[00:00:00] Jessica Chumley: drugs are amazing and they're so amazing that you are going to potentially love them more than you've ever loved anything in your entire life. It will make you lose everything and then fall in love with them and then ruin. Right, (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:00:16] Angela Kennecke: This is Grieving Out Loud. I'm your host, Angela Kennecke, and today we're joined by a woman whose journey of strength and optimism is truly inspiring. Jessica Chumley grew up in an affluent area, graduated college, started a successful career, but then her life took a turn no one was expecting. 

[00:00:45] Jessica Chumley: I grew up with morals. I grew up knowing right and wrong, and that was one of the hardest things for me going into that life was I. All of a sudden, everyone around me is doing everything wrong.

[00:00:58] Angela Kennecke: Jessica's story was sadly all too common during the Oxy era.

After undergoing a surgery, Jessica's doctor prescribed her pain pills, and that's where her life-threatening battle with substance use disorder began. 

[00:01:12] Jessica Chumley: I really believe that a lot of people suffering from addiction have just lost their purpose. And in order to kind of get purpose back and really recover, you have to find something that you love,

just 

[00:01:24] Angela Kennecke:  In this episode of grieving Out Loud, hear how Jessica navigated the path to recovery. Her valuable insights for those facing substance use disorder are really any life challenge and her mission to raise awareness and prevent others from falling into the trap of addiction.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:01:46] Angela Kennecke: Jessica, welcome to Grieving Out Loud. Thank you so much for joining me today. We found you on TikTok. I have just been fascinated watching your story, some of the things that you went through, how you came to find recovery, and I'm excited to learn more about you today.

[00:02:03] Jessica Chumley: I am very excited to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And, um, I'm sorry to meet under these circumstances. it's always hard to talk to family members because I've had people, even in comments, say, you have three valve surgeries, and my child isn't here. And I understand. Yeah, it's hard to meet in these situations. But I, I appreciate you having me and doing what you're doing.

[00:02:26] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, it's so interesting. You probably have a little bit of survivor's guilt almost because some people do survive using and using fentanyl and obviously it's left you with long-term health effects and we'll get into that as we talk during this podcast. But, It is like some people do survive and so many others die, and why some people survive and others don't.

I certainly, I'm glad you're here. You know, I wouldn't want your family, and I know you have a child, and I wouldn't want your family to be, you know, missing you the way I'm missing my daughter. You could easily not be here.

[00:02:59] Jessica Chumley: Very easily. I, shouldn't be for a variety of reasons in different ways. I definitely think that you're right a little bit, and it's funny you called me out on it. I, I've thought this in my head, uh, many a times throughout the survivor's guilt. I've kind of made it my mission to give back to a world that I feel like I kind of took from.

but the one thing that I know I'm doing is I put my family first. put other people first. My heart is in the right place and I'm coming from my angle, and sharing my experience with purely. The hopes of helping other people 

[00:03:34] Angela Kennecke: Let's go back to the beginning. I understand that you were a pretty normal kid growing up. You maybe experimented with some drugs, but overall you were pretty socially adjusted. Things were going pretty well.

[00:03:48] Jessica Chumley: Yeah. So, it's actually interesting, my husband and I both have very similar backgrounds. We're both from Texas, from two of the most probably affluent zip codes in the state of Texas. I always got great grades. I skated through school. Nothing was really hard for me. I had friends and, my one area that was a little different than other people's is my parents did divorce when I was younger and my mother, actually was an alcoholic. She ended up dying from that, at the age of 57 right as I was getting sober, she passed.

which is a whole other thing, but I grew up with my dad and my stepmother and my siblings in a really normal environment other than her. I mean, I didn't really talk to my mom, so it wasn't like that. They were my family and my family was normal, especially from the outside looking in.

[00:04:39] Angela Kennecke: Right, and yours really started after a surgery, your addiction. So you, you sort of experimented in high school, but you weren't suffering from substance use disorder. Tell me how old were you when you had this surgery and what happened?

