[00:00:00] Patricia Drewes: I read him a bedtime story, and at the end of the bedtime story, there was a prayer. . And, you know, I started to read the prayer and when I got to God, he looked at me and he calls me Mama too, you know? He says, mama, I, I don't want to talk about God right now. And I said, well, why not? And he said, because he has my mother. 

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:00:20] Angela Kennecke: Patricia Drewes is one of an increasing number of grandparents stepping up to raise their grandchildren due to our nation's drug epidemic. Her story hits hard. Her daughter's life was cut short by a drug laced with a deadly dose of fentanyl. A scene all too common in today's world, she's. She vividly remembers the moment she got the call saying her only child was dead.

[00:00:54] Patricia Drewes:  I immediately threw my clothes on all I could think of. I had to get to my child. I had to see her, I had to hold her. I had to tell her that I was there and that it was going to be okay. That mama's here. 

[00:01:07] Angela Kennecke: In this emotional episode of Grieving Out Loud, we sit down with Patricia to talk about why she thinks her daughter turned to drugs, how she's dealt with this tragedy and what she's doing to turn her pain into progress through legislative initiatives. I'm your host, Angela Kennecke let's dive into this conversation that will hopefully leave you inspired to also make a difference.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:01:37] Angela Kennecke: patricia, welcome to Grieving Out Loud. for being here. I'm sorry. It's under these circumstances.

[00:01:43] Patricia Drewes: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

[00:01:45] Angela Kennecke: You lost your daughter, heaven. Heaven. Leigh was her middle name, your only child.

[00:01:51] Patricia Drewes: right? 

[00:01:52] Angela Kennecke: tell me 

[00:01:52] Patricia Drewes: Mm-hmm. . When I was 16 years old, I read a book and it was by VC Andrews and it was Flowers in the Attic. And when I read that book and I saw that name, then if I ever had a little girl that that's what I would call, that I would name her.

 when she was born, my ex-husband, her father, he was like, oh, she's gonna get picked on. You can't name her that. I says, I'm going to name her Heaven Leigh. And then when she was born and they placed her in my arms, I knew then that was as close to heaven here on earth as I would ever be.

[00:02:25] Angela Kennecke: I felt that way after all my children were born, but probably especially after my oldest daughter, Emily. Who I lost was yeah. That moment was forever etched in our minds and in our hearts.

[00:02:37] Patricia Drewes: It is, 

[00:02:38] Angela Kennecke: tell me a little bit about her growing up. What

[00:02:42] Patricia Drewes: She was a social butterfly, is what they always called her at school. went to school here up to the fourth grade here in North Carolina. The teachers used to say, because I would always dress her, everything had to be just so, and that's the way heaven liked it. But the teachers used to say they couldn't wait for her to get to school every morning just to see what she was wearing.

Everything had to match. it just had to have everything perfect. But she grew up mostly in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and she went to the School of the Arts there is the same school that some pretty famous people went to. Leslie Nielsen went to that school I believe Michael J. Fox and Tommy Chong.

[00:03:19] Angela Kennecke: Was that a boarding school then? Did she go away during the school year?

[00:03:22] Patricia Drewes: No, I am a dual citizen. Born here in North Carolina, but my mother's Canadian, so I had dual status, and when she was in the fourth grade, we wound up moving to Canada. 

[00:03:33] Angela Kennecke: So it sounds like she was really a great kid. I mean, things were going well. Obviously she's talented. And what was she interested in? What was she into?

[00:03:43] Patricia Drewes: Uh, She liked acting drama. She took that, you know, in school. She was very outgoing. She loved skateboarding and longboarding, . we lived in Edmonton, you know, Edmonton's a pretty good size city, so Heaven was accustomed to having 300 friends to do stuff with all the time. And she loved to get out of the city as well. And she, she loved hiking. She loved ice fishing. She was very versatile and one thing she did do, she played a didgeridoo. I don't know if you know what a didgeridoo is the long thing, the aboriginals play 

[00:04:15] Angela Kennecke: I, do know what that is now that you've reminded me. I've seen one before and heard one before. Yeah.

