Losing a child is the hardest thing a person can go through. For Michael Land, that pain is doubled. He's had to learn how to live after losing both of his children, his only two kids. if I think about it, I self pity myself because it's, 'cause like my mother right now, she's dealing with Alzheimer's and that's it. So it's just my mother and me and I guess I get sad because I'm the last person. There is no more land, you know, in our family, I mean, nobody to carry the name on. But Michael is finding a powerful way to carry on his son's memory. By doing the things they dreamed of doing together and using those moments to raise awareness about how his son died. He said, dad, we ought to go to somebody's national park sometime. That's when it hit me and then I realized, how can I grab somebody's attention to pay attention to some old man that lost his kid? I said, lemme get all the most beautiful places in the world, you know, God's creation and get out of, you know, everything. In this episode of grieving Out Loud, Michael shares the heartbreak of losing his son, the lessons he wished he had known sooner, and how he's trying to help others avoid the same tragedy. Well, Mike, it is a pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I am. Very sorry for the loss of your son Preston, who was 25 years old when he died from fentanyl poisoning. I'm really happy to talk to a dad. I've been getting more and more dads on this podcast. It seems like for the first few years it was all moms. Yep. only ones talking, but now we're hearing from a lot more dads, which I think is great. That is actually great to hear.'cause that's the first thing that when I started doing speaking engagements, it's like, where are all the dads? And I would ask the mothers, you know, where's the dad? He won't talk about it. You know, men aren't supposed to share their feelings. And that's kind of how I got into it. And when I joined Texas against Fentanyl, I'm still the only director that's a male. It's me and five women. and, uh, but I'm starting to get more men. You're Oh, yeah, by women. We have a support group at Emily's Hope, and it's we have a couple guys here and there yeah, they're in the minority for sure. yeah, for doing that. Thank you for speaking yeah. being willing to share Preston's story. yeah, thank you. I appreciate being here. So. You're doing some amazing things too. I wanna get into that, but let's Okay. about Preston first. Can you tell me a little bit about your son? Yeah. of course he was 25 when he passed away. He was born in 1995, October 27th. And, uh, we moved to McKinney, which is outside of Dallas. I didn't wanna raise him in the big city, so I moved out to the country Let's talk about that for just one second. I, I find it interesting. I have a point to make. I thought raising my daughter in a, you know, medium sized city in the Midwest would protect her. Right? So you think, you know, raising your son, outside of the big city is gonna protect them, right? Right. Exactly. And I did, that's why I didn't want him in the Dallas school district 'cause it was getting terrible back in the nineties. And I said, let's move out to McKinney. His mother was actually from the country, the small town out here. And we moved, moved out here. There were 30,000 people. And now there's 200 something thousand there's a lot more money here now and a lot of rich kids and all that. So what do they have more money to spend on drugs, which is sad. But now Preston was a great kid. I mean, his mother and I divorced when he was one. Uh, I mean, we got along perfect and everything. Still friends today, but we just, I, I was one of those dads that in the beginning I was like a Disneyland dad, you know, I'll give you everything you want. All of this stuff. We actually just became best friends, you know? In fact, my parents always used to say, can we have him this week? And I said, no, it's my time. You know, and so I would spend time with him and we would do the, all the gaming stuff, whatever it was growing up. And a good student. he got bored with school. I think he's. Was a little smarter not because he was my son, but he just, he advanced a lot quicker than most kids. In fact, I got called into school one day and they said that Preston won't read the books that we're supposed to read, and it was maybe the fourth grade or something like that. And they opened up the books and I said, well, these are kind of stupid. And she said, well, now I know where he gets it from. from the father. He was reading like the Harry Potter books. I mean, it was kind of immature little books. But, he never got in trouble at school or anything like that. And then of course, high school came around and he got his high school sweetheart and they were in love. They were always at my house, swimming, doing whatever. And then the downturn happened is when she went off to college and they broke up and he was just heartbroken. And that's a, that's a story that, you know, so many kids go Yeah. many people go through. Was it