Mental health expert offers advice after his own son battles depression, anxiety & addiction

As an experienced mental health nurse practitioner, John Lally has extensive knowledge of mental health and substance use disorder issues. Yet, when his son confronted the challenges of anxiety, depression, and addiction, John discovered the profound difficulty of navigating such struggles.

In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, John not only shares his difficult personal journey and what he wishes he would have done differently, but he also offers advice to parents going through similar struggles. Discover how he turned his pain into a mission to support others battling mental health issues and addiction. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] John Lally: Today you matter, you know, when you're struggling and you feel like no one cares and you don't care about yourself and life feels hopeless, I want them to hear, no, you matter to someone. 

[00:00:10] Angela Kennecke: As an experienced mental health nurse practitioner, John Lally has extensive training in mental health and substance use disorder issues.

However, when his own son began grappling with anxiety, depression, and addiction, John simply felt unprepared.

[00:00:33] John Lally: In feeling so inadequate as a father, as a professional, that this was happening to my oldest son, I didn't react very well initially. I was very angry with him. I was disappointed with him. I knew what he needed to do, but he didn't do it. And I would just get frustrated and angry in the beginning, which compounded the problem.

There was a word for that, we call it hostile enabling. 

[00:00:55] Angela Kennecke: Since then, John has gained insight into navigating the complexities of substance use disorder. In this episode of Grieving Out Loud, John not only shares his difficult personal journey, but also offers advice to parents going through similar struggles.

Discover how he turned his pain into a mission to support others battling mental health conditions and addiction. 

[00:01:18] John Lally: Both my sons developed anxiety problems and low self esteem because of that. They felt different. They felt other no matter what we did. They internalized that themselves because of their emotional struggles that somehow they were less than others.

I'm Angela 

[00:01:35] Angela Kennecke: Kenecke.

This is Grieving Out Loud. We hope you find this conversation helpful as America battles a mental health crisis coupled with the deadliest drug epidemic in U. S. history.

Well, John, I'd like to welcome you to Grieving Out Loud. I saw you briefly when we were both in Washington, D. C. for International Overdose Awareness Day, and I really appreciate getting the chance to connect with you. 

[00:02:09] John Lally: Thank you, Angela. I'm glad for the opportunity. I'll speak whenever I can. Anyone that'll listen.

That's 

[00:02:14] Angela Kennecke: how I feel, too. Anybody that will listen, we'll get the word out, right? Because we're like minded in that way. Because we've both been through, uh, so much. similar tragedy. What I find so interesting about you, your family, your life is your background because you have a medical background, a psychiatry background.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your history. Well, 

[00:02:34] John Lally: thank you, Angela. Yes, I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner, though I'm retired from my clinical work. I've been in nursing for almost 40 years, I guess, most of that in psychiatry. I've worked in a lot of community clinical agencies, working with people with severe mental illness, like schizophrenia and things, and supporting them in their homes and the community.

I've worked in other clinics that we worked a lot with people with addiction as well. For the last 12 years, I had a private practice of my own working mostly with people with mental health issues. But as we all know, a good percentage of them are also struggling with substance use. Let's 

[00:03:13] Angela Kennecke: take just a second to talk about that because I've said this before on the podcast.

It's kind of like the chicken and the egg. Did the mental health issues I 

[00:03:33] John Lally: agree. It can happen either way. Probably more of the time it starts with mental health issues. That certainly was my son, Tim's story. He, developed a severe anxiety problem with panic attacks in high school. Up until then, there didn't seem to be any problems.

He was an honor student, he played sports, he had lots of friends. But when that depression and anxiety hit him, it hit him like a, like a rock, and he had mornings where he just couldn't get out of bed some mornings. He says, Dad, I just can't do this. I can't manage it. He'd be crying and shaking, and the anxiety was so bad.

And we, like, Most parents know you take that seriously. We got help for him. We found therapists, we found psychiatrists to try different medications for him, but nothing really worked well. We felt a little bit better sometimes where we'd have side effect from the medications. The therapy wasn't particularly helpful.

