To mark Overdose Awareness Day 2026, former PPP participant Theo Fountain wrote the below update on his friend Devin, who once used substances alongside him in Kensington. Both are survivors of multiple opioid overdoses. PPP is thrilled that both Devin and Theo are now in recovery, healthy, and building the lives they want to live.
On April 27, 2026, hours before dawn slid across the Rocky Mountains, Devin and Casey welcomed their son to the world.
A quietness hung in the air, as if the entire hospital upheld the sanctity of the moment. Monitors pulsed beneath the tiled ceiling, lending a subtle and reassuring background rhythm to the family's first minutes.
"The cliches about parenthood are true," Devin later said. "It's strange—the anxiety melts away once you hold them.” As he marveled at his son's tiny palms, Devin told Casey, "I could stare at him for hours."
Life took on new meaning that morning. Love and devotion were imbued with a fear and vulnerability the young couple had never felt, all because of this little person. Together, the three of them crossed into somewhere new, a starting place that had taken decades to reach. Huddled beside the people he loves, his newborn child resting in his arms, Devin thought of the old years.
His own hands had swung from jungle gyms in South Jersey, served drinks in the dry Los Angeles heat, and searched bins of clothing along Kensington Avenue. Years had passed since Devin shuffled across the blacktop as one of Philadelphia’s thousands of unhoused people, but the memory persists. Amid the teal walls and doting sighs of the maternity ward, Devin spoke with his parents.
"I immediately apologized to my family, for breaking their hearts all those years.”
It was not the first nor the last time Devin said sorry for his addiction. His conscience was not newly awakened, nor was it something lost that recovery had returned to him. The guilt had always been with him, keeping him company on those friendless nights in the city. Whether he woke to the cool, recycled air of a detox facility or a crowded sidewalk after overdosing, he felt restless. Devin wanted to live differently.
“Medication for Opioid Use Disorder saved my life”
Recovery allowed Devin to take action. He cleaned trash from the corners he'd once lingered on, shared about the benefits of MOUD in blogs and newspaper articles, and supported his peers however he could, sometimes simply by having a conversation.
There was nothing cinematic about it. Sentimental appeal didn't motivate Devin; he'd lost too much to the overdose crisis to rely on feelings alone. He did what he understood to be effective. He emulated the people at Prevention Point Philadelphia (PPP)—the outreach workers, staff, providers, and volunteers who kept him alive. They responded when he overdosed, provided wound care, fed and clothed him, and kept him out of the cold. Each time they offered Devin care, they also gave him a reason to believe a different life was possible.
There wasn't much for Devin to believe in back then. But receiving help from others, witnessing those PPP workers resist the cynicism and apathy that surrounded him, and seeing them instead try to make things better—that inspired Devin.
Over a thousand miles from Philadelphia, in that gentle scene inside the Colorado hospital, Devin became a father. He’d reached this moment through hard work and determination, but he is quick to acknowledge he didn’t get here through sheer force of will. It was a collective effort that created the conditions for his recovery—an effort that included his wife Casey, his parents, his friends, and people who used practical, evidence-based approaches when he was in crisis, never knowing he'd someday be a loving husband and father.
After pausing our phone call to tend to his newborn son, Devin shared something for his friends who are still unhoused:
"Don't beat yourself up, everything comes in its own time. The only thing I've ever known is it will be alright if you just hold on. I used to think there was nothing better on this planet than what we know as Kensington, but it's never too late to start over and get back what was lost.”