[00:04:20] Patricia Drewes: And you know, she was only five foot three and she weighed 105 pounds. She never got bigger than a size zero. Her whole life never even made it up to a size one. She was tiny. But she wanted to learn to play the didgeridoo.. And someone told her that only aboriginal males could play a didgeridoo, 

and that didn't set well with Heaven. You didn't tell her that she could not do something. So anyway, she went on to master the didgeridoo and I never could blow the thing. Yeah,

 (MUSIC UP) 

[00:04:46] Angela Kennecke: But the determined smart social teen was on the verge of some major life changes. At 18 years old, her family moved back to North Carolina where she would experience significant trauma that would change her life forever. (MUSIC UP) 

[00:05:05] Patricia Drewes: She had lived in Canada, for years and was allowed to live as a Canadian citizen until she was 18. So I applied for her citizenship and they said that they no longer offer second generation citizenship. Although am a Canadian, my mother's Canadian, I have a sister, you know, that lives in Canada. Half my whole family lives there. I could not get her citizenship. So we wound up moving back to North Carolina and when we moved back I told Heaven, I said, heaven, choose your friends wisely.

she never left the house. And my thing to say to her was, have fun and make smart choices. You know, I always wanted to make sure she made smart choices. That was our thing. But she wound up going to a party and. at that party. She was drugged and raped. And from that day forward, things were never the same.

[00:05:58] Angela Kennecke: how old was she when that happened?

[00:05:59] Patricia Drewes: when that happened. 20 

[00:06:02] Angela Kennecke: So you moved back to the United States, after

To be so incredibly traumatic.

[00:06:08] Patricia Drewes: It was, it was. And then, you know, when she went to the hospital because she was over age, they wouldn't allow me to go back there with her. And how do I say this? She, was very pretty. she even wrote a poem and the name of the poem is, beautiful, and at the very last thing that she wrote in that poem, and it always makes me cry, she says, Yeah.

"After all, isn't life always supposed to be easy for the pretty girls?"

but when she went to the hospital, they treated her like it was her fault. The nurses did, they told her that they, had one investigator and he would have to come from Fayetteville, and that was like two hours away. And they had no idea what time he would be there. you know, you're gonna have to go to court, you know you're gonna have to do this. And you, they treated her like it was her fault. and it just devastated her. And when she came out and I said, hold on, Heaven. What, what, where are we going? What are you doing? And she was just boo-hooing and sobbing. She said, mama, I can't do this.

 we've got to go. said, they treat me like it's my fault, if they treat me this way here at the hospital. How do you think they're gonna treat me if I go to court? And I begged her. I said, Heaven we have to stay, we have to do this rape kit. And she refused to do it. But like I said, from that day before, we were not allowed to talk about it. She wont to talk about it. It was like it never happened. And that's why I say silence deadly, because it is.

[00:07:30] Angela Kennecke: What a travesty though. I mean, how awful for a young woman to be in that position to be made to feel that way, and then you had no control because she was already an adult, so you couldn't force her press

[00:07:41] Patricia Drewes: I couldn't 

[00:07:42] Angela Kennecke: suppose she just internalized all of that. Is that when the started for her or happened after that?

[00:07:50] Patricia Drewes: Not long after that is when it started. Yes. 

She actually moved away. She moved two hours away. 'cause she just didn't wanna be around any of those people. Mean, we live in a small town, you know, she just didn't want to be around them. She didn't wanna see 'em. She wanted to act like it never happened.

So she wound up moving to Raleigh and from Raleigh to Greensboro with some friends.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:08:10] Angela Kennecke: About a year later, heaven decided to move back home. She met a new boyfriend, and that's the point at which Patricia suspects her daughter turned to illicit drugs as a way to handle the deep trauma she had been silently carrying.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:08:30] Patricia Drewes: she started with pills and then she progressed to harder drugs. Now this is a child that ate beans, sprouts, you know, she was all into yoga and exercise in nature and but it happened.

you know, it doesn't make any sense. My daughter also was a runner planning to run a half she was into nature. She was a vegetarian. So you're doing all these things to be healthy and take care of yourself, but they're taking drugs for a different reason. Right? and in your daughter's case, it's really obvious what that reason was, the trauma that she carried around with her and she had lived through.

