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Never Alone Live
Never Alone Live is a podcast dedicated to recovery, healing, and honest conversations about addiction and mental health.
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Never Alone Live
Saving Lives Through Harm Reduction | Narcan Nate
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What does harm reduction really look like?
Join us as we welcome Nathan "Narcan Nate" Smiddy, a harm reduction advocate who has spent nearly eight years providing naloxone training, overdose prevention, and life-saving resources to people affected by substance use. After overcoming his own past with addiction, Nathan dedicated his life to meeting people where they are and helping communities access the support they need.
We'll discuss harm reduction, naloxone, overdose prevention, recovery, and what it's like working on the front lines every day.
Bring your questions and join the conversation.
#narcan #harmreduction #naloxone #addiction #addictionrecovery #sober #recovery
Welcome, welcome, welcome everyone to this episode of Never Alone Live. And uh I'm Johnny, and as always, joined by oh, I'm off center. Uh I'm joined by Krista the Sober Barbie. Uh, and today we have our special guest, uh, Narcan Nate. How you doing, brother? I'm doing good. How are you? Oh, we are good. We are good, good, good. We're living. And so to just we're gonna just jump in, dude. Uh, tell us uh a little bit about you know, about Nate, where are you from, all that stuff?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I'm from uh I live in a small town called Jellico, Tennessee. Uh born and raised here. Just moved back a little over a year ago. Um small town in Appalachia. This is where I um started using substances, uh, went to treatment for the first time out here. Um so yeah, it's it's home for me for now. I don't know if it'll be my forever home, but uh yeah, it's definitely home for me.
SPEAKER_03A small town in Appalachia. What's uh what do you do out there? What's uh what's your thing? Do you watch uh is it football? Is it sports? Is it anything?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so people uh I would say high school football is a big thing here, college football is a really big thing. Um people like to shoot guns, they like to go what they call mudding. Um I mean, there's a lot of like quad trails here. Um like to cook. Um, they like people drink a lot of beer here for sure. Um that's really about it. I mean, there's not much here, to be honest with you. I mean, this place will probably be a ghost town in another hundred years, to be honest with you.
SPEAKER_03Interesting. This is the first guest we've had that has brought up mudden, and we're not gonna talk about mudden, even though every every ounce of my being. Every ounce of my being right now wants to just talk about that and wants to not talk about anything else, but we're not gonna do that because we have bigger, bigger things to discuss. Um, let's talk about let's uh let's jump into Narcan Nate. What is it? Where did you get the name? What's it what are y'all about?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I got the name in like 2019. I was um I was driving around um and doing an outreach, and and uh when I would go to meetings, all of the meetings in Southern California have outside uh a moment for outside announcements. So you can talk about a meeting, you can talk about places that are hiring, you can talk about anything. So it's basically like a in like a voiced uh bulletin board, so to speak. And um, I was going to a young people's meeting at the time, and I would always make the announcement, and a guy named CJ, at first he said like Nate with the Narcan, and then one time he called me Narcan Nate, and then after that it kind of stuck. Like every place I went, um, I would always get called that, and it just kind of stuck. Um, and then when I started like posting about like the outreach that I was doing, um, you know, I switched like all my online stuff to Narcan Nate, and it just like really like elevated itself from there pretty much.
SPEAKER_03Well, you you're kind of you're big with uh with Narc, what is what is for all of we've got one comment uh by the way that says uh what the hell is mudden? Uh but we're not going there. We're not talking about mud. We're talking about uh I knew it was gonna happen. Yeah. We're talking about we're talking about harm reduction today. Um so let's let's let's get into this. So what what in your opinion, what is the what is harm reduction?
SPEAKER_00So I mean, so the basic like the the the easiest way to like break down harm reduction is like we do it every day in our lives. Like if your kid wears a helmet, that's harm reduction. If you wear a seatbelt, that's harm reduction. So anything like you do that can prevent harm in your life is essentially harm reduction. Now, from a from a point of like substance use, you know, it could be naloxone, um, it could be like uh clean syringes, um, it could be anything that prevents harm to someone using substances. It could be like if someone's consuming alcohol, they should have a glass of water for every drink they have. You know what I mean? Like anything like that, like wherever you are on the spectrum of substance use, there's things that you can do to like um prevent harm to yourself uh in your body.
SPEAKER_03You know, this is so people, this is I wanna I want to kind of clear the air because of stigma, right? There's a stigma. People hear harm reduction, they think uh narcan, they're like, oh, you shouldn't have narcand around. That just gives people who aren't opiates the freedom to do opiates, right? There's I'm I'm playing devil's advocate here, and this is what people are saying there's a negative connotation around harm reduction, there's a negative connotation around Matt, there's negativity around this and that. So today, with this conversation, especially here in the beginning, I want to kind of disprove the the what harm reduction is, and I love what you're saying because I think you know, having a fire extinguisher in your house is harm reduction. Uh, wearing your seatbelt harm reduction, uh carrying Narcan is harm reduction. They're one in the same, and this is the this is what I'm I'm hoping people will uh will get from this today. Um, so tell me the the ins and outs of what Narcan is, what it does, and how it actually saves lives.
SPEAKER_00So basically, um Narcan, Narcan, so Narcan is brand is brand name, you know what I mean. So the the actual like drug is naloxone, and basically um it's an opioid antagonist, and it has like a high affinity, a high affinity to the mu receptors, specifically the mu receptor, but it'll it'll work on other opioid receptors, but not as well. And basically, where it has a stronger affinity to the receptor, like when someone has like fentanyl or like heroin on the receptor, um, when it enters the body and crosses over the blood-to-brain pathway, um, the receptor goes, Oh, like this should be here instead of this. So let me let go of this and put this here. Um, and then it allows the person um to start breathing again, essentially, is how it works. So it's basically like a lock and key. So think of like drugs as like glue and the locks on is like super glue, and the receptor's like, oh, I want the super glue, not the glue. It's basically like the easiest way I know how to explain it.