particularly devastating for Preston? Do you think that was some kind of turning point for him? Yeah. 100%. And he, he even went out, to, she went to Texas Tech and he followed her out there the next semester and she still just wanted to be friends. And he came back and, just kinda went downhill I'll admit he did smoke a little pot, um, and he did those THC cartridges or whatever, but of course he was older and I couldn't tell him what to do. And I know that he had tried a lot of the drugs but he, nothing ever took, you know, he never got, you know, addicted to cocaine or meth or pills or anything of that nature., Like a lot of kids, he smoked marijuana or used it in various ways. And, and we know that's not good for the developing brain. We know Right. you know, set kids up for other issues, but also he just experimented it sounds like, like a Yeah. do and a lot of parents see that as a rite of passage. Exactly, that's exactly how I saw it. And he, I mean, he drank every once in a while, but he wasn't like a hardcore alcoholic or anything like that, but he was just like a normal 21-year-old to kid. Yeah. He was very isolated, still kind of in a depression mode. Still, Michael had no reason to believe his son was in any real danger. That's why what happened on January 5th, 2021 came as a devastating shock. I was in, uh, Phoenix at the time. I was living , halftime there, and halftime in Dallas area. I. And, uh, I was sitting there watching a show called The Pharmacist on Netflix. I dunno if you've seen it. I know Dan Schneider. He's yeah, and yeah. man. If you're not familiar with the pharmacist, it's a powerful Netflix documentary that shows how Dan Schneider solved his son's murder in the case of a drug deal gone wrong in the process, he became one of the earliest voices to sound the alarm on the opioid crisis, and he hasn't stopped fighting for change ever since. We sat down with him for a two-part conversation on grieving out loud. This thing has been shown over a hundred million times to a hundred billion views in 60 countries, and now we have a potential movie because of that. As a journalist, I was in awe of the Netflix documentary, the Pharmacist. What was so fascinating to me was the way that the central character pharmacist, Dan Schneider, was a meticulous record keeper and great investigator. He was recording audio and video long before we had smartphones in our hands, and he was doing it to catch his son's killer in a drug deal gone bad and later shut down pill mills in the opioid crisis. I paid a bargain recover. I said, look, I, if you will protect me and if you help me get my sons killed off the street, I will go on a mission for you. For the rest of my life, I would try to prevent this happen to every other family. If you'd like to listen to the full episodes with Schneider, we've posted links in our show notes of this podcast. While you're there, we'd appreciate it. If you took a moment to rate and review this episode, please share it with your friends and family. Together we can raise awareness about the nation's fentanyl crisis and hopefully save lives. so you're watching the pharmacist.. Yeah, I'm watching the pharmacist and it was that scene where he found out his son was murdered. And I looked at my best friend and I said, I couldn't imagine if I lost Preston. I've already lost one son. As soon as I said that, my phone rang. And it was Preston's mom. And she said, Preston's gone. And I said, well gone where? She said He's dead. the police came, they tried to get into his phone. It was blocked because they kept trying. he had just gone to Whataburger, which is a hamburger place here in Texas, and he literally went upstairs saying, I'm gonna go up there and play some games I have tomorrow off. And she found him the next morning sitting in a chair just like this one arm slung over, and he never even finished his Whataburger. Of course, we got the autopsy back and he had 12 milligrams of fentanyl and that was the only thing in the system. I wanna, sort of dissect this a little bit. Okay. of all, Mike, you told me you're watching the pharmacist, he's talking about his son who was murdered in a, in a drug deal, kind of gone bad. You're saying, oh my God, if I ever lost my son, that would be the worst thing that could happen to me on the day my daughter died, I was working on a story on good Samaritan laws and overdoses. I mean, what are the chances? Right? Isn't that weird? and I still can't understand why, why to this day. Right, And then the other part, you talk about him, being just in his chair dead. I cannot tell you how many parents I've talked to and I, I tell kids about this every time I speak to them. Big groups of kids in right. how many parents have found thinking their kid is safe at home? You think your kid's safe and they're. They've gotten a pill probably through social media or Right, or however, and they take it and they're dead in their rooms and they find 'em in their beds or in their chair with their game boy or whatever, you know? And it's