Yes. You're right. I tell people, you know, I'll never forget the day that she called me and she said, mom, I'm sick. And when Heaven called Mama ran, that's just the way it was. You know, only until the day she left this world and she called, I went, 'cause that was my child.

[00:09:21] Angela Kennecke: Yeah.

[00:09:22] Patricia Drewes: and when she first called me and told me, she said, mom, I'm sick. I need to go to the doctor. I said, okay, let me get off work. I'll be right there. So I went to pick her up. . 

And she told me then, and she had two little pin pricks and she showed them to me and I was floored. I was flabbergasted. I was like, what did you do? Heaven what is going on? And she just sobbed and sobbed and sobbed and I took her wound up taking her to a detox center. I didn't know anything about this stuff. I didn't know anything about these drugs.

[00:09:51] Angela Kennecke: Heroin. heroin?

[00:09:53] Patricia Drewes: Yes. I didn't know anything about it. And I thought, well, God, that stuff went out in the seventies.

[00:10:02] Angela Kennecke: as much in the dark as you. I mean, I didn't find out till after my daughter died that she was using heroin, but I would have never imagined like in a million

[00:10:11] Patricia Drewes: yes, this child that had to fight to give you know, her flu shot every year,

[00:10:16] Angela Kennecke: Yes, same 

[00:10:17] Patricia Drewes: Hated needles, hated anything to do with it. And so I wound up taking her to a detox center and we went in and, you know, I'm thinking that we're the only people in the world this is happening to. And then I see all these other young people in there, and it was just alarming to me.

you know, and of course I had to leave her there. And when I left not long after I left, she left. And I tell people it was like we had stepped on the road to hell. And it's true we had, and it was a road that I did. I walked with her every step of the way to the very end. 

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:10:52] Angela Kennecke: That difficult road, would take heaven to several rehabs and detox centers marked by both highs and lows. There were moments when she managed to stay in recovery for more than six months, giving a glimmer of hope. Yet despite her efforts and the support she received, the grip of substance use disorder was just too strong.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:11:17] Patricia Drewes: I had her in a rehab. She left on January the sixth, 2019, and we're in North Carolina. I sent her all the way to Kentucky because know you need to go far away because those people will just, suck you right back in. So I had sent her to a rehab in Kentucky. And someone sent me a message it was not the boyfriend, but it was someone else, and her case is still open, so I, I can't call names or any of that, but he had sent me a message that she wanted to come home and I told him, I says, I tell you what, you stay away from my child. I'm trying to save her life. If I wanted her back here on drugs and dead, I'd have her here myself. Leave her alone. 

Well, unbeknownst to me. He brought her back. I had just gotten off the phone. It was January the 28th, 2019. I had been talking to one of my good friends and I told her, I said, you know, for the first time in four years, I can breathe. can lay down and I can sleep at night because I know my child is safe. Well, at 10:48 PM the phone rung. My fiance, I heard him when he answered and I heard him say, oh my God. And that's when told me, he said, honey, you need to come in here a minute. And you know, you know, you know, your mind knows, but your heart's not ready to accept.

So I wouldn't get up at first. So he had to call me like four times. And finally I went in to the living room. He says, you need to sit down. And I says, no. I'm not gonna sit down. what's going on. 

And that's when he told me, he said, Heaven's gone. And I was like, gone. She left the rehab and he says, no, honey, she's gone. 

No pain in the world. 

It is as if your very soul leaves your body. That's what it's like. That's the way I explain it.

[00:13:08] Angela Kennecke: That's a good way to explain it. It really I always feel like the 

ground has just been away out from under you, 

[00:13:14] Patricia Drewes: Yeah.

[00:13:15] Angela Kennecke: What did you later learn had happened?