SPEAKER_03And Krista, Krista's got big opinions on this too. She carries Narcan with her everywhere she goes. Why do you do that, Krista?
SPEAKER_01You never know. You never know in today's world. Um, I mean, you got kids that are experimenting. Um, you literally just don't know, and you don't know what someone's going through. You don't know if they're secretly like using because they're trying to get through some hard times or they're, you know, and I'd rather be prepared. And I like to carry it too because I have a lot of people that ask me, like, you got any extra, you know, so I'm able to like pass it out. Um, but I like that the super glue analogy. That's pretty um informative for the average person that really doesn't understand how it works. That's good stuff.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you know, yeah, it's basically yeah, it's basically just the brain saying, like, I don't want this, I'd rather have that because it it has a stronger bind to it, basically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and it it does it has like a time limit too, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00It'll so it'll stay um upwards like 90 minutes or say per se. I think like I the statistics years ago, and it's probably about the same, but it's like one in 20,000. Well, like like one out of twenty thousand, like the the substance will reattach and someone like falls back into an overdose. So it's like so it doesn't happen like a lot that that happens.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Okay, there's a question in the comments. How how where do you get an arcan? Where do you get narcan to carry? It's not you. I mean, can I uh can is it's not just everywhere, right?
SPEAKER_00Uh I mean, if you have the money, which is expensive, you could go to most like stores now, so because it's over the counter, um, but that's gonna run like 40-50 bucks. Um, I would say your health department, sometimes fire departments give it out. Um, if you have any like coalitions, like recovery coalitions, they have them or like RCOs, recovery community organizations. Um, syringe exchanges have them. You can look online. It would depend on like what you're doing. If you're an organization, like mutual aid or like kind of grassroots work, there's uh there's some webs, there's some organizations that will help you get started doing that. I can give you that link. I I can't think of it. It's uh Remedy Alliance is who it is. Remedy Alliance will help you with that. Um, and then it really depends on like your state how it works. So like in the state of Tennessee, how it works, and they do it differently, but they have um they have people that cover like seven counties, and so they go and distribute it to like all the people that qualify for it. So if you're a nonprofit and you qualify for it, they bring it to you directly. When I was in California, you applied for it and they would ship it to you directly from the distributor. So you would like go through emergent and emergent would ship it to your office, your warehouse, or whatever. That's how it worked there. So it really uh depends at the state level. Like if you're gonna get it in bulk from the state, it depends state to state, like really how they do it.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so there's uh there's another question, and we're gonna talk more about where we can get Narcan uh in a little bit. Um, but the question is how is the Narcan uh given to the person that's having an overdose?
SPEAKER_00So it depends so nasally, so I mean, after you know, you don't just you don't go just narcing everybody you see landing on the street because people like I have people that like get so concerned and it's be concerned, but you can't just go narcing at everybody you see land on the sidewalk. So, you know, you you go through a process like you'll of like like you know, just checking on them. And I've done this for so long, like I can look at people, like the first thing I look at, I look at their skin color to see if it's changing and listen to their breathing, you know what I mean? Um, so if their skin color is fine, like it's not turning bluish purple or like a grayish color um in their breathing and you know, like 11 times a minute, 10, 11 times a minute, you know, they're fine. So after you like go through that process, you know, um, and you give a like a trapeze pinch or like a sternum rub, um, you know, if it's an it's if it's nasal, um, so you would give them one dose in the nostril, and then you should perform rescue breathing. Some people like to say CPR, um, but you're essentially going to do chest compressions and maybe break their ribs for no reason when you could just do like rescue breasts. Um, and you would do that for two to three minutes and repeat. If it's the intermuscular, um, you would pull up like 0.1, 0.2, something like that in a IM syringe, and you would stab them in the thigh. Um, most people do that, or the deltoid or the buttocks, and you would give them that dose and then do that same process for two, and then you would rescue for two to three minutes. If they don't respond, you would you could titrate up like to 0.3, 0.4, 0.5, whatever, um, and then repeat that process.
SPEAKER_03What's uh what's the difference between the intramuscular and the nasal? I mean, is it just it used to be intramuscular and the shots, and then now they got the nasal one and the nasal one's a little easier. Um, and uh is there is there a big difference between the two?
SPEAKER_00Um so the intramuscular actually works faster in the body, um, and it prevents people from getting super dope sick. Um, so you're you're gonna have like less um diarrhea or vomiting or like shaking. Um given too much naloxone can also cause like tachycardia. Um and that's why people like when they come to they freak out because their heart's pounding, like people are standing over them, they don't know who they are, they don't know what happened. So you really prevent like when you titrate, you really prevent like a lot of a lot of things that can be prevented that are really unnecessary, but some people are scared of like points and stuff like that. And I understand that completely. I'm not saying um, but a lot of people get excessive with how much they give um because they think giving more naloxone makes um someone come back uh from the overdose faster, but the receptor's saturated at eight milligrams. So giving like eight, sixteen, twenty-four milligrams, you know, within five minutes is like crazy. It doesn't make anything happen, but they're gonna be super dope sick and irritated when they come back. So um there's no need for that.
SPEAKER_03See, and this is and this is great. And I think that answering these questions right now and letting people know because there's good there's genuine questions in there, and you know, is it is it like an epi pen? No, it's not an epi pen. Epi pen, you know, has everything pre-dosed. It's as the intramuscular is a syringe, and you get the injection from a vial and you give it to the patient. Um, the the nasal, the nasal spray. Krista, do you have your narcan right behind you? She normally does. Um, and it is is literally that's it right there. There's a plunger.
SPEAKER_01You put that this is a demonstration one.
SPEAKER_03You put that tip into the nose of the patient, you push the plunger, and the narciss is distributed into the person's body via their nose. That's the easiest one. That's the best one. Uh not the best one, excuse me, but the easiest one to have and the best one to carry because it's so compact and easy, and it's just poof, there you go.
SPEAKER_01Um, if you get it from a like a health department, they'll give you like a little training rundown on it too when they give it to you.
SPEAKER_03And Nate, you're gonna love this. You're gonna love this. Krista, I'm telling you, she's my best friend, she's opened my eyes to so many things. Uh, I picked her up from the airport uh when she came here to visit, and she had her narcand case that I think Recover Out Loud gave to you.
SPEAKER_01Uh I it wasn't in a case, but I had it, it doesn't fit in it. I didn't want to open it.
SPEAKER_03You see, this is I have a case, I have a case, so but irrelevant, that's irrelevant information. All she wants to do is fight with me all the time, and she but she had it with her, and we talked about it. And I was like, it was like, what? It's kind of like why do you need that on the airplane? And I didn't think about it because at the airport, there's so many potential for overdose because people have anxiety about flying, they're gonna take a Xanax, maybe they're gonna get a Xanax from a friend, or maybe somebody say if somebody's gonna see them at the airport and say, Oh, you're you're anxious about flying. Here, here's have the Xanax. And if if you ain't getting a Xanax from a prescriber from a pharmacy, from it's it it could be laced with fentanyl. Um, over the if it's not from a pharmacy, it's most likely a fake pill. And if it's a fake pill, it is most likely fentanyl. And you could be basically taking a fentanyl for your anxiety, you don't even know it, you fall out at the airport, and there's Krista with her narcant. Amazing, right? Uh these are the these are the little stories that really I it opened my mind, opened my eyes to the to the possibilities. And uh, I thought you'd love that story.
SPEAKER_02Always prepared.
SPEAKER_00So something happened on a southwest. Yeah, something happened on a southwest flight, and after that, I'm pretty sure they put it in their policy to have the locks on on all flights. And and I it may have been adopted by other airlines. So, yeah, so it happened with Southway. Yeah, yeah, I remember the story.
SPEAKER_01I love Southwest.
SPEAKER_03And I mean, why wouldn't they? I mean, this is this is what we're talking about, right? This is uh I've I've gone and talked to my police uh chief, I've talked to police officers in my town, all of them carry Narcan on them now, every single one of them. Um, so police officers should definitely be carrying this, and and and flight attendants and people on airplanes and firefighters, everybody should be carrying Narcan all the time, and that's what we that's with this conversation today. That's what we want to get out. Our whole premise is to get that out. That harm reduction is just that. You you have you keep a fire extinguisher in your house, you know. I you know, is are you that it's the same thing? It's the same thing, it's the same thing. So, all right, sorry, I'm I got on my high horse there. You I knew I was gonna, I was excited for this conversation. So, Nate, tell us more. Tell us more. What more what other harm reduction tactics are there?
SPEAKER_00Uh well, I mean, I guess it just depends on like the person and their needs, you know what I mean, like what they're going through. Um, so I mean, I guess a lot of the stuff I see online is people talking about pipes or like, why do you give out pipes? And so, like, smoking is actually safer um than injecting. And a lot of people have switched from injecting to smoking, yeah, injecting to smoking. Um, some people do still inject, um, but really, I mean, I see us giving out more pipes than anything. So pipes are safer, um, less likely for transmission of diseases. Um, the thing about injecting is so when you inject, it's kind of like cooking and you use too much salt. Like you can always add salt, but you can't take it away. So when you smoke, um, you can hit the pipe and put it down, kind of see how it hits you, and then you know, you can just you know go from there. But once you inject, like you're you're hit, like it's in your body, you know what I mean? Like there's no like take there's no there's no mulligans, there's no takebacks, you know. Um, so that so that's a thing. Um, you know, a lot of like the OG, like people that like injected, you know, they've either moved on in their life or you know, dead in recovery, or you know, you just don't see a lot of people shooting anymore. Um, people some people still do, you know what I mean? But a lot of people have transitioned to smoking. So um, I know I would see comments were like, I understand like giving out syringes, but why are you giving out pipes? You know what I mean? So people, it's like I guess they don't understand it, you know what I mean? That's fine. But um, so that that's another thing. But you can also like um you could if you're someone that's like a non-opioid user, and like you know, a lot of people use the same pipe to smoke different substances, you can you can overdose from sharing pipes um and just from residue if you're like a non-opioid user. So there's also that too um as well. So, you know, it's keeping people from sharing as well and prevention of diseases. Um because as a taxpayer, when people have bad health outcomes, you pay for that. And it's cheaper to supply these things than it is to pay for bad health outcomes.
SPEAKER_03So, okay, so the exchange of pipes, that's a big one. Um, syringe exchange, that's another big one. There are places that you know are for harm reduction, are giving out complete works, they're giving out, you know, everything because everything can be contaminated. And if you're going to use, they'd rather you use uh clean materials than used materials where things can be transferred and diseases can be transferred, and um, and this is kind of where it gets into the sticky situation, right? Um, this is the stuff that you know uh people are beating up the idea of harm reduction because they hear needle exchange and say, Nope, not down with that. What do we what do we say to that? What do we say to that? What's your fight?
