Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction

Stigma 3: Mom vs. Addiction - The battle she never signed up for

• Casey Grover, MD, FACEP, FASAM

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This episode is the third episode of a four part series on stigma.

This episode is done in collaboration with Central Coast Overdose Prevention (CCODP) and was made possible by California Overdose Prevention Network Accelerator funding from the Public Health Institute's Center for Health Leadership and Impact.

In this episode, Wendy Solorio shares her raw, emotional journey as a mother supporting her daughter Gabrielle through addiction and into recovery, highlighting the often-overlooked impact on families and caregivers.

• First recognizing her daughter's addiction during high school while dealing with guilt and shame as a parent
• Reaching emotional breaking points while preparing for the worst possible outcomes
• Navigating the healthcare system and waiting for treatment beds during crisis moments
• Facing financial devastation with treatment costs of $40,000 and maxing out multiple credit cards
• Experiencing stigma from coworkers, friends, and even law enforcement
• Dealing with the trauma that remains even after 2.5 years of her daughter's sobriety
• Finding support through therapy, medication, and select family members
• Advocating for better education among first responders and healthcare providers
• Emphasizing the critical role of substance use navigators in emergency departments
• Offering advice to other parents: "Care for the caregiver, never stop self-educating, have tough conversations"


To contact Dr. Grover: ammadeeasy@fastmail.com


Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Addiction Medicine Made Easy Podcast. Hey there, I'm Dr Casey Grover, an addiction medicine doctor based on California's Central Coast. For 14 years I worked in the emergency department seeing countless patients struggling with addiction. Now I'm on the other side of the fight, helping people rebuild their lives when drugs and alcohol take control. Thanks for tuning in. Let's get started.

Speaker 1:

Today's episode is the third episode of a four-part series on stigma, specifically the stigma that people with addiction and mental health conditions face and how it affects them and their families, and I have to give two shout-outs before we start. This episode is done in collaboration with Central Coast Overdose Prevention, which is a nonprofit I helped found here on the Central Coast of California focusing on advocating for addiction treatment, and this podcast was made possible by California Overdose Prevention Network Accelerator funding from the Public Health Institute's Center for Health Leadership and Impact. This episode is an interview with Wendy. Do you remember the episode from last week where we talked with Gabrielle and how she conquered her addiction? Well, wendy is Gabrielle's mother. Wendy and Gabrielle and, by the way, gabrielle also goes by Gabby Wendy and Gabrielle have been so brave to share their intertwined life stories as mother and daughter around Gabby's addiction, and today we are going to hear what it was like for Wendy as the parent of someone living with addiction and how she faced stigma too.

Speaker 1:

A few clarifications Wendy mentions Natividad, that's the county hospital here in Monterey County, and also Wendy talks about substance use navigators. Substance use navigators, also known as SONs, are healthcare providers, often in emergency departments, who connect patients with addiction and substance use to treatment. We are very lucky to have them here in all of our emergency departments in Monterey County and we to have them here in all of our emergency departments in Monterey County, and we also have them in San Benito County where Wendy and Gabrielle live. And with that, here we go. All right, wendy. Well, good morning. I'm so glad to have you join me today, and I had just spoken to your daughter about her experience getting into recovery and your support for her. Tell me about who you are and where you live and what you do.

Speaker 2:

So my name is Wendy Solorio and I am Gabby's mom as well, as I have a son who's 35 and a daughter who's 24. I live here in Hollister. I work for the County of San Benito. I've been there 17 years as a child support. Specialist supervisor is my current role. In that role I've done a lot of outreach into the county, jails, the high school, the continuation high school and, yeah, I live on my parents' property and just trying to enjoy this next phase of my life, my next season, trying to enjoy this next phase of my life, my next season.

Speaker 1:

So Gabrielle told me her story and how you supported her through her journey, and we congratulated her on two and a half years of sobriety. When did you realize that your daughter had a problem with addiction?