[00:13:17] Patricia Drewes: My ex was in law enforcement for 30 years. so they called him and told him Because I immediately threw my clothes on all I could think of. I had to get to my child. I had to see her, I had to hold her. I had to tell her that I was there and that it was going to be okay. That mama's here. and the detective called back and said that I could not see her, that it was considered a homicide investigation. So I, I didn't even get to see her. And that's another thing that really affected me because I think that you should be allowed to see your child. , I shouldn't have had to wait four days, you know, for an autopsy and toxicology and all that. I should have been able to get to my child.

[00:13:58] Angela Kennecke: Right. I know I saw my child. I was there in the apartment. her for, it felt like hours after she was already gone. and that's also

 (MUSIC UP) 

[00:14:08] Angela Kennecke: If you're not familiar with my daughter Emily's story, you can listen to the very first podcast of Grieving Out Loud where I explain my 21 year old daughter's death.

 (MUSIC TRANSITION) 

[00:14:27] Angela Kennecke: I got a phone call. It was from her dad. He spoke in a tone I'd never heard before. Emily's od. He said, I think she's dead. My mind. Reeled.

Huh? What? 

I don't remember hanging up the phone. I don't remember starting the car. I do remember driving the wrong way, in the wrong direction, not toward Emily's apartment. I turned around and drove as fast as I could. I got there and outside was parked in ambulance and people had gathered a couple of police cars.

The side door to the apartment was open. I ran upstairs as fast as I could, skipping steps. People seemed to be everywhere in the hallways on the stairway. I didn't see any of their faces as I approached her apartment. There was a police officer standing out front in the hallway, just outside the door. He tried to block me.

I said something I'd never said before in my 30 years of being on television, I had never used this line. Don't you know who I am? I said, I know who you are. He said, but you're not getting in there. Suddenly someone made a noise and he was distracted. He turned his head and I bolted on by him. I rushed into the apartment.

There were emergency personnel everywhere, firefighters, EMTs, police officers, Emily's dad, my ex-husband was standing in the living room. I can't even describe the look on his face. Tears streaming down his cheeks. I turned toward her room where a group of EMTs were working on her. I asked, are there any vitals?

They had her hooked up to a machine. They said, we're breathing for her. No vitals. I dropped to my knees. I started to pray and pray for all I knew. I was praying out loud. People were all around me and I didn't care. But 30 minutes later, a man emerged from the bedroom. I think he was a firefighter, and he said, We can't save her.

There's nothing more we can do. That was the night my daughter died.

 (MUSIC TRANSITION) 

[00:16:28] Angela Kennecke: Opening up about that traumatic night isn't easy. I'm reliving the worst moment of my life, but I'm hoping that by sharing my pain, we can shine a light on the darkness of our nation's drug crisis.

Maybe my story can help someone else find their way outta this nightmare. If you've lost a loved one to drugs, first off, I'm very sorry. I see you. I feel your pain and I stand with you. Losing someone is never easy and it feels like they're reduced to just a number. But each of those numbers represents a person, a life story.

That's why Emily's Hope has set up more than just a number.org, a place to remember your loved one, to tell their story, to celebrate their life beyond the cold statistics. If you want to honor your loved one, you can find the details on how to create a meaningful tribute. On our podcast show notes, let's turn these numbers into story, these statistics into lives remembered.

We're in this together. Let's stand strong. Share our pain. I. Turn our tragedies into a force for change.

 (MUSIC UP) 

[00:17:43] Angela Kennecke: And you learned what from the autopsy?

[00:17:47] Patricia Drewes: That she had 50 nanograms of fentanyl and 20 of acetyl fentanyl.

[00:17:53] Angela Kennecke: she thought she was taking heroin.

[00:17:55] Patricia Drewes: Yes.

[00:17:55] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. And all fentanyl.

[00:17:58] Patricia Drewes: there's absolutely nothing but caffeine where she'd had probably a cup of coffee that morning.

And you know, and I tell people too, she had a substance use disorder. Yes, she did. It was caused by a traumatic event that she could not get over. She could not get above, but she didn't do fentanyl, and yes, she had a substance use disorder, but that's not what took her life. Fentanyl is what took her life.

that has just devastated me. The fact that, you know, I thought for the first time in my life that I could lay down and sleep, and actually my child was gone. 

