[00:00:00] Phyllis Babrove: The drug situation in this country is going to destroy the American families. 

[00:00:05] Angela Kennecke: Fentanyl poisoning is now the number one cause of death for people ages 18 to 45. Phyllis Babrove knows that all too well. She lost her daughter to the epidemic and now she has a warning for other parents.

[00:00:22] Phyllis Babrove: Early education, and it's not just with the kids, but the parents. The parents aren't aware. They don't know what's going on out there.

[00:00:29] Angela Kennecke: I'm journalist Angela Kennecke the host of Grieving Out Loud. I started this podcast along with my charity, Emily's Hope after my daughter Emily died from Fentanyl poisoning, we hope by raising awareness and reducing the stigma, we can get more people into treatment and prevent deaths.

Well, Phyllis, I appreciate you joining me today and for writing the book that you wrote out of your experiences with your own 

[00:00:57] Phyllis Babrove: child. 

Thank you for having me. Angela. 

[00:01:01] Angela Kennecke: I'd like to start off by having you tell me a little bit about Sarah's story. Sarah died in 2020 at the age of 47. and it sounds like you had been through so many struggles and difficulties with her starting at a very young age. Before the age of 12 what was Sarah like? 

[00:01:22] Phyllis Babrove: She was a typical little girl who was inquisitive and she was helpful, she was good-hearted. She had her friends, but then the behavior problems started when she was around 12.

[00:01:36] Angela Kennecke: What kind of behavior problems? 12 is pretty 

[00:01:38] Phyllis Babrove: young. So what happened? 

We found her lying. She had stolen money . Didn't admit it at first. The behavior really escalated when she started middle school, which I guess she was about 12, 13. She was smoking cigarettes. She got caught at school for that. Skipping school to go smoke down the street.

And so those were the behaviors that started the lying, the defiance, which often happens with kids that age especially it seems girls .

[00:02:09] Angela Kennecke: So she's 12 years old.

She's acting out. She's not doing the things she's supposed to. She's starting to experiment with substances such as nicotine. What happened then? 

[00:02:18] Phyllis Babrove: Marijuana. I found all these things out later on. Another thing was you had no idea at the time. No, just about the cigarettes that we knew because we were smokers at the time.

So she would get our cigarettes, unknown to us. But I didn't know about marijuana. She worked at a convenience store and told me later on, that's when she really started using. so Then the running away started and the manipulation got worse. On top of all of this, it was difficult because she was an excellent student. Sarah got As and Bs all the time without any effort. It sounds like my Emily. Yeah, it's not a balance. It's not a balance. Then high school came along and the skipping started, I mean, a lot of skipping of classes. And back in those days, the only way we would know was a robot call, but every day at six o'clock, Sarah answered the phone and it's a wrong number. So that's what I got for a long time. And then one day I found out about the skipping and confronted the school, which now I know better. They could only do so much, but she would sit in the library or the cafeteria and I would ask people if you saw her sitting in there all the time, why didn't you ask her why she was sitting there?

Because even at that time it didn't make any sense to me. 

[00:03:39] Angela Kennecke: Don't you think that some kids are more extreme than others? I know you have four children. I have four children. Emily was my oldest, and her defiance started at about 

14. I was so unprepared. I had never experienced anything like that. 

[00:03:55] Phyllis Babrove: Right. I had never either, my oldest is a boy , they close in age, never had any problems with him, but the defiance started and the main thing that I remember was Sarah, she wanted to be popular and for whatever reason, she never chose the more positive kids.

It was the kids who smoked, the kids who skipped school, and those were the friends that she chose. 

 (MUSIC UP! ) 

[00:04:17] Angela Kennecke: In addition to Sarah's peers and her personality, Phyllis believes a turning point in Sarah's drug use happened when she was 18.

[00:04:28] Phyllis Babrove: When I do look back, the one thing that now stands out in my mind is she had her tonsils out when she was 18 and just kept wanting refills on that Vicodin.

Sarah was a, I don't know if the word is product or victim, of the whole opioid situation.

[00:04:45] Angela Kennecke: When she was 18, there were no real controls on that kind of thing. 

[00:04:49] Phyllis Babrove: No.

And then it would be the different guys she got involved with. There were a couple in particular where they would go to all of these pain management clinics.

If you watch Dope Sick, that's exactly what she went through from clinic to clinic. It was a very dominant thing here in South Florida, as everybody knows. So they would go to the different counties and she was hooked on the opioids.

[00:05:12] Angela Kennecke: Oxycontin? Mm-hmm. . And from there, I suppose at some point she couldn't get the pills anymore. Is that when she turned to heroin? 

