutely. A hundred percent. I was self-medicating. 

[00:10:17] Angela Kennecke: And you're a single parent. You've got a little kid, you've got these, these addiction and mental health issues. Mm-hmm. , how did you survive those 

years? 

[00:10:24] Maura Jamie: I would not have been able to survive without the support of my family.

My family was, and still are like a godsend. Like I am incredibly blessed to have just so much support. They're always there for me and that's absolutely what made it through.

And, and I knew that I. I'd done it before I'd accumulated three years and that I couldn't leave Carter an orphan. Like it was coming to the point towards the end where I was, I was literally suicidal. I was using, I had a 20 bag a day habit. I was stealing, I was, I mean, you name it, I've done it all it just came to the, it came to life or death for me, it was life or death because if I couldn't get clean, I was gonna kill myself , but I couldn't leave Carter an orphan. So that was the motivation. And, really what got me sober and in into recovery.

[00:11:42] Angela Kennecke: I know you were struggling for quite a while, and how old was Carter when you finally got into recovery? 

[00:11:47] Maura Jamie: He was 12.

A lot of lost years with Carter, 

[00:11:51] Angela Kennecke: and so were you relying on family to care for him in times you couldn't. Absolutely. 

[00:11:56] Maura Jamie: My mother-in-law, Chris's mom, Chris's mom, Chris's mom, and my, and my parents took over as well, and my grandparents.

[00:12:05] Angela Kennecke: That's so common today for grandparents to step in like that when their children are struggling with things like this. But, so, he's 12 and, and you are in recovery, stayed in recovery this time, right? Yeah. And were you able to rebuild a relationship with Carter?

[00:12:21] Maura Jamie: I was. So it definitely was difficult in the beginning. You know, there were some issues with my mother-in-law not wanting to bring him to visit me, which I completely understood. And he wouldn't get on the phone with me sometimes. So it, I mean, it, it definitely was work .

, he needed to feel safe around me again. And it was just, for me, it was just about loving and nurturing him. As he started to get older, just supporting him in everything and anything I could to make up for lost time. You know, when Carter got into middle school, seventh and eighth grade, I mean, he was in private schools.

Best of the schools on Long Island. You know lacrosse crew, he was brilliant. He was just so full of life.

[00:13:12] Angela Kennecke: Were you able to get to a point where you felt like you had a good relationship and 

you had earned that trust back?

[00:13:16] Maura Jamie: I would say once he reached about eighth grade and I would show up at every game. I would show up at every school then and every school play. I had to almost win him back I felt like. And and show up and be consistent. And consistency was the biggest thing.

Because there had been so much inconsistency. 

[00:13:38] Angela Kennecke: That must have been a huge motivator for you to stay in recovery as well. 

[00:13:42] Maura Jamie: He was my number one motivator, a hundred percent. If you're not gonna do it for yourself, do it for your children or do it for your, your parents or do it, you know, until you can love yourself enough to do it for yourself.

And I would say for like the first five, Six, seven years. He was that person for me. He was my motivator and my purpose, my purpose. I I had to be a mom , as he got older and I was able to talk to him more about my past and about you know, his dad and, it just brought us closer.

[00:14:22] Angela Kennecke: Was he like his dad? 

[00:14:23] Maura Jamie: He was a lot like his dad. He had good qualities and bad qualities. 

[00:14:28] Angela Kennecke: So Carter knew that his dad died from a heroin overdose?

[00:14:32] Maura Jamie: Yes. 

[00:14:32] Angela Kennecke: And he knew that his mother struggled with heroin addiction 

[00:14:35] Maura Jamie: Yes. 

And was on methadone and, yes. Yes. 

[00:14:40] Angela Kennecke: And knowing all 

that, you would think he would never touch drugs. 

[00:14:44] Maura Jamie: Mm-hmm. , right? You would think. Right. those are the, the why, you know, the, the questions that run through my mind every day.

 The other one is, you know, why them? Why did they have to die? And. Was blessed to with recovery, you know, like there's a lot of survivor's guilt 

I ended up moving to Florida three years ago to get out of an emotionally abusive relationship. His name was Tom and we met on a dating app and it was just another like, love at for sight, if you wanna call it, if I don't even really believe in that.

[00:15:24] Maura Jamie: During this time, I, you know, was, had my own apartment. I was at a great job. I was, had been a bookkeeper and I was making good money. I was getting, you know, death benefits from Chris, so that helped. And then I was laid off.