[00:18:30] Angela Kennecke: Yeah.

And all this time she had a small child.

[00:18:34] Patricia Drewes: Cameron was born in 2016. he was not quite three years old when Heaven passed. Now, when he was born at three weeks old, I took him

[00:18:44] Angela Kennecke: you've been raising him since he was born,

[00:18:46] Patricia Drewes: Since he was three weeks old. Yes.

[00:18:48] Angela Kennecke: so you are one of those grandparents out there. And I always talk about this. in fact, I interviewed a grandmother and a granddaughter. Who'd been affected drugs? 

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:18:56] Angela Kennecke: In episode 72, I sat down with Lana Olshove and her granddaughter, Maddie. Maddie's dad is in prison for meth, and her mom, who also suffered from substance use disorder, was murdered by another man when Maddie was just four years old. 

 (QUICK MUSIC UP!) 

[00:19:13] Maddie: It's very sad 'cause like all my friends, they're always like, when we have like a sleepover or something, we go hang out. They're like, when they make suppers, they're all like, mom, dad, can we have this or that for supper? And I usually just say, Nana Lana, can we, what? What should we have for supper? 

And it just sad not to use to say mom or dad. 

[00:19:44] Angela Kennecke: Right. You, you feel different than your friends because you don't have that. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. That makes me sad too, Maddie, that you don't have that. But I am grateful that you have Lana because I mean, it's important you have one person that a child at least have one person in their life that they can trust and count on, and I know you have that.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:20:07] Angela Kennecke: Thankfully, Cameron has that support too with his grandmother. But that doesn't mean it's easy for either grandparents living without a child or the grandchildren living without their parents.

 (QUICK MUSIC UP!) 

[00:20:23] Patricia Drewes: Exactly. Exactly. And that's what I call them, the littlest victims of this epidemic, 

[00:20:28] Angela Kennecke: how is your grandson doing today?

[00:20:31] Patricia Drewes: The older he gets, the more he realizes. just last week, I always read him a bedtime story, you know, we've done this since he was three weeks old, and I read him a bedtime story, and at the end of the bedtime story, there was a prayer. . I started to read the prayer and when I got to God, he looked at me and he calls me Mama too, he says, mama, I, I don't want to talk about God right now. And I said, well, why not? And he said, because he has my mother. 

Yeah.

[00:21:01] Angela Kennecke: but he has you, thank God. He has you

[00:21:03] Patricia Drewes: Yeah. that's what I tell people,

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:21:05] Angela Kennecke: It hasn't been easy for Patricia to not only take care of her grandchild, but also herself. Following the death of her daughter. Like most grieving parents, Patricia has suffered not only mental anguish, but also physical pain. (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:21:22] Patricia Drewes: months after having passed, I had a major panic attack here at work, and I quit breathing. I turned blue. They had to call e M s. And when I went to my doctor, he told me, he says, you know, broken heart syndrome is real.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:21:34] Angela Kennecke:  In fact, we devoted an entire episode of grieving out Loud to Broken Heart Syndrome.

I highly recommend listening to this episode. Number 10, if you've suffered a devastating loss. During that episode, Dr. Mark Vande Braak, a board certified music therapist and grief educator, talks about the symptoms of a broken heart.

[00:21:56] Dr. Mark Vande Braak: Typically the bottom half of your heart with a broken heart syndrome, um, kind of, I don't wanna say explodes, but ruptures and if people are interested, the Japanese discovered this quite some time ago and, and more, I see more and more of it nowadays.

[00:22:14] Angela Kennecke: Tell me, tell me exactly what, what happens, what does that, it's just 

[00:22:16] Dr. Mark Vande Braak: the, the heart breaks that, that's, there's probably no better. Explanation of that your heart is broken. And we have found statistically that the first week after a death, I think there's close to a 10% likelihood of a, like a spouse. For example, if you lose your husband by the end of the first week, your chances of death is quite high.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:22:42] Angela Kennecke:  During the episode, Dr. Vande Braak also discusses four ways the grief affects us and gives us tools for coping with significant loss.