[00:04:29] Angela Kennecke: Then Tim did something that helped very temporarily. A coworker offered him an OxyContin, a highly addictive prescription painkiller, which provided a powerful, but fleeting sense of relief. 

[00:04:44] John Lally: And he told me later, Dad, I felt calm for the first time in years. I felt like I could manage my life. And that was so seductive for him.

Can you imagine if the years are just never having a good day to suddenly I feel good. I feel in control But as we know what happens with these kind of drugs one pill leads to two pills, then it's every day I need it I can't get through the day without it And then the tolerance builds up and he's taking more and more and then he develops a full blown addiction Where his whole day is spent either using the drugs or figuring out how I'm going to get him again It just took over his life.

[00:05:18] Angela Kennecke: What strikes me is when He was struck with these panic attacks and this depression and so many people suffer from anxiety and depression now, especially young people. But what strikes me, he's in high school and he couldn't really have had a more perfect parent to help him navigate this road, right?

Because most parents who are dealing with this don't have any idea what to do. And we're sort of fumbling around trying to figure out what's going on, who do we turn to, how do we fix this problem, if it can be fixed, right? And I just think like you had so much knowledge already going into this. It's like you were prepared for it.

[00:05:56] John Lally: You might think so. I was not prepared for this. I was just flabbergasted. I couldn't imagine how this could happen in my family. My wife is also a medic. She's a pediatric nurse. So with two medical people in a family, you would have thought we would have seen this coming and would have prevented it. That was part of my own struggle is my guilt and my feeling kind of impotent that how did I miss this?

How could I let this happen in my family to someone I love? I should have known better I should have known what to do I should have been able to make him better and I struggled with that a lot and that affected how I reacted to his active addiction Do 

[00:06:35] Angela Kennecke: you still think that way or have you come to understand it differently 

[00:06:41] John Lally: now?

I do understand it much differently, but I've come to accept that I did the best I could at the time. Things were very different when you think from a clinical point of view or from the point of view of a parent, a personal point of view. It clouded my thinking back then. In feeling so inadequate as a father, as a professional, that this was happening to my oldest son, I didn't react very well initially.

I was very angry with him. I was disappointed with him. I knew what he needed to do, but he didn't do it. And I would just get frustrated and angry in the beginning, which compounded the problem. You know, there's a word for that. We call it hostile enabling, which is really just my attitude. I dealt with him with much anger.

I had trouble in the beginning finding my compassion for him. It was just about anger and frustration. And he internalized that, you know, there's enough of a stigma already. But he would say, Dad, you know, I feel like a loser. I feel like I'm just a disappointment and I would say, well, Tim, you know what you need to do?

Why aren't you doing it? I lost my perspective. I regret that to this day, but I try to be compassionate with myself as I do with others that I did the best I could at the moment. And that even in my position, we're struggling, we're grasping straws about what to do and trying different things. 

[00:08:01] Angela Kennecke: Right. And because there are no really easy compact answers, right?

And I think about, like, even myself, I was a journalist, you know, I knew how to research, I knew how to find answers, and I couldn't find the right answers for my daughter in those teenage years when I was struggling with her behavior. And then I talked to judges. police chiefs, sheriff's deputies who've had kids do the same exact things or deal with the same issues.

And they felt the same way. Like, how can this happen in my family? How can this happen to me? I'm the one out there fighting the drugs, you know, in the case of law enforcement or doctors or lawyers, you name it, prosecutors. I mean, it's happened in so many families where you would think those parents.

tools.

In fact, I'm grie we've interviewed everyo

[00:08:58] Nadia Davis: It was, have your energy drink, put your heels and your suit on, go give the inspirational speech, and have a drink to calm the nerves, ironically, and everything will be okay. 

[00:09:13] Angela Kennecke: That was Nadia Davis, a prominent lawyer and California public figure who captured national headlines when she battled addiction and also became the target of blackmail involving a sex tape.