SPEAKER_00I mean, well, it would depend on like what their argument would be, because like if you say you care about people and you like want better outcomes for them, like if they're using a dirty needle, they're gonna get diseases, have worse health outcomes. And then if that person was ready to go to treatment and they have like abscesses or infections or anything like that, they're not gonna be able to go to treatment until they get cleared by a hospital. So, like, no detox is gonna take them, nothing. So when you prevent things like that, it makes getting access to treatment easier. And also, there's third there's three years of evidence that Joe that people that access people that have access to syringe services are three times more likely to go to treatment and five times more likely to stop using all substances altogether. Um, also it saves us money like as a whole by doing that as well. So it's like we like HIV prevention for one person is millions of dollars or so as opposed to not doing that. So I mean, there's really I mean, I don't know, people I guess it would depend on the argument, but I mean people people say enabling, but in enabling is is a moot point if people are going to do it anyway. Um, people are gonna stop when they wanna stop, and not everybody's gonna stop, like that's just the reality of it. Um, you know, so it's one of those things. Um, you can give a syringe, an alcohol pad, a little bit of water, and a clean cooker for mm like what, 30 cents as opposed to them getting a disease and it costing hundreds of thousands of dollars.
SPEAKER_03Ooh, that's big. That's big.
SPEAKER_00That's big.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that medicine is no joke. It's in the like six digits to like cure hep C like it's no joke.
SPEAKER_00Get endocarditis. Yeah, yeah. Endocarditis is like a two hundred and fifty thousand dollar uh procedure.
SPEAKER_03Wow. So Nate, uh, let me okay, so we've talked about harm reduction for a while now. I want to who is uh where's where's how'd you get started in this?
SPEAKER_00So I was in a um I was in a halfway house and there was three of us in a house manager. It wasn't like it was like a small house, and um I was watching an NCAA tournament and I go upstairs and I found a dude overdosed. This dude was a gang member, and I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. This is like complicated because I had never been in this situation. I was like, okay, if I call 911 and I go to jail, are they gonna like label me a snitch? Am I gonna like, is there like what am what are my consequences for this? Because I was like, I really don't know how this works in this situation. So I almost let him die, like straight up was about to walk out and just leave him there. Like that was my thought process. And because he had been to prison and just like got out, you know what I mean? Like all those things, and like another dude there was on probation. So, you know, getting the cops there was probably not in my favor. And I was just in a bad situation because I was thinking, like, I don't want to like burn myself if I go to jail. I don't want to be labeled a snitch or like this or that. I'm not getting beat up or like whatever, you know, over this dude, like over them because you know it's not my problem. Um, there was no Narcan in the house. Um, so I called, I called 911. Um, I pulled the point out of his pocket, hit it, got rid of the dope and stuff like that. Um, he lived. I don't know how he lived, but he lived because he was like turning purple when I found him. And after that, I realized that like, you know, my friends are dying because of like lack of access to a resource and because of bad policy. Um and by bad policy, I mean like um Good Samaritan laws around like um people overdosing and people calling and things like that. Because that's why things like that happen and people not knowing. This was like 2018. Um, and then after that, I decided to do something and get involved because it was just ridiculous that people were dying over like a resource and a law that's so common sense. So and that's what catapulted me into doing this.
SPEAKER_03Well, how did you uh how did you wind up in the recovery house? A little bit about your own.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I so I mean so I started doing pill when I was 18. I started doing roxies and stuff like that, and um went to treatment for like 16 months and then got got out and um did the thing for a little bit and then I returned to use and was bouncing in and out of like sober living's halfway houses, whatever. And um was just kind of going through my process of like being halfway in, halfway out, you know what I mean? Um, and then ended up there. I left uh I forgot there was I was at a place and it was just like trauma. There were some things going on with the owners and stuff like that, and I was like, dude, I just want out of here. It was really just dumb stuff, and I got there um and was just kind of doing my own thing. Um and then yeah, just just struggling, you know what I mean? Like trying to trying to do my best, but couldn't get on the right foot, you know. You know what I mean? I couldn't get together. Um, so just trying to figure it out, you know. I I'm not a one chip wonder um by any means. I can't tell you how many like the chips I've had, but uh but yeah, just struggling.
SPEAKER_03Well, I'm dude, I'm glad that you uh you found your way. And I'm glad that, you know, this actually catapulted you deeper into it, uh, which and uh you know led to you not using even more. It's amazing how the the idea of helping others um is truly what helps me. And once I start thinking about things like this, thinking about how I can save people's lives, suddenly my life gets saved.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, no, it's definitely uh done a lot of good for my life and helped me out um in so many ways, you know what I mean? Um and it's just it's just good to get back, you know what I mean? Um and remember where you came from.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know the um the drugs have gotten more the drugs have gotten more potent on the streets and got a little crazier through the years, but the overdose rate has decreased in the last two plus years, and it's because of harm reduction 100%. And the more people talking about like Nate is out here spreading the word, educating people, it's kind of cool that there's like a little decrease in it, you know.
SPEAKER_03And Krista, uh, I know that I see that I hear that you've got some busyness going on behind you, but I wanted to get your what what introduced you to Narcant? Because I know you've you've saved a few lives.
SPEAKER_01Um, I've actually never administered it.
SPEAKER_03I thought you what I thought you gave some to Boba.