Meanwhile, Patricia, thankfully has been able to recover, but she didn't feel physically well for weeks.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:23:02] Patricia Drewes: My esophagus completely slammed shut. I couldn't breathe outta my nose. My mouth turned blue about passed out. So yes, it is real.

[00:23:11] Angela Kennecke: And because of that, did you decide to do something?

[00:23:14] Patricia Drewes: I did, I threw myself into finding other parents that have been through the same thing, that was the one thing I remembered is feeling so alone. Like, I was the only person this had ever happened to, so I started making Facebook posts, asking about other people. Started, Hey, I'm gonna make a banner, you know, So I did the four counties surrounding counties, and I made my first banner. I made t-shirts with everyone's names on them. I had my first rally. in 2020 a year after she had passed and probably had 250, 300 people there.

And from there, we have grown I named the group forgotten victims because to me, that's what they are. They're forgotten by law enforcement. They're forgotten by society. They're forgotten by our government. They're forgotten by everyone but us. The grieving left behind.

[00:24:04] Angela Kennecke: I was gonna say, we mothers are not gonna let people forget. I think that's thing.

[00:24:08] Patricia Drewes: Yes. So we now have six chapters across the state of North Carolina. Also I have a friend that I have partnered with Barb Walsh. She has fentanyl Victims networking of North Carolina, and she is the one that was responsible for you know, they used to classify all the deaths as overdoses and plump 'em all together.

While she is responsible for our state medical examiner for now separating the deaths from Fentanyl. So we get all the stats. For the state of just fentanyl deaths. So since 2013 in the state of North Carolina, we have lost 13,651 so that's 13,651 devastated families out there. 

[00:24:53] Angela Kennecke: sure mostly young people. 

[00:24:55] Patricia Drewes: Yes, ma'am. Most of them are young. So, and I know what it did to me. Barb knows what it did to her, you know, and, and it just devastates your whole family foundation

[00:25:06] Angela Kennecke: It's like a bomb being dropped in the middle of your family, in your life. of their world.

[00:25:12] Patricia Drewes: Yep. You're right.

[00:25:13] Angela Kennecke: And what about laws? I know you've been working in your state to change some laws. 

[00:25:18] Patricia Drewes: Yes. We uh, push for the death by distribution law because like in my daughter's case, For four years, I've been told this and told that, and absolutely nothing's happened. no. And you know, my mother is a better investigator than anybody in this world. Anything we wanna know we can and we'll find out.

So most of what has been found in her case, I found out, And that's not fair. You know, we do have some counties in the state of North Carolina that do prosecute the neighboring county that has the same district attorney as the county my child died in, has five, I think death by distribution prosecutions and several awaiting, you know, be trialed.

[00:25:58] Angela Kennecke: there a reason? Are you getting a reason from enforcement? Why the person that you know 

[00:26:03] Patricia Drewes: uh, the sheriff here says that it's really hard to prove these cases, but my thinking is if neighboring Franklin County can do it, why is it that my county that you know, Heaven died in Vance County? can't you do it? It shouldn't matter what county your child or your loved one passed in as to whether they received justice or not.

The death by distribution law is the law for the whole entire state of North Carolina.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:26:30] Angela Kennecke: Patricia and other advocates pushing for stricter fentanyl regulations in North Carolina recently achieved another significant victory. The state's governor assigned the Stop Counterfeit Pills Act, which makes it a felony to intentionally use a pill press to make a counterfeit controlled substance.

 (MUSIC UP!) It's a felony to have the pill press. It's a felony to have the stamps. It's a felony to have the dyes color the pills. Because I have a lot of friends whose kids, and a lot of 'em are teenagers that have passed from, from a pill. it's going to have um, stricter penalties those caught peddling poison here in the state of North Carolina. . 

Have some of these efforts helped you in your grief, do you think?

[00:27:16] Patricia Drewes: they have helped me tremendously. you have to get busy, and that's what I did. I got busy because I, I wanted to do was just. Sit and, and grieve. And it took me, weeks before I could drive again. It was like I was afraid of everything. When I had that panic attack. I was sleeping in my car at night, the emergency room parking lot because I was afraid I was gonna quit breathing.

her death just about devastated me. and that's one reason why I got busy too, is because I knew all these other families were out there feeling the same way.

[00:27:50] Angela Kennecke: Right. There's so many of us now. I mean, if you have 110,000 people dying of quote, overdose. And 80% of those a year, that's the 2022 stats, and 80% of those are from fentanyl. I mean, multiply that by all their family members, you know, they're just, we're a big group

[00:28:08] Patricia Drewes: You're you're exactly right. You are. And you know, I saw a documentary the other day where they were talking about, you know, the children of those that we have lost and that they will be at a higher risk,

[00:28:18] Angela Kennecke: Like your you do you him? Do 

[00:28:21] Patricia Drewes: Oh yes, I do. Yes I do. And, something else. I mean, it happened. If I couldn't reach out and put my hand on top of her head, she was too far away, but it still happened. , you know, we talked every day. I knew where she was. Just about every moment, you know, you at, what are you doing? hopefully we can eradicate it. It won't be any fentanyl, it won't be anything, by the time he comes of age,

[00:28:44] Angela Kennecke: How do you think we do that? Eradicate it, 

[00:28:47] Patricia Drewes: we, need tougher policies as far as enforcement at the border. For one thing, we also need education. a lot of parents still don't even know what fentanyl is. Stricter penalties for drug dealers. You know, the state law death by distribution is up to 20 years, but I don't see them giving them 20 years.

You know, you're lucky if they get three to five, give them the 20. I say,

[00:29:15] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, I, there's a whole systematic problem there with prisons being overwhelmed and overcrowded and, we have a lot of It's a very tangled, web., it's the is. that we, there's not one quick, easy solution you hear. up the borders, you know, don't let anybody through.

But yet I mean, yes, but yet fentanyl can get in through planes and ships. And we have to stop it at the root in China from being manufactured although I have a feeling if we can stop it in China somewhere else, like India or somewhere else, we'll start manufacturing it.

So I think we have to stop people from ever desiring these drugs in the first place. I think prevention is probably the most effective tool that we have. We have to do all these other things too, but I prevention is the most effective tool. And I don't think our kids, I don't think our daughters knew they were getting into, first time they tried something.

[00:30:09] Patricia Drewes: no, 

[00:30:09] Angela Kennecke: my daughter didn't know. 

Think it was just like, oh, these friends are doing this. This guy is doing this. My daughter also had a boyfriend who she was with since she was 16, who I later found out was addicted to heroin, and I didn't know that, but broke up with them right before her death. So, you know, they were influenced by their peers, by their boyfriends or girlfriends or whomever. And then also they didn't know, they didn't really know that they were setting themselves this horrible disease.

[00:30:38] Patricia Drewes: No. And then plus once they do it, it's so addicted and then, you know, they've been putting in the supply line for so long now and they're actually becoming addicted to that without even realizing it. that's even, worse trying to get off of that than heroin.

[00:30:54] Angela Kennecke: Yeah.

[00:30:54] Patricia Drewes: Because what we're losing, we're losing our future. And that's what I tell people. You know, I didn't just lose my daughter. You didn't just lose your daughter. the world lost them too because what could they have accomplished in life?

What difference could they have made, if not for fentanyl?

[00:31:10] Angela Kennecke: if not for Fentanyl, and that's what I always say when I speak to students and groups. I show a big banner with Dozens of young lives have died. And I always say the lost potential. I say, who knows what music could have been written? What my daughter was an artist, what art could have been created, what businesses could have been started, what could have been invented. We will never know because these people never had a chance to live out their lives. Their lives were cut short, unnecessarily.

[00:31:38] Patricia Drewes: Exactly.

[00:31:39] Angela Kennecke: Yeah. It really is murder, induced homicide. 

[00:31:42] Patricia Drewes: Is, they're, they're being poisoned. They're being put to sleep. Just like you euthanize a dog is what's going on with our children.

[00:31:50] Angela Kennecke: right. And people don't understand that. addiction is a disease substance use disorder. really, people think it's a choice, but

[00:31:59] Patricia Drewes: No.