[00:09:26] Nadia Davis: I do know now that alcoholic drinking began during that time in my life, in my late 20s. To manage what I did not know was my mind separating me from my truth. 

[00:09:39] Angela Kennecke: We've also interviewed other addiction specialists who, despite their expertise, have personally faced the challenges of having children with substance use disorder.

Patti Stovall is a professional counselor specializing in grief and addiction. She knows that as parents, our own understanding may not be enough to protect our children from the struggles of drug or alcohol abuse. With you knowing so much about addiction, I'm sure that you used all the tactics you could to try to change her course.

[00:10:12] Patty Stovall: Everything. Everything. Tell me about 

[00:10:15] Angela Kennecke: some of the things that you tried that you thought should work. 

[00:10:18] Patty Stovall: Arguing? Did a lot of arguing with her, pleading. We sought out counseling. We tried even treatment. She even wanted to do treatment. And, you know, recovery was part of our family. So she understood what recovery was.

Her grandmother, you know, had a treatment center herself. Grandma was doing treatment. and therapy with other people and also my brother was recovering, so there was a lot of recovery happening in the family, so she understood 

[00:10:52] Angela Kennecke: what recovery was. Meanwhile, John believes his background did help in some ways.

As his son navigated the difficult and dark road of addiction.

[00:11:06] John Lally: In that, when Tim was in treatment, he went through treatment at least a couple of different times. He got into a treatment center, and you may know, as many people know, how difficult that can be. It was quite a process just trying to find a place where he could get some help. But I had to push for family involvement.

I had to insist that my wife and I be part of the treatment team. be in there talking. They just didn't do that at the time back in 2015. You know, it's not that long ago, but we've come a long way since then. And I've come a long way since then. But back then I was just kind of insisting that we'd be part of the team.

And you know what? I regret, I trusted the treatment team a little bit more than I should have, that they knew what they were doing because I was afraid I was losing my objectivity being that this is my son. And it was so emotional for me. And I relied on them a little too much, and I learned a lot from that, because actually I have another son now, who was at the Overdose Awareness Day event with me, Brendan, who's been in recovery now for almost six years, and I, I was very different with him from day one.

And that might be partly, at least some influence on why he's doing so well today. I learned a lot the hard way. So 

[00:12:20] Angela Kennecke: you have another child, though, who suffers from substance use disorder. Do you think it's genetic? Do you think it's environment? I mean, what do you think? 

[00:12:29] John Lally: You know, I think about that all the time.

Scientifically, there is a genetic component, but what they say is maybe about 30 percent of the risk can come from genetics. A lot more comes from environment and situation. I look back at my own family, on both sides, my wife and I, we don't see a history of addiction anywhere, other than cigarettes. Even alcohol, I don't see alcohol problems on the family.

So, that was not a big guess for me that, wow, it has to be run in the family. But both my sons Developed anxiety problems and low self esteem because of that. They felt different. They felt other no matter what we did. They internalized that themselves because of their emotional struggles. That somehow they were less than others.

And I've come to understand and I can have conversations with my son Brendan now about what he's learned about himself through therapy. And that he felt kind of something inside of him felt different like he didn't fit in and he was looking for some kind of comfort that couldn't find any other way.

So I think certainly it's another component, but I think more of it can come from the environment, which is not just a home environment as we know. His interactions with his peers, how he fits in with his peers, how he fits in at school, especially as they approach adolescence, that can sometimes have a stronger impact.

than the home environment because that's the group they're looking to fit in with. I think 

[00:13:50] Angela Kennecke: parents often get blamed. They often want to blame themselves. Either, either the blame is external or internal, right? And I think in both of those cases, it's often wrong because you're right. Once they are past age 12, 13, you know, it's those external influences.

It's the peers, it's the environment, it's the access to the drugs. Right. 