Speaker 2:

I realized I knew, but I didn't want to know. So that's how it started, and it started very early on. I think she was in her freshman year of high school and she got dropped off from a party. She was supposed to be at her dad's for that weekend. Immediately. That was my first solid confirmation and I immediately jumped on and started looking for resources for her.

Speaker 1:

How did you feel in terms of how you had done as a parent up to that time? Was there guilt, was there worry, was there fear? What was that moment like of realizing your daughter had a problem?

Speaker 2:

There was all of the above A lot of guilt, a lot of shame. We'd gone through a very nasty divorce. She really had to step up at a young age and co-parent her little sister with me. It was a lot of responsibility. She's an absolutely brilliant person. She's so smart and she's got such a good heart, and so I think the addiction really began with just like a typical coping mechanism. I think it started with her peers and then became a regular habit of coping with stress and verbal abuse, physical abuse that she experienced.

Speaker 2:

Were you pretty hard on yourself during that time I was very hard on myself and then later I just lost my mind. So I worked really hard to rebuild my career after my divorce and so I was in a leadership role within the county, which is very small. It's a really close knit. Everyone knows each other. So when the addiction was really taking its hold on her, it was very difficult to navigate keeping my professional face as well as keeping my mom face, and so that made me very angry. I took it really personal almost. I think I even said one time to her after one of her many overdoses why are you doing this to me? Because I just took it so personal.

Speaker 1:

If people asked you how your daughter was doing around that time, what was your answer? Hanging in there, when did you, if ever, get to a point where you could be open about Gabrielle's struggles with addiction?

Speaker 2:

I think it was after her I wouldn't say her last overdose. It was pre pandemic. So that's how I gauge everything these days. And Chris Mangano, who's the emergency operations manager here, was a close friend with Mary the pharmacist and they invited me to speak at a town hall, at the vets hall here, and I think that's the first time with a lot of my coworkers, fellow leadership, advanced leadership in the room, that I really took the opportunity. It just came out, it just started bubbling out. I couldn't stop talking about it.

Speaker 2:

There was a lot of criticism towards me during that time after, but there was so much, so much, thank you. It's like an elephant in the room. It was just a really raw, really raw story and unfortunately it was a true story, it was not fiction. So I really wanted to get that across, what it was like having to balance it and I thought we were done at that time. I thought we were done, I thought she was clean, we were on our way to our next wonderful season and I just still was so naive to these drugs and then worse drugs had on her and the more she used, the more she needed and then she would have to get to something else.

Speaker 2:

So I did a lot of self-education just because there weren't any resources. I mean I, after the incident with the alcohol thing the first incident I ended up having her and this is just a terrible story. I enrolled her in a substance abuse group at Behavioral Health. Her counselor was amazing. His name was Tony Adamo I think he's retired now but he was amazing. But in this group she was the only one there that wasn't court ordered to be there and she was the only one there for alcohol and marijuana usage. So this introduced her to a whole other demographic of peers. I always think like, if I could put my thumb on going back, that was a turning point for her from turning from bad to much worse, because then she had something in common with a really rough demographic.

Speaker 1:

One of the things we struggle with people with addiction is that we want to help them and sometimes we need to hold them accountable. We have to push them when they're not ready and sometimes we need to accommodate them. They're struggling and they need the extra help, and no one on planet earth knows that balance whether to give more carrot or give more stick, if you will. I'm curious what have you learned, given your lived experience with your daughter's addiction, in terms of when to push and use hard love versus when to accommodate and really try to support?

Speaker 2:

I can't agree more that there's no balance. I don't think there was a point. I think it was a level of exhaustion that I just couldn't do it anymore. So it was a very difficult time. She was worse than she'd ever been and I, just I was done. I, physically and emotionally, was at a severe breaking point and I knew I couldn't break. I just knew I couldn't break. I'd been broken before and I felt that darkness and I just said I can't do this anymore.