[00:31:59] Angela Kennecke: just like we're beginning to understand that obesity isn't a choice. Right, that people's brains are wired, to crave the food and to think about food all the time. It's the same with drug addiction or any kind of addiction for that matter.

[00:32:12] Patricia Drewes: exactly. 

[00:32:13] Angela Kennecke: you that, that doing in your daughter's name. Just like I'm working in my daughter's name and I think thing that I always say, When I meet other moms like myself is that we must join hands and work together.

That we all have these little groups in our states or so many people have started charities or nonprofits now, or different groups and we've got a band together because there there in numbers. The power really lies in the numbers, and the more that we can do that and the more that we can connect with one another. fight for our children who can no longer fight for themselves and fight for other people's children. That's the thing, 

[00:32:52] Patricia Drewes: exactly right, and that's what we say here in North Carolina. No one stands alone. not alone.

[00:32:57] Angela Kennecke: Right, right. Well, thank you for sharing this story and thank you for all the work you're doing in North Carolina. 

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[00:33:03] Angela Kennecke: And thank you for listening to this episode of Grieving Out Loud. If you found it helpful, we'd appreciate it if you left us a positive review five stars, and shared it with friends and family. It does help further our mission to increase awareness about substance use disorder, decrease the stigma surrounding addiction, and hopefully then connect more people with the help they need.

Tune in again next week for a new episode of Grieving Out Loud. When we hear from a woman who bravely shares her story of going from a college graduate with a thriving career to facing homelessness and heroin addiction, it's an episode you won't wanna miss and may give you a new perspective and to how our drug crisis has become so severe.

Thanks again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. 

This podcast is produced by Casey Wonnenberg King and Anna Fey.

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Little did I know, several hours later. My whole world would come crashing down upon me. It was a pretty normal day at work, but there was one odd thing about it. I was working on a story on overdoses, specifically good Samaritan laws and overdoses, and how when people overdose in a group setting, partying with friends, the good Samaritan laws come into play.

If they call for help, the other people won't get arrested. And it wasn't unusual for me to be working on a story on the opioid crisis. I'd done a lot of them for the past couple of years, and I knew there was a problem with my daughter. I just didn't know what, ironically, we were planning an intervention because she just seemed out of it and things didn't seem right and her life wasn't going in the direction that it should have been, and I'd confronted her.

Over and over and over again, and she'd always said, no, I don't have anything wrong and denied. I knew about the marijuana. That was pretty obvious. And I'd later learned about some pills in the benzo class like Xanax, but she swore to me she'd gotten off of those. I had no idea about the opioids, none whatsoever.

So as I was working on this story on the opioid crisis, I really wasn't thinking that my daughter would die of an opioid overdose. I was thinking that something was wrong with her and that she wouldn't tell us about it and that we needed to get her help. And I was scared because a few days earlier I had learned that one of her friends had died of an overdose.

Now, I didn't know this friend and I didn't know how he died or what the drug was, but on that very same day, I spoke with that young man's father. As I worked on this story on Good Samaritan loss, I spoke with three parents who'd all lost children to overdose. One was my daughter's friend whom I didn't know, and he said, I warned all of these kids when they came to my son's funeral that this could happen to them if they didn't get help, if they didn't change what they were doing, if they didn't change their lives.

The other parent I spoke to had a son who'd gone to the same elementary school as my daughter. He'd been clean for years. He'd been taking part in the recovery community for Hazelden, but he relapsed and he'd overdosed on 100% Fentanyl. His friends were planning an intervention for that evening, but he had died in the afternoon, and the third parent I spoke to was a mother whom I talked to before about her daughter's overdose.

That mother told me that her daughter overdosed in a drug house with a group of friends who cleaned up the area, and one of the boys called his mother before he called for help. Her daughter died. Now every day she times how long it would take her to get to that drug house from her house. Eight minutes.

She could have been there in eight minutes. I was working on this grim story, but it was a beautiful day and it never occurred to me that my daughter was using opioids or could overdose from opioids.