[00:14:16] John Lally: I mean, Tim certainly had a vulnerability due to his anxiety and depression, and that made him more vulnerable to, like I said, the access. Someone happened to give him a pill one day, and that started his journey. 

[00:14:27] Angela Kennecke: How old was he when he had that first OxyContin?

[00:14:30] John Lally: He was probably about 18.

[00:14:36] Angela Kennecke: Little did Tim know, experimenting with the first OxyContin, would plunge him into a decade long battle with substance use disorder. At first, John says his son tried to hide his addiction from his family. 

[00:14:51] John Lally: He hid it very well. I chalked it up to his anxiety and depression, because we had him in regular, like, mental health day programs, an intensive outpatient, and it took a while before his therapist convinced him that he really should be open about his substance abuse.

They always suspected it. But I didn't know that for sure in the beginning. 

[00:15:09] Angela Kennecke: Wow. And that amazes me. If he could hide it from you, somebody who was helping people with addictions, right? 

[00:15:15] John Lally: Right. You know, that's one thing, again, that I talk about. I try to let people know that I don't blame parents for anything.

Every parent's doing the best they can. And I've learned so much from my own experience that I lost my objectivity. And I let my frustration and my guilt come out as anger. And that wasn't the best attitude for him. I've learned so much about myself and about how to help 

[00:15:39] Angela Kennecke: people. And I didn't know my daughter was using heroin.

We knew there was an issue and we knew something was wrong. And we were three days away from holding an intervention. Now, when I told her story nationally, I had a national newscaster ask me, How could you not know? And I thought it was an interesting question. And I said, well, because she hid it well. And then I had a police detective tell me.

Parents are the last to know because I always say to these kids when I talk to kids around the nation You know, we never want to disappoint our parents. We never want to let our parents down. And I think that has a lot to do with the hiding as well. You know, 

[00:16:16] John Lally: Angela, I think that's true. But I think there's another part of it that we typically call denial.

You know, I couldn't imagine that could happen in my family. I can't imagine that's what it is. So it must be something else. It must be just as depression, just as anxiety. Because part of me just didn't want to go there. 

[00:16:33] Angela Kennecke: Yeah, you're accurate. I think that's true as well. So I think it's a number of these factors, right?

And so then when you discover, you discover how bad the problem is, obviously you did everything in your power that you could at the time. We did. 

[00:16:46] John Lally: We certainly did. 

[00:16:47] Angela Kennecke: And you mentioned he had gone through treatment a couple of times. Was there ever a time where you thought, we're in the clear, this problem is behind 

[00:16:56] John Lally: us?

I did. There was a couple of times I thought that when he would come out of treatment say dad my head feels so clear I like this. I feel good and I thought okay. I think we got a handle on this now All he's got to do is follow up with maybe the intensive outpatient program and maybe find a good therapist and even tried Suboxone to help him.

So I thought we got a good plan here. You know, maybe we're out of the woods.

[00:17:25] Angela Kennecke: Unfortunately, relapse is common, especially with opioid addiction. Sadly, studies indicate that 80 to 95 percent of people relapse. within the first year. Tim's final relapse happened when he was 29, just a few days shy of his 30th birthday. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope Memorial website called More Than Just a Number.

They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, and friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on MoreThanJustANumber. 

[00:18:09] John Lally: org

Tim had never lived on his own. He'd always been home with us because of his mental health and his addiction issues. He just couldn't get it together. But after this treatment program, he wanted to live in a sober house for a while. And I have my reservations about that, but he liked the idea. I'm finally going to be independent, Dad.

I'm going to make this work. I'm going to learn to grow up and take care of myself. So he did, and he seemed to be doing well in this sober home for about three weeks. And then all of a sudden we get this call on a Monday morning that he's in the emergency room.

[00:18:50] Angela Kennecke: Tim suffered cardiac arrest after overdosing on heroin. Unfortunately, this story is becoming all too common. Recent research we've reported on on our website, emilyshope. charity, finds that the number of drug overdose related cardiac arrests more than doubled from 2015.