just, it's unbelievable to me that this keeps happening. and I make that point to a lot of parents when I'm speaking and even other kids, I said, most people think that the people that are dying are the drug addicts that you see with a needle hanging outta their arm, living on the streets. And I said, in my area of North Texas, 'cause I'm the one that gets a call if somebody dies. And it's always just like you said, we found our child upstairs or down the hall in their bedroom. the biggest thing I see now, and I especially talk to the young girls about is we're starting to see parents going in there and finding their daughter with a best friend. And the only mentality I can think is, Hey, come over to my house Friday night and we'll try this together. And then they both die. yeah, I've heard of that as well. And it's awful. Awful. And most of the guys, especially with Texas against Fentanyl, we all had boys that died around the same age and they all died 2021 or 20 early 2022. And I always say, what happened right before that Covid you know, everybody was isolated, depressed, sitting at home. So, and we talk about the mental health. Do I think that they had mental health issues? No. you know, it's just like me, everybody. When Preston died, they said, you need to get on antidepressants. And I said. No, I'm depressed.'cause my son died. I'm not clinically diagnosed as being depressed. So, There's a um, for it. Sure. And, and you know that Preston took a pill. How did you find that out? I. they found another pill and then they tested it. and that one, I don't even remember what was in that one. His mom took care of that, but his autopsy showed was a 12 milligrams of fentanyl. it was a blue, uh, M 30. what he probably thought was a Percocet, exactly. Yeah. right? And so did you find out where he got it? It's funny you say that. In the middle of doing the waterfall journey, I talked to his mother and she said, we found the phone number. And I said, did you call it? And she said, yes, it's disconnected. And I said, well, there's no proof. I mean, but I said I can find out whose number, who owned that phone policy and at least check 'em out and see if they're still dealing. But I said, I've watched so many families that have just gone through a trial and what it's done to them, and we're getting better. I said, do you want to spend the next two years with this court case? So you and your ex-wife decided really not to pursue that, and law enforcement wasn't pursuing it anyway. They didn't know. The way that they found out is with the iPhone, his sister. It was my ex stepdaughter. Her husband was able to get into his computer and found this phone number on the day that he died. And the only other phone numbers that he used were calling his sister and his mom. So it was just a, you know, deduction. And it was around the time that he had left to go somewhere? But law enforcement didn't pursue the case. They didn't No, they didn't charge anybody. Why is that? Basically, 'cause it's a real small town and there's only about four police officers in that town, So not enough resources Not enough resources. Yes. And you didn't feel cheated because I've talked to a lot of parents who've had a lot of trouble getting justice in their cases and Yep, a lot of the investigative work themselves. yep. I just spoke to a dad recently who went through it was several years, You know of investigative work and trying to get the attention of law enforcement and finally getting the DEA to do something. Yep. didn't wanna do that, we didn't know because we couldn't get into his phone, so we just said it's a, you know, and we just thought maybe he got it from a friend or something like that. and I mean, yes, I have the resources now. I mean, you probably know most of the people I know Derek Maltz and, you know, a bunch of people that I could get the phone number, find out who it is, and we're still discussing that. Preston's mom and I, and I just finished. We had our first murder charge yesterday in my county, and I was there with the DA and the family, and I think I cried more. Then the mother did, Michael is referring to a new Texas law that now classifies the act of supplying fentanyl that results in death as murder. The legislature passed House Bill six and responds to the alarming rise in fentanyl related deaths across the state. And that's actually due to, uh, Stephanie Rowe, who is Tucker's mother, and she started Texas against Fentanyl. So there's the Tucker's law, which is the educational piece, and then they also implemented the murder charge. So if you intentionally give somebody fentanyl in the state of Texas, it's a minimum sentence of 25 years. And, uh, yeah, our county just had that one yesterday. The girl was, 21 years old. The, now the boy was 17 years old. He lived right down the street from here, but the mother got 25 years. She pled out and they charged her with murder and Mandel manufacturing delivery. So she got 25 years in Texas. If it's an aggravated, she's gonna have to at least spend 12 and a half years in prison. but the biggest thing is, is even the district attorney here has called me because they're struggling to get convictions. And one reason that is, is because of autopsies, I don't think that, these deaths are always accurately reported as sometimes, right. we've talked about that on this podcast too, that the number is probably much higher Yeah. Than what we're seeing out there, from drug related and or fentanyl, poisoning deaths. So certainly there are some issues in the system. Right. And yeah, it varies from state to state and county to county, but it is that way. Yeah. In this whole story that you mentioned, you also mentioned that you lost another son, so you've experienced loss twice. Twice. Right. It's that whole saying, it's never gonna happen to me. And then I thought it happened to me twice. Both of my children are gone. Michael lost his other son shortly after he was born due to a medical condition. He had a brain issue during the birth, and, uh, we knew about it and we knew that if he was to be born. he be, I remember the doctor said it'll be like a Terry s Shiva. I don't know if you remember the Terry s Shiva that was in a vegetable state, and so we chose to give birth and he didn't make it afterwards, so. Right. So he lost a newborn infant and, and then lost Preston. And, and loss is loss, you know. Right. I mean, how has that impacted you in, in your life? If I think about it, I self pity myself because it's, 'cause like my mother right now, she's dealing with Alzheimer's and that's it. So it's just my mother and me and I guess I get sad because that's it. I'm the last person. There is no more land, you know, in our family, I mean, nobody to carry the name on. So I put it all into awareness and actually just trying to comfort other people. You know, I've never, ever given advice on how to of course, parent or deal with the grief. I always remember telling this even to the brothers and sisters of the person that died yesterday for the charge. I said, the best thing I can say is, I'm sorry.'cause I remember at Preston's funeral after the fifth person that camp said, I don't know what to say. I'm sorry. I said, be glad you don't. And just leave it at that. And I think that's the best thing we can do.'cause I don't know what it's like to lose a daughter. I don't even know what it's like to lose a son that's the same age for somebody else. We all grieve in different ways. Right. Grief is different for everybody. Yeah. But I, I think we as parents. Often share common threads and Right. And one of those is going back and looking at what happened during our children's lives and a tendency to blame ourselves for what we did or didn't do. Right. And I think that I've heard you say when I was doing some research for this podcast that in some ways you blame yourself. Oh yeah. Uh, Basically I, you're talking about being the friend instead of a father sometimes. I'll admit that we became more best friends than anything else, and I never punished him when he did something wrong. You know, there were times that maybe he was using something and I didn't notice it.'cause we always want our kids to be happy. And if he's depressed for a couple days, then all of a sudden he is happy. I'm just happy that he is happy. Why isn't he happy? You know, now that I look back, did he take something right? And there's the guilt feeling. All the time. Well, and I think there's no room for guilt because I think that, a couple of things, what you say about being a best friend or letting him go when he, I did the opposite with my daughter. My daughter started rebelling in high school and I was basically played the bad cop. I did all these things that I thought were really hard to do at the time. Punishments, taking things away, consequences, all of these things. And you did maybe the opposite, and both of our children ended up in the same place. Not here with us. Exactly. Poisoned by fentanyl. So you can't say. If I would've done this, I would've had this outcome because you don't know. And I don't think it's true. And I think that there's no room for guilt. I, I took some, um, grief educator training through David Kessler, and I'm an a certified grief educator. I know a lot about grief. Spent a lot of time with people grieving as well. And I often say, you know, even if I would've blank, blank, fill in the blank. Right. This still could have happened even if I would've been a strict disciplinarian. Even if I would've been more lenient. Yeah. This still could have happened. And so the thing is, is that there's so much beyond our control as parents, their social media. I. Like you said, the pandemic had just happened. We know that greatly affected kids. There's the drug supply that is tainted because back when we were young, the drug supply has always been out there. But back when we were young, it wasn't a death sentence if your kid experimented Right. Or even suffered from substance use disorder. Right. So, the world has changed, the landscape has changed and there's