[00:04:53] Jessica Chumley: So I graduated from high school. I went on to Texas Tech University. I got my bachelor's there. Partied a little bit, but still nothing crazy. Got out of college. Had an amazing job o opportunity back where I was from. I would say for three years. I made a lot of money, did what I wanted, flew around, traveled, for work. I was in sales, excelled easily. and I had that surgery in 2015. It was actually a very small surgery. And then two weeks later, I had just switched jobs by the way. So my first week in this new job, I all of a sudden come down with these crazy fevers and they're up and down and they're super high, I ended up being septic that little small surgery.

and that, put me in the hospital for quite some time. I had a rib removed, I had a bone infection from this blood infection. It was, it put me on a path forward with narcotics and being prescribed them legally. really set, you know, everything else into play.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:05:58] Angela Kennecke:  

At 25 years old, in the midst of building her path to success, Jessica found herself with an unexpected challenge. It all started with the oxycodone prescribed by her doctor. What began as a solution for her pain evolved into a battle with addiction. Over the course of several years, Jessica relied on these prescription pills, gradually increasing her dosage to fight her growing tolerance to make money. She then started selling her prescription pills and buying heroin, which was much cheaper. Eventually, her doctor began to sense something was wrong.

[00:06:38] Jessica Chumley: (MUSIC UP!) he'd been seeing me for years and I don't think he was a dirty doctor. I think this was the time of like the Oxy era where it, maybe in the beginning he really thought he was doing good. I was all means, Successful and normal. And I don't, think that he did anything purposefully, but he, gave me a drug test randomly, never had given me one before. And of course, nothing's in it, but heroin. And so he pulled my scripts and that was that. 

And 

[00:07:08] Angela Kennecke: you know, I never really could understand heroin to me. I think also it's partly my age. It just sounds so scary and horrible. And when I found out after my daughter's death that that's what she'd been doing, I was like, how could this be? 

So can you explain to me, or someone who just doesn't really understand how you graduate, heroin, which I think happened in my daughter's case. I know it started off with, Prescription drugs like Klonopin and Xanax, and then eventually led to heroin. And also she was a marijuana user at a young age, which is sets your brain up as well. 

But tell me and tell our audience for people who don't understand, you to that point of heroin?

[00:07:48] Jessica Chumley: and it's interesting. I go back and forth. A lot of people talk about marijuana as a gateway. I hated smoking weeded. It would get me so high. But it's funny because once I was doing heroin, I could do enough heroin to kill an elephant, I had zero tolerance and I never liked smoking weed. It did the opposite instead of . pull my anxiety down. It was raising it so I was like Uhuh. So I just never was into that. 

pain meds and the anxiety meds, I think they did for me. I think they calmed my brain. A little bit, which is maybe why I liked them. but with anything, no matter what it is, you develop a tolerance. And so while heroin, you know, if you would've told me in 2015 when I was initially prescribed pills, a pill doesn't sound scary. sounds petrifying. And, and to me that was like, oh my god, heroin. And it was something I never in a thousand years would've expected. Do, but it was way cheaper than pills. And you could sell the real pills like my prescriptions for $30 a piece where heroin you get, I mean, a smaller amount and it was way cheaper than having to do, you know, the abundance of pills that at that point I was having to do.

[00:09:02] Angela Kennecke: Right. And also, most people obviously don't start off shooting up heroin. They don't start using it intravenously, but almost every . Everybody ends up using it intravenously. You kinda graduate from, at some point you don't care. Right.

[00:09:15] Jessica Chumley: Right. And I, think that once you start using a needle in any situation, I really think that's a game changer. That, you know, you have a problem, a big problem because that is something that no one in their right mind, would ever want to voluntarily do.

And if you're doing it a high, you have an issue. Once you start.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:09:36] Angela Kennecke: Right 

That issue quickly ruined every aspect of Jessica's life from her career to her health, to her relationships.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:09:47] Jessica Chumley: I was a fast-paced, person. I kind of went from the prescription pills, but as soon as I did touch that needle, I just walked away from my life, right? I, too ashamed to look my parents in the, in eye and explained to them, you know, I had a problem.

I literally walked out my door one day, went to the dope man's house, and just never came back. I ended up. Bopping around in motels and hotels and trap houses. And I learned a life that like I didn't even know existed. 'cause to the average human, you won't even catch it unless you're looking for it.

it is a little bit more obvious now in certain places, but to me, I, I lived in a bubble and I was thrown into this chaos I think most people probably start off smoking it and then graduate. But with the fentanyl in the beginning in 2016, it wasn't as big. So we would get batches where I know that it would knock me out more, but it was really at the end of my addiction where 100% everything that I was getting, I wanted heroin. It lasted longer, but I was getting fentanyl.