[00:19:14] John Lally: And I was like, Flabbergasted what's going on? We just talked to him yesterday. He thought it sounded like he was doing well. It was in the sober house. Well, we come to find out that three days before this, he was thrown out of the sober house. They were going to do a year and he admitted that he'd used a Percocet.

So they threw him out on the street and they didn't notify us. They didn't notify anybody. And it was the stigma. He was too ashamed and embarrassed to tell us that he had relapsed. So he didn't come home yet. Went to live with a guy who we used to buy drugs from in our hometown, and the guy let him stay in the basement for a few days, and that's where he, he overdosed.

Now we know for a lot of people, when they're in treatment, when they're abstinent for a while, you lose their tolerance. And we see that happen a lot. So if they, if they overdose within those first couple of weeks, they think they can use the same amount of drugs they were using before they went into treatment.

And it's an overdose. They just can't tolerate it. And I think that's what happened to Tim. He just used more than he thought he could tolerate. We knew it wasn't intentional because Two hours before he overdosed, he went online and paid his auto insurance. No one does that if they're planning on ending their life.

No. So we know it was an accidental overdose, but I think he just didn't realize he didn't have the tolerance. And it was just too 

[00:20:33] Angela Kennecke: much. That's incredibly sad. So he was taken to the emergency room. Did he die in the hospital 

[00:20:39] John Lally: then? Yeah, well, you know, we got that call. We went to the local hospital here, which is just a small community hospital.

And he was unresponsive. He was on a ventilator. They were able to shock his heart back at that point. where he was living in the basement there and they got his heart started and a little bit of a blood pressure with some heavy medications, but he never regained consciousness. So we went to the local hospital, they transferred him to a larger hospital here in Hartford, Connecticut, where they did a CAT scan and told us that he had significant brain anoxia.

So, in effect, he was what we call brain death. He had gone too long without oxygen, but they said, you know, he's an otherwise healthy young man. Let's give him some time and see if we see some signs of recovery. Sometimes there could be some brain swelling that can dissipate over the next day or two and we can see an improvement.

Well, you know, we sat for him for 36 hours in the intensive care unit, but my wife and I, both being medical people, knew that we could see signs that it was actually getting worse. There was no way this was going to get better. And we had a talk with the specialist there and they said, this is not going to get better.

So we had to make the worst decision of our lives. What do we do? Do we take him off the ventilator and let him go? Or do we let him live? What people say as a vegetable, you have no knowledge he's even alive for who knows how long in a nursing home. And we decided that's not what he wanted. So my wife and I and my other son, Brendan, sat down and made that decision.

You know, it's Toughest decision, you know, you're bringing your kids into the world. To let them go like that was, it's just a hard thing to live with, even today. Even though I'm pretty sure we did the right thing. You just always have that little bit of doubt, you know. If we hadn't done that, maybe he'd be in a bed somewhere in a nursery.

I'm like, at least go talk to him and be with him these days. We let him go. Yeah. I just, as a father, it's a moment I won't forget. They took him off the ventilator. It took a little over five minutes and I have my head on his chest. I wanted to listen to his heartbeat. I wanted to hear and be with him at that last beat.

And I was able to hear his heart slow down and be with him as he left and the three of us were there and it was just a moment that's, it's etched in my heart and in my brain. I can, I can re experience it so easily. 

I'm 

[00:22:58] Angela Kennecke: so incredibly sorry. And I, you know, I often think, because by the time I got to my, Daughter, there were EMTs working on her trying to revive her and they could not.

So I stayed with her dead body. You know, I often think maybe it would've been better if she would've been, but then neither way, I mean, either way, it's just the worst. It's, and having to make, I didn't have to, the decision was made for me. Right. I didn't have to make any decision. Mm-Hmm. . And I imagine that has to be incredibly difficult and painful 

[00:23:32] John Lally: forever.

Yeah. And, you know, on the other side of it, there's someone I know locally here who lost her 19 year old daughter in a similar way. They elected to let her live. She's been in a nursing home now for eight years, totally unresponsive, doesn't know anybody's there with her, requires 24 hour nursing care. And the mom, to this day, wonders whether she did the right thing.

I mean, she likes that she can go and hold her daughter's hand and talk to her. But she'll never have any real interaction to her and, you know, that's a tough way to live her rest of her life is around going, you know, four times a week, driving an hour to spend time with her, her daughter, who doesn't even know she's there.

There's no good options at that point. 

[00:24:17] Angela Kennecke: No, that makes me incredibly sad. And I understand, I understand why someone would make either choice, right? Right. It does seem like a futile choice to keep someone alive who is never going to regain consciousness. That 

[00:24:32] John Lally: was certainly our feelings, yeah.

[00:24:37] Angela Kennecke: No matter which way you look at it, there's just an immense wave of grief. John and his family decided to deal with it by turning their pain into purpose. They launched a non profit called Today I Matter, with the goal of making a dent in the stigma surrounding mental health and addiction, and promoting physical, emotional,

[00:24:59] John Lally: It grew out of my own need to make some sense out of Tim's struggle. You know, a young man at 29, otherwise the prime of his life to lose his life and never experience, you know, marriage or children or really living independently. I couldn't think any justification in the universe of why that should happen.

So I felt like I had to create something myself. I had to create something positive to give his life more meaning so that maybe some larger purpose would come out of it. and because I had the professional experience as well, I had some knowledge there and some experience in teaching and things and therapy.

And I thought, you know, I'm going to try to see if I can use my experience to help other people who are struggling or may be struggling. You know, it's just, we're a very small family organization. I wanted to use my son's Tim's name and. as an acronym, right from day one, because I wanted him to be with me all the time.

And so we sat and we thought, I like the slogan, Today I Matter. Initially it was just kind of a clever play on his words, but it's come to mean so much when we work with people, especially people who are struggling, to give that message. Today you matter. You know, when you're struggling and you feel like no one cares and you don't care about yourself and life feels hopeless, I want them to hear, no, you matter to someone.

I may not even know you personally, but I care about you as a human being and you do matter. And then all of us can make a difference on any given day in someone's life.

[00:26:31] Angela Kennecke: To make a difference with Today I Matter, John speaks to groups ranging from Boy Scouts to medical professionals. He also offers training on how to use naloxone. a medication that can reverse opioid overdose. He also gives out scholarships in Tim's name.

[00:26:55] John Lally: And then what we're known most for, we have what we call our memorial poster project. We have two by three foot posters with photos of people that we've lost to substance use. And on these posters it has their name and the town that they're from. Right now, we have people from 36 different states around the country.

And on the poster, it has two words that describe the person. We asked the family to give us two words. My son Tim says artist and musician. We have carpenters, we have fishermen, we have writers and poets. Otherwise, people describe them as compassionate and lovely. Because we want to describe the person they were.

Nowhere does it say addict. Because they were so much more than that. So we travel around mostly to Northeast, but we've been to DC twice with setting things up on the National Mall. We now have 635 of these posters. 

[00:27:45] Angela Kennecke: We're very like minded. First of all, I always say I wanted to create meaning from a meaningless death.

Like my daughter's death seems so meaningless, right? So I wanted to create meaning. And then we started a memorial website called More Than Just a Number. because we say on there, they were our children, our brothers, our sisters, our aunts, our uncles. And we want to give families a chance to memorialize that person, show a picture of them smiling, talk about who they were, you know, what they liked, what they did, not just about their, they can talk about their substance use disorder if they wish to, but it's for anyone who has overdosed fentanyl poisoning.

So we just want people to be remembered. their names and their beautiful faces and who they were to be out there because it's so important that they are more than just a statistic. 

[00:28:33] John Lally: So important. And families, our biggest fear is that they'll be forgotten. And this is one way to prove they'll never be forgotten.

We exhibited our memorial up in Boston a couple years ago, and a woman who was there with her daughter's poster, actually this one was her son, and she came up to me and said, you know, my son Joey, he struggled a lot. And everybody thought he was going to go nowhere in his life. But his grandfather said to him one day, Joey, don't believe them.

You're going to have an impact someday. And it hit me as he was standing there with his poster. Joey's having an impact today by being present in that memorial project. He's making a statement. I will not be forgotten. I matter. And trying to break the stigma, that's our motto, is really trying to break the stigma, like a lot of people do.

But this project, when you look into these faces, and you see your friends and your family and your loved ones, and it almost makes you feel compassionate. You know, we hear these statements, they get what they deserve, they're a druggie, why should I care about them? Well, because they're human beings, look at them.

They look just like your family, because it could be your family. 

[00:29:41] Angela Kennecke: it could certainly be anyone's family. And then I think also when I see these beautiful faces, because we have a banner too with these, all these young people, beautiful faces. And I think you know, of all the lost potential to the world.

That's what I really think about. The lost artwork or plays, books, businesses, the entrepreneurs that we could have had. And I just think it's incredibly tragic. And we need to look at them as people, not as somebody who is just like you said, another druggie. There are worse names than druggie. We all know that.

And I don't care to ever repeat those because they should never be used to describe any human being. You know, it was somebody's child. Someone cared about that person and it just should never have happened.

Senseless deaths that are leaving a path of devastation across the U. S. With more than 112, 000 Americans dying from drug overdoses, and a majority of those are fentanyl poisonings in the last 12 months, John encourages grieving families to not be afraid to reach out for help themselves. 

[00:30:48] John Lally: To be compassionate with yourself.

I didn't deal as well in the beginning with this as I wish I did looking backwards now. Though I was doing the best I can at the moment, but be compassionate yourself and don't compare your grief to anybody else's. There's a million different ways to feel grief and to experience grief and it can change from moment to moment.

You know, so don't say, well, this person's doing this, why am I not doing that, or why am I not as good as they look? So don't compare yourself, number one. And number two, find someone that you can talk about it with. Talking with other people in a similar experience can really be helpful. Just even verbalize what we're going through and normalize what we're going through.

It's really necessary, I think. Right. 

[00:31:30] Angela Kennecke: Because you can think like this isn't normal or how I'm feeling or, and then you'll talk to someone who's been through the same thing and, oh yeah, I did that too, or I felt that way as well. And I think there's great comfort in that. 

[00:31:42] John Lally: And as you've said, educate yourself.

Educate yourself. There's a lot more information out there. The last five years we've learned so much about the brain and addiction and treatment. The more you can educate yourself, the better we can be as advocates. And like I said, not everyone is like you and I that has to be active. That's the way I'm dealing with my grief, by being active.

That's not everybody's style, but for some people that can really help. Yes. 

[00:32:08] Angela Kennecke: I think that's why you see so many of us now. There seems like there's a lot more, in the last five years, there are many more charities than there were when I started or certainly when you started. And that's okay. Some people should do activism work and some people don't need to, you know, maybe they just want to do small things to honor their child.

Right. And that's okay too. 

[00:32:27] John Lally: Right. We're not about judging anyone. And their grief or whatever they do, good for them. If they can find a way that gives some peace in their heart, then that's a good thing. 

[00:32:37] Angela Kennecke: That is a great thing. Thank you so much, John. I 

[00:32:39] John Lally: appreciate it. You're welcome. Thank you for having me here, Angela.

You take care.

[00:32:45] Angela Kennecke: I want to thank you for spending your time with us. With 48 million Americans grappling with substance use disorder, our goal is to raise awareness. About addiction and mental health issues. By doing so, we hope to prevent senseless deaths and connect those in need with help. You can check out our website, Emily's Hope Charity to find resources and ways for you to get involved.

You'll also find other podcast episodes, the latest news headlines surrounding substance use disorder and illicit drugs, along with my blog. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wundenberg King and Anna Fey.