Speaker 2:

It almost became intentional. If someone else was getting too much attention, I think she was self-sabotaging it was just really hard. But I would never be able to explain to anyone about when to draw the line. I would go to NA meetings or Naranon meetings over in Monterey, so no one would know who I was. So I could speak freely. My mom would come with me and you hear it all. You hear about people enabling, enabling, enabling I hate that word enabling, accommodating, supporting. And then you hear the tough love stories.

Speaker 2:

Watched a lot of movies on addiction. Thank god it's really coming to light. I think it's four good days, or oh, it's a great movie. Oh, my god, I bought it. I mean, it's like on my play all the time. Beautiful boy, just different styles of what you have to do If there's no right or wrong answer. It came to a point where she was going to die. She was going to die and I had to put my armor on to deal with her death, not her life anymore, she was going to die. So, however, I had to do that. That was my next season. Was I refer to my life a lot about before and afters. They're just like definitely lines in the sand about before this, after this, and that day in December was the before and the after. That was it, and I won't even call it a line in the sand, I will call it a line in the cement it was just cemented in. I couldn't break, I couldn't break.

Speaker 1:

What I heard from you. It was less about being intentional as to when to be pushing accountability versus being accommodating, and more about surviving. Do I have that right?

Speaker 2:

Yes, that's correct. Survival, Survival. The ringtone on my phone is still just keep swimming from the Finding Nemo movie. Just keep swimming, get up. Tomorrow's a new day. Tonight's really rough. There were days I would just get on my knees at the end of my bed and just pray to whatever was out there. It was brutal. My heart was broken. Some of it still is very cracked, it's just, it will never heal. Anytime a family member calls on my phone, I immediately go to. Something happened, not just with her now, but with something like oh no, not now. Oh no, what happened? Oh this, oh that there's just so much trauma triggering trauma. I misplace a $5 bill in my purse and I immediately go to oh no, I know I had a $5 bill here and then I'll find it and I'll be like you're so stupid, but you're not, because there were many missings $5 bills.

Speaker 1:

Who was your support network when your daughter was still in her active addiction?

Speaker 2:

My parents but my dad is like the weakest link with her. They have a very unique relationship. My mom is the source of strength. She just was always there, but she would be influenced. She called it getting on my white horse and rescuing her. There you go, getting on your white horse again. So then I shut down from telling her everything because I felt guilt and shame about that. Actually, my boss at work she was so supportive, she really helped me navigate through the professional slash. Personal, my cousin, Chris Mangano. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2:

It got to the point where I was in therapy and my psychiatrist would tell me you need to turn your ringer off at night and you need to turn your phone over so you're not stimulated by the light. And I said but what if she dies and they can't get ahold of me? And he said she'll be dead in the morning. And that was the hardest thing to do, that I still do it to this day. I turn my ringer off at night and I turn my phone over so I'm not stimulated by light. And one morning I woke up and I had a missed call from Chris at like three o'clock, four o'clock, Gabby was in sober, living here in Hollister, and she'd gotten a call. She'd heard on her radio communication that someone matching her age descriptors and the street she was living on had overdosed, and so I knew I made a cup of coffee and I picked up the phone to call her and I just said is she alive?

Speaker 1:

And she said barely, and that was just how we lived for a long time. You said you got some mental health services. What was that like? It was terrible.

Speaker 2:

So behavioral health here they don't really take private insurance, which is odd. They're pretty much Medi-Cal based. And you have to go through a oh gosh, it's like this, what do they call it? Like an intake, extensive intake thing. And I didn't want to go through intake. I been going through this for so long, I wanted to get to it.

Speaker 2:

So right when I was getting to the heart of it I had switched over to Kaiser specifically for the purpose of getting continuing therapy services and getting my medication. I had a ton of anxiety, a ton of depression. I still do. And that's where I found, like a consistent therapist, behavioral health. Here, as you'll come to know, if you don't already, we do a lot of interning, we do a lot of short timers. So you start with someone, then you go and they're not there that day, so someone else fills in. Well, when you're as raw as it raw gets, it's really discouraging. So I was able to get probably three good months of rock solid therapy not someone just reflectively listening, but therapy and get on, fortunately the right combination of medications to let me be able to function, and so that piece of it was amazing.

