Stephanie Wittels Wachs with Claire Bidwell Smith at Zibby’s Bookshop!
[0:00]You didn't have to.
[0:01]Stephanie picked the least funny person
[0:02]to be in conversation with you.
[0:04]I'm a grief therapist.
[0:06]Like I'm, I am literally the most unserious person.
[0:11]Like the fact that I have written this very serious book.
[0:14]It's tough for me.
[0:15]But I mean, I try to be serious.
[0:17]This book is amazing.
[0:18]I'm so excited to talk about it.
[0:20]Stephanie and I know each other.
[0:21]I was a host of one of her podcasts for Lemonada.
[0:24]Yes.
[0:25]Yes.
[0:26]An amazing experience.
[0:27]And I can't believe it's been so long.
[0:28]We haven't seen each other in person in a while.
[0:30]It was like, I think it was the being trans thing last party.
[0:34]No, but I love Claire.
[0:36]And I have followed her forever.
[0:38]And I mean, I am a griever.
[0:41]And that is your space.
[0:44]That is my space.
[0:44]So even before I had you on the network,
[0:47]I was like, this lady is the one.
[0:49]And so I'm very honored that you're talking to me today.
[0:53]I'm honored.
[0:54]I'm curious, I really want to tailor this talk to just
[1:02]to kind of thinking about who's in the room today.
[1:03]And I know you have a handful of friends.
[1:05]I know there's some people in the book in the room today.
[1:08]I'm curious how many people have read the book.
[1:11]This is a quiz.
[1:13]That's my PR person.
[1:14]I know that's good because that's kind of where I was thinking.
[1:24]of how to lead this, because I really
[1:26]want to introduce this book.
[1:27]I finished reading it today.
[1:29]And then I sat and watched a bunch of YouTube videos of Paris.
[1:33]Or did the best?
[1:33]They are.
[1:34]So good.
[1:34]Really funny.
[1:35]So funny.
[1:36]I know.
[1:36]Easy to love.
[1:38]So I was wondering if you wanted to start by reading us
[1:42]a little passage.
[1:43]OK.
[1:44]And I'm going to hit her if she goes too long.
[1:45]Yeah.
[1:46]So I just said smack me.
[1:47]It really hard.
[1:49]OK.
[1:49]So this is basically the introduction.
[1:53]And an introduction starts a book, if you guys didn't know.
[1:56]So here's the first page.
[1:59]OK.
[2:01]On February 19, 2015, I lost my brother,
[2:04]Harris Whittles, to a heroin overdose.
[2:06]As many times as I've repeated those words
[2:08]since, it's still somehow doesn't seem real.
[2:11]Even though I know concretely that he is no longer here.
[2:14]For over 10 years, I haven't been able to text him hilarious
[2:17]videos of his niece and nephew.
[2:19]I haven't been awakened at midnight with an SOS phone call
[2:22]to game out his latest girl problem.
[2:24]I haven't been to 12 hours of television with him in one sitting
[2:27]or shared an eye roll at dinner after one of our parents
[2:30]said something completely unhinged.
[2:32]My children are getting older, but my childhood sidekick is not.
[2:37]And although I've somehow come to accept that fact,
[2:40]it's never felt like something I should accept
[2:42]because no one should die of a drug overdose at 30 years old.
[2:47]Thank you.
[2:48]Yeah.
[2:48]That's perfect.
[2:49]Thanks.
[2:51]So you wrote the book that you needed.
[2:53]Yeah, like I did.
[2:56]I, when you are thrust into this world of substance use disorder,
[3:05]there is no manual, there is no how to, there is no handbook.
[3:09]Whereas I feel like for other issues, you know,
[3:13]you call people, hey, I know you've dealt with breast cancer.
[3:16]I know you've dealt with this thing.
[3:18]But it's such a stigmatized issue that people
[3:21]don't want to talk about it.
[3:23]With their friends, you want to hide it.
[3:25]There's, you know, a lot of shame around it.
[3:29]And then it impacts the way we treat it.
[3:31]It impacts the way we respond when somebody that we love more
[3:34]than anyone in the world comes and says, I'm having this thing.
[3:38]I'm addicted to oxy, and I'm spending $4,000 a month on bills.
[3:42]And my response is like, not the fuck, like, you can't do that.
[3:46]That's bad.
[3:47]You know, it's like, instead of, that sounds hard, how can I be there for you?
[3:53]How can I support you?
[3:56]And I just, I mean, I loved Harris more than anyone.
[4:01]And I felt like, how do I have no idea of what to do right now?
[4:08]Like, I don't even know where to start.
[4:10]I was googling rehab.
[4:11]I thought that's where I should start.
[4:13]And then once he went to rehab, I was like, oh, thank God.
[4:16]And scratch that off the list.
[4:18]You know, like, I'm an efficient lady.
[4:20]Like, 30 days were done.
[4:22]And then it just kept getting worse and worse.
[4:23]And every time I got worse, I was like, why are you continuing
[4:27]to make these horrible decisions?
[4:30]Now I know so much more than I did then.
[4:32]I feel like I know so much more just having read the book.
[4:35]And you lay it out so, so beautifully.
[4:39]But so it's so easy to read.
[4:41]And you have these aha moments in each chapter.
[4:44]And they were giving me the aha moments as well.
[4:47]Can you talk about when you really started to research this,
[4:52]create the podcast, the lead to the book?
[4:54]Because so much of the book is based on everything
[4:56]you learned in the podcast.
[4:57]Can you talk a little bit about that?
[5:00]Yeah, I mean, we, so I was on another podcast called Terrible
[5:05]Thanks for asking. Shout out to Nora McInerney. She is funny. She is so funny.
[5:12]Like, incredibly funny. And I had gone on her show.
[5:16]My mother had submitted our story for the show and then she was like,
[5:20]you have to come on with me. And I was like, I don't want to do that.
[5:23]But she, I don't have a choice with my mother. These people know her.
[5:27]Um, so we went on the show and then a few months later, uh, when it aired,
[5:34]this lady lived across the country heard it. And she had lost her brother the same way
[5:38]three months earlier. That was just, um, she like stalked me,
[5:43]really, uh, tenacious person and was, um, ho, it's David Myers.
[5:50]I'm another friend from high school.
[5:55]Right here. We've got a high school here. Here's my other friend from high school.
[6:02]And his small child. Um, I was fine. It's fine.
[6:10]You come, kid. You're gonna hear some colorful language. Um, so anyway, where was I? Um,
[6:18]you met Jess. Right. I met Jess. Yeah. She's tenacious. She was a stalker. She was like,
[6:24]hello, you have experienced the same trauma that I have. Do you want to make a podcast about
[6:30]the oboey's crisis? And I was a week away from.
[6:35]Oh, it's the speaker. Okay. Okay. I was like, who's talking?
[6:40]It's like, do you want to say something?
[6:43]Like, was that horrific? You're like, it's not me.
[6:49]Um, anyway, yeah. And, and so she was like, do you want to make a podcast? And I was like,
[6:54]I literally was going to have a baby in one week. And, uh, so no. And also, also like,
[7:01]opioid suck. They suck. They ruined my life. I don't want anything to do with them.
[7:08]But I have like a defect or something where I, something is not working the way I want it to.
[7:16]And then I'm like, I must change it. Like it's like, uh, you know,
[7:19]how to do whatever. I mean, it's exhausting. Um, but like, you know, we like pass legislation in
[7:26]Texas for hearing aids. Like, you know, I'm like, well, that's stupid. You're not covering hearing aids.
[7:29]Like, obviously we need to change that. And so this was one of those moments. I was nursing the
[7:33]baby. I read this article that opioids are killing more people in car accidents. And I was like,
[7:37]well, fuck that. We, we can't find an email to her. Let's do it, you know. And so that was like,
[7:43]the start of lemonada. And last day was the first podcast that we made. And the idea was like,
[7:51]what did we do that didn't work? Like, what, what did we get wrong? And what could we have done
[7:57]differently so that they would still be here? Did you realize how little you knew?
[8:02]Uh, no. Nope. No. I knew that I like didn't know a lot, but I didn't realize like, I have been
[8:09]radicalized once you read the book. Like a friend of mine pointed out recently. He's like,
[8:13]the book is really like your trajectory of like, you start here. And then by the end,
[8:20]you're like here. And he's like, even at the end of the book, you're saying stuff that almost
[8:24]contradicts something you said at the beginning. Because I've been on this journey now for seven years,
[8:30]researching this and talking to people and learning all about it. And I just have like a
[8:36]completely different understanding of it, just fundamentally different. And I don't think there's
[8:42]anything in my life that's been so radically, I believed this. And now I believe that, you know,
[8:49]it's kind of amazing. You lay that out really well in the book by the time you get to the end,
[8:54]the reader as well feels the same as just like, wow, I didn't realize how little you knew
[8:59]or how little any of us know. Well, yeah, we don't. Because again, people don't want to talk
[9:05]about it. Can you talk about some of the broad strokes of the big Aha moments? What was the first
[9:10]one? I really, I distinctly remember the first one. I remember exactly where I was when I was
[9:16]talking to Sam's non grass, which is the best name. And he is the best person. He has this very
[9:25]thick Arkansas draw and every time I say it in the book, like he's always like, how's your
[9:31]mama? You know, like he's like that guy. He is a behavioral pharma collegeist. He's got like
[9:38]a billion doctorates. He studied this forever. He was on heroin for decades. Like he knows this
[9:44]issue from every sort of angle. And so I remember talking to him, he was on episode three of the
[9:49]podcasts. It was early on. And I was like, he basically was like, this is a disease, a brain structure
[9:57]and function. And I was like, what? Like,
[10:00]What do you mean, you know? And like he was the first person that said like your brother
[10:05]did not make shitty choices and have a failure of willpower. He had a disease.
[10:11]And I was like, okay, you know, like I just like, okay, I clocked that. And then later in that
[10:16]conversation, I said, well, what are the risk factors for this disease? And he goes being human.
[10:21]And I was like, okay, that's good. You know, that's that's good tape. That was good too.
[10:26]Um, you know, so I learned that early on. And I think like, I'm very intentional about
[10:32]starting with disease framework because I think you have to start there. Because once you start with
[10:36]disease framework, then you realize how absolutely bananas it is to think, which I thought you could
[10:43]send somebody to a 30 day rehab, like a car wash. They're going to come out together side clean.
[10:50]It's so stupid. It's like, okay, if you have cancer, if you have diabetes, if you have any long-term
[10:57]chronic illness, you're not going to like go to 30 days and then poof magic like you're done.
[11:02]And so in Zinga, yeah, I was going to bring her up. She, she made some of the, the points from me
[11:08]that I had the biggest aha moments in this book. Yeah, Brittany and Aaron over there. No, we all
[11:13]love Zinga. Um, yes, she is, um, the sun and the moon and the stars. Um, but she is also a very
[11:21]wise medical doctor. And she has like very deep compassion for this issue. And, um, she's been doing
[11:30]this, you know, for decades. And really is the first person that pointed out. Um, it, it takes
[11:36]five years of, you know, treatment for somebody who has a substance use disorder to get to where
[11:46]the general population is. So it's like a five year recovery timeline. She calls it a remission
[11:51]timeline because Sam and Zinga talk about like the diseases and remission. They don't even like
[11:57]say the word recovery. It's like very in a medical kind of framework. And that was really helpful.
[12:02]And I think for families, it's very helpful to go, oh, you have a disease. So we need to treat it.
[12:10]This is going to be the long haul. You're going to have to go get your scans every few months.
[12:15]If you've ever had cancer, if you've ever had, you're going to have to have a relationship with
[12:19]a provider, like in Zinga calls it a longitudinal relationship. You're going to have to do the
[12:25]maintenance to make sure your disease stays in remission. It's not a, it's not like we're done.
[12:31]You're going to have relapses from time to time. And that doesn't mean that you're a failure.
[12:37]That means that your disease has had a recurrence. So that was like a big aha. You know,
[12:42]it doesn't take 30 days. It takes 1,825 days. That's how long five years is. And then I've just
[12:51]learned an insane amount about harm reduction. And the more that I dig into that space,
[12:57]can you speak a little bit about that for maybe people who don't know anything about harm
[13:02]reduction? Yes. That was me cut to 2018 when I started the podcast and had no idea about harm
[13:10]reduction. But we do harm reduction every day. We wear seat belts. We wear helmets. When we bike,
[13:15]we wear condoms. Like this is harm reduction. There are acceptable forms of harm reduction.
[13:22]And then there are forms of harm reduction that feel a little radical. So for example,
[13:32]naloxone is a form of harm reduction. So Narcan is like the brand name for that.
[13:37]If somebody goes into respiratory depression, that's what an overdose is. And you have Narcan on
[13:43]hand. You can administer it and you can revive them. And that is harm reduction. So when you think
[13:48]about it like that, you cannot Narcan yourself because you are passed out. So if one form of harm
[13:55]reduction could be that you tell somebody you are going to use, you make sure they know where you
[14:02]are. Can you talk about the safe alone? I can. Yes. I want to meet that lady. Yes you do. You do.
[14:08]I admit the best people. This is the only, where you should read this book because the best people
[14:12]are in this book. Really good people. But one of them is this woman Jesse Blanchard from
[14:17]Georgia. And she is just the best. Every time I called her, I called her a little bit ago.
[14:25]And she was like, hey girl. And I'm like, what are you doing? She's like, I want to finish,
[14:30]go and do a trap house and teach them how to use meth safely. I was like, I just let the trap
[14:38]out from a little high. I was like, I'm taking my kids up from school. That's what she's doing.
[14:46]And I feel like seven years ago I would have been like, what? And now I'm like, great. That's
[14:50]awesome. So she's a harm reductionist. And she works for an overdose detection line. And what
[14:58]that is, has anybody listened?
[15:00]to the episode of This American Life, the call.
[15:03]So this is her, this is Jessie.
[15:05]And if you have not listened, you must.
[15:09]It is simply one of the best hours of audio you will ever hear.
[15:13]I listened to while gardening one day.
[15:16]And it was just like weeping into the soil.
[15:19]But essentially, the story is there was a woman, Kimber.
[15:23]And she had been kicked out of rehab
[15:25]for some really stupid minor reason.
[15:29]Like she broke some sort of a rule.
[15:31]And this is, I got another bone to pick with rehabs.
[15:34]But we'll go back to that in a little bit.
[15:36]So she got kicked out.
[15:38]Her tolerance had gone down.
[15:39]And she had gotten syringes from like a harm reduction agency.
[15:44]That's another harm reduction strategy,
[15:46]like needle exchange.
[15:47]And there was a little card in there for a line
[15:50]that you could call when you used,
[15:52]so that you aren't using by yourself.
[15:57]So she called Jessie, picked up.
[16:00]Jessie is a nurse.
[16:02]She is this brilliant nurse and has a daughter
[16:08]who had overdosed 13 times, had kept staying on drugs
[16:15]and Jessie spent a lot of time trying to change her daughter,
[16:19]trying to make her stop using, trying
[16:22]to get her to do all the things she wanted to do.
[16:25]And eventually it came to blows in a crispy cream
[16:28]parking lot.
[16:29]And they both were bloody, like an actual fist fight
[16:33]between mom and daughter.
[16:35]And Jessie screamed, or the daughter,
[16:40]KB, she screamed, mama, what do you want from me?
[16:43]And Jessie just blurred it out.
[16:44]If you could just not die, that would be great.
[16:49]And it hit her like a ton of bricks.
[16:50]She's like, that is all that I need her to do.
[16:53]I just need her to not die.
[16:55]Like, actually, anything she does is fine.
[16:57]But death is like actually the only thing I could not bear.
[17:02]So from that point, she started like passing out
[17:05]naloxone to the community.
[17:06]She is to the state of largest naloxone distributor
[17:09]in the state of Georgia.
[17:10]Her Jeep has like over 200,000 miles on it.
[17:14]And she just drives it around.
[17:16]You all should donate to her organization.
[17:18]I will send the link later.
[17:21]But like she's just doing it all on her own.
[17:23]She taught her daughter and all the daughter's friends
[17:24]out of resuscitated each other.
[17:26]She literally like bursts.
[17:27]She goes around and she teaches everyone
[17:29]how to save each other's lives.
[17:31]And she works for this overdose detection hotline.
[17:35]But when Kimber was not resuscitated
[17:37]and you hear this on this American life episode,
[17:40]you hear the tape.
[17:41]When Kimber was not resuscitated,
[17:44]Jessie called EMT, wait, you have to go back for someone
[17:47]like me who didn't even know that a line like this existed.
[17:50]What the heck is it?
[17:50]Like, yeah, this woman is,
[17:52]she's just out of rehabbed her.
[17:54]Yes, you know, she's gonna shoot up and her tolerance is low,
[17:59]which she knows.
[18:00]She's a higher risk of overdose.
[18:01]So she calls this number.
[18:02]And she says, I'm about to do this.
[18:04]That's right.
[18:05]And the woman just stays on the line with her.
[18:06]Well, she does it.
[18:07]Yeah.
[18:08]And then when she doesn't respond,
[18:09]she goes, and she keeps going,
[18:12]Kimber, Kimber, yeah.
[18:14]Kimber.
[18:15]And then one, she doesn't respond for 30 seconds.
[18:17]She calls EMT.
[18:19]And once she hears the man's voice, she hangs up.
[18:25]The EMT who came is this guy, Stephen Murray,
[18:30]who's also now become a dear friend who now runs
[18:34]the first government funded overdose detection line.
[18:40]It's out of Boston Medical Center.
[18:42]They have, they're scaling into all kinds of other states.
[18:46]They have, I mean, you know,
[18:50]I mean, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of calls, essentially.
[18:52]But the first full-time hire that Stephen made
[18:57]when he started this line was Kimber.
[18:59]So Kimber runs,
[19:00]the one who was resuscitated that day.
[19:02]She runs the entire, like she is the coordinator
[19:05]of all the operators.
[19:06]She runs the whole hook-in thing.
[19:10]Like, and she would have died.
[19:12]Had she not called the line.
[19:13]So like, you tell me seven years ago,
[19:17]your brother is gonna use and he should call you
[19:21]or he should call like, and you should be there
[19:24]or you should be in it and stop using.
[19:26]I was like, you can't use drugs.
[19:28]So like, of course, if I'm like, you can't use drugs
[19:30]and if you use drugs, you suck and I hate you,
[19:33]then of course he's not gonna tell me
[19:34]when he's using drugs.
[19:35]Like, why would you?
[19:37]And so the whole point of this is like,
[19:40]yeah, if she would have used a loan, she would be dead.
[19:42]And I think I say that in the book.
[19:44]I'm like, ask yourself, what's the alternative?
[19:48]The alternative is that she's dead.
[19:50]Like, that's it.
[19:51]Do you want that?
[19:52]I mean, like, I know it might be a little pearl clutchy
[19:55]to not, you know, it's like, it makes us uncomfortable.
[19:58]But just cause it makes us uncomfortable.
[19:59]It's like.
[20:00]Like, the whole principle of harm reduction is you keep people safe in a life until they
[20:07]are ready to do whatever it is they're going to do in their own time.
[20:11]And they might not ever be ready to stop, but it's not up to you to make that decision
[20:15]for somebody else.
[20:17]And that kind of radical acceptance is like, the second part of the book I call radical
[20:22]acceptance, unconditional love and radical acceptance, because that's where I think I have
[20:29]come to.
[20:30]And then the third part we talk even more broadly about like drug policy and like, all
[20:34]of the like, you know, progressive things they do outside of the U.S. that keep people alive.
[20:40]I want to ask you to talk about Portugal a little bit, but first I want to ask you to talk
[20:44]about Gabor Mate, yeah, my friend.
[20:47]I never, I don't know if I say his name right.
[20:50]Well, he will correct you.
[20:51]I know.
[20:52]I heard, I heard that he does.
[20:53]Yes, he will.
[20:57]He is so funny, he I was desperate to get him on the podcast.
[21:02]I was like, I need him to come on the show.
[21:05]And I kept like writing his website and like, hello, I am nobody, would you come on my
[21:13]show?
[21:14]And if he wasn't responding to me.
[21:15]And then I went on comedy Bing Bing.
[21:19]And then his daughter emailed me and was like, hey, I'm a huge comedy Bing Bing fan.
[21:26]And I know you were talking about addiction and my dad is this guy, Dr. Gabor Mate.
[21:34]And I was, and I just wanted to like, if you wanted to like talk to him for your podcast,
[21:39]I was like, girl, yes, I do.
[21:42]So anyway, Hannah connected me and that speaker has things to say.
[21:48]Let's speaker is like, this is my show.
[21:54]Anyway, so yeah, so we came on the show and he, I basically brought him on because
[22:04]he thinks his whole thing is that like, trauma is at the root of all addiction.
[22:09]Like that is my favorite trauma therapist by the way.
[22:12]This is Angela.
[22:13]She's like, yeah, she's like, right out of, she's like, it is.
[22:18]And he says like, it's not why the addiction, but why the pain and when you reframe it
[22:22]like that, then it's not like you're doing something, he's like, people don't use drugs
[22:27]to feel bad.
[22:28]They use drugs to feel better.
[22:29]It's serving a very specific purpose.
[22:32]And his whole thing, like I had him on to be like, you know what you're talking about?
[22:36]We didn't have any trauma in my childhood.
[22:38]We had a perfect childhood and he was like, excuse me, ma'am.
[22:41]And like, dressed me down in the next like hour and a half.
[22:45]And by the end of the episode, I'm like, literally crying because he's like, totally
[22:49]therapistized me.
[22:50]Is that a word?
[22:51]Great.
[22:52]Okay.
[22:53]He's like, I mean, you would know more than I would.
[22:55]He was like, you have an addiction that is socially acceptable and your addiction is that
[23:02]you are a workaholic.
[23:05]And that is true.
[23:06]I am a CEO of a company and I wrote this book at the same time.
[23:08]Like that is not normal.
[23:11]Like there's something wrong with me.
[23:12]And he's like, but you and your brother are not that dissimilar, you know?
[23:19]And we all have our thing.
[23:21]And like, his was heroin years is that, you know, like you both use your things in different
[23:27]ways.
[23:28]So anyway, like, you know, he's just taught me a lot about like, why we do what we do.
[23:38]And he obviously like, he worked in Vancouver's east side.
[23:42]That was like whatever.
[23:43]And so like, he tells this great story about like this patient Claude who was like,
[23:50]trying to find a vein to inject and he walked in the room.
[23:53]It was like his first day on the job.
[23:55]And he's like, okay, if you do that, you're going to like kill yourself or give yourself
[23:58]an abscess of some kind.
[24:00]And so he went over and taught him how to inject properly.
[24:03]And he was like, I never thought that I would be doing that as a doctor.
[24:08]But again, if my, if my goal is do no harm, like then obviously I need to help him
[24:13]to do this safely.
[24:15]So is he okay?
[24:17]Like can I be talking about this with him in here?
[24:19]Okay, great.
[24:20]Cause like if not we're done.
[24:27]So anyway, like yeah, I think, you know, and he's like, people have opinions about
[24:32]him.
[24:33]Like, people are like, you know, I don't think he agrees with the disease framework.
[24:38]In fact, I know he doesn't, but that's okay.
[24:41]I feel like I have taken something from so many people.
[24:45]But he agrees with something that a lot of the, the people that you spoke in the book
[24:48]agree with, which is that this is a, this is a human situation and we have to have compassion.
[24:54]Yeah.
[24:55]Like if I may, um, I am because.
[25:00]I just think that so this is he basically gave me these scripts when I talked to him. I was like,
[25:06]how should we respond if like a person in our life comes to us and says I'm using and I'm an addict
[25:15]and I'm you know how should we respond and he's like okay you have three options and he scripted
[25:22]them out for me. So he two of them he describes as rational and one he describes as irrational so I'm
[25:28]going to read the scripts to you. Okay rational option number one. Look I get that you're not
[25:34]doing this to me and you're not even deliberately doing it to yourself. You're compelled to do this
[25:39]as your escape from some kind of pain. I understand that this needs to escape from some kind of pain.
[25:49]I understand that I accept that I can't let you exploit me and use me but I can be with it and I
[25:55]can be with you so long as we're honest with each other because I love you and I care about you and
[26:00]I'd like to see you not engage in these behaviors but it's not my call. It's your call. It's your journey
[26:05]not mine. Okay that's rational option number one. Here's rational option number two. I love you. I
[26:11]care for you. I recognize that what you're doing is not a deliberate attempt to hurt me or yourself.
[26:16]You are just compelled to do this. You have pain that you need to soothe but I can't handle it.
[26:21]That's not your fault and I'm not being punitive. I'm just saying I don't have the wherewithal to
[26:26]be with it. It's too disturbing for me. Too stressful. I need to distance myself and I'm here for you
[26:31]should you seek genuine help but as long as you engage in that behavior I just can't be around you.
[26:35]I'm sorry. Jesse would not approve of that option but it is a rational option. Here is the irrational
[26:42]one. I love you and I care for you and I can't stand what you're doing to yourself. It hurts me too
[26:49]and I'm going to work really hard to change you. Could Joel you convince you, beg you,
[26:54]bribe you into being different because I need you to be different so I can feel better.
[27:00]And I'm like oh my god. That's exactly what I did. Almost to the word.
[27:10]Yeah it's like when you break it down like that it makes no sense to do the irrational one
[27:14]and you know that's one of many many things that in fact when I asked him for a blurb he
[27:18]did give me this nice blurb that said this book will open many eyes and we'll save lives but the
[27:22]first one was the book is great. Mentions me many times. I loved it very much. He said I'll give you
[27:30]two options. Here's the first one. Mentions me many times. I mean the second one was the nice one.
[27:35]Oh my god. That's really good. How has this journey changed your grief? I have to ask. That's great
[27:41]therapist. You know I um you know what maybe it's hair. I think it's hair is.
[27:55]This is my grief. I don't know. This happens a lot. He's like shut up about the opioid.
[28:05]Enough. Okay I right after Harris died was like completely annihilated and I wrote a book very like
[28:20]I didn't write a book. I wrote like a bunch of fragmented sad sentences and that process of like
[28:31]writing it so intensely like was very important to my grieving journey like I was um
[28:40]and I like and I couldn't after I couldn't do anything I did before like I quit my job. I had to
[28:45]change my whole life. I was like I don't exist in the world anymore and in my current form and I have
[28:49]to evolve completely and so I was just like and I think writing the book I just like allowed myself
[28:55]to just be like fully sad. I never was like don't feel I was just like I don't feel like after
[29:01]a year I like looked over I was like oh my husband's still here. That's so nice of you that you're still
[29:05]here. I have not spoken to you in one year. Like I mean truly um and then I uh real because I
[29:20]was like nothing matters we're all gonna die. I'm miserable. I hate everything. I don't want to
[29:24]live anymore. I don't like this world anymore with him not in it and then and then it morphed into
[29:30]like wait a minute we're all gonna die. So what the fuck am I doing spending time doing anything
[29:37]I don't want to do? Like I'm just gonna do whatever I want. Like it was this very freeing. It became this
[29:43]like very weird freeing thing which like I think allowed me to ultimately start liminata because
[29:48]I was like what if liminata doesn't work? I don't care. That doesn't matter who cares if it doesn't
[29:52]work. It's probably best. No I'm kidding. I love it. It's great. Um it just takes a lot of
[30:00]time. So yeah, I think now I became an investigator after a while, and I was like, okay,
[30:09]my person's not here anymore, but it morphed into this real need to figure out how we
[30:16]cannot lose more people. Because I just, again, I don't think that it is right or fair
[30:23]that we have a thing that impacts so many families, and no one knows what to do. That is a
[30:30]failure of so many things and systems. And I just, like, it's, it's maddening to know that there
[30:39]are solutions that are not being employed. And I've been able to talk to so many different people,
[30:46]so many people who know so much more than I don't, I'm not the expert, like all these people
[30:51]are featured, have, like, taught me all these things about this issue, and it's just so much. And
[30:59]so I feel like this is like, I can't stop doing things for Harris. Like, I, like,
[31:07]like, I can't, you know? Like, he's not here. So I'm like, I have to just keep, it's like
[31:13]pathological at this point, you know? I don't know if I'm, maybe I'm done now that I wrote this.
[31:18]And now that he's, like, telling me to shut out through the speaker.
[31:23]But, like, yeah, I mean, it's just, it's like, I always think, like,
[31:28]I paced so much more attention to Harris now that he's gone than I probably would have been
[31:33]still here. Like, he's become so central, you know, to everything that I do. But what do you think he would
[31:39]think about this? I think he would be like, please stop. I really do think he was telling me to stop.
[31:48]Maybe. Um, now he'd be like, stuff, stuff gone. You know, no, he would, he would, um,
[31:56]we were always very supportive of each other and, and I had a great relationship. And, you know,
[32:05]these, you know, Johnny grew up with him too and David and, um, yeah, the world is shittier,
[32:13]Jim, a lot of his people are in this room. Uh, it is not as good a world without him in it. Um,
[32:21]so, you know, he'd probably be like, okay, cool. Everyone's still thinking about me because he
[32:25]did also like to be thought about. And, desired by women. I'll stop now. Um,
[32:36]let us question before we open it up to Q&A. Give us a little hope where we headed with all this.
[32:40]There actually is like such intense reasons to be hopeful. So for the first time ever, um,
[32:48]in 2024, it was like the most amazing drop in, in like public health data that has ever,
[32:56]ever been recorded. It's like a 30% drop in overdose death. So we were sitting at like over 100,000
[33:04]a year. And I believe in 2024, it was like down to 50K, 60K. Like it is really, really gone down.
[33:14]And that is attributed in large part to wide distribution and access of naloxone. Um, if you
[33:21]don't have some, get some, uh, also medication for opioid use disorder. This is the other thing I
[33:26]didn't say earlier and I wish, and let me just say this now. There are medications that you can
[33:32]take like any issue that you have. Like I take thyroid medicine and a statin because I'm Eastern
[33:39]European and my cholesterol is off the charts. Um, and like if I didn't take those medications,
[33:47]I would not be in balance, right? You can take these medications. They sit on your opioid
[33:52]receptors. Chapter two gets real deep into the science, which was really tough. I was like the
[33:57]hardest chapter. Randy who recorded my audio book. See? Yeah. We were like, I mean, the amount
[34:03]of words, like the scientific words I had to say. Yeah. We were like, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was
[34:12]literally like, how do the crease anatomy doctors do that? Um, so anyway, yeah, like there are these
[34:19]medications that you can take. And if you have somebody that you love that comes to you and says
[34:23]I have an opioid use disorder or a substance use disorder alcohol use disorder, there is
[34:27]no truck zone. Like there are things you can take. Um, and they're wonderful. And they sit on
[34:32]those receptors and they help you with crevings. They help you with withdrawal. They help you, uh,
[34:37]live a life that you learned all about agonists and agonists and agonists. Yeah, there's a whole
[34:46]agonist world. But there's still stigma around these things too. Yes, there is. They're really
[34:50]doing good into that. I mean, less than one in one in five people are prescribed them. People
[34:58]don't learn about it in med school.
[35:00]it's just like yeah we have we have a ways to go but that's why I think if
[35:05]you start we start normalizing some of this you know and if somebody comes to
[35:10]you and says I'm having this issue and you don't say like oh my god you got to
[35:12]go away you need to be shipped out to rehab and if you don't I'm gonna cut you
[35:16]off instead of you're like okay like this is a medical issue you have let's go
[35:20]to a doctor let's go to a doctor let's go to in zinga hair thin and let's
[35:25]get a treatment plan and then it then you just handle it you know and then
[35:30]you're happily ever after like a my friends are gonna
[35:34]Erin and Brittany they're in the book am I embarrassing you I'm sorry I
[35:38]just I love them I interviewed I interviewed Erin and Brittany in 2019 he's
[35:43]like I hate you I wish I didn't come and I re-interviewed them and anyway I
[35:47]have stayed in close touch with with Brittany and I'm just so glad that you
[35:51]guys are here do you want to open it up for questions from the audience
[35:56]questions do you have for me or Harris yeah
[36:07]how do you talk about it and like what how do you like of course that I'm
[36:11]mentally but yeah yeah information to also be aware of their own totally I have a
[36:16]whole thing about this in here but my daughter who is going to be 13 in three
[36:25]months which is crazy she came out 45 like she was like she was like I am an
[36:30]adult woman she like smoked cigarette right when she got out and so like she
[36:35]was when she was really little I mean I would say to her like Uncle Harris
[36:41]took medicine took more medicine then he then his doctor said he should take
[36:46]and it harmed his body and that's why we have to when we take medicine make sure
[36:52]that we do it as the doctor says to do it and like that's how I described it
[36:55]when she was little and then as she's gotten older like I actually told this story
[37:00]today to somebody we were due to the story we were at the table and and we just
[37:06]like talk about everything in our family we talk about death all the time like
[37:09]I have a podcast about death like obviously yeah and so literally Iris is like
[37:14]fine and she literally with mom is mom and me and Mike and we're all just
[37:18]this person died and that person fell off a bridge whatever and Iris goes my
[37:24]god you people are obsessed with death this person died and that person
[37:30]second like you guys are insane and so like that's the kind of like family that
[37:37]we have but you know when she was 10 and fifth grade we live in a place where
[37:44]the schools fortunately have addiction medicine there's an addiction
[37:49]medicine doctor who I feature in the book is named Casey Grover he comes to all
[37:53]the elementary schools and his drug education is not there he does not tell
[37:57]the kids to just say no he literally is like you know the people who you see
[38:03]under the bridge they're those are my people those are my patients I love them
[38:07]to be about them with care and compassion and and like held up a sugar
[38:13]pack and he's like you know if you this this could hold enough doses you know
[38:17]to kill 2,000 people with it was fentanyl we have to be really careful and if
[38:21]somebody you know is you know it takes fentanyl and they they overdose then
[38:27]you can administer naloxone and let me show you how to do that and he gave me the
[38:31]naloxone he laid down on the floor I naloxone and he jumped back up and he's
[38:36]like see I'm fine didn't even hurt me and so like Iris at 10 knows that like we
[38:41]need to carry Narcan she carries it like she she knows what to do and she's you
[38:48]know 12 it's like if we had gotten that education and he talked to the kids
[38:52]about what addiction is and you do something because you it makes you feel
[38:55]better and it and it makes you feel good and then at some point it starts to
[39:01]make you feel bad right and I was like man if we had gotten that instead of
[39:07]like just say no and like this is your brain on drugs you know like frying pan
[39:11]it's just like a completely different frame guys remember the eggs and and then
[39:17]my son is 8 and he like lives in outer space so like he I don't he doesn't even
[39:22]know that he's like a human being so we have an even like no see has an uncle and
[39:27]he was funny for a living and and then he's just like all right well I live in
[39:31]the meta verse to you and I'm like okay so we'll get to him at some point but
[39:35]but yeah that's how we do it and a lot of there's a lot of like advice on
[39:41]how you can talk to kids in the book yeah questions
[39:47]I have a question yeah my cousin's in here so the queen asked me and my other cousin
[40:00]I think my aunt of both are the hardest part for that person.
[40:07]They want to help them, but they also want to hold accountable for the actions.
[40:10]Like, how do you?
[40:11]I know.
[40:12]That's the part I talked about at the whole time.
[40:14]This is what he's doing at that.
[40:16]How do you reconcile those two things?
[40:19]Like you said, this addiction is a disease, but also my parents.
[40:24]Like you said, your initial reaction to your product might not exist.
[40:28]Totally.
[40:29]Where's the accountability problem?
[40:31]I think it's really an entire reframe.
[40:35]And I think the other thing is it's so easy for me right now to be just loved them through it.
[40:42]It's really hard when someone is lying to you and stealing from you and causing wreckage.
[40:49]And the symptoms of the disease are very destructive.
[40:54]So I don't want to sit here and be like, they just need to accept.
[40:58]It's hard.
[41:02]I think that it's just even the drug use is bad categorically.
[41:08]What he's doing is bad.
[41:11]That is, again, if we go back to Dr. Mate, that is his journey.
[41:16]And ultimately, he is going to decide he's done.
[41:22]And I talk to so many different people about that moment when they realize they're done.
[41:28]And it is never on our timeline.
[41:30]And there's also never like a white light moment that's like, this was the moment that had been opened.
[41:36]It's like it was a Tuesday.
[41:38]And I was finally like, I don't want to do this anymore, you know, for no good reason.
[41:42]And so I just think it's like not our, the harm reductionists would say it's not our job to keep them accountable.
[41:51]Like, the only person they should have accountability to is themselves.
[41:54]And obviously you have to have boundaries like, Jesse, like call me one night.
[41:59]She's like, let's talk about boundaries, you know, because like, obviously like, you can't lay down like a door mat.
[42:06]That's not, that's not what we're suggesting.
[42:09]But it's something like, if you use drugs in my house behind a closed door and you die in my house, I'm going to have to burn it down.
[42:20]And so you may not stay here and use drugs behind a locked door.
[42:27]You can use drugs, but the rule is that you have to tell me so that I can revive you if I need to step in.
[42:34]Like you can have the boundaries, right, that like what you need.
[42:38]But ultimately it's like, yeah, that's the part that really sucks about it.
[42:41]And I don't know what the addiction is, but there are, there are meds for that.
[42:49]And I can't recommend this book.
[42:52]Honestly, though, it's, you can.
[42:55]Absolutely.
[42:57]Totally.
[43:01]That's hard.
[43:03]Yeah.
[43:06]Yeah.
[43:08]Yeah.
[43:09]There's, there's an accountability that is part of it.
[43:14]Totally.
[43:15]But the reframe she presents here.
[43:18]Yeah.
[43:19]I think you should ask them to just read the book with an open mind, you know, and like some of the stuff they're going to be like,
[43:26]this is absolutely nuts.
[43:28]But then it kind of like sits with you.
[43:30]One of those things that you start thinking about.
[43:32]And then you're like, well, maybe that isn't too radical.
[43:39]Does make sense, you know.
[43:41]But it's just really hard.
[43:42]And the other thing that I say in the book, oh, there is this framework that I talk about in the book.
[43:47]It's called ITC invitation to change.
[43:50]And they are this program up in New York.
[43:53]They, I went to their training.
[43:56]They had like a weekend long, like eight hours, Sunday, eight hours, Saturday.
[44:02]And they basically teach you like the words to say.
[44:07]Like how to like create green lights and not red lights.
[44:10]And because you have to sort of practice.
[44:12]Right.
[44:13]Like when we were in high school, our acting teacher was like totally nuts.
[44:17]And she taught us how to use eye statements.
[44:20]Like when we were 14.
[44:22]Like when you, I feel.
[44:24]And we were like when you, I feel.
[44:26]And it's like to this day, I'm like, yes, when you, I feel.
[44:28]You know, like it's like, it like rewires.
[44:30]You kind of have to learn how to speak when things are tense.
[44:34]And also like the guy who created that framework.
[44:37]You know, we were talking and he's like, when your loved one is doing something that is destructive and bad for them.
[44:44]Like as a parent, if my kid gets like near a hot stove or like a body of water.
[44:51]And they can't swim.
[44:52]I am running and grabbing them and snatching them up.
[44:57]It is like our impulse to protect people.
[45:00]we love. It feels wrong to not. And so you kind of have to fight against that like impulse
[45:07]almost. It doesn't feel natural, I don't think. I don't think it feels natural. I think
[45:12]it probably feels shitty. I don't know because I haven't done it the right way, you know what
[45:16]I mean? But I think it probably feels, I mean it's true. I mean I thought you had it to do over.
[45:23]I do it, you know, differently. But yeah, I think it's hard. Yeah.
[45:30]Somebody, we know there's so many new drugs. Yes. Yeah, are still coming. Totally.
[45:40]Yeah, we're all made of chemistry. And part of the chemistry that we take food or smoking
[45:55]help them all. Side of drugs. They get filtered. I mean, the sort of like education about what
[46:04]you're putting it about, which would be, you know, we have smart. Yeah. Yes. So it gets down into your person
[46:15]in your organs. And I think that if you have a disingenuous person, you have to, you know,
[46:27]talk to them about this. You know, they're actually stupid, you know, to contaminate themselves
[46:36]and destroy themselves. And if that's the route that they want to take, that's their freedom to do,
[46:42]except for a certain point. If you wind up in the hospital, your taxpayer expense,
[46:50]but we take care of people that are screwed up like the hospital. They call it humanitarians.
[46:58]Also, they leave your response to the pure own good. And in the beginning, you're a child.
[47:07]You know, only for some person to help the food. And a parent, parents, a guy,
[47:16]you have to guide the kid to having what we know is a healthy diet. That's about it. Anybody
[47:26]who knows. Thank you. I just want to make sure we have more time for other questions too. But
[47:30]thank you. Yeah. I, my sister had a boyfriend who died of an overdose from the opioid addiction.
[47:42]She kind of had re-written the history of their relationship in her head and he's become this
[47:49]angel to her. And that rather than like dealing with the addiction, what their relationship actually
[47:57]was, I now belong here in her life. I live in reality and he doesn't. And it happened like
[48:04]eight, nine years ago at this point. What do you do in that situation when someone is no longer
[48:11]living in reality? And it's the person who has doubt about this more than I do. Like, this is you,
[48:19]like, I have a drama degree.
[48:25]Claire, what are you doing? Someone doesn't win a reality.
[48:31]We're done. We don't know.
[48:35]I mean, I think it's similar to what you've been saying too. Like, there's only so much you can do.
[48:40]You have to let them, I'm not going to quote Mel Robbins because I hate Mel Robbins.
[48:44]I'm going to stop that sentence right there.
[48:47]She said it here. But there's, you heard it here today as tea.
[48:55]I just, um, there's a certain degree to which we can't change people and when we have to do that,
[49:02]you know, acceptance within ourselves. And it is hard though, but you know what there is,
[49:07]there's grief over the relationship.
[49:10]I don't know. You're good.
[49:13]Yeah. I do think like the radical acceptance piece, yeah, probably key.
[49:19]You have to accept it and then draw your own boundaries and let yourself do a little griefing.
[49:24]Exactly. Look at this.
[49:31]Yeah.
[49:32]If you know, are like going through something like that, like you have somebody in your family
[49:36]or somebody close to you, what's going through that? Is there like a specific kind of therapist
[49:41]that you could like gain or a specific kind of thing that you would say, go here first,
[49:45]go here second, like what would be like your first couple of steps if you are going through
[49:50]something like that.
[49:53]I mean, I think that the, the learning
[50:00]the right words to say when you feel like triggered by all the things that are happening like
[50:10]you're doing something that's harmful to you, you're killing yourself, you're all the things,
[50:14]right? There is I think there are ways that we can learn to sort of like take a step back and
[50:21]understand like that's the impulse and like so I think something like a like a framework for
[50:27]loved ones like this ITC has like this workbook that I you know also read in it like
[50:32]really breaks down like how to deal with those rocky moments and then as for the therapist like
[50:39]well like where would you have started seven years ago if you could if you could now like look
[50:43]back at that version of yourself what would you most want to where would you want her to start?
[50:48]I would call an addiction medicine doctor first and I'd be like what is the treatment
[50:57]plan right like tell me about this disease and what would you recommend right and I would like
[51:04]I would learn all about it I would arm myself without information I would try to pass that along
[51:10]or try to connect my brother to a doctor not throw him in a residential center and say like
[51:16]see in 30 days and then I would like go to therapy to my therapist to be like hello this is hard
[51:27]I want to die what do I do like you know like go therapy and and then just I would use the
[51:35]principles of harm reduction and I would be like you're gonna do what you're gonna do and I'm
[51:39]gonna love you through it that's you know we're gonna love you through it and whenever you're
[51:46]ready to make a change maybe you're not going to but whenever you are we're still gonna be here
[51:50]where I would stay connected like it's I don't know I think we're told you have to
[51:56]ultimatum them you have to cut them off you have to and like I just don't think it's I don't
[52:00]think it's like one beneficial and it's also dangerous from like an actual like drug perspective
[52:08]like they could die if they use alone which we talked about earlier yep definitely there are
[52:17]yes
[52:18]I'd like someone had my people probably
[52:23]I would say like fighters plays if you really want someone to get out
[52:28]if you like when I was clean that's how it would be a lot yep that's the first step
[52:34]like actually
[52:38]gave me a break it was able to give me a break just take one
[52:45]I know it's an average or whatever my talk is not absolutely it's not another drug
[52:52]thank you so much yeah well sorry you're kind of looking at it like that I know I know
[53:01]it's an alternative yeah it's just yeah
[53:07]yeah well and also like Aaron if I can share like the fact that you had that clinic so close
[53:16]and you had a relationship established with that clinic meant that like
[53:21]when your disease relapsed you could go right back like it's like to have that you know that
[53:31]support system near you you know and and you guys obviously do like a lot of other things it's
[53:38]not just like that it's like oh there's a lot you know like your connection to church and
[53:43]you're all the stuff that you that you guys do and your family and you know doing all the stuff
[53:48]with the kids and the baseball all that um yeah that's like where you start that's like it's like
[53:56]not one thing it's like a bunch of things yeah go go there yeah no I mean yeah you guys um
[54:08]Brittany and Aaron have a whole chapter in the book and um and uh I just love you guys very much
[54:14]and glad that you I think that's great advice and thank you for saying that thank you I appreciate it
[54:20]I truly think everyone should read this book whether or not you have any closeness to the opioid
[54:25]crisis I just I think everyone should read this book you you can listen to experts all day but the
[54:30]way that you break this down is so digestible and understandable you're like a conduit of information
[54:36]for everyone who needs to hear it thank you for writing this very nice
[54:44]thank you guys so beautiful we have books for a sale on channel
[55:00]You
[55:30]You