To mark Overdose Awareness Day 2024, read Devin's Sunshine Story by guest contributor Theo Fountain. This powerful story is unique, featuring a person in recovery from drug use, written by the friend who once used alongside him in Kensington. PPP is deeply grateful to Devin for sharing his story. We also thank Theo, with whom we look forward to continued collaboration. Most of all, we are thrilled that both Devin and Theo are in recovery, healthy, and building the lives they want to live.
Over the past week an unwelcome heat has accosted our modest city. It was during a similarly awful heat in Kensington some summers ago when, from a flurried crowd, an old friend’s smiling face emerged.
“Where can I sell this?” Devin asked, holding a bundle of unworn clothes. There were no hellos attempted. The smile on his face did nothing to represent his current state. He was unsettlingly thin and his eyes screamed of exhaustion. He’d obviously been wearing what he had on for quite some time. He was holding a brand, new change of clothes, but he couldn’t afford to wear them. The clothes were being saved to alleviate a more urgent need — Devin was trying to get high.
Prevention Point was a place I always could go to and not be judged.
It is this particular memory that Devin laughs about today. Now healthy and sober, he’s been drug-free for the past few years. Although it’s been some time, he hasn’t forgotten his past. How it felt endlessly struggling to supply his habit. The desperate compromises he made.
“How you give up something of value for five dollars and then so quickly are left with nothing,” he says, laughing pensively at the thought.
It’s an appropriate response. Living with drug addiction is rife with suffering and absurdity.
Devin’s struggles began early-on, and he’s wrestled with them his entire adult life. The summer after he graduated high school was mostly spent getting high in a basement surrounded by friends. They were teenagers figuring themselves out, making mistakes, wrapped up in what then seemed to be a blissfully insignificant time.
“Almost all of the people in the basement that summer are gone,” Devin somberly admits.
It’s a lonely, bitter feeling being the last of your friends. “I actually broke down crying last week to my girl; all my friends are dead.”
It takes an entire community of hard-working people to help a person get back together.
It’s difficult to reconcile the frustrating truth that their deaths were preventable. Devin and his friends took the same drugs in the same ways and every one of them overdosed. Devin is just fortunate enough to have received aid when it was needed. He’s been saved with Narcan 11 times. It is thanks to accessible Narcan that he is alive.
To credit divine providence or dumb luck with Devin’s stability today would be a gross oversight. With the continued efforts and support of other people, Devin was able to rebuild his life. Prevention Point provided food and clean supplies when he was unhoused.
“Prevention Point was a place I always could go to and not be judged. I’d get clean works and be fed. I wouldn’t feel alone for a few minutes; it’s a wonderful thing,” Devin recalls.
Devin’s treatment center succeeded when he stayed and completed their inpatient program. His counselor succeeded when they convinced Devin to finish that program rather than leave AMA.
“We still keep in touch with each other,” Devin proudly shares.
Life doesn’t roll out a red carpet because you stop taking fentanyl.
Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) was effective in helping Devin manage his cravings: “MOUD stripped me of my fear of being clean and gave me the confidence to be myself again.”
It is the success of his family, friends, and fiancée who supported him through the difficult times and continue to be there for him. It takes an entire community of hard-working people to help a person get back together. It is the culmination of these many successes that he is here with us today.
Finally, this is Devin’s success. Recovery is not an easy undertaking by any means. Life doesn’t roll out a red carpet because you stop taking fentanyl. He was challenged and discouraged but he continued. Even with years of sobriety, a job, a fiancée, a place in Fishtown, and a whole mess of family and friends who care about him, he still goes through it sometimes.
This is life. This is labor. But it is a privilege to labor like this. To wake up each morning, put on a brave face, and persevere — it’s precious and meaningful. How fortunate we are to attend to the joys and the hardships. To pick out wedding rings and cry over the people we miss. We get to be here through it all.