Speaker 1:

So it sounds like a rocky start, but ultimately it proved to be part of your support network, as you were supporting your daughter getting sober it was my safe place.

Speaker 2:

I didn't have to worry about hurting anybody's feelings. I would go once a week and I would leave all my yuck there, and that was invigorating.

Speaker 1:

How many parents do you think have been in your position but don't have access to mental health services? From what you've experienced, oh, I think 90%.

Speaker 2:

And if they do have access they don't have the means, they don't have the insurance, they can't take off work. I can imagine that a lot of them are single parents like myself who every hour you miss work, you're losing money or losing sick leave. 17 years at the county I have no sick leave. Almost all of my sick leave has gone to either taking care of her when she's been in her places or taking care of me as a result of her being in her places. Days and days waiting for a bed, days and days in the hospital, days and days transporting. She's gone as far up as Anderson Tuolumne County. She's gone everywhere and so it's just a lot. Then I break on my way home and then I need like three days to recover just from the adrenaline of lack of sleep, lack of everything.

Speaker 1:

How much financially did her addiction affect you?

Speaker 2:

My parents actually paid for her first. I'm sure you're familiar with Cherie. Cherie Ashley, cherie Navarette went to school with my oldest son and so she's a face of recovery in our community. So she was the first person I reached out to. Now I knew what I knew and my parents.

Speaker 2:

She came out and we explored programs and insurance. Thank God my ex-husband had really great insurance with the Teamsters. So she went to a facility over in Watsonville in Santa Cruz County. It was very expensive and the way Cherie put it to us is you can try to get this right the first time You're going to spend it here or you're going to spend it on a funeral. If you have the means, get her in the best facility you can and let's hope that one time sticks. That was $20,000 out of pocket.

Speaker 2:

The program itself was $40,000, but it was a 90-day program minimum 90 days. Which was a selling point for us is that I've never thought 30 days is enough. I mean I can tell, like her brain, how it's working and 30 days is just a ridiculous minimum, ridiculous minimum. So what it did take a toll on me was I put all our hotels on credit cards, specifically when she was up north Anderson Teen Challenge. She'd get a weekend pass. As she earned weekend passes, I opened up a new credit card, maxed it out. Opened up a new credit card, maxed it out. Open up a new credit card, max it out.

Speaker 2:

It's basically a bare bones program and so having to support her clothing needs, her shampoo conditioner, doing it for me and doing it for them, trying to contribute as much as I could for the house, because there were girls there that had really had nothing, women there who literally they pulled out from under an underpass, so I was always trying to help. I would just say that I've exhausted. It'll take me probably another decade, as long as it took us to get here. It'll take me that long to get out of the debt that I've incurred.

Speaker 1:

Do you and your daughter ever talk about that? No, what do you think the conversation would be like?

Speaker 2:

I don't know. So I was thinking about that this morning because she's very financially stable right now and I don't really expect anything in return. And I don't really expect anything in return. But I think that she stole a lot of money for my parents as well, because my dad is old fashioned and keeps cash, for whatever reason, in his sock drawer, and so I thought might be a really good point in time where she could say I'm going to give you guys $100 a week. We're not good at tough conversations. I'm scared to death of tough conversations. Scared to death in the literal term, scared to death Like I'll suck it up, I will figure it out. She's super generous with me now, like she surprises me with, like a gift certificate or to get my nails done out of the blue. Those things mean so much that I just want to bury it. I just don't want to go back there. I'm definitely afraid of what that might do Trigger something in her. So yeah, it's tough, it's very, very tough.

Speaker 1:

Were you afraid of difficult conversations before her addiction?

Speaker 2:

Always, is it worse now oh yeah, oh yeah, it's 10 times worse now. Oh yeah, oh yeah, it's 10 times worse now now.

