[00:00:00] Nathan Smiddy: It snowballed. I was doing opioids uh, xanax or Klonopin. I was mixing cocaine in with it to try and stay up. 

[00:00:07] Angela Kennecke: Nathan Smitty started using and then selling drugs in high school.

[00:00:12] Nathan Smiddy: I knew that if I went to college, I was going to party and flunk out. I knew that getting,financial aid was not worth it, so I didn't go. I stayed home and I sold drugs .

[00:00:22] Angela Kennecke: But after a couple of close encounters with death, Nate now finds his purpose in saving others from overdose. 

Does it come back to you that lives have been saved? 

[00:00:34] Nathan Smiddy: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. 

[00:00:36] Angela Kennecke: How many do you think? 

[00:00:37] Nathan Smiddy: In the last year-ish, , give or take, probably 450 plus. Four 50 plus 450 lives. Yeah. Wow. That is incredible. 

[00:00:47] Angela Kennecke: You're like an angel out there saving lives.

[00:00:51] Nathan Smiddy: No

[00:00:52] Angela Kennecke: It's earned him the nickname of Narcan. Nate, I'm Angela Kennecke, an award-winning journalist and your host of Grieving Out Loud. I started this podcast along with the charity, Emily's Hope, after my daughter died from Fentanyl poisoning. 

 Nate, thank you for joining me from Sunny California. It looks beautiful where you are. 

[00:01:15] Nathan Smiddy: Oh, thank you for having me. It's very beautiful. 

[00:01:19] Angela Kennecke: I am so excited to hear a little bit more about your story. I've seen your story on TV news stories and written about in publications, but I don't think I know all of it.

I know you're from Tennessee originally. Tell me a little bit about growing up in Tennessee. 

[00:01:36] Nathan Smiddy: I grew up in a really small town. There were four red lights. , a bunch of funeral homes and some bars, and that's the gist of it. Really small town, everybody knows everybody. It used to be a very booming coal mining town.

Then coal mining went away. Appalachia was struck really hard with that and a lot of poverty. 

[00:02:00] Angela Kennecke: Growing up, Nate also suffered through personal trauma. At age five, his parents got a divorce. His dad started working two jobs to support the family. His mom was barely in his life at one point. Nate didn't see her for more than a decade. 

[00:02:20] Nathan Smiddy: I went through so much in such a little time, and there was no way for a five year old child to process that. I didn't have the capacity to process a lot of it, but I do think that played a part in it--absolutely. 

It definitely played a part in determining my negative self talk, completely. 

[00:02:39] Angela Kennecke: Your dad was a cop, and your brother was a cop.

Clearly rule followers , and you took a different path. I'm a journalist. My daughter became addicted. I think addiction can happen in any family. There is no socioeconomic or color or any kind of limitations with 

addiction. 

[00:02:58] Nathan Smiddy: No, I don't believe it depends on your socioeconomic status, your race or y our gender identity. I believe a multitude of those factors can play a role in it, but I don't think solely that it just depends on that.I don't think it matters where you're from, who your parents are. I don't believe any of that matters when it comes to addiction. 

[00:03:21] Angela Kennecke: How did it happen for you?

Did you start experimenting when you were a teenager? 

[00:03:26] Nathan Smiddy: Yes. I started drinking junior year. I got really drunk the first time. I mean, I drank a lot, and after that it was okay. I didn't drink really at all. I would just have a few beers every now and then.

Senior year I partied very heavily. I started smoking weed. We were on the block schedule in high school, which means we had four periods for an hour and a half, but I would only go to one class, maybe two classes, and then I left school to go to work. I had a job, and I went to work. They paid me cash every day.

That's how I was able to buy beer and marijuana every day. so I partied hard. I got accepted into college. I got accepted into ETSU, and then I knew that if I went to college, I was going to party and flunk out. I knew that getting financial aid was not worth it,

so I didn't go, I stayed home and I sold drugs. That's what I did. 

[00:04:20] Angela Kennecke: I think that the younger that you start, the more you're set up for addiction and also the more your decisions are illogical. 

[00:04:29] Nathan Smiddy: Yeah, I would agree with that.

[00:04:31] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. Your family--were they upset with you? Did they know what was going on? 

[00:04:35] Nathan Smiddy: No, they didn't know for a long time. As I sold drugs, my use dwindled down actually. I really didn't sell drugs at home. I was smarter than that.

I had like, "respect," so I drove around all day and would make deliveries, or I would meet people someplace, but I never sold drugs at home. They never really knew for a while, but at some point they did. 

[00:04:56] Angela Kennecke: music- Then in October of 2010, Nate tried opioids for the first time.

[00:05:01] Nathan Smiddy: Yeah, it was oxycodone. I had went through a breakup. It was like my first real love, you know? The guy that I was selling drugs with--I went over to his house to pick up.