 After years of, you know, lies and, mistrust and false promises, , my family was, was really angry with me, as they should be, they were hurt and, , so they weren't willing, you know, nobody offered, you know, so you can stay with me for a couple months.

So I, I was kind of pushed, my back was against the wall. I had nowhere to go. And so we just said, okay, let's get an apartment in Brooklyn. That is probably one of. The biggest regrets of my life because I was leaving Carter and not by choice be at a necessity, and my family couldn't have made me feel like, I felt so much guilt already, and my family just piled on that guilt.

[00:16:33] Angela Kennecke: So was Carter gonna stay with your mother-in-law? 

[00:16:36] Maura Jamie: Like he had a life there. I was back and forth every weekend seeing him.

And then as that relationship grew I came to see that he. A terrible alcoholic, violent mentally abusive, emotionally abusive physically it was just awful. Being in a domestic violence situation, you know, a lot of people don't understand that.

They kind of poison your mind 

[00:17:03] Angela Kennecke: . It destroys you. 

[00:17:04] Maura Jamie: They belittle you to the ground and, I turned away from my family and I turned away from my friends. I wasn't allowed to have friends; very controlling, looking through my phone. I had a pile of pink slips from calling the cops. Like the cops knew us, like it was an embarrassment, you know? And with the help of my now husband, I was able to get an apartment in Brooklyn. He was a friend, and then he helped me out as a friend. My husband's name is Ray. We had been friends for like 10 years prior. And then, after I was living in Brooklyn for two years in my own place, 

so after two years of not being with Tom and I formed a relationship and then we decided to move to Florida together and get married . We bought a home and you know, I was working 

it was good. You know, like Carter and I would FaceTime three times a week and, you know, and I would go up every couple months and you would visit. He was in college at this time. Majoring in musical engineering music was his passion.

He learned how to play the guitar when he was sick. 

[00:18:15] Angela Kennecke: Did he like Ray?

[00:18:17] Maura Jamie: He loved Ray. When Ray asked Carter for his blessing, he asked Carter, you know, can I marry your mom? And Carter said, thank you, please, yes. Like, I give you my blessing. You, you are so amazing to my mother. 

[00:18:33] Angela Kennecke: So at this point Carter's in college, and you and Ray 

moved to Florida?

[00:18:37] Maura Jamie: We moved to Florida. So I knew in senior year of high school that like, Carter starts smoking pot, no one's drinking and going to parties. My first thing was always, you can always tell me anything.

You can always be open with me. I will never be angry with you. I needed him to know that he could feel safe coming to me with anything. I would remind him constantly that, you're playing Russian roulette, you know, like the odd, they're stacked against you, there's addiction in my family.

Chris was adopted, so we don't know his past history, just giving that both his parents were addicts. I remember praying when I was pregnant, like, please let, it like, cancel out for Carter, so he doesn't have to experience that ever. So, it was very hard to know that he was experimenting with , it started off with pot and then it was Adderall and then a Xanax here and there.

 20 years old is when it started to get out of control . How did you know, did he tell you? He was telling me, he told me. He would say, you know you know, I started taking Xanax. He wouldn't tell me, like as he was doing it, he would tell me after, like when he was in kind of a crisis mode, he'd call me up and he'd be like, I've been taking Xanax for, you know, like a month.

And I don't have any, and I'm feeling sick. And my skin is crawling and I feel like my heart's like, you know, all the withdrawal symptoms I would just sit there and just try to talk 'em through it and, tell 'em, take Ashwaganda, take, you know, try some plant medicine type vitamins , or you gotta go to rehab, like, it was mentioned numerous times that, you gotta go in, you gotta go in, you gotta go in.

And I saw getting progressively worse and he was 20 . He had completed two full years of college and then took a break because of the addiction, because he could not keep up with school.

So really when he went to college is when it got bad with the experimenting and partying, 

[00:20:52] Angela Kennecke: that's not 

unusual. 

[00:20:53] Maura Jamie: Not at all. Not at all. 

[00:20:55] Angela Kennecke: Although 

we should make it so it's not tolerated 

So Carter completes two years of school leaves because he's addicted to Xanax basically. 

[00:21:01] Maura Jamie: He detoxed himself off of the Xanax and switched over to Oxycontin. And he was crushing them up. He was sniffing them he would do it, maybe like two times a week. I saw the progression, I was put in a really hard position because he was entrusting me with his secrets.

But at the same time, like, I needed my family to intervene, but I did not want to break that trust. And then him just completely shut down because that's how Carter operated. , he was, he's very, very loyal. So I found myself in constant struggle. But having conversations with my mother-in-law during this time, she, she knew what was going on.

 Then by Christmas 2020, he fell down the stairs. I didn't even know this, it was this bad. He had began communicating with me less and less and, 

[00:22:07] Angela Kennecke: and he's still living 

on the East coast and you're in Florida, 

[00:22:10] Maura Jamie: right. So I'm feeling completely helpless. And now he's out of my mother-in-law's house because , he developed like rage issues.

You know, would fight punch holes in the wall. Like this was not, my Carter, like this was not Carter. And just constantly screaming with his grandma

[00:22:27] Angela Kennecke: I had the same issue with my daughter. She was an adult and she wasn't living in my home. And your Carter was an adult and he wasn't living in your home. First of all, we don't have any control over another human being, but half the time you don't know what to do and you can't force them to do anything. 

[00:22:46] Maura Jamie: Nothing. Nothing. And, and it's very hard because, you know, my dad pulled a tough love card with me.

Like, you cannot live here anymore. I am not supporting you. I'm shipping you off, you know, from New Jersey to the, you know, east end of Long Island, I'm done. And that saved my life. But with Carter, the tough love card wasn't gonna work with him. He never really talked about his dad's death in therapy.

 He knew he had mental health issues. He would, was put on medication. He, he wasn't a talker. The way he expressed himself was through writing music. And after he passed and going back and listening to some of his songs, I'm like, I'm like, oh my God.

You know, like, cuz I'm hearing his pain and I'm hearing his anger he was drinking pints of vodka. He fell down the stairs at Christmas. Then he went into a rehab

[00:23:49] Angela Kennecke: so January of 2021, 

he's in rehab. 

[00:23:53] Maura Jamie: Yep. So he went into a facility long term. It was 90 days he completed it. He came out, but he was different. That was the one thing that I noticed that like concerned me. Like he was still really depressed. He was still isolating, wasn't communicating with me as much. So he ended up coming down to visit me for in Florida.

 He was just not himself at all. He literally, like, we had all this stuff planned, like jet skis are going out on boats and all this stuff and like he didn't wanna do any of it.

We did sit outside a lot and we did a lot of talking, just from his addiction to my addiction to the universe. We would have conversations about like, just kind of on a higher conscious. He was my son, but like he was also my best friend because we understood each other so well.

So he left Florida on a Friday night, went back to Long Island. He's now living at my sister-in-law's house in Huntington and ended up buying like oxys and overdosing that night. And they were able to resuscitate him. 

[00:25:11] Angela Kennecke: So he was revived with Narcan. 

[00:25:13] Maura Jamie: Revived with Narcan. 

 I get a call, he had just come from my house, so like, my extended family were like, you know, did he get the drugs from you?

Did he get the drugs from Florida? Like, they, like, were just all over the place . 

He immediately went into a treatment facility, but it was like, this is life or, or death.

 You continue to use, you will die. Like that's where it was at with him, you know? And he went back into treatment , was doing really well. Got out, went into a sober house walked in. This was two weeks before he died. He walked in on his roommate smoking crack. He had an appointment the following Monday to go to another sober house that was much better and closer to the family. And they ended up choosing another kid over him. He was just really upset that he didn't get into that place. And that was on a Monday and then the following Saturday, which was November 6th, his girlfriend was on her way over. She comes into the house. And knocks on Carter's door and like opens it a little bit and doesn't see him. So then she knocks at my sister-in-law's door and she's like, where's Carter? And she's like, he's in his room.

So my sister-in-law gets up and goes in and looks and walks in a little further and sees that his chair to his desk is turned over and Carter's on the floor. She did cpr, the paramedics came, they gave him four shots of Narcan.

And he was pronounced dead at 1246 on November 7th. And it was 20 years to the day that my husband died. 

[00:26:58] Angela Kennecke: Carter's dad.

[00:26:59] Maura Jamie: Yeah. 

[00:27:00] Angela Kennecke: What do you think that means?

[00:27:01] Maura Jamie: I don't know. I don't know. And I've thought about it so much and like, and at first, you know, so many people were like, well, do you think he did it purposely? And I was like, absolutely not. Like I, I, he wanted to live I know that. 

[00:27:15] Angela Kennecke: what did he take?

[00:27:16] Maura Jamie: He took Oxys that were pure fentanyl. 

[00:27:20] Angela Kennecke: And he didn't know that. 

[00:27:21] Maura Jamie: He had no idea. No. These are not overdoses, these are poisonings. People don't know that fentanyl is in it. They're being deceived.

They're thinking they're taking an oxy that's pure fentanyl. I mean, that is a poisoning and murder, it's murder. It's drug induced homicide.

[00:27:41] Angela Kennecke: What is the 

difference between the grief of losing a husband and losing a child? 

[00:27:48] Maura Jamie: So for, for me I'm now realizing that I never processed Chris's death. I'm so young, I have to move on with my life. Losing a spouse, as devastating as it is, you can get remarried, but when you lose a child, and Carter's was my only child. Not to say that anyone's grief is worse or better, but I have to say that losing a child is the worst type of loss for me anyway. 

[00:28:27] Angela Kennecke: I can't imagine what is worse than losing a child. It's hard to lose anybody that you love. Exactly. I'm not saying that it's not difficult to lose a spouse or Right.

Of course, you know, somebody close to you and your family, but when it's your child, 

it's just because it just shouldn't happen. And 

I know you're so early on in this. With him. You're just shy of one year, you're, you're hitting that one year 

mark. Yeah. How are you 

coping or surviving? You're doing a lot of it publicly.

[00:28:58] Maura Jamie: I do that because, just to try to break this stigma, and just make people aware like 300 Americans are dying a day from fentanyl. This is the biggest drug epidemic or will end up being the biggest drug epidemic this country has ever seen. It has been for a while, right?

And nobody is talking about it. Nobody's discussing it. I don't understand like why every politician and every, like, why aren't they talking about it? Why aren't they doing more right? Doing more like declare it a weapon of mass destruction. We do not send fentanyl to Russia because they can use it as a weapon of mass destruction, but it's coming, it's flooding our country.

[00:29:47] Angela Kennecke: Killing our young people,

All these young lives. Your son was musically talented. My daughter was an artist. I mean, you think of all the loss to humanity, 

. And here you and I are kinda left in the rubble of all of it, right? 

[00:30:00] Maura Jamie: Absolutely.. You asked like how I'm, how I'm doing and I not well , the anticipation of the one year mark is something I cannot get outta my mind. And I know it's like this, this build up to this, these anniversaries or these milestones that we hit during grief. I feel like this is the first year that I'll really, truly be grieving Chris. So it's like, I feel like I'm just getting like a, a double whammy.

 And being told. From numerous, numerous mothers that the second year is harder.

[00:30:39] Angela Kennecke: Well, the second year is different. Different. Right. I would say that the first year is shock Yes. And just 

flat out pain. Yep. 

The second year is depression. And that's where you have to take care of yourself.

Right. Especially, you already suffer from depression, right? Yep. And I think into the third and fourth years you find that acceptance, but you have to find purpose in your life. Beyond your child's death or because of, I suppose for me it's because of 

[00:31:10] Maura Jamie: I feel the same way. 

[00:31:11] Angela Kennecke: I worry about you though, potentially relapsing because you're prone to that and you're dealing with so much grief.

[00:31:18] Maura Jamie: It's interesting because, I would say when I hit about the nine year mark, I don't ever even think about using, it's not an option. If I use, I will die. And for me it's trying, right now I'm kind of at where I'm in this lull and I'm trying to find my purpose. I'm gonna start attending an online class where I'll be certified to work in rehabs. So I think that will be very healing. And give me a sense of purpose.

I 

[00:31:57] Angela Kennecke: love that idea. Who's better qualified than you? 

[00:31:59] Maura Jamie: Right. Right. , that's what my therapist said. She's like, it's brilliant. So I, you know, I, I, I mean, I wanna help people like that. My, my pathway to healing is, is by helping people. Like I, you know, I send out free Narcan to people. That's something I do. Every time I post on Instagram or Facebook, you know, anyone who needs Narcan and I've probably sent out over a hundred boxes 

[00:32:27] Angela Kennecke: for me, There is purpose in helping others. I always say helping others helps my grief. It helps me more than absolutely anything else that I could do. I appreciate everything that you're 

[00:32:39] Maura Jamie: doing. 

[00:32:39] Angela Kennecke: Maura is also creating memorial frames for those who have lost children to the drug. You can find out more information about that along with resources for getting help from substance use disorder at Emily's Hope charity. While you're there, also check out more episodes of Grieving Out Loud. Thanks for listening.

Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage.