Brenda-Lee Hunter: Overdose Grief, Stigma & Families Left Behind

The overdose crisis is often talked about like a statistic, but behind every loss is a family, a story, a mother, a child, a friend, and a grief that does not end.

In this powerful conversation, Julie Fairhurst sits down with her dear friend Brenda-Lee Hunter on the eve of her book launch, Echoes of Love, Voices of Loss, a deeply moving collection built from the real stories of families impacted by the drug crisis in British Columbia and beyond.

Brenda-Lee shares why overdose grief is so often misunderstood, how stigma changes the way families are treated after a loss, and why silence keeps people trapped in shame instead of receiving compassion and support.

We talk about the prescription opioid era, mental health gaps, pain care, today’s unregulated drug supply, safe injection sites, shelters, outreach, treatment access, longer rehab timelines, brain injury from repeated overdoses, and the children who are growing up in the shadow of addiction and trauma.

This is not just a conversation about addiction. It is a conversation about love, loss, families, policy, community, and the urgent need to stop treating grieving people like they have something to hide.

If this episode touches your heart, please share it with someone who needs language for what they are carrying. Subscribe, leave a review, and help us spread stories that can move hearts and push leaders to act.

Join the group:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/4101376083451665
Buy the book:
United States
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GZ2SW3D9
Canada 
https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0GZ2SW3D9
Website:  https://thelegacymission.com/meet-brenda-lee-hunter

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I’m Julie Fairhurst, and this is where stories turn into power.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Book Launch

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of Women Like Me Stories and Business. I'm so excited today because today my dear friend Brenda Lee Hunter has her new book that's being launched. Brenda has a deep, deep, deep passion, and she cares deeply for humanity. And she has started a mission called the Legacy Mission. And she wants to help save people and help parents and loved ones dealing with the drug crisis that we've got going on in the world, but especially where we're located, which is in near Vancouver in British Columbia. So it's it's a book that's near and dear to her heart. And I wrote about my niece in the book, so it's dear to my heart as well. So, Brenda, welcome and congratulations. Tomorrow's the big day. Yes, I'm very excited.

SPEAKER_00 0:59

Thank you. It's been a long time coming. And particular piece has been 10 months. And I thought we would be wrapping up earlier in the year, but you learn as you go. So here we are. Yeah. Well, tell us about the book.

SPEAKER_01 1:16

What's the name of the first book? What's it all about? Who do you have writing in there other than me?

SPEAKER_00 1:22

There you go. So the book is called, and this is the

What The Book Is About

SPEAKER_00 1:27

uh the proof that takes the fun out of the hole. Yeah. But so it's Echoes of Love, Voices of Loss. And this is a collaboration between there's over another, well, there's about 10 people involved in the in the book. And I've I've got a list of credits. I don't know if you want or of authors. I don't know if you want me to it's up to you. Well then I will, because without these people, this book would not have been possible.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

So contributors include Denise Ingham, Stacy Parent. Denise lost her son, who was actually her foster son.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Way back in the beginning, of right when they were starting to acknowledge that we had a drug crisis in BC. Stacey Parent. There is myself, Michelle Fry, Christine Moore. She has been very active advocating for the loss of her son, Christopher, which happened in, I believe it's the Kootenis, and she'll correct me if I'm wrong, but she has been advocating for the way society and our governments especially handle these situations. Catherine Chapman King, Sandy McQuaid, and Teresa Probe, just to name a few of them. So and they've all lost loved ones to the drug crisis, as you yourself know. But it their stories show that this isn't just about homelessness or just about addiction, or it's about so much more, and there's so many reasons why people are dying because of this drug crisis. In the 1990s, this magic drug came onto the market that was highly prescribed by all the doctors and opioids. And

The Voices Behind The Pages

SPEAKER_00 3:43

of course, that was what they look at as the beginning of the current drug crisis across all countries because people relied on that to take care of their pain. And then later on, the doctors were made aware that this drug they'd been prescribing was actually having deadly effects on people. And a lot of them, you know, they would pull back on the prescriptions, and that left the people who were in pain going, What do I do now? And so they turned to the streets and and it just snowballed from there. So one of the things that is, well, there's two issues that I focus on in this book that are not talked about a lot. One is the over-prescription of to about the over-prescription of painkillers and mental health drugs and like antidepressants and anxiety, and how those interactions are killing people and doctors know it and they're ignoring it. And then the second one, which is a little more near and dear to my heart, is the effect that the drug crisis has on the children who are born into it. They're born addicted because their parents are using substances while they're pregnant, and children are born into not only addiction, but into all the trauma that that follows those situations. And they become the adults that we are seeing in the streets and in the jails and and suffering from the effects of the fallout of this crack. It's generational, yeah, it's very generational, and nobody keeps numbers on those situations. Like you can Google today how many people, homeless people died from drug-related causes in 2025, and you'll get some statistics. I mean, there's still not perfect because lots of this goes unreported, but when you look to see like what what are the other victims going through, you there's very little out there. And the third point here was to give an

Prescriptions Mental Health And Risk

SPEAKER_00 6:10

outlet to the people who have lost those loved ones.

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:15

When you are faced in that situation, as you well know, you're affected. Well, actually, I am I'm going to just read a sentence from a recently released chief medical health officer's report. Okay. They're they're talking about everything about the drug crisis, but they're the I came upon this family, friends, and loved ones. And for many families, the impact of this crisis not only is it deeply personal, but it's shaped by social stigma. So therefore, their grief, it's often complicated by judgment related to substance use from other people, and they feel isolated. They they'll often describe their loss as intertwined with like a sense of isolation. And they aren't given the the, I don't know about right, but they aren't able to feel the same way. Like when somebody says my child died from an illness or my child died in a car accident, you get one response. But as soon as people mention drugs and overdose and and these situations, it's a whole nother response. People don't know what to say, because society has made us this way. So through the book, my my hope is to share the stories and have people who really don't know a lot about what's going on, other than what they hear in the news, yeah, them grow with compassion and help support us who have been left behind by our loved ones.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

You know, Brenda, I never, Brenda Lee, I never I never, because I've been through it, but I never really thought about it in that in those terms. But you're absolutely right. There's a there's a societal difference, it's a stigma, yes, yeah, and people have these preconceived ideas of what some someone is like on the streets that's that's a drug addict, and usually those stigmas are quite negative, and but they don't, yeah. So I I I get that, I understand.

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Wow, thank you for bringing that up. Yeah, you know, and just to show because that's what people think, all these people dying from this drug crisis, you know, they're making choices to do drugs, and it's so frustrating that people don't really understand. But uh a good example is one of the stories I talk about is Mikey, and

Stigma Grief And Mikey’s Story

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Mikey was my youngest daughter's birth father. I adopted her at birth, she was born into addiction. He was the poster child for future addict because he was born into addiction, he was substance exposed prenatally, and he knew he told a doctor right before he died, he knew when he was 12 years old that he was going to die in the streets that he'd never left since birth. He was raised by his parents in the streets, and they had him selling drugs at 12 years old, and he knew his fate. And you know, where were the people to help him? Society just they they failed him. Our governments, people walking by him in the streets, judging him, but uh he's he was failed and he died a year and a half ago, just about two years ago.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

So sad. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

That's where the idea and the reasoning behind the book came in. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

I think that it's beautiful that you're giving people a place to honor their loved one because by telling their story, they are honoring them. They're letting people who read the book, they're gonna hopefully gain better, a different, a more empathetic understanding of what people are going through out there. And maybe when they read the book and they read those stories, they're gonna understand that that they're they're people with exactly, yeah, and they're there, they're there for nobody wants to be there.

SPEAKER_00 10:56

No, and that's not the life people choose, and then not only are they people, and not only do they matter, but the people left behind matter. And what what we're seeing is it's almost like um years ago, you'd go to you know, a house party or gathering, and everybody would be talking about I don't know, aerobics, because that was just the biggest thing, right? And yeah, go anywhere without them talking about aerobics, and now it's turned, you can't go anywhere without having a conversation with somebody who has lost somebody to this drug crisis. Yeah, yeah, it's everywhere. Yeah, and I know there are a few people out there who haven't, but they can't think that they're untouched by this, even if nobody they personally know dies because of the drug crisis. Yeah, the people dying, the people we're trying to help, they all have an impact on the rest of society, whether it's like when when you look at this from a community level, yeah. We have business people out there trying to give to the community, and they have the challenges of going to work, facing the homelessness in the street, cleaning up their storefronts before anybody can walk through the door and that type of thing. And it's it's a a frustration, but it's also heartbreaking for them to be seeing this and to be reaching out maybe to their community councils and and whatnot. And nothing seems to be changing, it just seems to be getting worse.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. My my son, I don't know if I ever told you this, but my son lived in owned a condo, and right next door, he was on the ground floor corner, lovely building. It was newer, and he

When The Crisis Hits Home

SPEAKER_01 13:04

they and there were some street issues, there were some issues in the neighborhood, but he the the community, the government, the mayor's office decided to put right next door a what were they called? No, it wasn't a safe injection site, but it was something where it was I know like an outreach, I guess is what you'd call it. Well, my son couldn't sell. He he moved into Surrey and he was living in this other community and he couldn't sell it. People realtors would bring their clients, they'd open up the patio windows, and there would be homeless people on the deck. Yeah, and he had someone die sadly on the walkway to his to his his balcony door. It was it was terrible, terrible what was going on, and it's terrible for the for the people that are going through it. But my my son ended up because we have the empty tax situation, right? Couldn't sell it, got stuck with a five thousand dollar bill. Oh no, seriously, for empty tax because he didn't rent it out, and eventually, long story short, he just moved back in. Yeah, yeah, wow. And then and then eventually they've now shut it down and moved in. And that was the and after 10 years, he was able to sell it.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Well, this is a good segue into the other piece of of the book, but not just the book, but of the legacy mission itself. Because yesterday I sat with

Legacy Mission And Real Solutions

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Langley City Councilor. We had a wonderful conversation. She is very open to going forward with this, and and she's setting up some meetings with the provincial, the MLA, that I've tried to get a meeting with for a long time with no luck. So I thought, no, I'm gonna go find someone who can, and and she did. So that's great. But what we were talking about, and I was in it was interesting for me to listen to her talk about all the band-aid solutions that they have for, which are like everything that we look at as a solution, is only a band-aid solution all by itself. Safe injection sites, uh, shelters, the the outreach outreach programs. What we're hearing is that the the one thing people need is when they want help, they need to be able to get it. And we're not there yet in BC. And one of the reasons we're not there yet is because each step of the government blames the next step or the lower for not, you know, doing their part, right? Like everybody's so busy pointing fingers. But I'm hoping with this book to bring awareness not only to everybody, you know, friends and neighbors, but to the politicians and light a fire under their butts. It's time people stop dying because of this, when there are so many solutions that they could explore that work in other parts of our country and other countries, and they just haven't seemed to want to. I don't under I personally don't understand what the what the issue is. Well, they'll say it's money, but I also know because I did some research, there are many politicians out there who have lost loved ones to the drug crisis, and they're not saying anything. And I just how can you not? Like it's very frustrating. So that's what soapboxy means.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Well, you know, Brenda, I think for you know, I get that money, I get it, I get that. But did you happen to see on the news the other night where because we've got what's that football or that soccer game? FIFA, right? I'm not a soccer fan, but so FIFA, so I'm watching the news the other night, and they have kind of somehow they've shuttered all the poor people somewhere, and people are they're walking and and they've got massive people cleaning up the streets all day long, one after another, and and the streets look beautiful, but what happens when FIFA is gone?

SPEAKER_00 17:49

Well, it's really happening after expo, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Well, if we have money for these kinds of things, like everybody, what I've noticed in our society is that nobody wants to invest in prevention, right? They just want to invest in how to how to maintain what's going on, and but they nobody wants to invest in any prevention measures.

SPEAKER_00 18:13

Well, you know, we all have to budget, right? Like, yeah, households, whatever, governments, they all have to budget. So we have this budget for homelessness, mental health, addiction, blah, blah, blah. We have the different budgets. Part and and I was asked by this counselor yesterday that would I be willing to have a tax increase to pay for some of the things we were discussing, right? To make that the those services available to help with this crisis. And I said, absolutely. I said, what's frustrating me is right now I don't get a say over the amount of money it's costing every single day to move people from one side of the street to the next, to move their tents and belongings from one side of the street, and that's all we're doing. I see it outside my window. We move the same people from one side of 208th at Fraser Highway, 208th, to the other on a daily basis. And the amount of money it costs to do that, where they could be putting that same amount of money into something that actually works and helps people, not just move them out and try and ignore them for another day.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, for sure. And I think that as people start to heal and get better, they become again better people in society, not using the medical system the way that it's being used, and money in

Treatment Access Involuntary Care Rehab

SPEAKER_01 19:52

the there's other ways, you know, and there's there's lots of you might not agree with everybody's idea of how this can be fixed, but the other point that one of the biggest costs to this, both for from the human side and from the the medical side, is it's great to have naloxone and and whatnot to to bring people back from from an overdose.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yes, but in those minutes, and and a lot of times it's every day this is happening to them and whatnot, their brains are dying. So we need to find now some way to help those people who just can't make choices for themselves anymore. And we have to have a more humane way, yes, so that not only are they in the streets living that has to be hell, and then the money that is directed at that, and we're not seeing any any long-term benefit because a lot of them won't ever beat addiction because their brains have been damaged.

SPEAKER_01 21:13

No, absolutely, I agree, and I think that that I'm all about involuntary care. Yeah, because I agree with you.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

They can't make a they can't make a proper decision, they don't know how they're they're the reason I would fully support it, also, is because I've talked to people and I've heard of people who it was involuntary for them, but they're grateful that they were forced into those situations. But and that's the other thing. We talk about rehab and whatnot, and it's like 30 day science shows you need at least 90 days. A year and a half is it gives you a way better chance, but we don't the Those programs aren't affordable for people. Um, and they're not, there's no beds available for them unless you have yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Well, and I think I think too, Brenda, that they go into those because my br I've two brothers that are drug addicts and they go into those and then they come out, but they they don't they just go back to their community because that's all they know.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

They don't have tools and they haven't been shown a different lifestyle or live a different lifestyle.

SPEAKER_01 22:31

Yeah, yes, yeah. So they don't they you need a lot of therapy and help to get through there. And when my niece died, Leanne, I found out at the funeral that she had overdosed three times before that and was brought back with with uh nonoxin. Yeah, naloxin. Yeah, and but there was nothing that could be done, yeah, because you can't stop her, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:00

You can't you know, and as I watch you tell that story, we can sit here and try and solve this crisis today between the two of us. I'm sure we could, but my focus there are a lot of people trying, there are a lot of organizations trying. But what there isn't

Supporting Families Left Behind

SPEAKER_00 23:29

are the supports for those of us who have been left behind, for those of us whose stories need to be told very loudly and very clearly, so that people start putting our faces to this crisis. Right, not just our loved ones, but also ours. How how does this crisis affect the people left behind who take have to take care of the children like our our children's children or your niece or like how does that affect their life? What how can we help them going forward? That's got to be a focus because we're not gonna fix this, so we better make sure people have the strength and resources to survive the grief of it. Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Well, that's where you come in, Brenda. You have got this beautiful book, yes, and and I know that you're gonna do another book, and I know you're gonna do another book, and so I would encourage people to first of all buy the book tomorrow.

How Buying The Book Builds Pressure

SPEAKER_01 24:51

It is going to be available, and so it's gonna be all over social media. So purchase the book for so many reasons, but but awareness is a big reason to for for purchasing the book and reading these stories, and it's it's awareness, it's gonna help. So please do that and please support Brenda and what she's what she's doing, and you can do that by purchasing a book. But also, if you've experienced this kind of trauma in your life, whether you were addicted or your family member, or heaven forbid, someone passed away because of it, reach out to Brenda. She's going to be doing more books, more information on this, and she's not going to stop. So, this is all about awareness. And stories are so important. We need to hear people's stories. Then that takes away, it takes when you tell a story, people remember stories, they understand stories, they'll have emotion around those stories. So stories are so important. We can hear about statistics on the news, we can read about what's happening in the news, but until there's, as you said, Brenda, a face, whether that's the the victim, whether that's the the the family members or the children, you know, my my sister-in-law is raising Leanne's son. Yes, you know, so it it and he's 13 now, and he's a handful.

SPEAKER_00 26:26

And is she does she have the tools to deal with the trauma that he has?

SPEAKER_01 26:33

I don't believe that she does, but she does, but he does get he does get care, he does have some counseling, but but again, not not you know, not fully.

SPEAKER_00 26:45

I wanted to share this as you were telling your story because that was and throughout the book, I've got photos of the lines that have been lost, and this is Mikey, and um I think it's important as I say the the tagline, we didn't even get to that. So the book is Echoes of Love, Voices of Loss, and it's keeping their lights alive, and by keeping their lights alive, by honoring them and their legacy, this is gonna help other families, and that's all that matters at the end of the day. Like the core of this is that we help each other through such a tragic situation.

SPEAKER_01 27:39

Absolutely, absolutely. So Brenda Lee's book is available on Amazon tomorrow. Also, I'll be sharing it once I get the once I get the link and it's ready to go. It's gonna be all over social media. We're gonna have it everywhere. So please support Brenda Lee in what she's doing. And and the Kindle is 99 cents. It's it's just so important to to purchase it so that we can show that the sales are there. The sales are gonna show that people care. You know, that's one of the one of the big things. And for Brenda Lee to be able to walk into a government official office and say, Do you know how many people purchase this book? This is important, not just to me, but to every single person who purchased this book. So let's do something. We need to, we need to rise up.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

Yes, darn them all. Darn them all. Yeah. Actually, I I think they're gonna be some of them will be pleased because we're gonna make the job easier for them. Yeah, they when when you get a group of people backing you, you know, as a politician, and you're going forward, and this group of people has a very clear idea of what needs to be done to save lives. Uh, how's that a lose situation, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Like, absolutely, yeah. Well, Brenda Lee, is there anything that you would like to say before we close?

SPEAKER_00 29:17

Well, thank you, Julie, because I started writing with you. I'm trying to think it was probably five years ago now. Yeah, my brain is combobbled with all that information, but yeah, I wouldn't have had what I needed to have to bring a book like this forward. So thank you so much. I appreciate all your support and all the learning we've done together. Yes, yes, and I think women like you and me, we just try and make the world a better place. So yes, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:00

That's all you can do.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

Yep, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

That's it. All you can do, yeah. Okay, everybody. So that's it for this episode. I'm going to have, as soon as Brenda Lee sends it to me, I'm gonna have the link to the book in the show notes. So please, please, you know, Kindles are not much.

Final Thanks And Next Steps

SPEAKER_01 30:20

99 cents. We need it, we need it. And and you know, this is this is not about this is not about putting 99 cents in Brenda's pocket. This is about showing how many people see this as being an important thing that's happening. And Brenda's uh she is building a movement and and a movement for change. So please support her in this endeavor that she's up to. Okay, Brenda. We'll have to do, we'll have to do a podcast when everything's done and it's calmed down, so we can talk about the process and and the support that you've got. I just know you're gonna get so much support from everybody out there. I can just feel it in my heart. This is a this is a this is an issue that's near and dear to many, many, many people's hearts. So okay. Okay, well, thank you, Brenda. Okay, and thank you everyone for being here on this very important issue and and on this very important podcast of Women Like Me, Stories and Business. We'll see you next time, everybody. Bye bye.