He told me to liven up, which in the south means to get in a better mood. We were selling oxycodone, one of the things we were selling. He put one on his counter; he busted it up, and I snorted half of it. It was the best feeling I'd ever had in my life.

 I tell people all the time that the thought in my head was I need to feel this way every day for the rest of my life. That was the immediate response to it when I ingested it. 

[00:05:36] Angela Kennecke: Hmm. And after that, were opioids your drug of choice? 

[00:05:40] Nathan Smiddy: Drug of choice, and then I'm going further. It snowballed.

 I I was doing opioids and Xanax or Klonopin, and then I was mixing cocaine in with it to try and 

stay up. 

[00:05:51] Angela Kennecke: Sure. Right. Because when you take those downers, eventually you have to be awake for something. 

[00:05:57] Nathan Smiddy: Yeah. 

[00:05:58] Angela Kennecke: So I know you overdosed twice. Mm-hmm. , How come you're here talking to 

me?

[00:06:04] Nathan Smiddy: The first incident I call an overdose. No one has corrected me on it. I'll tell you the story. It was when Opanas came out, or Oxymorphone, and we were selling them. I had no idea what they were,

but they were really expensive, and I had very little oxycodone left, but I had a lot more opanas. I took one with some oxycodone. I didn't feel anything really, and so I took maybe two or three more, and this was the forties. Oxymorphone is extended release, and I didn't know that, and it hit me all of a sudden.

 I collapsed in my driveway. Then I come back to consciousness. The last thing I remember is my uncle's fingers going into my mouth because I thought if I ate some food at some point in that time,I would sober up. Then I woke up 26 hours later.

I have no idea what happened. 

[00:06:58] Angela Kennecke: Sounds like an overdose to me, 

but not a fatal one.

[00:07:02] Nathan Smiddy: Yeah. Yeah. I have no idea. I don't know what it is. I call it that. No one's ever corrected me on it or explained to me what happened. but that's what happened. 

[00:07:13] Angela Kennecke: Nate continued to struggle with his substance use disorder and again, overdosed four years later. Thankfully, Narcan administered by emergency workers and a friend saved his life.

[00:07:26] Nathan Smiddy: I was at this really shady hotel, and I knew one of the guys there. I didn't have the door locked. He was over there, and he came by, and he saw me. He called. Thank God he called.

 How did you find recovery? , 

[00:07:42] Nathan Smiddy: I was in the Suboxone clinic, and I had gotten robbed . Previous to this point, I was paying cash, but I got robbed.

I asked my dad if he would let me use his insurance to pay for it. He just took me to treatment instead. I went through that detox, and it was roughbut I did it. I stayed sober for 16, 17 months, and then I relapsed. Then after that, it was a couple of years of just going through it in and out

 of the rooms 12 steps. 

[00:08:10] Angela Kennecke: How did your dad, the cop, react to all of this? 

[00:08:15] Nathan Smiddy: Oh, , in many different ways. He was sad. He was scared. There was a point where he cold turkeyed me on his couch. T his was right after I'd overdosed the first time, and I had drugs and scales and paraphernalia just all in my truck.

 He was not happy with that. I had drugs bagged out for resale, so that's automatic distribution right there. He thought he failed. As a parent, every parent goes through this. It's like, where did I go wrong?

[00:08:40] Nathan Smiddy: What did I do wrong? What if I did this different? Yes. We do. Every single parent goes through that, a nd I don't personally understand it. 

[00:08:51] Angela Kennecke: So you never blamed your parents for the fact that you found yourself suffering from substance use disorder? 

[00:08:58] Nathan Smiddy: I don't think I blame them. I definitely played the victim card, but I don't think I really blamed them. I went through some trauma as a child for sure, but I don't think I really ever blamed them, per se.

I was mad at the world though. I thought the world was unfair, like why me? That definitely played a part in like prolonging my use for sure. 

[00:09:23] Angela Kennecke: Do you think it was the trauma that made you feel that way?

 I think trauma plays a big part of it. 

[00:09:30] Angela Kennecke: I've seen people react in both ways because I went through trauma as a child too, but I never saw myself as a victim, b ut I've seen people go through trauma and see themselves as a victim, a victim of everybody, other circumstances, everything around them.

I don't know why some people react in that way and others don't ? 

[00:09:48] Nathan Smiddy: Well, my brother and I went through the exact same trauma. We both had different responses to it. 

[00:09:53] Angela Kennecke: Right, and that can happen in so many families. You have the same circumstances, and one child may complete suicide, another may be an overachiever. You just have very different, different perspectives in the same circumstance.

Obviously now you're in recovery. You're talking to me, and you're doing these amazing things, which we're gonna get into in just a moment. What's worked for you? What was it? What was the turning point? 