so much beyond our control. We control so little. and I think it's hard for men. To give up control, right? I mean, our mind wants to tell us that somehow we could have made a difference or done something differently. But that's the mind wanting control and we fix things. That's what guys do. We fix things and we're right. It, there should have been something I would've done. and I, I do share, even though there is that guilt, and especially at the national park, when I did the national park and I did the memorials, I would always do a verse bible verse that stood out to me. And then I would share, here's something I look back now that I wish I would've changed. I'm not telling you how to parent, but I look back and say, I wish I would've done this different. Not even for drugs or mental health, just anything in general. I wish I would've done different. Well, hindsight is 2020. Yeah. I think we all make mistakes as parents and we all wish we would've done things differently. Right. Sometimes we did the best we could at the time with, yeah. what we, I think our, all of our intentions as parents and most people, I wanna give them their intentions as parents. Were always for the best of their children, right? Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. So you, mentioned a couple of times this tour that you did. Okay. Let's talk about that. Tell me about, you did actually two tours and Right. This was an honor of Preston. Yes. The first one was, uh, I went to 25 National Parks, and that's where the 25, Preston seven came from. The number seven is the completion in Bible. It's also, and I didn't figure this out till later, how many letters are in his name, his middle name, my first name, and his middle name, or my middle name. We share that. But I wanted to ride my bike seven miles in each park on the trails and then go to the highest peak that I could and do a memorial. So I got the seven miles in, whether it was hiking or biking. And then I would go to the tallest point at every national park that I could. You know, the first one was, big Bend National Park here in Texas. We climbed for 11 hours to seven or 8,000 feet. I did a memorial, put it out there and shared it. And I did that for awareness and to honor my son. and the biggest thing that I remember receiving from people is asking, what are you filming? And I would tell them, and 99% of the people said the exact same thing. Thank God my kid's not a drug addict. And I would say then you're who I want to talk to. You know, for me to go out, even like lately when I've been on the streets of Phoenix or wherever and I see people that are using for me to tell them, do you know that this is dangerous and you could die? They know that. So I'm wanting to get to the first time users. Are they people that are experimenting? So, right. There's so much judgment in that statement too. Yeah. and if people are suffering from substance use disorder, it didn't start that way. They didn't start with the intention. Right. You know, but, a lot of times it is just kids like yours experimenting. Yeah. and people need to understand that. So this park tour sounds amazing. You went to how many national parks? 25 National parks. How long did that take you? I started on Preston's birthday in , uh, 2022. And I gave myself, I'm gonna do it in a year. And I ended up doing it in nine months, I think it was. And it, it's funny 'cause I remember it was 25, Preston seven and I ended on July 25th. Just no coincidence. I was in, horseshoe Bend. Up in, uh, Arizona and I finished there. but I did most of California, of course, Yellowstone, Yosemite, all the Utah. Michael's tour, took him mostly through the Western United States where he posted on social media and spoke to people in person about the dangers of fentanyl. He says there was a reason the emotional and deeply meaningful journey ended at Horseshoe Bend. Because he had just gone to Big Bend with a couple of friends right before he passed away and he said, dad, we ought to go to somebody's national park sometime. That's when it hit me and then I realized, how can I grab somebody's attention to pay attention to some old man that lost his kid? I said, lemme get all the most beautiful places in the world, you know, God's creation and get out of, you know, everything. And it did, it picked up. A lot of people that, you know, I at least got to show them something beautiful and share the story. and what did it do for you? It gave me peace. A lot of peace. That was the biggest thing. A lot of peace and a lot of joy that people were paying attention because I always, and you've probably said a million times, it's, we don't want anybody to join our club. but it brought a lot of peace. And then, you know, like I said before. when he first died, I was gonna be the guy that fixed everything. I was gonna be the guy that actually shut the border down myself. And, um, you know, I felt that way after Emily died in 2018. I thought if I just spoke out and talked, I could stop it. And then people kept dying and I realized I couldn't stop it. Yeah. But I, could do my part. Yeah, you're doing your part. Exactly. I mean, I called everybody law enforcement. And then of course after the National Park thing, the next thing you know, I'm getting calls from politicians, I'm getting calls from law enforcement and, and now we partner up and do a lot of stuff together because it got a lot of attention on social media. Your tour? Pretty much. Yeah. Yeah. And then after the national park tour, then you did a second tour. So I had planned on doing, reversing It. I was gonna ride my bike 25 miles on seven continents. And I was actually gonna end up in Jerusalem as the last continent for Asia. And then the war broke October 7th happened. So I put that off and we did an event Texas against Fentanyl in Mission Texas on the border last October, and Derek Maltz was with Border 9 1 1. They were hosting it with us and Tom Holman and those, I remember Derek saying something about, stop treating these people like numbers. You know, and we always remember when COVID, we always had the number of deaths that were happening on your TV screen. And that hit me. I said, I say that in my speeches, I always talk about the numbers, but these children are not numbers. I said they need to be honored in some way. So I left, , March 25th of this year, and I went to 25 waterfalls. I wanted to do 25 waterfalls in seven states, and I basically would hold a picture of the loved one with a beautiful waterfall in the background. Honor their child and give them something because we all have the posters or pictures of our kids that we can just look at on a wall. They've been on billboards wherever. But I thought this might give them something, to honor their children, so the first tour of National Parks was really about Preston, and the second tour of Waterfalls was about. Other people's kids. Yeah. Anybody that, would send in their photo and they sent in the photo and I, I remember I probably had about a hundred in the beginning. And then Derek Maltz malts and uh, Sarah Carter, they post it. The next thing you know, I'm just getting pictures like crazy. And people ask me, 'cause I just finished it, what was it like? And I said it was almost as hard as losing Preston. And the reason I say that is I only mentioned their name in the photo, but everybody that would email me a photo, I got the story of their child. Mm-hmm. And I remember telling the guys we do a father call monthly call. And I was telling them, I said, after about the second waterfall, before I was driving up to the waterfall or whatever I was doing, I'd put on comedy. Or something like that because I would start getting teared up reading the names.'cause I knew all the stories and I just wanted to feel like a narrator reading off a name.'cause it took me a couple of takes on the first one just to read the names. I get what you're saying because I, do this podcast every week and I've talked to so many parents and. hearing about their children, it's heavy, right? Oh, yeah. And it takes its toll. It takes its toll on me. it really does. I don't record every single day. I have certain days I record because I know it's gonna be a day where it takes me a while, you know? Yeah. it just, it's hard, it's hard to hear these stories, but they need to be told. They do., It was the toughest thing I ever did, but it was the most honoring thing for me to be able to do that for them. I was honored to do that and you know, but the stories are, they, you know, the youngest I had was eight months old, just right down the street, in my city. they're still going through the trial right now, but the mother actually poisoned the baby, put Fentanyl in the baby bottle because she was an addict. She was an addict herself and she didn't wanna deal with the baby anymore. So, oh my God. As one of the nation's strongest financial organizations, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank Card have the strength to do good. We support nearly 700 organizations and nonprofits. Our employees give more than 30,000 volunteer hours annually, and we are continually seeking ways to make South Dakota an even better place to live. It's the premier way, first Premier Bank and Premier Bank card. and I'll mention these three big events that happened on the waterfall journey. I was in outside of Seattle at a hotel and I was having breakfast. And Abilene Christian University golf team walks in. And one of the bags sits down and it says, Preston Cooper is the guy's name. And I was just like, oh man. Another sign. And I asked the coach, I said, I've gotta tell you what happened and what I'm doing. My son's name was Preston. He goes, oh, we have two Prestons on our team. So I end up doing a fentanyl awareness program to six college golf teams at the Hampton Inn. And as soon as I'm leaving, you know, I put my Google map or whatever on to go to the next waterfall. It says Exit 42 is your exit. Right as I pull up, the sign says Preston, fall City. I mean, if you're talking about signs, and I will say