Explore every episode of the podcast Drugs Did This

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Both of Rachel Price's parents and her first husband battled addiction. When Rachel's first child was 6 months old, her mother died after an overdose. She learned to be strong and stand on her own two feet out of necessity, and for a long time did not understand how trauma had impacted her life. Eventually, she decided she wanted to be a cop, in large part to help people whose alcohol and other drug addictions brought them into contact with law enforcement. Someone at Randolph Community College in Asheboro suggested she take a look at the field of social and human services, specifically addiction and recovery services. She did and discovered her calling.

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A California native, Blake Easley smoked marijuana in high school, then drank cough syrup to achieve a buzz (almost every day) until his mother found a stash of empty cough syrup boxes hidden in their house. She marched him over to the 99-cent store where he was buying the over-the-counter cold medication and made certain they would never sell her son cough syrup again. He moved on to other drugs and eventually into an active addiction so severe that it led to him living on the streets for many years. Today, he works in the field of recovery.

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A California native, Blake Easley smoked marijuana in high school, then drank cough syrup to achieve a buzz (almost every day) until his mother found a stash of empty cough syrup boxes hidden in their house. She marched him over to the 99-cent store where he was buying the over-the-counter cold medication and made certain they would never sell her son cough syrup again. He moved on to other drugs and eventually into an active addiction so severe that it led to him living on the streets for many years. Today, he works in the field of recovery.

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Amber Poe was in her late 20s until she experienced her first-ever buzz from drinking alcohol. The unexpected intoxication was linked to how her body metabolized alcohol following weight-loss surgery. She liked the way alcohol made her feel, but over time her alcohol consumption increased to an unmanageable level that led to consequences she did not like. She lost jobs. She lost her driver license and faced the prospect of jail time.

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Growing up in West Virginia, Treston Dickerson struggled with his self-image. The first time he smoked marijuana, at 12 or 13, he felt better. Through his abbreviated years in high school, Dickerson thought he and his buddies who used drugs were cool. School and drugs were not compatible. He dropped out. His mother took him to his first 12-step meeting to help him reclaim his young life. Today, he says the program and its principles saved his life. He is 18. 

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Erik Kuykendall has always had the ability to look on the bright side, even when his life was grim due to poor choices on his part -- and there have been plenty of those times. For 20 years, Kuykendall ingested and injected a laundry list of substances -- alcohol and other drugs -- in an effort to numb his feelings. These days, he does not have to try as hard to find sunshine: That's because he has been drug-free since December 2021. It's a different world.

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Capt. Bradley Cooper and Sgt. Jason Burgess know one aspect of how drugs impact Randolph County: They are employed with Randolph County Emergency Medical Services, and county EMS personnel responded to 784 overdose calls across the county in 2022. Cooper and Burgess talk about how dramatically overdose calls have increased since 2008 and what happens after someone calls 911 to report an overdose.  

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Dr. Bob Shackleford says he did not understand anything about the disease of addiction when his son went to treatment for the first time. He still did not understand much when his son left that 28-day program. Years later, he is still learning. In this conversation, he talks about some of the myths about addiction and how a loved one's substance use affects the family.

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By the time he was in the fifth grade, Scott Smith was drinking most weekends with his buddies. Several of them were years older. But his future addiction did not involve alcohol. It was opioids that ensnared the Asheboro native and eventually led to a period of IV drug use, even though he never learned how to give himself an injection.  

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James Michael Martin drank his first beer at the age of 15. Twenty-three years -- and the ongoing use of alcohol and a laundry list of other drugs -- later, he had lost virtually everything save his life. And he did not care whether he lived or died. This is his story of addiction and recovery.

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David Mabe stopped using drugs while working to get himself in shape to go to bootcamp. After he entered military service though, addiction reclaimed its grip on the young man.  Struggles with substance use followed him back into civilian life. Eventually, drugs robbed him of everything but his life. Today he is a peer support specialist who uses his life experience to help others.

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Amber Mabe was almost 29 years old and operating a thriving graphic design company when addiction took hold. She lost her business. She lost her children. She lost herself. This is her story of reclaiming her life.

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 Susan E. Hunt is a co-founder of Keaton's Place, a recovery resource center in Asheboro, N.C., which was established to make a difference for individuals and families living with addiction and to honor the memory of her son, Keaton Scott Hunt. She shares Keaton's story and journey with drugs before he died after a fentanyl overdose in the summer of 2019 at the age of 20.