Speaker 1:

I had spoken with gabrielle yesterday about stigma and judgment and shame. Did you notice that people treated your daughter differently once that she had addiction? Yes, how so?

Speaker 2:

Well, I had co-workers that had children that were in the same age group. I would say, and they would just always I don't know the way they treated her just changed. She showed up at my work. We went through periods because of the person that she was in a romantic relationship with. That was a horrible, horrible person where she'd alienate me. I wasn't allowed to be in her life, and so she would.

Speaker 2:

At the worst of times she would show up at my work or be waiting by my car or come into my office and I felt like that was always like oh, she's on Skid Row again, or I would overhear the conversations. They wouldn't necessarily come out and say hello to her. They would say let me get your mom. They wouldn't bring her into the back and I know she picked up on those things. It wasn't something I could really address because I really didn't blame them. I mean my family, not my immediate family, my extended family has always been very worried about perception. So you know she'd show up looking really rough and it was always the comparison always well, she doesn't look like she's doing good, so they would treat her like she wasn't doing good. I don't think she even knew she didn't look like she was doing good, so I think she took it. I don't know, it was super painful, it was just super painful. So then we just started doing our own thing. So I absorbed it all, which was hard. It was really hard.

Speaker 1:

Did people treat you differently once they found out that your daughter had addiction?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Especially when I became more vocal about the epidemic here, I felt like they felt sorry for me and I didn't feel sorry for myself. I never once said woe is me and I didn't feel sorry for myself. I never once said woe is me. I worked with or sat in meetings with people that were immediately involved.

Speaker 2:

In her emergency response care, the deputy district attorney who then became my court commissioner that I'm in court with at breaks would just say how's Gabby, how's your daughter doing? And our presiding judge knew I'd lost some really good friend groups what I thought were good friends because I learned that they weren't being transparent with me and I thought I was being wordly transparent and asking for feedback, whether it be negative or positive, or what do you think I should do next, or how do you think I should handle this, or I'm feeling like this or I'm feeling like that and to learn that they would turn around and talk about what I wasn't doing or what I wasn't doing right, like they were an expert on the subject. So I just would shut down, I would just not talk about it, which I think probably in hindsight, is the worst thing you could do. The biggest thing was when I was at that town hall. House Speaker Robert Revis was the counselor at our school, high school, and he was my youngest daughter's school counselor and he was on the Board of Supervisors at that time. So he was there representing the Board of Supervisors. When he was asked a question, he spoke before I did and he basically said these kids are making these choices that are life-threatening, they're choosing to buy these drugs that they know are potentially lethal. And I, when I got up there in public in front of the group, just said I respectfully disagree. I absolutely appreciate that that may be your opinion, but they don't go out and choose to buy drugs laced with fentanyl. This isn't something they decide. Getting ready, doing their hair on a Friday night, going, okay, let's rock and roll tonight.

Speaker 2:

The other frustrating piece was the law enforcement piece a bit. So I became like a renegade at one point. I think I told you I lost my mind. So one of the times that she was committed I had her placed on a hold for two hours and I was able to get access to her phone and I had a amazing sheriff's deputy. His name was Matt Avila. He's now with Georgia police.

Speaker 2:

He was so compassionate and so kind. He came and went through her phone to try to figure out like where it was coming from. She had overdosed twice in like a 12-hour period and he just said, yep, yep, it's the usual players. And I thought so you know where this is happening and you're not doing anything about it. And he's like well, our hands are tied, they really want the higher ups. And I was just like I can't believe this. My daughter has died twice in 12 hours and you know who's killing her and you can't do anything about it. So then I would go on with that and then have to really step back Because I would get my hands slapped.

Speaker 1:

I guess you could say Did you have any good interactions with law enforcement after that?

Speaker 2:

Oh, I did, I did. She was well known for a long time and I work closely with law enforcement. Like I said, I go into the jails, so everyone knew I was her mom. I get oh, you're Gabby's mom. That's where I would get. I wouldn't get. Oh, hi, wendy, how are you? Oh, you're Gabby's mom. Oh, this is Gabby's mom. Gabby wink, wink and I thought how dare you? And I thought how dare you? Yes, I am Gabby's mom and I'm proud to be Gabby's mom.

Speaker 2:

Gabby's overcome a lot. So I feel like the older generation let's go get him. But a more protect and serve. And that is huge.

Speaker 2:

Hollister police hasn't been that way. I don't have a lot of interaction with them. We live in the country, so all of our interaction was basically with the sheriff's office and knowing oh, it's Gabby again. Or I did have one unrelated interaction with my best friend's son who overdosed on fentanyl years later and that group of officers was not compassionate at all. I remember saying did he aspirate? They were having a hard time bringing him back. They were working on him. Did he aspirate and they go? Hard time bringing him back. They were working on him. Did he aspirate and they go. You really don't need to know that.

Speaker 2:

I was his emergency contact and I said, well, I really do, because my daughter aspirated and they said it wouldn't turn into anything. And it turned into pneumonia and she almost died. And then they weren't even educated enough to know that after so many doses of Narcan they pop up, and so he had had a criminal history. So I understood later but he popped up and they immediately threw him in handcuffs that he was like assaulting them, and I'm like he's not assaulting you, he's popping up. What do you mean? He's popping up and I'm like how do you not know this? How do you not know this? It was infuriating, infuriating. I literally got in the sergeant's face and I said I think you need someone to come teach you guys about these situations. So that's always been fun.

Speaker 1:

Not so much, but you know. So. Wendy Gabrielle is now two and a half years sober. I congratulated her when I spoke to her. How is it?

Speaker 2:

now. She's so amazing she's I still hold back. I love her with all of my heart. I mean from my toenails to my hair, but I still hold back. I cannot make myself vulnerable to that level. I can't get there, but she's amazing. She's the best aunt in the world. My younger daughter has a two-year-old and they all live together and she's self-sufficient. She's self-supporting, but, yeah, it's wonderful to have her home, but it's scary as well to have her home.

Speaker 2:

I was not supportive of her moving back here. I thought she needed a new playground, a new demographic, and I thought she had found that in Tuolumne. Tuolumne was, I mean, has a really good faith-based community that she really inserted herself in and was received so well. But you know I can't make those decisions for her. I basically told her I don't support this at all. I'll support your decision, but you know I can't make those decisions for her. I basically told her I don't support this at all. I'll support your decision whatever it is, but I'm not on board. And she basically said I'm going to prove you wrong.

Speaker 2:

And today she has. She's been home. It was a year, in May. I haven't had any moments like Ooh, that was weird or oh, that was odd. I always look at her really hard and try to look for something and I haven't found anything and I haven't had that feeling about something being off other than just regular life exhaustion. And she keeps herself really busy. She works six days a week. I think that's very intentional. She has my granddaughter all the time. I think that's very intentional and very therapeutic for her. So it's like that, one day at a time I wake up in the morning and I go we got another day, we got another day.

Speaker 1:

As she has gotten into longer-term recovery. Have you been able to be a little gentler on yourself or even haven't forgiven yourself?

Speaker 2:

I don't think so. Why not? Because I'm her mom, I feel like I own, that I could have done so many things differently in hindsight 2020. Differently, hindsight 2020. I just go back to those moments where, in hindsight, I can see where I could have done something different that may have changed the trajectory of her use. I could have been harder at times, I could have been softer at times, I was tired. So I let so much slip by just because I needed to keep it quiet for Madeline's sake. My other daughter the three of us are, like we call each other, the three musketeers. She was nine and I didn't want it to reflect on her. I didn't want people to look at her differently her friend group, those parents, to look at her differently, differently. Her friend group, those parents, to look at her differently. So I overindulged with her and now that created a shopaholic. I think the only way to find that level of forgiveness will be in a spiritual way and otherwise, no, it's very, it's just super. Still very, very heavy.