the very last one is in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I was out in my truck getting something outta the car and I have the car magnets of all the director's kids, six of us. And a guy walks by and he goes, Preston Land, I know him. This is in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. I said, how do you know him? It turns out he knows the cousins on his mother's side. And he said, what happened? I said, he died of fentanyl. And he goes, oh. He goes, I was an opioid addict. And he goes, that's the day I decided to quit was when I started hearing about fentanyl. I said, when did you sober up? And he said, January 5th, 2021. I said, that's the day my son died. And I'm just like, I even get goosebumps when I think about it. I mean, we're out there talking for two hours. some of the signs of. Doing something and, it's making a difference. and I always say, even if just one life is saved Yeah. That's what matters. Right? Yeah. That was the first interview I ever did. The guy Asked what would be a success story after the National Parks. And I said that one person. Says, Hey, I heard about that kid Preston, and I didn't take a pill. Yeah, and I tell people all the time, I'll go do talks at wherever, and I was with Department of Public Safety and they said, God, this is not a big turnout. And I said, don't look at it that way. I said, I've talked to the second largest high school in the United States, 7,000 kids, and all I care about is that one person listens that day. That's all that matters. Don't think about that. You have to make 5,000 people understand. Just focus on one person a day. In addition to raising awareness about the dangers of fentanyl, Michael hopes to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable for its role in fueling the opioid epidemic. He also urges people to think twice before taking any pill because one wrong choice could be deadly. When I speak nowadays to people, whether it's schools or anything, I say, we live in a society right now where you can't turn on the TV without there being a drug commercial saying, this pill will fix this. And I think that's the mentality most kids think is, oh, I'll just take a pill and it'll fix me. But bam, Oh, 100%. Because kids are so comfortable with pills, we are a pill popping society, and I Yeah. why. We've seen kids get these pills, think they're real or whatever, and take them no questions asked because they do believe that all pills are safe. There's a pill for everything. And so what's next for you? You've done this big national park tour, you've done the waterfall tour, you're involved in legislation in Texas. What do you plan to do next? Well, that's a good question. I am. Probably gonna put a book together.'cause I've got a whole lot of history as well in the two weeks before I left for the waterfall, I was laid off from my company. basically now I'm free. I think I'm gonna probably, I'll talk to Stephanie. We have the Tucker Project, which is our curriculum that we've written for schools, K through 12 and now higher education. She's gonna handle that and I think I'm gonna kinda handle more of the Texas against Fentanyl. We have curriculum at Emily's Hope too. In fact we do. Okay. We've had it out for a few years, K through 12. Really great curriculum. It's in five states and growing. Awesome. Oh good. Yeah. So if we can ever partner in that way at all, but then yeah. I need to get Stephanie hooked up with you. One of our main people is, she was a superintendent of Orlando school district but, I love doing the school talks. I've talked. I don't know how many, I would say 80 to a hundred thousand people maybe last year. You know, colleges, schools, law enforcement agencies. And my biggest thing is we need to bring awareness because most of the kids will come up to me after reading or doing a speech and they'll say, I get it now. It's a poison. It's not like, oh, I thought I had a choice. If I'm at a party, just gimme the one without fentanyl. Like they, they don't understand it. And just the misconception of what's going on. Yeah. Right. Awareness is so important. Awareness, yeah. And education. I really believe prevention is the key. Yeah. And we're working really hard in that aspect too. But thank you so much for sharing Preston's story with me today. I, I really appreciate it. ask for payback for everybody that I shared their story. I said, the payback is, is. If you can one time for the rest of your life, just go share your loved one story that will save a life. And I always tell people that and I talk to people, whether it's at a Taco Bell restaurant or whatever. I share the story yeah. I agree a hundred percent. Well, thank you for continuing to do this work in Preston's Honor, and I just really appreciate everything that you're doing. Thank you for being on the podcast. You well, thank you so much. And thank you for listening to this episode of Grieving Out Loud. Until then, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wonnenberg King and Marley Miller. I.