[00:10:54] Angela Kennecke: What year was that? 

[00:10:56] Jessica Chumley: So yeah, that was like, I would say 2019.

[00:11:00] Angela Kennecke: Oh, 2019. And yeah, it was, it was already prevalently laced, especially in heroin, and then eventually all drugs. But I'm thinking of you going from this life of being kind of a normal teenager and going to college and having a good job, and then this surgery and then. Just your life changing to how you describe it.

You know, being homeless basically, and using drugs, and that's the whole focus of your life and you just think, how can you be both people, 

[00:11:27] Jessica Chumley: I don't know, I'm better at living like this. I'm better at being normal. 

I grew up with morals. I grew up knowing right and wrong, and that was one of the hardest things for me going into that life was I. All of a sudden, everyone around me is doing everything wrong. They're robbing, stealing thieving. That's how they live and survive. And so I was getting robbed. You know, I, every bad thing that could have happened to me 'cause I was so green at first, right? I was taken advantage of in every single you could imagine, it becomes dog eat dog.

You have no choice. And at this point my parents weren't speaking with me. It was my dad and my stepmom, and I have younger siblings that are all really good kids. My parents, did not answer the phone during the entire period of my addiction. So it wasn't until later I had no one to call when I wanted out 

[00:12:20] Angela Kennecke: well, you must have felt horrible about yourself. and I, I think this compulsion or this need to continue to use the drug is something that unless you're in that situation, you can't really understand.

[00:12:31] Jessica Chumley: it's, it's hard to explain. I know that growing up, right, everyone says drugs are bad. Don't do them, you know, they're bad. I think the message should be, drugs are amazing and they're so amazing that you are going to potentially love them more than you've ever loved anything in your entire life. It will make you lose everything and then fall in love with them and then ruin. Right, because they are, it's something that people need to understand. They're gonna like it if they try it. Most people do. and nowadays you don't even get a really, a chance to get addicted. You just die. And that's what's so incredible about fentanyl.

 It doesn't give people these second chances. Had I waited a few years and started in 2019, I don't think we'd be having this conversation.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:13:22] Angela Kennecke: If you're not up to date on the growing drug crisis in America, let me break down some of the alarming numbers. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the tragic toll of drug related deaths reach an unprecedented level in 2022 with nearly 110,000 Americans losing their lives. A significant portion of this surge is, of course, due to the widespread presence of fentanyl.

Which has found its way into various drugs, everything from heroin to counterfeit Percocet. Here on grieving Out loud, we've talked with dozens of parents and even children who've tragically lost loved ones to this devastating epidemic.

[00:14:04] 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.

[00:14:35] 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. 

[00:14:56] Kay Sumner: The grief. I mean, I find myself looking at pictures when he was five years old missing, looking at pictures when he was 20. You know,  I miss him at all different ages. 

 (QUICK MUSIC UP!) 

[00:15:07] Angela Kennecke: Thankfully, Jessica's family isn't dealing with that pain, but her road to recovery was paved with struggle.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:15:19] Jessica Chumley: I started having legal issues. I was not a good criminal. Like I said, that wasn't, I, I just wasn't, that wasn't meant for me. I got in trouble everywhere. So I spent roughly a year in jail. Um, and got out, thought that I was gonna do better, but then I felt even more alone. 'cause I'm like, who do I hang out with? like my old friends all know, right? What am I gonna talk to my sorority sisters about? Oh, hey, how was your last year of buying a house, getting married and whatever, when I was in prison. 

And so I, was very isolated, so it didn't take long. I went back to doing what I was doing. and then my husband now, I said, similar background from me, but I had known him. For a while. And anyways, once I got out, his mother had passed and we decided that we wanted to go start fresh somewhere. And so we were gonna drive to California. along the way we stopped in Tucson, Arizona and Tucson, Arizona. It doesn't get enough recognition for the drug problem that it has. It is one of the most horrific things I've ever seen. It's ran by cartels. I ended up going to jail in Tucson as well. That was the last time. but it's ran by cartels. It's the first stop from the Nogales southern border. And so all of the drugs come in, they're very potent. They mixed there and then they get shipped off to Phoenix and then the rest of the country that's like pit stop number one. 

And I didn't know that going there, but we got kind of stuck there. I started to get sick again. My legs were bloating. I had fevers. knew something was wrong, and so I went to the hospital and I'm expecting them to tell me that I have some infection. I was expecting that, but they also tell me that I was pregnant that I need open heart surgery. 

[00:17:09] Angela Kennecke: Wow.

[00:17:10] Jessica Chumley: yeah. So, at that point, I. had already been really tired of doing that life. for me, it was mentally I, I was screaming inside. So when I had the option and found out I was gonna be a mom to not fail at the one thing that I had not done yet, I jumped all over it and I never looked back.  I had the heart surgery while being pregnant. My, that was my first one of three heart surgeries, but 

[00:17:38] Angela Kennecke: What, kind of heart problem did you have?

[00:17:41] Jessica Chumley: So I had infectious endocarditis. it is something very typical in people that use iv.

[00:17:49] Angela Kennecke: caused by your drug use.

[00:17:51] Jessica Chumley: Yes, well, I mean, that first infection I'd had years prior I think was like kind of always there. I think I was just infection prone. But that surely yes. I mean, probably 100%, it's, it's very common actually, and a lot of people die from it. So I had my mitral valve replaced. While being pregnant, and I listened to everything they said, spent months in the hospital and then by the grace of God, my husband's family called us and gave us, they're like, you two idiots. We're giving you one shot. We're gonna send you guys to treatment. If you want to go here, our two, you know, train tickets. find your treatment facility, whatever, we will pay for it. If you don't make that train, if you don't go, if you don't change your life, don't ever bother calling us ever again. we went and we've been sober. 

Well, it's hard to say my sober day 'cause I was on meds in the hospital. So people, people will disagree with, But anyways, we never looked back. 

[00:18:49] Angela Kennecke: Did you go through horrible withdrawals 

[00:18:52] Jessica Chumley: a little bit, so I was in the hospital, keep in mind, like for months, so I was under a lot of doctor care. and they had me on everything from pain meds in the beginning to then they put me on methadone for a little bit, which that was the worst. And I, had terrible withdrawals from that. they switched me to Suboxone or Subutex for a short second. And then I got to have a really candid conversation with my doctor, you know, and I said, look, like, I mean this when I tell you I wanna get sober, and I, I want it and I want to be free. 

And to me, I still don't feel free. and I did do a slow sub taper and it worked. For me it was very slow 'cause of the baby, obviously, but I wanted to be free.

[00:19:37] Angela Kennecke: And you were able after that treatment to stay in recovery, which is incredible. And what about your husband? Did he struggle as well?

[00:19:45] Jessica Chumley: We were two individuals running around that had lost purpose, lost their family, lost. Status lost everything. Right? We're the bad ones, we weren't gonna probably get that purpose back as individuals. neither one of us had had a child.

And as soon as we knew that my husband's an amazing dad from the moment that we found out about my son, I'm telling you, we have walked the walk and done everything that anyone has told us to do, and we love that. He saved my life been, I don't know that the medical stuff even would've been enough if it wasn't for him, but I really believe that a lot of people suffering from addiction have just lost their purpose. And in order to kind of get purpose back and really you have to find something that you love, just even if it's a little bit more. Then that drug or something you strive for, it just has to be a tiny bit more, and you have to remind yourself. 

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:20:40] Angela Kennecke: While becoming a mom has helped Jessica find recovery, sadly that's not the case for many parents. In fact, we've interviewed several people on grieving out Loud whose love for their children wasn't enough to help them overcome their substance use disorder. One parent we talked with was Jessica fau, who bravely shared her story before serving a prison sentence for drugs.

[00:21:04] Jessica Pfau: I'm a mother and I'm a wife, and my little boy needs me. Um, my parents didn't raise me this way at all. I know somewhere deep down that I'm better than this, but at the same time, when my addiction takes hold of me, I don't care about anything but that addiction and I feel like I should be. The mother that I know, I can be the wife that I know. I can be the daughter and sister that I know I can be, but I can't pull myself out of it. And it's just, it causes me so much shame that a lot of times I dig deeper into the addiction to try to cover it up, to escape from it. Mm-hmm. To escape from the feelings of shame.

Yeah. 

[00:21:46] Angela Kennecke: Even Jessica Chumley knows from her own personal experience that having a child isn't always the magic cure for someone who is struggling with substance use disorder.

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:22:02] Jessica Chumley: I mean, even my mom, right? Like I wasn't enough for her to get sober.

I mean, well, me and my mom, the last words I spoke to her were, I hope you drop dead. And that was six months before it happened. You know, my mom and I had a very unhealthy, it was not a normal relationship. She was in and outta my life, and I I think you for each person, it's gonna be different.

[00:22:23] Angela Kennecke: Right, right. And I think sometimes that the pull of the drug or the way it has taken over the brain is just so strong. Even though people love their children, you have to have some compassion when they can't stay in recovery. Um, it's sad. It's sad for everybody involved, but like I said, I'm so happy that you have been.

But still, you've dealt with these heart issues since then. you mentioned that first surgery while you were pregnant, but you've had other surgeries as well.

[00:22:49] Jessica Chumley: Yeah. So, ironically, the day after he was born, they waited to tell me this, but they come in and they're like, I could tell something was bad and I thought it was gonna be something about him, but they sat down and, is the beginning of 2020, so this is like the height of covid, right? I'm in California now, and, uh, no one's allowed to be in there. So I'm in there by myself with all these doctors they tell me that my heart valve has a fungal endocarditis. And I was like, what? I'm like, that is like impossible. What are, so they were gonna have to redo it. 

And I was so confused though. And they were kind of confused because I just went from like one facility essentially. To a treatment center. I was never like, there was never a lapse in time of not being under medical care. Um, during this time, I know that Candida kind of sprung. I don't know if you've ever heard of that, but they call it the fungal super bug.

and it was very prevalent and also overlooked during covid 'cause everyone was paying attention to Covid. But anyone that had infections or PICC lines, was taking long-term IV meds were prone to this. And anyways, fungals just very hard to, um, rid of once you get it. So I had that surgery that went fine.

And then, We moved on with our lives. I was young, I bounced back. And then three years later when we moved to Texas, well we moved to Texas and we've been here now for about a year. We moved somewhere different. I believe in people, places and things and changing that. I know it's so basic, but it's so, it works.

You don't go back to where you were doing all that stuff. You just don't. At least for a while. So we're in the middle of nowhere. Neither one of us are from here, . but , I got sick again and I think it was just from like switching doctors and different doctors decisions on medications and if I needed it or didn't, and that fungal infection came back.

[00:24:47] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, I bet this is something you're gonna have to really watch and probably worry about for the rest of your life in terms of wanting to be there for your son, 

[00:24:55] Jessica Chumley: it's devastating and it's my biggest regret. I don't regret anything if it got me to this point, but if I were to regret one thing, it would be, god forbid, something that I did take me away from him. because of some of my mistakes. And that would be my only regret because every single experience, everything I went through, you know, I was a selfish person before.

I wasn't very nice. I wanted to make money, have a big house, you know, be about me. I was very me, me, me. And then I went into recovery and I became like, I just changed genuinely from the inside out. 

[00:25:33] Angela Kennecke: Do you think that the, threat of relapse for you or your husband is always there, or do you feel like you've sort of put this chapter in your life behind you and it's not really a issue?

[00:25:46] Jessica Chumley: for me, I actually prayed very hard to God. I prayed incredibly hard when I found out and I begged God to take away my desire to use drugs. Right. And I will tell you, never really had. That desire to go back. I think my husband in the first maybe year, like if he got frustrated with something, maybe if we would've been in Dallas per se or where, you know, or Tucson, maybe things would've been different.

But we were in a totally . New environment where we had never used, all we knew was being sober, our only friends were sober and in recovery with kids and doing the same thing we were doing, you know? So maybe at that point, but I honestly, don't wanna say, never say never, but I've been prescribed meds during hospital stays.

I always tell them that I prefer no pain meds, but I take the least amount possible. I, I know opiates are not, Something I will ever want to mess with again. And I don't wanna say that, we're totally over it. 'cause maybe that sounds naive, but Yes. We are very different people from the people we were before, including our families are very involved in our lives as well.

[00:26:58] Angela Kennecke: well that's great to hear that you've both reunited with your families.

[00:27:01] Jessica Chumley: Yes. 

 (commercial break - visit www.morethanjustanumber.com) 

[00:27:02] Angela Kennecke: That's wonderful. And why do you share your story?

[00:27:06] Jessica Chumley: it's crazy. My husband does not have the recovery sharing bug that I do. , he's like, what? I just wanna never talk about drugs ever again for the rest of my life. Like, why do you do this? Like la la la, la and, um, he goes to work and he works really, really hard and has a great job and that keeps him busy. he's different than me, maybe a little bit less emotional. I feel emotionally vested to this cause, and I've met a lot of great people in recovery that, you know, helped me. someone along the way helped me and I asked a random person, you know, Hey, be my sponsor. I don't know what I'm doing. And she turned around without a hesitation and said yes. And that became the only person to this day that's watched my son overnight. . She's wonderful and she did it out of the goodness of her heart, and a lot of people in recovery do that. And I really think that's how, you know, you kind of have recovered 

[00:27:58] Angela Kennecke: right. And there's also a level of accountability as well when you share your story publicly. We've had some recipients of our Emily's Hope treatment scholarships share their story publicly who've said to me, it holds me accountable. I've let the whole world know, you in recovery and let them know my story. And there is some accountability for that.

[00:28:17] Jessica Chumley: Oh, a thousand, a thousand percent. And um, I live in a very conservative part of Texas now. it's not the same as California. There's a church on every corner. And I don't locally share. I mean, I have a couple friends that know my story, but for the most part, I felt more comfortable sharing In California, it's about the only thing I really liked about more, you know, than Texas. it's very welcoming for recovery. It's not the same here. So I had to get comfortable with that because that was hard for me. It sometimes still is. I worry about my son and, you know, I don't wanna be a burden to him.

[00:28:56] Angela Kennecke: that brings something up because there shouldn't be any shame around it. you suffered from a disease of the brain. It should be looked at it like that. Obviously you would never make those choices for yourself if you were thinking and acting rationally. Right.

[00:29:10] Jessica Chumley: Oh, never 

[00:29:10] Angela Kennecke: And you have a, a platform here. We have a lot of listeners on this podcast. What do you want people to know? Is there anything you want people to know about addiction or fentanyl or just recovery or anything in general?

[00:29:24] Jessica Chumley: I want people to know that it affects one in three households. It is so much more common. Than what you think just because you know you're in a nice neighborhood school. Those are a lot of the areas that are actually mostly affected. You might not know about it as much, but you're not alone. I mean, literally you are not alone.

I had a, of my best friends that I grew up with, area, same everything, called me today. She's on Suboxone and she was asking me, know, we were just talking about it and there's a lot of people, . They keep it quiet, but you are not alone. And it's okay to ask for help before you, you don't have to get to the point that I got to.

that doesn't have to be your bottom. Everyone has a different bottom. You would've thought maybe jail or something. For me, that was pretty traumatizing in a lot of ways, 

[00:30:14] Angela Kennecke: right, and unfortunately with the fentanyl now, most people don't get a chance at recovery, and I'm so glad that you did have your chance.

[00:30:21] Jessica Chumley: Thank you. Yeah, I know. It, heartbreaking. I do Faces of Fentanyl on my, TikTok page. That's kind of one of the things I started doing. 

[00:30:29] Angela Kennecke: But thank you for doing your part. Thank you for raising awareness and for telling your story.

[00:30:34] Jessica Chumley: Of course, and I really appreciate you having me on here and. I, I just appreciate, feeling welcomed in your environment 'cause that it, it is hard and I think that there's a lot of people that probably have been in similar situations to me, that, in silence and it, and, know, that's deadly.

[00:30:53] Angela Kennecke: And that's because of the stigma and the shame, and we are trying to change that every day. you're doing your part change it by speaking

[00:30:59] Jessica Chumley: so, so are you. I was gonna say thank you so much for having me.

[00:31:04] Angela Kennecke: Thank you. 

 (MUSIC UP!) 

[00:31:05] Angela Kennecke: Thank you for joining us on this episode of Grieving Out Loud. Check out more episodes along with the latest news about substance use disorder, our nation's drug crisis, and the government's response on our website, Emily's Hope dot Charity. If you've found value in this podcast, we'd really appreciate it if you could leave a positive review and to share it with your friends and family.

It's a small action that goes a long way in helping us achieve our mission of increasing awareness about substance use disorder, reducing the stigma so that more people can get the support they need. 

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

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

 (MUSIC UP!)