Speaker 1:

So let's imagine that someone listening today is a parent and they found out today, just before they started listening, that their child is experimenting with drugs. What advice would you give them, given what you know from what you've lived through?

Speaker 2:

So I guess it would really depend on their definition of experimenting. Let's say.

Speaker 1:

It's not just. I tried cannabis for the first time with my friends. It's a pattern of continued use. They're starting to use regularly and you're worried.

Speaker 2:

If they're needing to use something to make themselves feel better, then you need to get to the root of what they're trying to get away from. There's something there. There's something there. There's something there, regardless of what it is and regardless of whether you want to hear it or not, because sometimes it's the parent that has done something or didn't do something that's making them feel a certain way. So I was fully aware of her marijuana use and I wouldn't say I condoned it, but I was acceptant of it because I was raised with parents that use marijuana. I guess that's a good place to start and so, I don't know, I just accepted it and that's something I would not do again.

Speaker 2:

Although I appreciate that marijuana has its medical purposes, medical benefits, I don't believe a 13-year-old should be using marijuana If they're dying of cancer and on chemo maybe, but I was always against that. Being a gateway drug, I would be just like that's crazy, like it's safer than alcohol. It's this that that would be immediately where I would go. Nope, it's a gateway because the marijuana stops working and then you have to smoke more Anything you have to do more of. I overeat. Like I don't eat a bowl of ice cream, I get the half gallon with the bottle of chocolate syrup and the whipped cream until I make myself sick. That's how I would explain it to them. It's not healthy, it's not healthy, it's not okay, and you need to get to the root of it. There's something there. There's something there.

Speaker 1:

You also mentioned some tense interactions with law enforcement and, I'm assuming, healthcare providers as well. Let's talk about what first responders, healthcare providers, can do to be more supportive of individuals and families when there's addiction going on.

Speaker 2:

First responders are the ones I've come into contact with as a result of her addiction. I think locally our first responders have a really good handle on how to handle those very sensitive situations. It's really hard because there's so much protected information that when your child is 18, they can't tell you. There's ways to say it, there's ways to talk about it. I mean I'm very creative now but like, could you tell your coworker what you just did and why, just so I would understand? Yeah, she's been really lucky with as far as that piece of it goes. I think there needs to be a lot more education, not just on the how to use Narcan or carry it in your car, but I mean there's so much education out there that you can watch yourself. If they really really wanted to, they would understand it. She actually worked with. Her name's Ashley. She works at Community Hospital Watsonville now. She was a substance use navigator and we keep in contact. Actually, she was one of my inmates when I first started doing jail outreach, so she suffered from addiction, so we knew each other that way and then she walked in as the substance use navigator and I was just amazed and we built a really good bond and she was talking about that trink drug that no one knows about. No one knows about it. And she goes Wendy, it's here, it's here. And I'm like, what do you mean? And so I had to look it up and go okay, now I need to be looking for this, I mean.

Speaker 2:

So I just think that there is a sense of in first responders. They're naive to what's really out there and how it's getting distributed. I'm a freak. My best friend's son is in junior high and I'm like he can't eat candy from anybody, he can't share food, he can't swap gummy bears at lunch. And she's like what are you talking about? And I'm like he just can't. He just can't Pop rocks, absolutely not. They think I'm crazy and I probably am to them, but I know and I think the same thing with the medical community. There should be mandatory trainings on how to handle not only the patient but the family. I think it's a disease, it's a cancer. So if they were going to call someone in to tell them that their child was full of cancer, they need to pull the parents of an addict at that degree who they've seen twice in 24 hours and had to bring back to life. The same way, with white gloves, give them the resources.

Speaker 2:

I think substance use navigators in the rural hospital setting are the most important people in the room. The rural hospital setting are the most important people in the room. Ashley, in that instance, in that overdose, she took so much off of me trying to find her a bed and doing the calling and the insurance thing that I was able to care for my daughter and not be on the phone 24-7 outside so no one could hear me trying to navigate, finding and waiting for a bed or what that even meant. I didn't even know what waiting for a bed meant, how can there not be a bed? How can insurance not pay? So just that educational piece. I think those substance use navigators for the family, they're like the social worker with a child with leukemia at Lucille Packard. They're the ones coordinating everything the home care, the this care, the that care. I'll end my spiel, as I call it, on one piece that I want to leave with you, because I think this is so important that after her second overdose in that 12 hour period or I don't even think it was 12 hours, honestly the same paramedic that revived her at her first overdose that night was still on duty.

Speaker 2:

When he revived her the following morning at her second overdose and I know him and he's an amazing fireman he's an amazing fireman paramedic here in the community when law enforcement was called back at her second overdose and she was taken to the hospital, she basically said the second overdose, she didn't want to live anymore. She had wrecked her car. She was transported to Natividad Highway Patrol drove her back to the jail. The jail let her out in her hospital gown because they had to cut her clothes off of her. So what did she do? She had another glue laced with fentanyl. She knew it was laced. Do she had another glue laced with fentanyl? She knew it was laced, clearly, because she'd overdosed the night before and she took that because she wasn't going to be able to face it.

Speaker 2:

That sheriff's deputy that responded and they all went to the hospital and the sheriff he was the captain. Then sheriff taylor was the captain. He wasn't the sheriff. He went in and talked to her. He made the determination that she was a harm to herself, that it was intentional, it was as a result of the night before she lost everything. Now what? So they made the call to put her to the hold. Our behavioral health department came out, asked him to leave the room when he's having this heart to heart with her because she was in a rush, took her off the hold in two hours and her safety plan and I have I don't keep anything anymore because it's too painful I keep the safety plan that person wrote because it is such a slap in the face.

Speaker 2:

It said that how was she going to deal with her thoughts of suicide? She was going to crochet, she was going to listen to gospel music and she was going to talk to me. Those were the three things, the three points of contact. So when they came out and explained to me and here I thought this was it she was put on a hold. She was going to get the care, the mental health care, she finally needed. Oh, no, no, she's coming home with me.

Speaker 2:

I lost my mind and I said where's she going to get crochet needles? Where's she going to get yarn? What does she listen to music on? What are you going to do when I don't take her home? Are you going to wheel her to the street in a wheelchair? Well, what do you mean? I said she has no car to drive to Michael's to get crochet needles. I'm not driving with her. She has no money, she has no nothing. That was the turning point where everything came from hurt to. I was so angry. And when I got angry, that's when I started yelling from the rooftops Like there's something systematically wrong with this and it was just it's barbaric I guess that's my favorite word to use it's barbaric.

Speaker 1:

So what I heard is that people need more education, people need to understand just how life and death addiction is, and we need more resources.

Speaker 2:

Yes.

Speaker 1:

Well, wendy, I have to say I've learned so much from you and it's been very interesting to speak to Gabrielle, to hear her side and then to speak to you and hear yours, any last words that you want to leave us with for families that are trying to help a loved one with addiction.

Speaker 2:

Care for the caregiver. Mm-hmm, number one care for the caregiver and never stop trying to self-educate yourself. Don't wait. Do not wait. 99.9% of the time, it's only going to get worse. It's not going to get better. Have the tough conversations and if you can't have them, find someone that can help you have them. Build your toolbox, because you're going to need your toolbox, and use your voice. And use your voice.

Speaker 1:

Well, I have to say, Wendy, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate you talking to me today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you have a great afternoon. Thank you for all you do. I appreciate you guys. Thank you.

Speaker 1:

To those healthcare providers out there treating patients with addiction. You're doing life-saving work and thank you for what you do For everyone else tuning in. Thank you for taking the time to learn about addiction. It's a fight we cannot win without awareness and action. There's still so much we can do to improve how addiction is treated. Together we can make it happen. Thanks for listening and remember treating addiction saves lives.