SPEAKER_01No, I've carried it and I've sort of like harm reduction, it comes in so you guys have described a couple ways, but like when my husband was getting sober a year and a half ago, I had to like let him use from a distance. I remember he was ready to go to treatment, but he had to go one more time. I had to use one more time. I remember standing around the corner with a box of Narcan, checking on him every five seconds to make sure he was alive and if I needed to use it, because a lot of people don't also know that you can't use Narcan on yourself. Can't use it on yourself, you know, and you should always there's like little safety things you can tell people like don't use alone, test your stuff, even though a lot of people are using fentanyl as it is, knowing it. But if you're getting like a pill off the street and don't think there's fentanyl in it, you should test it or your other substances. Um, that when you're getting the free Narcan from like a health department or uh a harm reduction foundation or anywhere, they usually give out free drug strips too that you can test the product as well. And um, but if it wasn't for Narcan, my husband wouldn't be here and my daughter would never have been born and it saved his life, and he wasn't ready for treatment the first time he that he Narcan was used on him, he wasn't ready right away, but a little bit later he was so and now he's 22 months sober. So he's like the the perfect story of Narcan doesn't enable it enables breathing so they can get a second chance, you know. But I like to have it on me just I I'm educating my community, I'm from a resort island, and they don't talk about it at all. They don't talk about the drugs on the street, they don't talk about the resources, and I would I'll go to town council, tell them we need we need to be able to have this readily available, and they're like, What's NORCAD? And I get the opportunity to educate them, and now all the fire departments get a chunk of the opioid settlement fund, they're all like using it appropriately, and um it's just cool seeing it being talked about, it's a conversation now, and now there's like little kiosks where people can get it 24 hours a day for free. All our jails have the free vending machines, so yeah.
SPEAKER_03So Narcan Narcan Nate, Narcan Nate, what do you want to tell the world about what it is you do?
SPEAKER_00Oh man, oh that's a good question. I mean, I I do I do a lot, man. I don't know. Um I don't even know. That's a really good question. I would say that I mean, it I guess that would depend on like what like what uh there's so many routes you can take with that. I would say that I I do what I do uh because it's backed by science um of like decades of science, you know what I mean? Um it prevents death, um, it prolongs life in people, um and it saves us money over time that can be reinvested into other things like public health-wise. Um and I do it so people can have better health outcomes. Um and you know, hopefully nobody has to bury their loved one because no matter no matter what they're doing, you know what I mean, regardless of how bad off they are, like you may have like whatever your relationship is with them, your boundaries, like you still love them. And like you may say you don't, but deep down you do. You know what I mean? Like, I don't care who you are, you know, and you don't want to bury that person, you don't want to see them die. Um, I know everybody has potential to be the best version of themselves. Um, and I think a lot of times we we have to look at like how society pushes us to um do negative things that harm us to cope, you know what I mean? Because a lot of us don't have access to things or taught how to cope or do this or that. Like none of us are taught that. And a lot of us have like childhood trauma that we could never talk about, we didn't never had anyone to talk about, couldn't do anything about. Um, and that carries on to adults. And a lot of us, you know, when we make bad decisions, we were just doing what we knew, the best we knew. You know what I mean? Um nobody wants to get addicted to substances, nobody, you know, wants to overdose, you know what I mean. A lot of it's just like survival, you know what I mean? And that's literally what happens in the branch of survival, like it rewires your neuropathways and survival. But I mean, even even outside of that, you know, some people are are are just using to survive. Like I know people that use and like if they didn't use, they would have probably off themselves, you know what I mean? Or like I don't I don't know if I should have worn that different on stream, but so I apologize. But um, sometimes that's probably life, you know what I mean? Um and so I think I think we have to understand like how society like pushes humans to like make these these choices for for better or worse, um and and have a little bit more grace towards each other, you know what I mean? Because, you know, um that's been my experience. Um you know, so um, but I hope one day I don't have to do this. I hope one day like we can, you know, and people are gonna use substance, you know, to the end of time. But hopefully we can figure out way.
SPEAKER_01Is he freezing up?
SPEAKER_03Uh oh, he froze up on us, but he froze up in like the greatest position ever. He was just like uh you did you froze up like a statue. No, you cannot hear me. I have no idea. I can hear you now. We can hear you now. We can hear you now. I can't I can't hear you.
SPEAKER_00Oh no. I can't hear I I have no idea.
SPEAKER_01Nothing like a Wednesday without a technical difficulty.
SPEAKER_03Just crazy. Uh oh, how about now? Can you hear me now?
SPEAKER_01Can you hear us?
SPEAKER_03This it's like that old uh that old Verizon commercial. Can you hear me now?
SPEAKER_01Megan's not here.
SPEAKER_03Can you hear me now? Can you hear words? We can hear you. You're a thumbs up.
SPEAKER_01I can hear you.
SPEAKER_00I have to leave. I have to you can hear me? Okay, yes, yeah. No, I can't hear you. No, no, nothing. I'm no, no, I can't hear you. I I can't hear you. I'm gonna leave. Listen, I'm gonna leave and come back.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Did you hear that? Okay, you heard that. Okay, you heard that.
SPEAKER_01Johnny, we have to learn sign language now.
SPEAKER_03I'm telling you, we should be talking. We should you should know everything we're saying.
SPEAKER_01Um, and if y'all don't know, there's been some serious storms in the Midwest that is affecting so much Wi-Fi. Johnny is one of them.
SPEAKER_03I am one of them, and it is horrific. I'm telling you, two F1 tornadoes, uh hundred and something mile an hour winds. It's it's just crazy. And but this conversation that we're having with Nate is so important, and it's uh let's try it again.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wait, let's remove his other one. Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03Remove the other one.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay. There we go. Yes, so note to self, I should have put my phone on DD because when you I reset my settings, and but you have to leave the site to get the permissions back. So yeah. So my apologies.
SPEAKER_01It's okay. We have a technical difficulty every Wednesday.
SPEAKER_00So I'm sorry. I usually am pretty good about putting my phone on DD, but I totally forgot. You're good, you're good. Um I forgot where I left off because that was such a distraction.
SPEAKER_03Uh well, you were you were you were answering answering the question, and I want to I want to alter the question a little bit. Let's uh let what do you say to people that are still in active addiction, they're still using. You you meet up with with somebody and you're you're gonna talk to them. What do you tell them?
