Grieving Out Loud: A Mother Coping with Loss in the Opioid Epidemic

32-year-old Tiffany Thoelke was a rebellious teen who started using meth in 8th grade. A caring teacher helped change the course of her life. Then a tragic personal loss involving mental health and addiction propelled her into a new arena, that of helping to educate young people and develop social and emotional learning curriculum in schools. Now she’s completing her degree in addiction studies an...

Jon Sommervold grew up with high-achieving, affluent parents, but that didn’t protect him from becoming a victim of sexual abuse. He turned to alcohol at a young age to cope with trauma and eventually developed a $1,000 a day cocaine habit. Yet, Jon excelled in school and went on to be successful in the finance world. Still, his life was a mess and he failed to find true recovery after entering tr...

After suffering a miscarriage, Shauna Domalain dealt with her own grief and heartache, but as a spiritual medium, Shauna says she has connected with the son she lost and that has given her hope. Shauna believes we can all connect with our children in Heaven if we are open to it. She believes communication with the children we lost can lead to healing and a renewed purpose in life. She says her psy...

The short film, STRUNG, is picking up plenty of awards at film festivals all over the world. It deals with the tough issue of addiction.  Lost in the forest of his own mind, the main character, Eric must rely on the survival skills of an enigmatic nine-year-old boy to help him battle vicious withdrawals and self-deprivation to catalyze change within his family's cycle of addiction. The filmma...

Diane Eide lost her 25-year-old son, Trace, in April of 2021 to a methamphetamine overdose. While they are not as common as opioid, and specifically fentanyl overdoses, meth overdose deaths have skyrocketed in the last decade. Diane is sharing her ten-year battle for Trace's life and the aftermath of his death to raise awareness that meth too, can kill. Trace fought the disease of addiction s...

Their shared grief over the loss of their children brought Carol Baum and Jeannie Ammon together. Both women lost their sons at a young age. Carol's son Jeremy completed suicide after battling meth addiction in 1999. Jeannie's son Wyatt died at the age of 24 in 2005 in a freak accident while overseas. Carol and Jeannie joined forces to help others by creating the Mothers Healing Garden,...

David J. Roberts teaches a course on death, dying, and bereavement at Utica College in New York. He lost his 18-year-old daughter, Jeanine to cancer in 2003. In addition to leading grief groups, he is a retired addiction professional. Out of his nearly three decades of working with people who suffered from substance use disorder, he wrote a blog titled: “They Were Unique, Misunderstood, and Among...

Dreams--what do they mean and how they can help in the grieving process.  Joshua Black , PhD, is a grief researcher, speaker, consultant, and host of the Grief Dreams Podcast . Joshua’s work focuses on dreams and continuing bonds after loss, including prenatal and pet loss.  In this episode, we hear from mothers grieving the loss of a child and the kind of dreams they are experiencing.  Joshua tal...

Jessica Lahey is a mother, teacher, and author of The New York Times bestselling book, The Gift of Failure: How the Best Parents Learn to Let Go So Their Children Can Succeed . Jessica, who been sober for eight years, says her new book , The Addiction Inoculation: Raising Healthy Kids in a Culture of Dependence , came out concern for her own children following that same path. The book delves into...

Alica Steinfurth’s and Marica Leonard’s sons, ages 23 and 24, worked together as beer truck delivery drivers. Josh and Tanner were outdoorsmen and enduro racing enthusiasts. After a night of drinking last August, they made the fatal mistake of purchasing what they thought were prescription opioid pills. Both young men died from a fatal dose of fentanyl. Marica’s other son, Tyler, who was with them...

Jessica Pfau has battled opioid and alcohol addiction ever since her 2011 gastric bypass surgery.  She first joined Angela Kennecke on this podcast in 2019, before heading to prison. Jessica overdosed on heroin laced with fentanyl and that violated the terms of her probation.  Jessica spent eight months behind bars, but says she received little to no treatment while in a state women's prison....

In this episode of Grieving Out Loud,  Angela Kennecke talks with Heather Stang, a, thanatologist, yoga therapist, author of Mindfulness & Grief and the new guided journal, From Grief to Peace .  Stang founded the Mindfulness and Grief Institute and is the host of her own podcast by the same name.  Stang shares how her own experiences with grief brought her to her profession and has advice for...

While on a long car drive, Sally Ponzio heard an unmistakable voice in her heart--that of her son, Travis, who had died of overdose six months earlier. Sally says Travis gave her the lyrics to a song called, "Remember Me." She pulled over and  wrote them down as fast as she could on a napkin. Now that song has been released and Sally and the composer, Frank Ponzio , as well as singer, El...

Norma is a 52-year-old mother and grandmother. She didn't start drinking until the age of 35, but within a year, she says she was an alcoholic. She had period of sobriety, but now has new hope for long-term recovery after seeking treatment at the Avera Addiction Care Center and receiving an Emily's Hope Treatment Scholarship.  Norma shares her story in hopes of reducing the stigma and sh...

A Pennsylvania addiction medicine and family practice doctor knew there was something special about Philip, who first came to her at age 21 for substance use disorder. But despite  Dr. Aviva Fohrer's best efforts, Phil fell through the cracks in a flawed system, both in how insurance companies dictate treatment time and the lack of follow-through by the center. Phil overdosed and died on Apri...

After Journalist Angela Kennecke's 21-year-old daughter, Emily, died of fentanyl poisoning in 2018, she formed Emily's Hope, a charity in her daughter's name. To date, 44 people have received Emily's Hope treatment scholarships, including 45-year-old Jeremy, a husband and father of two. Jeremy hid his addiction to alcohol for more than two decades. He credits financial help fro...

Massachusetts mother, Carol Morris, has lost five out of her twelve children to overdose. Her oldest son died in 2000 and she recently lost another son in 2019. Parents who have lost a child can't imagine surviving the loss of another one. However, in the opioid epidemic it is not all that uncommon for parents to have lost more than one child to overdose. Carol says one of the thing that help...

Long-time educator and author, Kris Francoeur,  lost her 20-year-old son, Sam, to fentanyl poisoning in 2013. Her book Of Grief, Garlic and Gratitude: Returning to Hope & Joy from a Shattered Life, chronicles her journey through grief and how she is able to keep the love Sam brought into the world alive. When Sam died in 2013, there was even more stigma surrounding an overdose death than there...

Susan Claire lost her 25-year-old daughter, Sharon, to overdose in 2018. She looked around for a podcast for people who have lost loved ones to overdose and couldn't find one, so she started her own. Now she gives voice to family members who are experiencing the horrific shock and loss of losing a loved one in this way. Contact Susan, or listen to her podcasts: Gmail: GrievingOverdoseDeath@gm...

Thousands of grief-stricken mothers who have lost children in the drug epidemic are finding one another on Facebook. Pj Champion Sallie "accidentally" started a Facebook group for grieving moms called, #NotInVain. Pj lost her 24-year-old daughter Christina Westfall to overdose in 2017. In Christina's obituary, her mother bravely wrote: "I want to share her story in the hope tha...

Michigan Pediatrician Marcy Larson is a mother of four, who lost her 14-year-old son, Andy, in a car crash in August of 2018. She looked around for a podcast on child loss and couldn't find one, so she started her own. In her "Losing a Child: Always Andy’s Mom," podcast, Marcy interviews parents who have lost children and has found a purpose in her pain. She also chronicles coping w...

At the age of 5, Jessica Hulsey was prepared to warn her kindergarten class about the dangers of shooting heroin. Jessica's parents suffered from substance use disorder, which greatly disrupted her life. Both of her parents died young, as the the result of complications from years of addiction. As a young adult, Jessica was invited to tell her story to a wide range of audiences and she hasn&a...

Megan Eichacker is a farm girl from South Dakota who spent her 20's addicted to heroin and meth. She was living out of her car, barely surviving and always looking for the next high. After going through treatment three times, some of what she learned along the way finally made an impact. She credits her new found faith, finding out she was pregnant and medically assisted treatment for the rec...

Brandon Novak was a world-famous, champion skateboarder. However, he was also in his first treatment center for addiction to heroin at age 17. He went on to co-star in TV and movies in the MTV Jackass and Viva La BAM series. He also went through 13 treatment centers and nearly died several times. His best selling autobiography, Dreamseller: An Addiction Memoir, was published in 2008. But Brandon d...

Any parent who's lost a child wonders how they will survive. Minnesota author Pat Sheveland wrote the book: How do I Survive? 7 Steps to Living After Child Loss. Sheveland was inspired to write the book because she watched her mother deal with the loss of her brother her entire life. Her brother died before she was born, but the tragedy had a great impact on her entire family for decades. She...