[00:05:22] Phyllis Babrove: Heroin, cocaine. When she became older, she felt the need to tell me all of these things that I hadn't known over the years. So she said she tried all drugs.

There was nothing that she didn't try, she didn't do anything intravenous because she didn't like needles. So it was basically snorting. 

[00:05:42] Angela Kennecke: When you talk about your daughter using Vicodin at age 18 before her brain is fully developed. Right?

Well, she's set up for addiction. She's already got some mental health issues and I mean, it's just, she was set up. 

[00:05:54] Phyllis Babrove: She was set up. 

 (MUSIC UP! ) 

[00:05:57] Angela Kennecke: Despite her continued use, Sarah graduated from high school and even got a master's degree in college, but her substance use disorder still impacted her ability to earn a living

[00:06:09] Phyllis Babrove: She could never maintain a job. That was always a problem for Sarah, but grades and that she did well, but she never did explain. She just started with the drugs, and she liked it. That's the only explanation. 

It's 

[00:06:24] Angela Kennecke: interesting to me. It's almost like you have a split personality here because you have someone who's refusing to abide by the rules, so to speak.

Experimenting eventually using probably on a regular basis, but yet is so smart they can get a 

master's degree. 

[00:06:38] Phyllis Babrove: Got a master's degree but couldn't get a job because of all the behavior. I never knew how bad it really was throughout the years, but I would tell her, go to a program.

I'll pay for the program, go to a therapist, do something and I'll pay for it. I can do it on my own. I can quit if I want to. I'm a grown up, and those were the lines that I got throughout the years.

 (MUSIC UP! !) 

[00:07:01] Angela Kennecke: For three decades. Sarah struggled with substance use disorder. She was married for a short time and gave birth to a daughter. 

[00:07:11] Phyllis Babrove: I asked Sarah once, I said, did you use any drugs during pregnancy? And she said, "Yeah, but I stopped as soon as I found out I was pregnant. But she would never say when that was.

 (MUSIC UP! ) 

[00:07:24] Angela Kennecke: 

In fact, Sarah never found recovery until she was 42 and had overdosed on heroin.

And she goes in for treatment. How did she do? 

[00:07:36] Phyllis Babrove: She did well. I went to see her every Sunday for the visiting hours and she was doing well. She wrote me letters. We actually were able to have a friendship that we had never had since she was a little girl. And after that, she went to a sober house, which was not a good one.

I didn't know that. Again, I don't know much about these things. But after that, she was able to get a car, she was able to get an apartment, and she was doing well. But again, it was the employment. She worked in a phone room. Slowly that stopped.

She lost the job, she lost the ability to pay her rent. I helped her as much as I could, and she barely, made payments on the car. That's when she went to live with a relative, and that lasted just a few months. She was on her own, I guess for about three years. She did pretty well. But then that's when it ended.

 (MUSIC UP! !) 

[00:08:33] Angela Kennecke: Phyllis was talking on the phone with her daughter. Sarah was complaining about pain after a dermatologist visit. Little did Phyllis know that would be the last conversation she would have with her. Just an hour and a half later, Sarah was found unresponsive.

[00:08:53] Phyllis Babrove: Her daughter found her. 

[00:08:55] Angela Kennecke: That's so traumatic. Was she 15 at the time? 

[00:09:01] Phyllis Babrove: She was 15, 14, 15. Yeah. 

[00:09:06] Angela Kennecke: That's tough. 

[00:09:09] Phyllis Babrove: It was tough.

 And apparently the paramedics didn't even have time to do Narcan or anything and there was nothing suspicious that would have led them to do that. 

[00:09:21] Angela Kennecke: So she was already dead by the time she was found. Right.

[00:09:25] Phyllis Babrove: and I just kept thinking maybe her heart gave out on her from all of the years of using or whatever.

Now when we got the results, I was totally shocked. I did not know that she had taken anything. 

[00:09:39] Angela Kennecke: And what did she take? What ultimately killed her? 

[00:09:41] Phyllis Babrove: Fentanyl. It was fentanyl. Pure fentanyl? Straight fentanyl? It was ruled an accidental death. Yeah. And the amount was very high. What did she think she was taking?

[00:09:52] Angela Kennecke: Did she think she was taking fentanyl? 

[00:09:54] Phyllis Babrove: My thoughts on that? I think she was taking an Oxycontin that she bought that. And she knew about all the dangers with fentanyl, she told me. So I don't think she thought she was getting a fentanyl.

 (MUSIC UP! ) 

[00:10:06] Angela Kennecke: No matter what Sarah thought she was taking. Phyllis is left with not only grieving the loss of her daughter, but also the responsibility of raising her granddaughter. 

You're a grandmother raising a grandchild, which is so typical in this horrible epidemic, 

[00:10:22] Phyllis Babrove: right? She came to us in July after being in a program for behavior out of state for almost a year after her mother died.

[00:10:32] Angela Kennecke: That sounds challenging. 

[00:10:34] Phyllis Babrove: It's challenging. We have our little rocky road parts, but she'll get there.

[00:10:42] Angela Kennecke: So do you see a lot of similarities in what you went through with Sarah, with what you're experiencing with her? 

[00:10:49] Phyllis Babrove: The defiance, the oppositional behavior. 

[00:10:52] Angela Kennecke: Do you think it's hereditary? Maybe you think that's maybe passed down?

[00:10:56] Phyllis Babrove: Well, I think with her, she has different issues, and we're working on finding that out.

There's some kind of neurological damage from there. And then you've got the environmental issues throughout the years. I didn't know how bad it was, or I would've stepped in in other ways, but we had no idea. 

[00:11:15] Angela Kennecke: So how do you reconcile all of these difficult years you had ? You had like 30 years of tough times and worrying about your child, and it sort of overshadows the rest of the family.

It's like a dark cloud, right? 

Right. And then it results in death. I mean, 

[00:11:33] Phyllis Babrove: all that I can really think of Angela is the fact that I had four good years. You know? That's the way I have to look at it. 

[00:11:44] Angela Kennecke: A lot of times I think our society thinks we're doing something wrong as a parent when our kids start acting out or behaving in this way. Mm-hmm. 

[00:11:55] Phyllis Babrove: Right. And so the parent feels guilty and also we're going back many years.

Sarah was born in 72, so we're going back when all of these things weren't available to us. We didn't know these things. There was no education, no resources, and my problem as a parent at that time was I believed everything she told me she was manipulative, and yet if she lied to me, I would believe that she was telling the truth.

So of course, in the long run that did not help her. Right. 

[00:12:27] Angela Kennecke: So Emily was only 21 when she died a little more than four years ago now. And I had taken online classes for oppositional defiant teenagers, and I had more resources at my disposal than you did when you were going through this with Sarah.

Right. I did all the things that I learned to do, and I don't know that it made any difference. 

[00:12:49] Phyllis Babrove: Right. And, we, we took her for counseling. And just to give you an example of what happened with that, she was seeing a psychologist and I got a phone call one day.

 I think she was 12, and they told me he could no longer see her because she had missed too many appointments, and to make a long story short, we would drop her off. I didn't know any better at that time that I should have walked her upstairs and she would go back downstairs, use the payphone and call and cancel the session, or just not show up.

But it took many years for me to find that out. She told me a lot of different things when she got older. 

[00:13:24] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, it's interesting cause you can't get inside that 12 year old brain to figure out why she was doing what she was doing at the time. But I think there's a mental health aspect to this, right? Right, 

[00:13:37] Phyllis Babrove: right.

There is, and again, at the time, I wasn't even in school yet to go into a social work career until later on. So I had no classroom knowledge. I didn't know anything. And now, you know, when I look back, I was naive. I said that for many years, and yet I wasn't. I just was not aware. 

[00:13:57] Angela Kennecke: Sarah's behavior and her trajectory with using drugs and becoming addicted to drugs. How did that affect you and your other children? 

[00:14:06] Phyllis Babrove: Destructive. It destroys the family.

And I do remember telling my husband over 30 years ago, The drug situation in this country is going to destroy the American families. And so it, it did, you know her siblings basically turned away from her. There would be months and months where we wouldn't even hear from her. And then, she would contact me or I would reach out, I'd find her and contact her.

[00:14:33] Angela Kennecke: You know, all of these stories have so many similarities. Emily's story, other parents I've talked to who've lost a child to Fentanyl poisoning.

Mm-hmm. , it seems like if there is a certain pattern to this, that we could crack this nut and figure out how to end it. 

[00:14:51] Phyllis Babrove: Well, and I think that starts, and I, I don't know if you'll agree with me or not. It starts with early education education. 

[00:14:58] Angela Kennecke: Oh, I, we, I agree with you. That's what we're doing at Emily's Hope, early education.

 (MUSIC UP! !) 

[00:15:02] Angela Kennecke: Emily's Hope is developing a prevention education curriculum for elementary school students. Is designed to teach children the effects of substances on the brain, body, and their lives, and involves a team of medical education and addiction specialists.

[00:15:20] Phyllis Babrove: Early education. And, it's not just with the kids, but the parents. The parents aren't aware. They don't know what's going on out there. I was working a part-time job a few years back in a program where the kids had been arrested for basically, you know, any kind of drug use vaping in the schools or whatever.

And the parents were in this parenting group that I was in, as a facilitator, and they said, I don't know why my child was arrested. What did she do wrong? What is vaping? 

 (MUSIC UP! !) 

[00:15:50] Angela Kennecke: According to the latest research on smoking habits among children in the us, 13% of high school students regularly use tobacco. Nearly 35% have experimented with it. The number one reason for this increase in E-cig use curiosity and peer pressure. 

[00:16:09] Phyllis Babrove: So parents really don't know. So educating parents is where it has to start. And of course, in the schools, 

[00:16:17] Angela Kennecke: Is that why you wrote your book?

[00:16:19] Phyllis Babrove: , that's why I started the blog, that's why I wrote the book, was to work towards helping people understand, giving them education interventions, prevention.

So that they can try to save their child from taking that path. I can't focus on what happened before. It took a while and it, and it's still, I would like to have that text at night before she goes to sleep. So That's the only way I could deal with it. 

[00:16:49] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. Words from a mother in mourning, how to protect your child from drugs, that's the title of your book.

Mm-hmm. Do you think we can protect our children 

from drugs? 

[00:17:01] Phyllis Babrove: I think it's going to take an awful lot of people to do what you and I do, and a lot of others. It's going to take a big movement to stop this. The whole fentanyl thing is, but if they start when they're early and they show these little kids, don't take candy from anybody.

Don't take chips from anybody. Don't take anything from anybody and just to educate them. 

[00:17:23] Angela Kennecke: Right. I had so many more resources at my disposal than you did, and I still felt like I couldn't find the right ones, and I still couldn't save my child. I really believe once addiction takes hold mm-hmm. , or even experimentation in today's world, right.

[00:17:41] Phyllis Babrove: There's very little you can do to control another human being. Right? They have to not take that first puff of a cigarette or marijuana or anything. 

[00:17:51] Angela Kennecke: Especially for the developing brain. 

[00:17:53] Phyllis Babrove: And the younger they start, the more serious it's going to get over the years.

[00:17:58] Angela Kennecke: So we have a lot of parents who are like us who've lost someone, a child to fentanyl, and we have a lot of concerned parents. Parents who maybe are dealing in the midst of a child who's showing signs of substance use disorder. What 

advice do you have for them?

[00:18:17] Phyllis Babrove: For the parents? To take their children for help as soon as they can.

There are good programs around, there are good substance abuse therapists around and I have to say, make that child get help whether they want to or not. 

[00:18:31] Angela Kennecke: Well, especially when they're under your control, when they're under 18, , after they're 18, it's impossible.

[00:18:37] Phyllis Babrove: It's impossible. And just, you know, talk to them. I have that in the book. Communication is so important , we read to them, we talk to them, we sing to them from the time they're babies. Keep that going, keep that communication open with them, because in the long run you have more in, well, we try to have more influence over our children than their friends or outsiders.

And there's so many books out there now. There's so much reading material and education that Right. All we can do is try. 

[00:19:10] Angela Kennecke: Phyllis, do you ever feel angry or bitter that you've been through this with your daughter? 

[00:19:16] Phyllis Babrove: Angry at who? The world? Her. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I get angry. I get angry, and again, I'm angry at the world because this is so far out of control that it's scary, it's terrifying.

[00:19:38] Angela Kennecke: Mm-hmm. , it's terrifying. 

And we certainly can't see experimentation as a rite of passage for teenagers. I think society has always sort of thought, oh, well, when I was younger, I drank, or I did this, or whatever, and it's a different world. 

[00:19:56] Phyllis Babrove: Yes, it is a different world. 

[00:19:58] Angela Kennecke: And we know a lot more. We know a lot more about the brain.

[00:20:00] Phyllis Babrove: Right, right, right. It's all about education and prevention. 

[00:20:07] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. I'm with you a hundred percent there, Phyllis. Well, we are going to put a link to your book on the show notes of this podcast, so if people want to check that out, they can do that. And I just appreciate you joining me. 

[00:20:21] Phyllis Babrove: Well, thank you for having me.

And I'm sorry about Emily. I'm sorry about everybody's children.

[00:20:27] Angela Kennecke: I know, I'm sorry that we share this shared pain that we have. 

I'm sorry about Sarah. Thank you. 

[00:20:34] Phyllis Babrove: Thank you for all that you're doing, and thank you for letting me be a part of it. 

 (MUSIC UP! !) 

[00:20:39] Angela Kennecke: Thank you for joining me for this latest episode of Grieving Out Loud. You can listen to more episodes and read my blogs on our website, Emily's Hope Charity. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage.