Angela Kennecke: 0:12

Welcome to a special edition of Grieving Out Loud, where we reflect on some of the most powerful conversations of 2024. This year, we shared stories that revealed the devastating impact of the overdose and fentanyl crisis from a Nashville wedding, overshadowed by tragedy, to a sister's fight for justice after her brother's murder. We heard from a grieving father battling Purdue Pharma, a paramedic turned bereaved mother, and a cousin of the late musician Prince shedding light on his untimely fentanyl death. These episodes have touched hearts and sparked important conversations, including trailblazers making naloxone accessible, the devastating consequences of pill mills, and Sanctuaries for Opioid Exposed Newborns. As we close the year, we honor the courage of our guests and the resilience of those navigating unimaginable loss. Join us as we revisit those unforgettable moments that inspired hope. awareness and action. Addiction knows no boundaries, and it touches lives across all walks of life. Yet so many suffer in silence, trapped by the stigma surrounding the disease. One of our guests this year, ESPN sports broadcaster Lauren Sissler, knows this pain all too well. While she's built a successful and public career, Lauren carried a deeply personal secret for years. Both of her parents became addicted to fentanyl after being prescribed the powerful synthetic opioid for chronic pain. Tragically, their struggles ended in heartbreak. Lauren lost both of her parents to fentanyl overdoses just hours apart while she was in college. Oh my gosh. That is just way too much for any one person to take, it seems like, in such a short period of time.

Lauren Sisler: 2:22

Yeah. And I think, too, not having the explanation, right? Because it's not as simple as, Oh, well, it was an accident. It was a car accident. It was this or that. Like, just to, like, process, like, what in the world just happened. Yeah. and not having any comprehension or understanding of it was just like,

Angela Kennecke: 2:38

my heart just breaks for you, for your brother, for your whole family. I mean, that's awful. Just awful. Yeah.

Lauren Sisler: 2:48

It's a lot. It's a lot, you know, but you've experienced. that loss in such a profound way. I know the pain. I don't know

Angela Kennecke: 2:57

your specific pain, but I know the pain, right? And there's nothing that can compare to it. And I just think how young you were and then just to not have the answers and to not have any understanding of what went on and to lose them both so quickly within what was it 12 hours of each other? Five hours

Lauren Sisler: 3:16

actually.

Angela Kennecke: 3:17

Oh my gosh. And so. You have some extended family there to help you and I assume your brother shows up and what did you start to get answers about what had happened?

Lauren Sisler: 3:28

Well, the answers came a lot quicker than I was willing to acknowledge. It took about 90 days to get the toxicology reports and I was home in the early summer and we went over to the coroner's office to get those reports and my auntie Linda, my mom's sister, basically got in the car after having walked into the coroner's office. I said, I don't want to go in. She comes out, manila envelope. She had kind of peeked through them, said, do you want to read them? And I looked at her, I said no, and I threw it in the floorboard. 10 years went by before I ever opened those toxicology reports.

Angela Kennecke: 4:14

Despite both of her parents dying from fentanyl, fentanyl prescribed to them by doctors, That's not what Lauren told people at her college or in her hometown.

Lauren Sisler: 4:29

Small town community, you know, everybody's business is everybody's business. And that was definitely the case there in Newport, Virginia. And even when I went back to Rutgers, after my parents passed away, people wanted to know. And so I was just fabricating this story. You know, my mom was dealing with a lot of pain. She was taking a lot of medication to help her with her pain. And she died of respiratory failure. And I basically kept putting that out there, respiratory failure. Okay, well, what about your dad? And I would just, well, you know, he just died of, of heartbreak. My dad, you know, died of heart attack, the stress of losing my mom, and he was just heartbroken. And I fabricated that in my mind because I said, well, dad's heart did technically stop. But it wasn't because of a heart attack. It was because he also ingested a lethal amount of fentanyl and overdosed.

Angela Kennecke: 5:18

So both your parents died from fentanyl, but you didn't look at that toxicology report for 10 years. So did you even know that? Or did your aunt tell you that?

Lauren Sisler: 5:27

She tried to tell me. In a loving way, over time, she wasn't trying to force it, and she would do it in a way where maybe she'd be talking to someone in a sidebar conversation, or somebody would ask and it would get brought up, and I would just go fist to cuffs with her. I'm telling you, like, throwing an absolute fit, you would have thought I'd turn back into a two year old, throwing tantrums, duh, you know, that's not true, you're lying. Like, I would just call her a liar, and did everything I could to mask what had actually happened, and because I wanted to stick with my story. I never could acknowledge the truth behind all of it. And I literally told this story over and over and over again that like, I believed it. So as I'm envisioning what happened that night, you know, that my mom was taking the medication as she should have been, she was in a lot of pain and ultimately she went into respiratory failure. I could not acknowledge the fact that my mom literally put a patch in the freezer, cut it open, sucked on it, and that is what ended her life.

Angela Kennecke: 6:26

Despite her grief, Lauren continued to excel even after college. She broke into the highly competitive field of sports broadcasting, eventually landing a job at ESPN. Today, she's well known for her sideline shimmy.

Lauren Sisler: 6:42

The sideline shimmy became my, my token phrase, I guess. You can relate to this as a broadcaster, right? When people say, Oh, do you still get nervous? Well, you know, there is a point in your life where I'm glad that I still get nervous. Yes. You flip on that red light and all of a sudden it's like, you know, 2, 002 million people are staring back at you and waiting for you to say something and hope that you say it. And it sounds and comes out right.

Angela Kennecke: 7:07

Yeah. It kind of becomes second nature after a while though, doesn't it? Like it's just what you do. Yeah.

Lauren Sisler: 7:11

It is what you do. Yeah. But I do love the adrenaline. It gives you a shot of adrenaline that it's fun to have. It feels like you're back out there competing again.

Angela Kennecke: 7:25

But as Lauren built a living telling other people's stories, she couldn't shake the feeling that she was hiding the truth about her own family's struggles. It weighed heavily on her, knowing that publicly sharing what happened could possibly prevent others from going through the same kind of tragedy.

Lauren Sisler: 7:46

You know, I think as a journalist, right, our job is to uncover the truth in other people's stories and other people's lives. We're supposed to dig, we're supposed to report the truth. And I think ultimately as I'm starting to transcend into this sports career, you know, I'd worked at my hometown station in Roanoke, Virginia. I'd gone to Parkersburg, West Virginia. I was starting my career there as a sports broadcaster, sports reporter and anchor for a local TV station in Parkersburg. And I think when I was starting to piece these stories together, starting to finally see, you know, like, this is my job. I am a storyteller. I do this for a living. And ultimately I am not taking ownership of my own story. Like I am running from the truth, running as far as I can away from my own story, like reality check, you know, there's a huge piece of integrity that comes along with being a journalist and you've got to take ownership of that and as I started to mature in my career, I realized like, Hey, now, We got to do something different here.

Angela Kennecke: 8:48

It's interesting you say that because I felt a duty to tell Emily's story because I had asked so many parents over the years to talk after losing a child or people that had suffered all kinds of losses and, you know, people who'd been hit by tornadoes or whatever it might be and horrible crashes and things like that. And I just thought, how can I not? Tell her story that doesn't seem fair if I ask all these other people to tell their stories But yet I withhold my own and every single person who told me their story over my decades working as a journalist Said they did it so could help someone else So it could help others or so it could prevent the same thing from happening to someone else or something along those lines You

Lauren Sisler: 9:30

know, well, and I think that's a huge testament to you to have the strength to do that you know, because I am now a new mother and have a young child and just cannot even fathom the heartache of losing a child and for you to be able to step up to the plate and have that, you know, first of all, kudos to you for having the courage and strength to do that and really to kind of set a precedent for others and giving them essentially permission to say, Hey, like, Here it is, but you know, there has to be still some level of pain that was associated with you taking those words and putting those out for the world to see and to hear and correct me if I'm wrong, but almost kind of sitting back and maybe clenching a little bit and thinking like, okay, what's the blowback going to be? What's the conversation going to be? What are people going to say about her? What, what is her lasting legacy going to be?

Angela Kennecke: 10:23

For sure. For sure. Cause that wasn't the story that I wanted to write. Just like that wasn't the story that you wanted for your family either, or for yourself. None of us do. That's dissipated, I think over time. And, Compartmentalizing, you talked about that. I think we all do that as journalists, compartmentalize, right? And able to do some of that as well. But so you have this curiosity then that, you know, going into this field, you're telling people's stories, and then you want to know the truth. And how did you find out the truth? Did you go to your aunt? Did you open up the autopsy papers or what did she do?

Lauren Sisler: 11:00

You know, it was a long drawn out process, right? There wasn't just like one day I woke up and said, all right, I want to know the truth. Right. But where things started to transcend, I'm in Parkersburg, West Virginia. And I remember my aunt actually sitting down. One of my colleagues that I was working with at the time had come over and we were going to cook dinner and hang out. And she came over and started talking to my aunt about. what had happened, and I'm in the other room, I'm getting dinner ready, and it was the first time that I had not silenced my aunt from talking openly about it. This was seven years after they died. Finally, just let her talk, let her share. Didn't share my own sentiments about it, but let her do. That was kind of, I think, sort of the stepping stone, the next stepping stone towards this process of healing, of grieving, and really, truly unlocking the shackles of shame and the 10 year mark. It's when I opened those toxicology reports. I was working at the local CBS affiliate here in Birmingham, Alabama, where I currently live. And finally, I said, you know what? I need to see this for myself. Because for so many years, I said, if I don't see this on paper, I don't read it out loud, then it can't be true. Don't have to acknowledge it as truth and fact, because I'm not witnessing it on paper. So I knew that in opening that envelope, seeing those toxicology reports, I would have to acknowledge that this is the truth, this is factual, this is what happened, and I did that as we were doing a story on my family's situation, how my parents passed away, and then ultimately pushing that story into the crisis that we're faced with, and that my parents are one of many that have gone through this crisis and that are being ravaged by it. Talk about freedom. I mean, I just, I sometimes look back and say, man, this is crazy. Dang it, why did it take me so long, right?

Angela Kennecke: 13:11

Now, Lauren travels the country, sharing her story, and raising awareness about the opioid crisis. We've talked to many others this year who've turned their pain into purpose, including a Nebraska mom who lost her 34 year old son unexpectedly to fentanyl poisoning while he was on vacation.

Carol Wolfe: 13:39

He went on this trip to Nashville and they went to a destination wedding, him and a bunch of his friends from Omaha. Sounds like fun. It was, you know, he was the type of kid that shared. So he told me when he was leaving, Loading the plane. Called me when he got there. We had a nice conversation. And I told him, I said, please be careful and stay safe. I'll see you in a few days. I love you. That was the last time. Sorry.

Philip Eil: 14:13

It's

Angela Kennecke: 14:13

alright.

Carol Wolfe: 14:14

That was the last time I heard him say it.

Angela Kennecke: 14:18

Were those your last words to each other? Yeah. You know, that's something I think is actually as painful as it is, and I know why you're crying. But it's actually a gift, right? It is. Because I have the same thing with my daughter. I love you. on Mother's Day, three days before her death, our last words to each other, as we said goodbye, were I love you. I am so grateful that those were our last words. I

Carol Wolfe: 14:45

am too. I will never take those words for granted again.

Angela Kennecke: 14:50

Right. And I

Carol Wolfe: 14:52

think

Angela Kennecke: 14:52

with my other children, that is always our last words to each other now too. We think about that.

Carol Wolfe: 14:57

You do, you do. And in fact, my grandkids, when they leave the house. They were always giving me a hug. Did Josh have kids? Are these Josh's kids? No, Josh wasn't married and didn't have kids. But now my little ones, they leave the house and they're always giving you a hug and telling you they love you. And, you know, you don't go to bed angry anymore either. Right. You hold everything close.

Angela Kennecke: 15:24

Right. It teaches you. something about life, about the value of life. Exactly. But before Josh left for the wedding, Carol says she wasn't overly concerned about her son. Instead, she was excited for his friends who were getting married.

Carol Wolfe: 15:46

And I knew a lot of the kids that went with him. It never bothered me once that something bad could happen. I never thought about it. And all his other friends had no idea that he had stayed, because they all come home on different flights. Oh, he stayed? He stayed one extra night. Why? Because one of the other guys stayed, too. Oh. And he stayed with his buddy. Sure. Okay. So, they were out to the bars and enjoying Nashville, which I understand there's a lot to see. Josh was notorious for his, uh, Pictures, and his Snapchats, and up to the last minute, I got a picture sent to me through Snapchat from Josh. And he had met up with a kid from Canada and his buddy from Omaha, and from what I'm understanding from the investigator was with Josh's timeline, they found That the kid from Canada, I thought he was part of the wedding. He wasn't. They had just met up with him. So they left this one establishment. They got to the corner. Josh took a picture of the three of them together with the street sign and then they stepped down into the curb and the next thing we know they were down. All three of them. One survived. His friend from Omaha survived. Josh and the Canada boy.

News report: 17:18

Just this week, Metro Nashville Police telling us three men were found unresponsive from suspected fentanyl overdoses. Two of the men didn't make it. All we can do is continue, continue, continue to bring more awareness to this.

Angela Kennecke: 17:36

As the deaths made news in Nashville, Carol was back home in Nebraska in shock and grief. trying to figure out what happened to her cherished son. They died right there on the street?

Carol Wolfe: 17:51

Mm

Angela Kennecke: 17:52

hmm. Right there on the street in Nashville?

Carol Wolfe: 17:53

They found him in the, well, on the sidewalk in the courtyard of their hotel, right in downtown Nashville. Just,

Angela Kennecke: 18:00

falling over?

Carol Wolfe: 18:01

Mm hmm. Oh my gosh, that is awful. Yeah. There's a lot of the time frame from when the sheriff come to my front door to probably still, to this day, just blank. I've blocked it out. I have a hard time remembering some of this stuff.

Angela Kennecke: 18:22

I was just talking to someone who had done some grief research and she did compare, and I've always compared, this kind of trauma and loss to a traumatic brain injury. It does feel that way.

Carol Wolfe: 18:33

It does. It really does.

Angela Kennecke: 18:38

While Carol still doesn't have all the answers, autopsy results revealed that Josh died from fentanyl poisoning. The powerful synthetic opioid is up to 50 times stronger than heroin. And a hundred times stronger than morphine, just two milligrams of the drug, equal to about ten grains of table salt, is considered a deadly dose. Do they theorize like they bought some pills, or what do they?

Carol Wolfe: 19:10

They have given me their theory of, they feel that one of the boys, not Josh, but one of the other two, were the culprit that placed something. So, I hate to point fingers. The investigators are telling us that the Canadian boy is what they feel has done this. Had the substance? Evidently, yes. And somehow gave it to them? Yes. But they don't know how? They don't know how. Wow. Another theory that they kind of gave us was that maybe something was put in their alcohol.

Angela Kennecke: 19:53

While Carol doesn't know the exact circumstances of her son's death, Other guests on Grieving Out Loud have uncovered the heartbreaking details of their own tragedies. Chris Didier, for instance, shared the story of his 17 year old son, Zach, a straight A student, Eagle Scout, and talented soccer player. Zach's life was tragically cut short after he purchased what he believed to be a Percocet pill through Snapchat. The pill turned out to be a deadly dose of fentanyl.

Chris Didier: 20:23

So we, all three of us watched a movie and he was excited. Okay. We were watching a movie and I said, yeah, which one? And we picked one and watched it. He sat right next to me on the sofa. And it was a little after midnight, the movie was over and we were all ready to go to bed. And Zach's last words were, I love you, dad. The

Angela Kennecke: 20:47

next morning, Chris noticed his son was sleeping in more than usual. He decided to check on him, but the sight that awaited him. is now forever etched in his memory.

Chris Didier: 21:00

And I opened Zach's door and found him appearing to be asleep at his computer desk. He had his head resting peacefully on his left arm, and his right hand was near his mouse, and his computer was still on. And at first I thought, oh my gosh, kid, he's wearing his pajamas. He fell asleep at his computer desk playing Minecraft or something like that. But when I got within a few feet to check on him, I sensed a void that still haunts me every day. I knew something was horribly wrong. I went into panic mode. I'm a retired military veteran, and in my 26 years of military experience, we've gone through something called self aid buddy care a number of times, and that training immediately kicked in. So I carefully placed Zach on the ground and started CPR. I knew my other son was nearby. And I alerted him and told him to call 9 1 1 and thought I was joking. And I said, no, something's wrong with Zach. Call him, call him now. And he said, okay. And I heard Sam coming up the stairs. And here I'm talking to the 9 1 1 operator as he approached the room and Sam said, Hey dad, let me help. I got, I got the 9 1 1. We got this. He just kind of kicked in into leadership mode and wanted to help. But when he walked, when he walked in Zach's room and witnessed me doing CPR and seeing his brother lifeless, I saw Sam going to shock mode, and he didn't know what to do. He was paralyzed. Directed Sam to put the phone down. As a parent, losing a child, as you know, is at the top of any parent's grief hierarchy. There is no greater pain. But when you witness your other children suffer, and you can't do anything. to protect them from that. It adds a layer of intensity to that. And I struggle every day with that.

Angela Kennecke: 23:27

I can say that I can relate on so many levels to what you're talking about. And I am so sorry for the trauma you've been through. No parent ever expects to walk into their child's room and find them dead at their computer desk. You know, nobody, nobody, nobody should have to go through that. And I know I was with my daughter after she died. And. That feeling, it's so traumatizing and that day and going over and over again that day of the death and of what happened and how other people reacted and the look on other people's faces and then having to tell my daughter's siblings about what happened. They were all traumatized. Everybody in the family, of course, is traumatized. As first responders tried unsuccessfully to revive Zach, Chris says about two dozen law enforcement officers searched the house for hours. trying to figure out what caused the teen's death.

Chris Didier: 24:25

We found no evidence in Zach's room. No products, no paraphernalia. Has there been any drug history? And I said, not that I know of. So they first thought chrysis is likely an undisclosed health issue. Does Zach have any issues with his heart or anything else? Because it's probably that. Or it's fentanyl. And that added to our confoundment and confusion with genetic history. It's like, wait a minute, isn't fentanyl some kind of pain pill of some sort? And they said, well, yeah, but we have very recently had mysterious cases where we would respond to a setting where what appears to be a healthy young person is no longer breathing. And those toxicology reports just started coming in less than two weeks ago. That showed it was fentanyl. So we grieving families call it the ultimate WTF experience. What's this fentanyl you're talking to me about? Why, where does this come from? Now, keep in mind, this was over two and a half years ago. There wasn't, back then, any awareness campaigns or ads or, or in the news every day about a fake pill or illicit fentanyl causing so much death. We were right at the beginning stages of it. So at first I thought, gosh, did Zach have a heart issue? But when it finally came to the surface and we were finally able to have conversations with the friend he was with and some of the other soccer teams, they were saying something about a pill, but there was very little they were able to share. And that's what made us wonder maybe there was somehow it is fentanyl. And our biggest break was from his girlfriend. who shared that she and Zach shared the same passcode and we got access to his phone. And when we made that announcement to our district attorney's office, they had their lead, counter narcotics task force investigator, get to Zach's phone and it took him 90 seconds to find a dealer on Snapchat and that dealer had just messaged Zach for a follow on transaction. And so they call it a live fish and they, you know, that eventually led to this gentleman's arrest.

Angela Kennecke: 26:53

Another grieving parent we talked to this year, Justin Phillips, has been instrumental in making Naloxone, an opioid overdose reversal medication, more accessible. Her advocacy led to Indiana passing a law named after her son Aaron, which expands access to Narcan. Beyond this legislative success, Justin founded the non profit Overdose Lifeline and has received multiple awards for her tireless, life saving work.

Justin Phillips: 27:24

And I learned about Naloxone. which is the overdose reversal drug many people call Narcan. And it, it shocked me and disappointed me that I didn't know about Naloxone. No one talked to me about Naloxone for Erin. No one talked to me about the potential for overdose. So Right. That's really how Overdose Lifeline was born. Increase access to Naloxone and raise awareness and education because if I didn't know as a fairly well educated person, I then what did the rest of us not know?

Angela Kennecke: 27:58

Right. And I think one of the things that you've done since Aaron's death is work in this nonprofit world, in this world of addiction and of overdose and fentanyl. And sometimes I think, because I'm doing the same thing, I'm just five years behind you, I think it's sometimes a heavy way to live, right? To live in this space where you lost someone in this way and you're constantly immersed in the issue.

Justin Phillips: 28:24

Yeah, I agree. I was talking today with a staff member about how I really used to love to cook and I, I don't seem to really have the bandwidth by the time I'm done with my day. And it's probably because of what you just said, right? Right. But it's also very rewarding. And I don't know what else to do, Angela. And I'm sure that I can't do it forever. But this is the path that I've been given. This is the hand, as we say, that I've been dealt. And I want to make a difference, you know, originally I thought increasing access to naloxone passed the law in 2015, allowing naloxone to be available without a prescription in Indiana. I thought that would make the world of difference. And then the increase in fentanyl and everything came along and, and we're still just losing way too many people all the time. But people call me and say they saved someone and And people do get that second chance. And so I think that's what really keeps me going. And we have some other programs with kids and pregnant women who are getting a second chance that I think also keep me going because what I really want to do is, is make it better for other people because the situation, you know, that you and I have found ourselves in is pretty hard. Right?

Angela Kennecke: 29:43

Right. We don't want anyone else to go through it. And I do feel like sometimes you see this increase in overdose slash fentanyl poisoning deaths, and it feels like you're rowing a boat with a hole in it, right? Like

Justin Phillips: 29:54

you

Angela Kennecke: 29:55

feel like you got this naloxone out there in Indiana, so you've had it over the counter for years We just got it over the counter because of the new federal law, so I'm just working to get it dispersed across my state so many years behind you. It just seems like sometimes the solutions are right in our face and a bit obvious, but the time it takes to get there can be frustrating.

Justin Phillips: 30:22

It's very frustrating and it's a very stigmatized, shame filled situation for the individual who suffers, for the family that's affected. People just judge it and we're still a long way from getting rid of that.

Angela Kennecke: 30:48

The stigma and shame surrounding addiction affects people of all ages and backgrounds, from those struggling financially to world famous celebrities. One tragic example is Prince, the legendary award winning musician and one of the most influential artists of the 20th century. This year, Prince's cousin and his cousin's wife joined us on the podcast to share the heartbreak of his fentanyl related death and their ongoing fight for justice even after all of these years. A

Charles 'Chazz' Smith: 31:24

lot of truth's coming out in this world right now.

Victoria Smith: 31:26

And I think that there is going to be some things that will come forward. Some information

Charles 'Chazz' Smith: 31:34

still surprised me, but it's not going to surprise some people.

Angela Kennecke: 31:37

What questions need to be answered here in this case? What do you want to see answered?

Charles 'Chazz' Smith: 31:43

After Prince died on the plane, who got him the pills and ended up taking his life that next week? Even though the doctor who got away with filling out a prescription and putting it in Kurt Johnson's name. That little slap on the wrist for 30, 000. Okay, that's always been our life. Somebody knows something in that little bunch of people. Cause Prince didn't go down and make a deal himself. Somebody had to get them for him and they know who they are and they shouldn't get away with it.

Victoria Smith: 32:13

My husband always says, whether it was an accident or not, You shouldn't

Charles 'Chazz' Smith: 32:17

be dabbling in that. And they know they're dabbling in death. They know that some people can die from it.

Victoria Smith: 32:22

And we also have learned that it was not an accident.

Charles 'Chazz' Smith: 32:27

I really believe they're really trying to murder like your daughter and everyone else are trying to kill people left and right and I don't understand what the reasoning of it is. It's something deep and evil because the stuff is all over the world.

Angela Kennecke: 32:42

This year on Grieving Out Loud, I also had the pleasure of sitting down with the real doctor who inspired Michael Keaton's character in Dope Sick. In the series, the Batman actor portrayed a dedicated doctor in a small mining town who becomes addicted to the pain pills he prescribes.

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 33:00

I came from a background of a lot of addiction in my family and of trauma. I'm a survivor of physical and sexual abuse and I had no idea that those things put me at increased risk. And so the first time that I took that pain pill, it was a Vicodin, broke it in half so it was two and a half milligrams. It made me feel normal. It made me feel Like I had found the answer to what I had been looking for to relieve this thing I had inside of me my whole life and I, I was successful. I mean, I, I did pretty good, right? I mean, I did well in school and had an MD degree and I'm getting ready to, you know, step out into a career that I've trained for for a long time. And really financially, I probably wasn't going to have to really worry a whole lot until, you know, the day I lied, unless I somehow messed it up, but it felt like it completed me. And so I would agree with those people wholeheartedly. I know exactly what that feels like.

Angela Kennecke: 33:57

That feeling soon led to an addiction that would take over his life. Days after taking his first pill. Dr. Lloyd stole a few of his aunt's prescription painkillers, and then later, began keeping the prescriptions his patients brought during a visit, and writing them a new one.

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 34:18

Within three years, I was using 500 milligrams of Oxy's a day. And so if you think about that, I went from one half of a Vicodin 5 milligrams to 500. So that's a hundred pills a day. That accelerated pretty quick. I got there in about two and a half years. And, you know, I wasn't living underneath the bridge. I was seeing your friends and family and relatives in the hospital. I'm a hospitalist, internal medicine physician. So. I'm working in the ICU medical step down units, you know, taking care of patients every day.

Angela Kennecke: 34:47

Addiction among these high stress fields in the medical profession is really not unusual. Whether people are turning to alcohol or pills, whether it's a doctor or a nurse, it's not unusual.

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 34:59

It's not. It's actually higher than the general population. The lifetime prevalence is about 18 to 20 percent, which as you think about it, it's about one in five. And point prevalence is around 2%. So just think about that in the community you live in, where every hundred medical providers out there, you have two of them are in active addiction right now, and so it's not. But it's this shame thing, right? Now, and we kind of talked a little bit about that in DC, you know, I have access to basically anything that I need yet. I can't tell anybody I've got this problem or I'm going to lose everything I've worked my entire life

Lauren Sisler: 35:32

for.

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 35:33

And so the denial potential there is really, really high because you want to protect this license that I worked really hard for in this board certification. I worked really hard for. I don't want it taken away from me, and it's, oh, by the way, it's also how I provide a living for my family, so denial in these professional populations is, is really high because of what you stand to lose.

Angela Kennecke: 35:54

I think what people don't understand about addiction is that they don't understand when you have so much to lose why you'd continue. I actually am friends with an eye doctor who started breaking into people's homes to steal their medicine, and she has since gotten her license. It's vicious. In recovery, she's gotten her license back, but boy, was it a shameful thing, and people don't always understand why when you have so much to lose,

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 36:18

do you continue to use? It's what I didn't understand. I mean, you know what I do now, and, and this is my life. If you told me I had to go back and work in the hospital and do what I used to, I'd quit, because I really feel like this is why I'm here. I mean, I went through this right at the start of the opioid crisis. I have MD after my name. I think it positioned me to fulfill what I was put on this earth to do. I mean, I believe that with everything I have, and I'm not one of those dudes. I just, I'm just telling you. And so what I didn't realize is that in addiction, you lose access to the frontal lobe of your brain. And your frontal lobe of your brain is about insight, judgment, and empathy. So if we take any of us and we get rid of our frontal lobes, basically did a lobotomy, right, just cut all the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of our brain. We'd be driven solely by our pleasure center. And I don't think any of us have a really hard time if we're honest with ourselves and figuring out where we would wind up if we were driven solely by pleasure, right? We'd all wind up in jail basically by noon. And so I didn't realize any of that. I didn't realize that the part of my brain that controlled my desire and my will to live, which is pretty strong, would be overcome or hijacked by this. I didn't get that right until I lived it. And then when I lived it, I got it wholeheartedly. I love my wife. I love my kids. But the truth is, in the throes of my addiction, I had to have this thing, or I thought that I would die. And what would you do to get the thing you thought you would die without? And the answer to that's anything. So your friend, who's the eye doctor breaking into houses, still a medication. I get that. I'm not condoning it. I get it.

Lauren Sisler: 37:44

Yeah.

Dr. Stephen Loyd: 37:44

Right. If you look at dope sick Keaton taking his patients pain medication and just riding them more, I did that. I mean, that's my story.

Angela Kennecke: 37:59

In addition to Dr. Stephen Lloyd, we've sat down with a range of experts on substance use disorder and the opioid crisis, including attorneys, doctors, and researchers. One of them was author Philip Eil, who wrote the book about Dr. Paul Volkman, one of the most notorious pill mill doctors. Volkman, once a respected pediatrician and emergency room physician, was sentenced to four consecutive life sentences for unlawfully prescribing pain medication. that led to multiple deaths.

Philip Eil: 38:33

Paul Volkman went to college and medical school with my dad. Now I didn't know Paul Volkman growing up. He wasn't someone who came to our house for dinners. We didn't go on vacation together. I learned about him about 15 years ago when I was just starting out as a journalist. My dad had fallen out of touch with him and then they reconnected. And when they reconnected, my dad learned that he was facing These really horrifying charges of prescription drug dealing that prosecutors alleged had led to the deaths of a number of his patients. And you know this from being a journalist, we always have our antenna out for stories. And this just seemed like an astonishing story and a mystery of what happened to this guy.

Angela Kennecke: 39:19

After finding out about Volkman, Philip decided to start researching the doctor's story. What better place to start than asking the doctor himself for an interview.

Philip Eil: 39:33

A few months after I, I heard about his story, he hadn't gone to trial yet. It was in the few years between his indictment and his trial. And I sent him a letter asking if I could speak to him, I was entering a graduate writing program, and somewhat to my surprise, and probably, surely without the input of his lawyers who would have said, don't talk to anybody, don't talk to a young journalist with a tape recorder, he agreed to speak with me. And so I heard his story at length before his trial, we spoke for more than 12 hours in person, and then I continued to correspond with him in the years afterward when he was in county prison and in federal prison, and he will tell you that he's, first of all, innocent of the crimes he was charged and convicted of, that he was a law abiding, conscientious, sympathetic doctor,

Angela Kennecke: 40:20

Phillip says Volkman also claimed he was innocent in the malpractice cases that first caused his fall from medical grace. After those lawsuits, court documents show that Volkman couldn't get malpractice insurance, and that made it difficult to find a job. I thought it was interesting he always saw himself as a victim, and I also thought some narcissism may be in there, but let's talk about that. So he, he worked as a physician, as a pediatrician. He faced some malpractice suits, which some of them are really tragic. And you went into some of that detail in your book. Yeah. And then he's sort of unemployable, like you said. So talk about how he ended up at a pill mill.

Philip Eil: 41:00

So, I couldn't get a straight answer as to how exactly he lost his ability to get insurance. He gave conflicting accounts at one time he said the costs became too high that he was priced out at other times He said that he was essentially blacklisted from the malpractice insurance industry, but this was well into his career He was in his 50s when he, you know, found himself at this desperate crossroads. He was living in Chicago He had an apartment on Lakeshore Drive Overlooking the lake and Belmont Harbor anyone who's been Chicago knows That's a glitzy part of town and he was paying in the early 2000s, 4, 500 a month to live in this building and basically couldn't find a job and was looking around online and saw an ad posted by a woman who he would at least come to learn at some point, had no medical training, didn't even have a college degree, but who had started this clinic that was unaffiliated with any local hospitals. In a part of Ohio, Appalachian, Southern Ohio, right in the Kentucky border near West Virginia, that even then, in the early 2000s, had a reputation for really out of control drug abuse. I found a newspaper clipping from the year that Volkman started in Portsmouth, Ohio, working at one of these clinics. This town was already being called the Oxycontin capital of the world. So, whether that was true or not, it gives you a sense of these kind of sketchy clinics, and loose hands writing prescriptions, and the flow of opiates on the black market, were really pronounced problems by the time he arrived there. And he really didn't apparently show much caution when he arrived, he started prescribing opiates and other controlled substances at a tremendous clip, so much that local pharmacies pretty quickly said, Hey, we're going to stop filling these scripts that didn't stop him. He and his clinic owner applied to the Ohio Board of Pharmacy to establish an onsite pharmacy. And that's what they did. They got the green light and things just continued from there.

Angela Kennecke: 43:11

For three years, Volkman illegally prescribed and dispensed millions of pain pills, operating far outside the scope of a legitimate medical practice. In fact, he became one of the nation's largest physician dispensers of oxycodone. Patients paid between 125 to 200 in cash for brief clinic visits. While Volkman cashed in on the opioid epidemic. Some of his patients tragically lost their lives. It's really sad when you think about it, but also, all of the things that were not in place, all the protections that were not in place to protect patients, like the people who owned the clinic, having no real medical background, no real education at all, right? And also being able to open their own pharmacy like that. I mean, Ohio has since created some new laws.

Philip Eil: 44:10

That's right.

Angela Kennecke: 44:14

Thankfully, progress is being made in raising awareness about opioid abuse and the fentanyl epidemic, but it's still not enough. Substance use disorder continues to take lives and tear families apart, even affecting newborns. On one episode of Grieving Out Loud, we introduced you to a clinic that specializes in supporting babies going through opioid withdrawal. Alongside their mothers.

Jazmin Pedroza: 44:40

They made me feel like a person again. They made me feel like I'm a human again. Like, just because I used, you know, it happens, you know, but I, they didn't judge me. You know, they didn't judge. They seen past, like, they seen Jasmine. They seen Jasmine in recovery. They seen Jasmine trying to get help. Jasmine trying to get better. The volunteers, they went from making me, making me take naps to actually going over there just to talk to me and telling me, Hey, you're doing a good job, like, don't, don't beat yourself up, don't, and, you know, even though you, I felt like the worst mother ever, the worst person, they actually made me feel like there's life after, you know, and to have a human being, you. that I have to care for and they show me how to care for him because not only, you know, is he withdrawing and is he going through these different stages as opposed to my daughter, they've changed my life.

Angela Kennecke: 45:58

So far, Jasmine says she hasn't noticed any long term effects on her son from her drug use, but she's still working on forgiving herself for using drugs while she was pregnant.

Jazmin Pedroza: 46:14

He's meeting all his milestones. They make sure to, you know, check in with me. Tara actually, um, checks in with me time to time where she'll jump on group and then see how they're doing. And he's actually, he knows her. He actually doesn't cry with her. So he's actually at that age where Are you familiar? Do I know you? Do I cry with you? He's learning how to walk. He doesn't want to walk yet, but he's saying dada. You know, he's thriving. He's living his best life because I think I owe him more than my world, and I think I always feed myself up every day for that, and I try to make it up as much as I did yesterday. I know I'm in the forgiving process. It's gonna be a long road, but I can't forgive myself right now, and I know I can't. I'm working on it, but every day I try to give him what I can. What attention I get and what love I get every day.

Angela Kennecke: 47:19

Jasmine's feelings are all too common for those struggling with addiction. Shame and guilt often weigh heavily on people with substance use disorder, even though research clearly shows it's a disease. Do you think you would be in recovery if you hadn't?

Jazmin Pedroza: 47:40

I don't think so. I think my son probably would have gotten it taken away that day because the way those withdrawals are, it makes you want to, you know, I've never thought about hurting myself ever, ever, but that drug actually going through the withdrawals that day, I just, I would look at the window and I would just think like, maybe I could sneak out and go and try to score and then come back.

Angela Kennecke: 48:11

We love sharing success stories of those in recovery and overcoming addiction, but the harsh reality remains. More than 130 Americans die every day from opioid overdoses alone. This year on Grieving Out Loud, we've heard from parents who are learning to cope with their grief. One of them is Nicola Marshall, whose world was shattered by a sudden heartbreaking loss that made headlines worldwide. Her 12 year old son tragically fell from a balcony while they were vacationing in Spain. Despite her unimaginable pain, Nicola found a way to keep moving forward, one step at a time. Now, she's dedicated her life to understanding grief. and helping others navigate their own healing journeys.

Nicola Marshall: 48:59

I remember at Lucas's funeral, I stood up at the end and spoke. And again, Angela, I do not know how I did that, but I, I did. And I said to everyone there, and there was just under a thousand people, you know, in the church. And I said, please, if you see me in town, don't cross the street. come over to me, give me a hug, because I may really need it, and tell me a funny story about Lucas. Tell me something that I would never know about him unless you told me that story. And so people actually do do that. And I had a bench sculptured for Lucas as well, and you can see that on my Instagram, and it's in the center of town, in his favorite park. And I often go and sit there, and so many people come and talk to me. And sometimes when I'm going, I'll see his friends just sat there as well and it's so lovely. So lovely.'cause

Angela Kennecke: 49:47

you want him to be remembered. You don't want your loved one to be forgotten.

Nicola Marshall: 49:51

Yeah. I think it's really important that we remember our loved ones and we feel comfortable talking about them. You know, if somebody comes up to me, they say, how are you? I say, you know what? Today's a good day. Today's a really good day. And I will tell them exactly how I feel and if I'm feeling bad. I'll tell them. And I'll also talk about Lucas, because as soon as I start talking about Lucas, then other people will talk about Lucas as well. They're kind of like, Oh, you know, it's okay to talk about him. I really encourage

Angela Kennecke: 50:18

that. Well, we have a lot of listeners, a lot of people who probably are newly grieving listening to this podcast. What advice do you have for people?

Nicola Marshall: 50:29

Well, my advice is it's okay not to be okay. And to be really kind to yourself. Because what we're dealing with is, you know, something that we never expected would happen to us. So, be kind to yourself.

Angela Kennecke: 50:46

That's wonderful advice because so often I would say be gentle with yourself, be kind to yourself, because we are the harshest. on ourselves just routinely anyway, I think in day in day out life, many of us are, and then when you feel these expectations that you're supposed to move on, get on with life, and you're not able to do that, there's really nothing wrong with you. Grief doesn't have a timeline. Yeah,

Nicola Marshall: 51:09

it really doesn't. And you have to just allow it to take you where it needs you to be at that time and at that moment, you know, and that's so, so important. important,

Angela Kennecke: 51:20

you know, in your Ted talk, you were talking about life and death and you ended with this line and I'm going to read it back to you because I thought it was really beautiful. Life doesn't just begin and end. It changes and transforms us. And I thought that that's amazing.

Nicola Marshall: 51:38

Yeah. And it really does, doesn't it? Because we are not the person that we were five, six years ago. We're not that person. You know, and it does change you because it's, it's shocking and it's something you, you don't expect your child to die. You know, you expect with a parent and I think, well, it's difficult, you know, to bury your child.

Angela Kennecke: 52:01

It's one of the worst things I think that can happen to a parent. So

Nicola Marshall: 52:04

yeah,

Angela Kennecke: 52:04

I do think that we can choose also if that change in us is going to be positive or negative. Right. So that's where we have a choice. some people don't feel like they have a choice because they're so overwhelmed by feelings of bitterness and devastation and they can't seem to pull themselves out of those feelings but, but we do ultimately have a choice of what path to take.

Nicola Marshall: 52:32

Yeah, yeah. I remember, you know, and you've probably sat in the why me bucket as well and I was like, why me? Why me? And then I said, you know what? Why not me? What's so special about me? What is so special about me?

Angela Kennecke: 52:45

You're saying all of my words, cause I have said, why not me? And I've said, I'm not special and neither are you. You know, none of us are really special. Maybe we raise our kids to think they're so special, but none of us are immune from loss and grief and death.

Nicola Marshall: 53:01

For me personally, I feel I've had many lifetimes with Lucas and I just didn't know that this side time was going to be so short, but I learned so much from him. He taught me so much about him, other people, about me. and I continue to learn about other people, me, you know, and I feel for me personally, I do feel Lucas is guiding me. And again, it's what he would expect. And the times, you know, that I've fallen down, he's gone, come on, mom, you're my mom, get up, you can do this. So I'm like, you know what, son, I can. So I do.

Angela Kennecke: 53:39

I can. So I do. Powerful words from a grieving mother looking to change the world. As we wrap up this special highlights episode. I want to thank each of you for listening and supporting Grieving Out Loud this year. Together, we've explored stories of loss, advocacy, and hope, amplifying voices that refuse to let grief have the final word. As we look ahead to 2025, there's reason for cautious optimism. For the first time in a decade, we're seeing a nationwide drop in overdose deaths by 17 percent. It's a glimmer of hope that the tireless efforts of so many of us are making a difference. But the work is far from over. Every statistic represents lives lost, families shattered, and dreams unfulfilled. In the coming year, we'll see more. We'll continue to share stories that inspire action and deepen understanding. Together, we can build on this progress and keep pushing toward a future where fewer families endure the pain of losing a loved one to addiction, overdose, or fentanyl poisoning. Thank you for being part of this journey until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Weinenberg King and Kaylee Fitz.