SPEAKER_00I don't know that I tell them anything, to be honest with you. Like I motivational interview, you know what I mean? Because everybody's needs and wants are are different from this person to that person, you know what I mean? So it's it's like if I'm trying to see what they're fit for and like their readiness, you know what I mean? I'm like, you know, like what's your deal? Like, you know, where are you from? Like, you know, what are you doing out here? Like, you know, and I'm like, well, you ever been in treatment? You know what I mean? Like, what's worked for you? What did you what's not worked for you? You know, like what do you think would work for you? Like, what wouldn't what do you think would make your life better in this moment? Like, what's attainable short term? What's attainable long term? Like, and like how do we get there? And I kind of have them like draw the map for themselves. Um, I'm not real big on telling people what they need to do. I like to let them make that decision for themselves because I know I'm not gonna force them to do anything. Um, so and I know what everybody's gonna do, they're gonna do whatever the hell they want to do. Um, you know what I mean? So that's that that's my approach. Um, and I think it works pretty well. Um, and that for me, that's always allowed me to build pretty solid relationships with people that are struggling.
SPEAKER_03That's amazing. Okay, so secondary question: what do you tell someone uh talking about harm reduction? And I want to get into this the most because what do you tell someone who's never done an opiate, has no clue what an opiate is, uh, and but you want, but you want to they're asking about harm reduction. What do you tell them?
SPEAKER_00Um well, I would tell them, I mean, as far as opioids, you know what I mean? Um you're gonna need to drink water, it's gonna dehydrate you, uh, probably eat some fiber because you're not gonna use the bathroom, so you're gonna need to need to take eat some fiber for sure. Um, because that can cause issues too. Nobody really talks about that, but that can like that can um the constipation from opioid use can like rip your intestines, like and get in your blood, like you can be all bad. No one really talks about that. So that's harm reduction. Um, and then I would be like, um, you know, if you're getting prescribed them, um, you know, still keeping the locks on on you just in case, you know. So if you do take too many, um you have no locks on there. Um, if you're gonna drink alcohol, you that's probably bad because they're both like central nervous system depressed, and so you can like alcohol increases the risk of overdose when you take opioids. So if you're going to drink on opioids, you need to like limit your drinking, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Drink I did not know that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. So alcohol increases um your potential for overdose when you take uh opioids because they're both central nervous system depressants. Oh, yeah. So you should limit your drinking probably uh as best you can. Um, you know, drink a glass of water with every drink you take. Um, and then if you're not getting it, you need to test it. I would probably tell them, like, depending on where you live, there's places where you can take it in. Um, and they can they can test it on an FTIR machine, and then if it looks suspicious, they can always send it off to get um confirmatory testing. Um and then kind of depending on how they're using it, we could go from there. But yeah, that's what I would say.
SPEAKER_03That's just amazing. So I I I think that the people that have never done an opiate, right, and have no clue about a lot of the information you're saying are the people that need to be educated the most on harm reduction. I mean, that's my personal opinion, because I mean, for for instance, you know, you have parties at your house, right? And you're not an opiate user, you've never done opiates like me. I I'm you know, I've never done an opiate, I haven't drank in a long time. Most of the parties I have are with non-drinkers, so I don't even think about it, you know. Um, but it should always kind of be in the back of your mind because anybody at any party could be doing anything behind closed doors. Anybody can go to the bathroom and and spike up, anybody can take a pill. Pills, the worst because they're just so easy. And I mean, you can have two pills in your pocket, nobody knows. You go take one of them and you're out. And um, and this is why the average person needs to know about Narcan, know about harm reduction, know about the uh the implications of not having it on hand because it's just still so simple. Simple to have it, have it and save a life, you know. I think anybody can be a hero.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I agree. I think when the the first um program I worked for, their first uh overdose reversal was an elderly woman that ever got when she dosed and took and she she dosed too soon and she overdosed. So there's just there's things like that, you know what I mean. It's not it can be used for anyone, it's not like what typically people uh have this like idea in their mind of what it looks like, you know. Um, so it's applicable to anyone.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and no one knew the drug use I was doing. I was so secretive. No one knew I was getting pills off the street, and like you know, like and uh you I was the least expected one. They thought I was just this little drunk girl, but I was doing a lot more stuff, so yeah, yeah, somehow people don't know you never know.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's it's in this in tod in today's day and age, you know, where uh you know alcohol and drugs are readily available. Uh you can order pills online and pay with them. That's you know, I went to this the RX summit in Nashville this year, and you know, and they they pointed out a lot of things that I'd never thought about, you know. When you buy a pill online and you buy it through PayPal, I mean there's not even a transaction, you know, that it's all now we have not only are we fighting with the uh with you know the dealers and the and the people making these, but you know, now we're fighting with cryptocurrency and the fact that I mean it's so easy to get anything at any time nowadays, and you know, so I think the the biggest message that's why I think the biggest message for those you know that are listening is for those people that aren't doing it and have to recognize that it's everywhere and all the time, and just need to be diligent.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you yeah, you just never know. I mean, I I I've had so many messages over the years of like people, you know, just like find I'm not gonna get into like a gore story, but just like finding people, you know what I mean, and they didn't know or they think they could have done something. I've had a lot of positive messages too, but I've had like some that are like pretty pretty bad, you know what I mean? And uh, you know, you don't want I I don't want people like I don't want someone's loved one to die and them have to like sit there and been like, could I have done more? You know what I mean? Yeah, I really don't I don't want that weight on somebody, you know what I mean? Um you know, and um people are gonna hide their use, and you know, most people are gonna use um until they're ready. Um, you know what I mean? So the best thing you can do is just like to be prepared, you know. It's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it, you know what I mean? Um, because I can assure you you don't want that weight um on your shoulders and that in something like that, and something bad happens.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, keeping open dialogue, I think, is the is the key. Talking about it, asking questions. If you don't know, you don't know, like ask the questions. Um I always post, I like reshare on Facebook when there's like the free Narcan events in my town, and my sister bumped into someone and they're like, Oh, your sister's the one that's like posting where the free Narcan is, and it's this like really rich neighborhood who's one of the sons overdosed and like you don't know, like these are like rich, very elite people. And they need to be prepared. And then I had a girl reach out to me. She's getting her kid ready for college, needs it, wants to send her with some Narcan and got to point her in the right direction. But I think talking about it, it's uncomfortable. Well, we got to talk about it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01You know?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Yeah. It's uh yeah. I mean, uh, people do drugs, like it doesn't matter what socioeconomic group you're in, like, people do drugs. It's like point blank.
SPEAKER_03So, Nate, how do you get your message out there? This message, the things that we're discussing now, how do you personally get your message out there?
SPEAKER_00Uh, so I don't really post on TikTok that much anymore. It's mainly just IG, um, sometimes on Facebook. Um, I've been working on a documentary for like the last year, so that takes up most of my time. Like, so I don't really um talk a lot on social media anymore. But anything that I do or you want to find is probably on uh Instagram, to be honest with you. Um, I am on TikTok every now and then.
SPEAKER_03We're gonna make sure that we post your socials in the uh in the comments so that anybody who's looking for you can find you. And uh do you go out where do you do you go out and speak at organizations or groups or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00So yeah, I'll speak at some groups. I mean, right now I just uh helped open up a transitional living for men. Uh I serve I'm the vice chair of our opioid abatement council uh for my county. Um and so yeah, I do that. And then I run I still run a program in San Diego, and then I've got a little program here that I run. So, but yeah, no, I do I do I do go out and speak at a few different coalitions locally.
SPEAKER_03And you know, before we before we close up, and uh I've got I've got one or two more questions. I do want to address where people can get Narcan, where they can get more information. Um first off, go on Google and say, where do I get Narcan? And they're gonna point you to these awesome websites where you can through each state there is programs where you'll put in your zip code and it'll tell you exactly where you can get Narcan, and it's everywhere. And I have uh there's a group, and I'm gonna give a little shout out to uh my friend Sounds of Sarah. Sounds of Sarah is run by my friend Patty, and her daughter passed from a an overdose uh of fentanyl. It wasn't overdose, fentanyl, the but what's the other one? Fentanyl poisoning. Fentanyl poisoning. So her daughter died, so she opened Sounds of Sarah, and now she distributes Narcan, and anybody who goes to Sounds of Sarah office can get Narcan. She's I've uh she's put a the can be what's the the the box outside of the fire station, like a kiosk, like an old newspaper bot like box, yes, and it's uh it's just narcan in there, and you go for free and you click the thing and it drops down like you're like you're getting your pop tarts out of the vending.
SPEAKER_01Oh, like the vending machine.
SPEAKER_03The vending machine, that's the word I was looking for. Um, so Narcan is everywhere. Look for it, look for it. Don't play ignorant. It's it's all out there. If you wanted to go find a vacation, you'd go on to Google real fast and say, Where should I go on vacation? Now say I went, I need Narcan to save lives. People, there's a lot of websites out there, and they're going to help you. Don't play dumb. Don't play dumb. It's out there. That's fine. That's my public service announcement for the for the year. Don't play dumb.
SPEAKER_01They need to sponsor you, Johnny.
SPEAKER_03Uh, so narc and narc and nate. I love that name. I love that name. It's catchy. I wish I had a name like that.
SPEAKER_01Um, I get that though. With the soap party, I get the narc and nate.
SPEAKER_03We uh we don't have a lot of kids that are on that are gonna listen to this, right? You know, we're 18 plus, we taught, we're talking to adults. How do adults okay? This is the question. This is the last question, and this is kind of the big one. As parents, as people who have kids in their lives, how do we talk to kids about the harm reduction?
SPEAKER_00You just gotta be honest with them, you gotta talk to them like they're adults, you know what I mean? Um, so like if you so I'm gonna take it back to Dare. If you look at Dare and the Dare program, it had worse outcomes. Um, you know what I mean? And but and basically they told kids like a bunch of bullshit, you know what I mean? That wasn't true to try to scare them out of it. Um so I think you gotta, I mean, depending on like you you have to read the room, you've got to do, you know, and and choose your context. Um, but I think you got to be honest with them. Um, I think that if they're a teenager, you need to talk to them like an adult, like straight up. Like, because once your kid realizes you lied to them, they're gonna think everything you said is bullshit. You know, and kids are smart, they're so smart, like they're smart, they're smart, and they're smarter than you think they are, and so they don't appreciate it when you talk down to them or like you talk to them like they're stupid, it's just gonna piss them off and they're not gonna listen to anything you say. So you need to talk to them. And I and I think it's like you got to have open conversations with them and like um have some sort of like open communication and dialogue. And I think but but all that should have started like years ago, especially if they're a teenager. Like you should have been working on that like years ago as a parent. Um, you know, and you just gotta be real with them. I think you got to be honest about your with your your stuff too, you know what I mean? Like, don't lie to them about like your past choices or anything like that. Been like, I did this, I I know, you know, and then you got to take it from there, you know what I mean? Um and just tell them, like, you know, if you do this, like there could be consequences to that, you know what I mean? And like, but it's like, how do you feel, you know, I'm not gonna tell anybody anybody how to parent. Um, but I think being like understanding that kids are gonna like make mistakes, but how do you prevent them from like not coming back from the mistake? You know what I mean? Like, you know, like do you want your kid? I guess it depends on like how do you want your kid to communicate with you? Do you want your kid to tell you that they made a bad decision or do you want their your kid to hide it from you because of like how you're gonna react to that? You know what I mean? So I mean, I guess that's really up to the parent, but you know, I I'm just honest with them. Um, there's no judgment, and obviously, like these are usually not my kids, but um, I think you got to be understanding, and it's like, do I want them to tell me or do I want them to hide it? You know what I mean? So that's really you know what I mean. You know what I mean? So if you're probably being a little rough on them and stuff like that, they're probably gonna do it anyway, despite you and not tell you, and then you know, um, so it you really got to figure out like what works with your kid and like how will they have like open dialogue with me for good and bad, you know what I mean?
SPEAKER_01Meet them where they're at.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, you yeah, yeah. So yeah, and and if your kid is like at that point to like they're they are engaging in substance use that like whatever spectrum on the level, you're gonna have to be honest with them because they're gonna do it regardless. If they're gonna get it regardless, if people get if people get dope in prison all day, your kid's gonna get dope. Like, so I hate to break it to you. So, you know what I mean? That's just the reality of it. So it's like, you know, um open communication as a parent, and that's the most important thing. Um, I would say parents think that consequences are, and I'm not saying there shouldn't be consequences, but I don't think the consequence that you want is your kid not telling you when something bad happens either. Yeah. Because your kid's gonna use no matter what, you know, if if they're like on like wherever that is, you know what I mean? Um, and I know that's really easy for me to say, but it's also like I mean, um, you know, my dad was a cop and I used drugs all the time, so um, I know that from experience.
SPEAKER_03So dude, that's a great answer, and you're absolutely right. Be upfront, be honest. Kids are smart, they know what you're talking about way before you think they know what you know what they're talking about. And uh so so how do we so all these my biggest thing is the is that kids are prescribed so many things, right? They're prescribed Adderall, and then they're prescribed Adderall from seven years old until they're 18, and suddenly they're not prescribed anymore, but they still want that Adderall. What are they gonna do? They're gonna go to the streets. You know, I think how do we get this into the doctors? How do we get this into legislation? How do we get this into the pharmacies? How do we get this into the drug makers? Where if you do a prescription for Adderall, why not give an Arcan too? If you give a prescription for Xanax, why not give an Arcan too? If you give a prescription, because and while these might be good and the Adderall might not be laced with anything, you never know what that's going to open the door to. Once that introduction is made, the potential is is much higher for them to do other things later on. Um, how do we get in front of the legislations?
SPEAKER_00So legislators have open sessions for open testimonies when they're talking about law. So you would really want to get in front of like you need to find orgs that have already done it and um that have gone and provided testimony for that. Usually, like local local coalitions um in your community are probably um gonna be the ones that have done that, or if they're going to like office day at uh wherever your your state capital is office day, you can go there and bring your concerns to your representatives. Um that's really the best way because if you try to figure all that all that out by yourself, like not having any sweat equity in the game, you are gonna be spending a lot of time trying to figure that out. So you need to find people that have done it before you even learn from them. Otherwise, you're gonna be spending a lot of time figuring it out. Um, so usually like I would find like recovery, like the oldest recovery group or people that have like sweat equity in the game, like people that you see all the time on flyers, people that are constantly like hosting things through the community, like constantly doing things, those are the people that you want to talk to to to figure out how to do that because they're probably already doing it, to be honest with you, um, to get in front of those people. And then I mean if you just talk to your doctors and things like that, but a lot of that stuff is a lot of that stuff is like doctors, everything they do is like, you know, it c it comes right down from like the CDC and the prescribing guidelines and things like that. Like, you know what I mean? Like the CDC host things and like the in the so it's like CDC, the DEA, like all those things like come down from like um the DEA controls like how much stuff is manufactured, which controls like how much we can give out and things of that nature. So um when they when when the DEA like hosts like um they host open comments for things, so it's good to like organize so you're not just one person um and collectively like send in comments for that because that's why telehealth has stayed around for so long. Telehealth was only supposed to be during like COVID, um, and then it was so successful that well, they were gonna cut it away, and then they got like 200-300,000 comments on it, and they were like, Well, shit, we need to like um keep this going because people are really pissed off. And we had the evidence to prove that it needed to stay around. So, um, so organizing, um, organizing is the best way instead of kind of running around with you know your head like a chicken, but it's head cut off. Um, so that's how you want to do that.
SPEAKER_03It's so funny, Nate, when uh when me and Chris have been doing this for a long time now, and whenever I ask a good question, she doesn't she'll never uh tell me I said a good ask a good question. She just goes to the case.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's a good question.
SPEAKER_03I know, I know, because you did this. And that was it. That's all I really like.
SPEAKER_01I like what he was saying. I agreed 100%. And um there's a local coalition here that I'm kind of with, and it's really cool like getting involved with them. They send out a like detailed of how many overdoses of what they did, how many Narcans they handed out, how many people went to each facility. Like it's so broken down, and they're they're making moves. But I never thought to to talk to them about that. I just know people. I get I like I'm friends with the attorney general, he's about to be governor. Um, I'm friends with the new sheriff, like I'm I'm in, so I'm making my way around. But that's really smart and organized. I like that suggestion.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you gotta be organized if you're doing this. If you're just doing this off the whim, you're gonna get nowhere. You're gonna waste a lot of time.
SPEAKER_03Well, dude, this has been so awesome, Nate. And I want to thank you for coming and talking with us and putting all this information out there. And we're gonna, if anybody has any questions, any comments, if they want to talk about harm reduction, please reach out to Nate, you know, uh, send a message, uh, and and he'll get back with you. And this is an important topic, and I'm really glad we had this uh this talk. I'm really glad we were able to get a lot of these things out there. So Nate, I can't uh I can't thank you enough for for coming and sharing with us today.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, thank you. Yeah, thanks for having me. I'm glad we could do this talk.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's overdose awareness month. So this is an important conversation.
SPEAKER_03Oh, it's very important, yeah. Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_01Year round.
SPEAKER_03Year round is always important. So thank you everybody for being here. Thank you again, Nate, and we will see you next week.