[00:10:20] Nathan Smiddy: I work the 12 steps now. Still, it's the only thing that's ever worked for me personally.

 I did some EMDR therapy, and then I did therapy for 18 months. I think I just realized that I just couldn't keep endeavoring in this because I feel like I had exhausted all my options, so I just got out of treatment.

[00:10:38] Nathan Smiddy: I quit taking my psych meds. I was on Wellbutrin and Naltrexone. I t just controlled my cravings, and helped with depression is all it was, b ut I thought I could microdose marijuana and CBD and be okay. I absolutely could not do it.

I had the worst reaction to it. I wanted to kill myself. I thought about running out in front of the Amtrak for a couple weeks. I told the guy that sponsors me now, and we kind of just went through this process. I really thought that I was either developing agoraphobia where I thought I was gonna be one of those people that would live, and one day I would get sober, but I would be mentally

in eep, so to speak, and that scared me more than anything. Dying sounded better than being like that. 

[00:11:22] Angela Kennecke: Sounds horrible. 

 So it was a 12 step that brought you out of that? 

[00:11:25] Nathan Smiddy: I went back to meetings, and I really, really internalized that I couldn't use substances anymore really at any capacity, and I still haven't. The only time I've done a drug in almost four years is when I had surgery, and that was it. 

[00:11:41] Angela Kennecke: I hear this as a pitfall a lot for people who suffer from substance use disorder.

They go through surgery. In fact, I know a woman this happened to, and she said, "I cannot go on the opioids, on the painkillers." She did, and she fell right back into it-- back into, eventually led to heroin, eventually led to overdose. She's alive now, but I think about that. H ow were you able to have surgery, take the drugs for a short period of time , and then not stay on them?

[00:12:10] Nathan Smiddy: Well, I made a plan. I told people I was having surgery. I told them my fears and my concerns.I took one Benzo before I went in there, and then I had surgery. I came home. It was just a mouth surgery.

 I had to get a bunch of work done on my teeth due to my substance use. 

[00:12:27] Angela Kennecke: Oh sure. 

[00:12:28] Nathan Smiddy: T hen my sponsor came over. He talked to me. I went to a meeting. I prayed about it a lot, a lot, a lot. I had surgery that day. I went to a meeting that night. I was still in and out of it, kind of nodding out , and that was just it. 

[00:12:46] Angela Kennecke: What's your relationship like with your family today? I talk to my dad at least three to four times a week. My brother and I are really close. I don't think there's any bad blood between us. I flew home, and made amends to all of my family. 

 That's part of the 12 steps, right? It is, yeah. 

Now, I mentioned that you're known as Narcan Nate. How did that start? 

[00:13:12] Nathan Smiddy: When I first started distributing Narcan, I had to figure out a way to get it known that I was distributing Narcan. One of those ways was a lot of the meetings that I went to would have outside announcements. In outside announcements , it doesn't have to be 12 step related. It can be anything, so you can talk about a job at Domino's , or you need a place to live, you're moving or whatever.

I would talk about having Narcan, and I would do it at every meeting I went to. Eventually my friends started calling me Narcan Nate when I introduced myself. When the first time it happened, it stuck after that. 

[00:13:49] Angela Kennecke: Well, it's alliteration. Yeah. So why did you want to get Narcan out there?

I mean, what prompted that for you? My experience with the first time because my family didn't call 911. They really probably didn't know I was overdosing. I know they knew something was obviously wrong with me, but they had no idea how to identify one.

[00:14:09] Nathan Smiddy: Then of course, being Narcan and being saved by it,and then I had an experience where I found my friend in a sober living. I found him overdosed in the bathroom, and there were a couple of us in there that were getting high. This guy had been to prison.

He was involved in a gang, so he was affiliated with people. I find him, and I didn't know what to do. For one, I had always been the guy overdosing. I had never been the guy finding someone overdosing. I didn't want him to live and go to jail and go back to prison if that was his case,

but I didn't want him to die. I know this probably sounds really horrible to the majority of people, but I did not know what the right decision was to do because I feel like either way it could go bad, and so I almost let him die. I almost left him there, which happens a lot, unfortunately.

[00:15:00] Nathan Smiddy: I call. He gets saved, and then as I found out about harm reduction later on, I reflected back and looked at that whole situation, and everything that I know now wasn't being taught back then. There was no Narcan in the sober living. The 911 dispatcher didn't walk me through any of the process to render aid to the guy.

I didn't know about the Good Samaritan law. Sure. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I didn't know about any of that, and so pretty much my motivationwas so people didn't have to have my experience just because there was no need for it to happen. 

[00:15:35] Angela Kennecke: Right. And you have been able to distribute Narcan for what, the last four years?

going on four years. Yeah. Going on, going on four years. Yeah. 

[00:15:46] Angela Kennecke: How many people do you think you've given it out to? 

[00:15:50] Nathan Smiddy: Thousands. 

[00:15:51] Angela Kennecke: How do you get it? 

[00:15:52] Nathan Smiddy: The main source is through the state with the Department of Healthcare. It's a state source, but I have people who get it, and it will expire, and they'll give it to me.

It's still good,so I just recycle it, and that's how I get it, or I'll know people, and they'll get bulk quantities of it, and they'll mail it to me. 

[00:16:14] Angela Kennecke: Narcan should be widely available. You should be able to just go into a pharmacy and get it, but if you don't have insurance, it's expensive.

[00:16:21] Nathan Smiddy: It's very, very expensive. Very expensive. 

[00:16:25] Angela Kennecke: In fact, a new Rand Corporation study found that from 2014 to 2018, the Naloxone cost for those who are not insured rose by more than 500%, jumping from just $35 to $250. 

 How do you distribute it? How do you pass it out? 

[00:16:46] Nathan Smiddy: Either people contact us, and they schedule trainings. , or I'll make announcements on social media like, "Hey, I'm gonna do a Zoom training, and then you can come pick up the Narcan."

Or I just do street outreach. Just go out into the streets.

[00:17:00] Angela Kennecke: Have you heard of it saving lives? Does it come back to you that lives have been saved? 

[00:17:05] Nathan Smiddy: Oh, absolutely. 

Absolutely. 

[00:17:07] Angela Kennecke: How many do you think? I wanna say in the last year-ish probably 450 plus. Probably four 50 plus 450 lives. Yeah. Wow. That is incredible. 

You're like an angel out there saving lives. 

[00:17:24] Nathan Smiddy: No . 

[00:17:25] Angela Kennecke: You're not an angel ? 

[00:17:27] Nathan Smiddy: No I don't think I'm an angel. I just think I'm someone who's just very motivated, very passionate about this. 

[00:17:35] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. Obviously. Do you have a day job?

What do you do to keep a roof over your head? When I got on my feet out here, I used to have to work two jobs, and I did the Narcan distribution on the side. Now I just work for the non-profit, and that's my main job.

 . And your non-profit is? 

[00:17:54] Nathan Smiddy: It's called A NEW PATH. 

[00:17:56] Angela Kennecke: At A New Path Nate raises awareness about the opioid epidemic and teaches people how to recognize overdoses and administer Narcan.

[00:18:06] Nathan Smiddy: They've been around for 23 years, but I am working on my own little project right now. It's in the works to start my own non-profit.

[00:18:16] Angela Kennecke: What's the most rewarding thing in your life right now?

[00:18:19] Nathan Smiddy: Definitely saving lives and seeing things change is very big, but when people reach out to me, and they live in a resource desert, kind of like we have food deserts, but they're in like a resource desert--

when they reach out to me, and they don't know what to do or how to locate a service, and I'm able to help them find a service. I've had people reach out to me on social media, and they wanted Narcan, but they couldn't find it. I find it for them, and they'll save someone's life with it.

[00:18:41] Angela Kennecke: I see you have a GoFundMe. What's that for? 

[00:18:44] Nathan Smiddy: I want to get a van, and I want to gut the van. I want to build it, like put shelves in it for supplies, whether it's wound care supplies. Put waters and stuff in there and food and snacks, and have like a little place to work on people if they have wounds and stuff like that.

So pretty much, I want to have a mobile outreach van, so that way I can pull up somewhere, and people can come to, and they can receive services and stuff and things of that nature. Kind of have a safe little spot that's welcoming, and it's comfortable, and they know they're safe there, and there's no judgment.

 I believe it'll happen. 

[00:19:17] Angela Kennecke: I believe it'll happen too. I'm just amazed at everything you've been able to do already. Even your own recovery is such an accomplishment, really.

Mm-hmm. Thank you for all of the lives you've saved. Thank you. 

[00:19:29] Nathan Smiddy: No, you're welcome. 

[00:19:29] Angela Kennecke: It just means that there are families that are not grieving right now, and there are so many families grieving right now. 

[00:19:35] Nathan Smiddy: They're, yeah, There's a lot. Yeah. 

[00:19:38] Angela Kennecke: I always say with one overdose death, one Fentanyl poisoning death, t here's just so much collateral damage, so thanks for all the hard work you're doing. 

[00:19:47] Nathan Smiddy: You're very welcome. 

[00:19:48] Angela Kennecke: You can find a link to Nate's GoFundMe page and resources for battling Substance use disorder on our website, Emily's Hope dot charity. While you're there, check out more grieving out loud episodes and see how you can join our efforts. Thank you for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage.