Speaker 1: The following podcast contains topics of mental health and loss,
Speaker 1: which may be difficult to listen to. If you, or
Speaker 1: anyone you know is struggling, help is available. Call nine
Speaker 1: to eight eight or visit nine A eight lifeline dot Org.
Speaker 2: Hi guys, it's Jen Fessler.
Speaker 3: Hey, it's Jackie Golschneider and we are two Jersey Jays.
Speaker 2: Hi Jack, Hi, bibe.
Speaker 3: What's been going on?
Speaker 4: I mean it's been I'm so exhausted. So is Rachel.
Speaker 4: My daughter's twenty third birthday yesterday. So always it's an ordeal.
Speaker 4: You would think that after maybe you know, nineteen, it
Speaker 4: would stop being such a big deal, but it just doesn't.
Speaker 4: So we were down the shore. We packed it up,
Speaker 4: We went into the city. We went to Sacks, We
Speaker 4: had lunch there, it was beautiful.
Speaker 2: We went shopping.
Speaker 4: We decided that there was nothing at Sacks that we
Speaker 4: were going to plunk our money down.
Speaker 2: So we ended up at Mango. Have you been there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well they have Mangos all over Spain Europe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I've been to the ones. Jeff loves them,
Speaker 4: but like they just now opening Garden State whatever. So
Speaker 4: we ended up there and then it was like we
Speaker 4: didn't even shop for Rachel, which I appreciate it. We
Speaker 4: ended up shopping for my son, who doesn't ever shop,
Speaker 4: and that was just exhausting. I like, just would rather
Speaker 4: order now online. I know, I have to say bike
Speaker 4: shopping is.
Speaker 3: I actually have to take my kids shopping this afternoon
Speaker 3: because they're going to do Like we're in the they
Speaker 3: just finished their sophomore year of high school, my older ones,
Speaker 3: so they're in the building your resume now for college
Speaker 3: phase and they're doing this great program at Duke.
Speaker 2: For two weeks.
Speaker 3: But we just got the packing list and they have
Speaker 3: to wear like a suit for presentations, and they don't
Speaker 3: have a suit but the bottom. That's so we're going
Speaker 3: to We're going to suit shopping. I was going to say,
Speaker 3: go straight to men's warehouse.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's actually a place in Paramus that that we
Speaker 3: go to Salaretta or one of those No, not a
Speaker 3: fancy one. It's like they it's just they have so
Speaker 3: many suits. But anyway, so last night I had two
Speaker 3: that graduated middle school, which is very bittersweet for me.
Speaker 3: Next year I'll have all four at the same high
Speaker 3: school for two years. So I said to Evan, I
Speaker 3: you know, next year, I guess they'll just drive with
Speaker 3: their older brothers to school and I won't have to
Speaker 3: take them to school anymore. And he was like, oh,
Speaker 3: that's awesome, that's the best. And I said, no, it's
Speaker 3: not awesome. Like I feel a little sad about it.
Speaker 5: You know, tomorrow's the.
Speaker 3: Last day that I'll be driving my kids to school,
Speaker 3: and I'm sure there'll be one offs. But I think
Speaker 3: it's a difference in the way that like, I don't
Speaker 3: want to generalize, but like moms and dads think about
Speaker 3: this kind of stuff, Like Evan's like, this is great,
Speaker 3: you're getting your freedom back, you're getting your morning's back.
Speaker 3: But I think it's I don't know, it's sad. At
Speaker 3: this mom, I was like, whooo, I had none of that.
Speaker 3: Oh really no, No, I got absolutely not.
Speaker 4: I was like, and especially when they got there, all
Speaker 4: had their drive when Rachel all, I mean I only
Speaker 4: have two. But when Rachel got a driver's license, because
Speaker 4: Zach at that point was gone a year into college,
Speaker 4: I was like, yay, I am so bye bye kiss
Speaker 4: and drop see yah.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And by the way, this whole college process, like.
Speaker 2: This is not how we did it.
Speaker 3: When we were kids, like I played much advice for
Speaker 3: you on that but for this podcast. But all of
Speaker 3: this nonsense that you have to jump through free conces
Speaker 3: just to get in anywhere.
Speaker 4: I wasted so much money. I cannot even tell you
Speaker 4: on that whole process. And I would do it differently.
Speaker 3: Today than Oh I have to talk off camera the
Speaker 3: college counselors and the act tutors. And I remember Zach
Speaker 3: Got he was always a great test taker. I don't
Speaker 3: know how he didn't inherit that from me, but he
Speaker 3: got like a really good score, like on his Aspire,
Speaker 3: which is like the pre Act.
Speaker 2: It was like, you're range is thirty one to thirty three.
Speaker 4: And I still paid so much money for tutoring and
Speaker 4: he ended up with like a thirty two. It was
Speaker 4: so ridiculous, so much stuff that I feel like I
Speaker 4: just wasted money on.
Speaker 3: But I know tutoring. I should have gone into tutoring.
Speaker 3: Forget being a lawyer. Should have been a tutor. It
Speaker 3: may makes so much money. Agreed, it's amazing. Can I
Speaker 3: ask you today's guest is a personal friend of yours?
Speaker 2: It correct?
Speaker 3: She is? She is okay, so why don't you tell
Speaker 3: us about her? Let's introduce her, because wow, what a story.
Speaker 3: But I'm not clear on how you actually how you
Speaker 3: guys know each other.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, so we actually share a best friend and
Speaker 4: we are dear friends. Now we've been dear friends for
Speaker 4: years and years we've been away together. But I met
Speaker 4: Brady originally through my friend Helene, and they went to
Speaker 4: college together. They went to Ithaca together and they were
Speaker 4: just the best of friends freshman year on. Still are
Speaker 4: with their friend Becca. But so I got to know
Speaker 4: Brady because we all went away for Helene turned forty
Speaker 4: and she took a bunch of us away. We went
Speaker 4: to this place in Jamaica called Aminoka, and we all
Speaker 4: just bonded. It was this fabulous experience. Her name is
Speaker 4: Brady Harrison and so and then just through the years
Speaker 4: we've just been you know, friends since and anyway, so
Speaker 4: I guess back around five years ago. It was twenty
Speaker 4: twenty July of twenty twenty, I got a call from
Speaker 4: another friend there's a bunch of us that are very
Speaker 4: close saying that she heard that Brady's son, his name
Speaker 4: was Jack, had died overnight. And it was don't even
Speaker 4: know what she was talking about. My cousin Cindy, who's
Speaker 4: also very close to Helene, and I couldn't even understand
Speaker 4: what she was saying. And this kid, Jack is the
Speaker 4: same age as my son, as Helene's son, as cindy son.
Speaker 4: I mean, they've known each other forever and anyway, and
Speaker 4: it's just it was so crazy because Helene didn't know
Speaker 4: at that point and Cindy and I had to tell her,
Speaker 4: and it was just the most And this is I'm
Speaker 4: not even talking about Brady at this point. Just telling
Speaker 4: Helene this about her best friend's son who had they
Speaker 4: all grew up together, was so horrific and that was
Speaker 4: only that was just, you know, not just but that
Speaker 4: was me here in the news and then having to
Speaker 4: tell Helene and in fact, Brady's beautiful, amazing, just glorious son,
Speaker 4: Jack Nathan, died of a fentanyl laced percocet. So this
Speaker 4: is going back five years. And Jack was also this
Speaker 4: real really gifted young artists, and like so many of us,
Speaker 4: he struggled with mental illness and he had created this
Speaker 4: brand called Happy Jack, and he put all of his
Speaker 4: just emotions and pain and he poured it into this business.
Speaker 4: And I don't know, he raised money for the Child
Speaker 4: Mind Institute. He just did all these amazing things, and
Speaker 4: he was he would make these sweats and t shirts
Speaker 4: with like these smiley faces.
Speaker 2: But they were they weren't smiley faces.
Speaker 4: They were kind of like jig jag jagged smiley faces
Speaker 4: and just talking about you know, anxiety and depression and
Speaker 4: things that he had been through. And after Jack passed,
Speaker 4: his legacy, one of his many legacies carried on through
Speaker 4: his mom, Brady, Happy Jack is amazing and still doing
Speaker 4: amazing things in this world. And it's funny, like all
Speaker 4: the kids when Jack passed and they lived in living
Speaker 4: Ston of Short Hills, but even to all the kids
Speaker 4: here in our area, my daughter, everybody followed Jack Nathan
Speaker 4: because he was so dynamic and they all had Happy
Speaker 4: Jack clothing. And I don't know, and this foundation has
Speaker 4: continued to thrive. But you know, Brady has talks a
Speaker 4: lot about what she's been through, and she is one
Speaker 4: of the strongest women I've ever known, along with one
Speaker 4: of the most thoughtful and just intelligent and kind and
Speaker 4: beautiful and wonderful women. And her pain is indescribable and
Speaker 4: she tries really hard though to you know, share her story,
Speaker 4: especially with what's going on in this world with fentanyl.
Speaker 4: So she's I'm gonna We're gonna bring her in and
Speaker 4: she's going to tell you more. And I know she's
Speaker 4: going to touch all of you. This story is impossible
Speaker 4: and heartbreaking. But she uses her pain. You know, she's
Speaker 4: a warrior and she uses her pain for good. So
Speaker 4: she's just so hard for you to meet her.
Speaker 2: Horrifying.
Speaker 3: It's so scary to think that, you know, it's like
Speaker 3: the littlest drop of fentanyl can kill you. And with
Speaker 3: four teenagers, I worry just constantly.
Speaker 4: Yes, you know, I trust my kids, but no, no, no,
Speaker 4: it's not even it's so Jackie, we all, I don't
Speaker 4: trust the world.
Speaker 2: Freaked out. No, there's they're not.
Speaker 4: It is what's happened with this fentanyl crisis in this country.
Speaker 4: And Brady's going to tell you more. Is is so
Speaker 4: scary and horrifying. But so anyway, you guys, I just
Speaker 4: I do want to say though, that Brady is a
Speaker 4: lot of things. She's Jack's mom, and she's also the
Speaker 4: mother of a beautiful, uh young woman named Drew, and
Speaker 4: she was always just just creative and really smart and
Speaker 4: really fun and has her own strugg with mental illness
Speaker 4: that I'm sure she'll share as do I, as do
Speaker 4: so many of us. But she's been through it and
Speaker 4: I'm not going to speak on her behalf anymore. I
Speaker 4: just I want to bring her in and I think
Speaker 4: that you guys are going to be so overwhelmingly touched
Speaker 4: by her story. So, without further ado, here is my
Speaker 4: very dear friend, Brady Harrison.
Speaker 5: Thank you, my love.
Speaker 4: We want to just take us back. You know you're
Speaker 4: asked to do that constantly. Maybe it's I don't know,
Speaker 4: you tell me. I don't know what it is, cathartic
Speaker 4: in some way, but I know you're always asked to
Speaker 4: take take us back to that day.
Speaker 2: I hate even asking, well.
Speaker 5: You know why, because it goes back even further. To
Speaker 5: be able to clearly articulate what happened that day, you
Speaker 5: have to know who my son was and what his
Speaker 5: struggles were. So my son, Jack Nathan struggle with both
Speaker 5: anxiety and depression, but he was very forthcoming about how
Speaker 5: he felt, like, completely transparent. He sort of wore like
Speaker 5: a badge of honor, which is very unusual for kids
Speaker 5: who are nineteen. Had a huge social circle, you know,
Speaker 5: never without a friend in sight, so that certainly wasn't
Speaker 5: the The issue was internally, right. He struggled internally, and
Speaker 5: as a mother, all you want to do is make
Speaker 5: your kid happy. I would have done anything. He was
Speaker 5: in therapy, we were trying medication. I had flown to
Speaker 5: University of Denver to try and help him. Fast forward,
Speaker 5: he says to me, one day, you know what, Mom,
Speaker 5: If I can help just one person not feel the
Speaker 5: way I do, it'll be worth it. And what he
Speaker 5: meant was he wanted to start a company called Happy Jack,
Speaker 5: which is a nickname some casting agent gave him when
Speaker 5: he modeled when he was a baby, and he came
Speaker 5: up with the idea that he would parlay his love
Speaker 5: of art and painting into a business, that he would
Speaker 5: sell this art on apparel or canvases to raise money
Speaker 5: for kids who struggled like he did. So he launched
Speaker 5: Happy Jack World on June seventh of twenty twenty, and
Speaker 5: he sent a text to everyone in his contact lists,
Speaker 5: Jack Nathan, if you're getting this right now, You've been
Speaker 5: part of my journey with my struggle with mental illness.
Speaker 5: A portion of every purchase will go towards the Childmind Institute.
Speaker 5: Now at this time, I didn't even know what the
Speaker 5: Childmine Institute was. Within the first week of sales, Jack
Speaker 5: donated one thousand dollars, which I only found out about
Speaker 5: because he posted it on Instagram. Fast forward that was
Speaker 5: June seventh. Fast forward July third. He like second. He
Speaker 5: tells me he is going to a party in Marlborough,
Speaker 5: New Jersey. If my son and I were extremely close,
Speaker 5: like beyond, we told one another, we loved each other
Speaker 5: about ten times a day, He's going to this party.
Speaker 5: Of course, I say, I love you. He says, I
Speaker 5: love you. I say, be safe and he left. He
Speaker 5: texted me at eleven forty nine that night and he said, Mom,
Speaker 5: I'm going to stay here, really not safe to drive home.
Speaker 5: And by that I just took it as like it's
Speaker 5: late and it's an arrow away and he's not going
Speaker 5: to drive. I didn't really think anything of it, and
Speaker 5: I said, I love you more than life. He wrote,
Speaker 5: I love you more than life. Not unusual texts, and
Speaker 5: the next morning I heard nothing. I texted him and
Speaker 5: I called him. I texted his best friend and nothing.
Speaker 5: I didn't. It was like one o'clock. I didn't hadn't
Speaker 5: heard from him. I figured he was sleeping at his
Speaker 5: phone off. And then the next phone call I got
Speaker 5: was from Jack's father, and it was a phone call
Speaker 5: that no parent on this planet would care to receive.
Speaker 5: And he just just said he didn't wake up, and
Speaker 5: you know, you're in complete disbelieve. I fell to my
Speaker 5: knees screaming. It was crazy. I mean, I'm shaking like
Speaker 5: just telling you guys this story. But we came to
Speaker 5: find out later after we got the autopsy results, was
Speaker 5: that Jack had taken at some point after he texted
Speaker 5: me at eleven forty nine, which I thought was just
Speaker 5: how do you have such a you know, articulate conversation
Speaker 5: with your mom? And began some time after that he
Speaker 5: had ventanyl in his system, and if you know anything
Speaker 5: about ventanyl, it is fifty times stronger than morphine heroin
Speaker 5: or a hundred times stronger than morphine. I think fifty
Speaker 5: times stronger than heroin. And he basically he took what
Speaker 5: I later found out a percocet, and that what he
Speaker 5: thought was a percoset had ventanyl in it. And all
Speaker 5: it takes is two milligrams a ventanyl to stop your heart,
Speaker 5: especially for someone who has zero tolerance for it. And
Speaker 5: when I say to two milligrams, we're talking literally grains
Speaker 5: of sand. Like if you took a salt shaker and
Speaker 5: you put it in the palm of your hand, it
Speaker 5: fits on the tip of a pencil. That's how lethal
Speaker 5: it is. And it's not myself heart. And he never
Speaker 5: woke up. And at the time I really didn't know
Speaker 5: what fentanyl was. You're talking. It was twenty twenty, right,
Speaker 5: so I had heard of it, but it's nowhere near
Speaker 5: the epidemic that it is today, or at least people
Speaker 5: didn't speak about it now. It's like you can't swing
Speaker 5: about without someone knowing someone, right. So for two years
Speaker 5: I didn't mention how Jack had passed because I wanted
Speaker 5: him to be remembered for who he was rather than
Speaker 5: how he left us. And he was a mental health advocate,
Speaker 5: and that's who he was at his heart. He wanted
Speaker 5: kids his age to live freely. I'm proud and I'm
Speaker 5: apologetically and I admired him for that. He was completely transparent,
Speaker 5: and he taught me how to be transparent. And after
Speaker 5: two years, I said, I can't just watch all these
Speaker 5: kids disappear. And I felt like I had a sense
Speaker 5: of responsibility to share my story, to warn other parents,
Speaker 5: to warn other kids. My son looks no different than
Speaker 5: every other kid.
Speaker 4: I mean, well, he did a little bit bray because
Speaker 4: he was so gorgeous.
Speaker 5: This is Jack and this is my dog actually, who
Speaker 5: passed away a year later, but like he was the
Speaker 5: most delicious.
Speaker 2: Beyond I'm telling you he had like a cult following.
Speaker 2: I only know that.
Speaker 4: I'm not just saying that, Brady, like you know that,
Speaker 4: like my daughter who didn't know him, knew who he
Speaker 4: was because he was number one. Sorry, he was just
Speaker 4: he looks he looks exactly like you, one face, but
Speaker 4: absolutely gorgeous.
Speaker 2: But he had this.
Speaker 4: Charisma that I didn't know him well, so I knew
Speaker 4: you know about him through you, But he was just
Speaker 4: like this, this this beacon of light. And I'm not
Speaker 4: just saying it. It's I just remember what Rachel was like.
Speaker 3: What that kid?
Speaker 2: He was just so magnic.
Speaker 3: Lady, When did he start struggling with mental illness? How
Speaker 3: old was he?
Speaker 5: Looking back? I think that's an excellent question. Looking back,
Speaker 5: I would say probably maybe like freshman year ish. I
Speaker 5: started noticing and I picture what he was wearing. He
Speaker 5: sat on my kitchen counter. He's wearing timberlains and like
Speaker 5: a button down and he just looked at me and
Speaker 5: he's like, I'm not happy. Now. Like, as a parent,
Speaker 5: you're like, what could you possibly be unhappy that? I mean,
Speaker 5: he had an abundance of friends, good looking, twelve, a
Speaker 5: huge circle of those who loved him. I couldn't. It
Speaker 5: didn't make any sense to me. So what I came
Speaker 5: to realize is that when you struggle and when you're
Speaker 5: not happy, it has to do with everything that's internal, right,
Speaker 5: and nothing that's external. There's nothing that you're going to
Speaker 5: be able to pinpoint and say like, oh, he didn't
Speaker 5: get a new iPhone, that's why he's depressed. Oh his
Speaker 5: girlfriend broke up with him and that's why he's depressed.
Speaker 5: It doesn't work like that. It's like there's this underlying
Speaker 5: sadness and you can't often articulate why you're sad because
Speaker 5: it's it's an imbalance, it's chemical, there's no outside You know,
Speaker 5: situations can make it worse, but generally they're not the
Speaker 5: root cause of why my son wasn't happy. So I
Speaker 5: sort of brushed it off, like, yeah, and my ex
Speaker 5: husband and I got divorced, and my son got worse,
Speaker 5: and he went to college and got worse. The anxiety
Speaker 5: got worse, and when he came home, he had to
Speaker 5: come home because of COVID, which does not mix well
Speaker 5: with anyone who struggles. I mean, you put someone who's
Speaker 5: already anxious and depressed in to a home and tell
Speaker 5: them not to leave. I mean, how would anyone fair? So?
Speaker 5: I mean I I it was horrific. It was not
Speaker 5: good for him, not good for him. I was completely isolating,
Speaker 5: he was overwhelmed with schoolwork, and that's when he sort
Speaker 5: of got it together to Laurn Chappy Jack. But you know,
Speaker 5: you look, Jackie, I go back all the time, right
Speaker 5: and I'm like, what could I have done differently? You
Speaker 5: know what? You know? Could I have saved him? Could
Speaker 5: I have parented differently? What if I said something in
Speaker 5: the kitchen that day that you know, changed the trajectory
Speaker 5: of his life? You do that, and I think it's
Speaker 5: just natural for any parent to go backwards and question
Speaker 5: everything and anything to make sense of it. But because
Speaker 5: it's so senseless, it's just so senseless, don't you.
Speaker 4: Do you feel like it's I think his his legacy
Speaker 4: and what he did when he was live, and just
Speaker 4: my own mind is so separate from the way that
Speaker 4: he died. I mean, he was my he was murdered,
Speaker 4: you know what I mean? Like, it's not like I
Speaker 4: done to stop a criminals and fentonl from coming into
Speaker 4: you know, this country in a pill.
Speaker 2: I don't. I don't What would you have said to
Speaker 2: him that could have stopped that?
Speaker 5: Nothing thing?
Speaker 2: You now?
Speaker 5: My friend said to me, it was like equivalents like Brady,
Speaker 5: It's like he got hit by a bus.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Is it a pill that was given to him
Speaker 3: by other kids at the party or did he have
Speaker 3: it with him?
Speaker 5: I don't know, you don't know.
Speaker 3: It doesn't matter. I'm just wondering if anyone else there
Speaker 3: I had ingested anything.
Speaker 5: I don't know. Okay, it was a twenty first birthday party.
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know, and I wouldn't change
Speaker 5: the outcomes, So I don't think i'd let myself go
Speaker 5: through all of that.
Speaker 3: Good after everything, when you decided to continue his legacy
Speaker 3: of being a mental health advocate and telling his story,
Speaker 3: how did it is that what happy Jack is now?
Speaker 3: You kept it going?
Speaker 5: Yes? Absolutely, you know, like I said, I feel a
Speaker 5: sense of responsibility, and of course it's very personal and
Speaker 5: emotional to me, and I don't want to let his
Speaker 5: business go because I guess if I'm being completely transparent,
Speaker 5: it's like me letting him go. But it's hard because
Speaker 5: he's not here, and he's not here to tell me
Speaker 5: what to do, you know what designed to put out
Speaker 5: and he left behind all these like amazing designs and
Speaker 5: this like amazing logo of this like crooked smile because
Speaker 5: he was like, it's impossible to be completely happy all
Speaker 5: the time. But I wish he was here to tell
Speaker 5: me what to do, because it's it's really hard running
Speaker 5: your son's business when he is no longer here. You know,
Speaker 5: typically the child falls into the parents' footsteps and is
Speaker 5: mentored that way. It's doesn't not supposed to work this way.
Speaker 3: Right, So what is the charity? How has the charity
Speaker 3: been doing, and how has it helped people? And what
Speaker 3: do you do on a daily basis?
Speaker 5: So I, on my ends worked to maintain, maintain, just
Speaker 5: like the inner workings of this site and the business
Speaker 5: end of it. We launched the Happy Jack Foundation a
Speaker 5: couple of years after he passed because we wanted to
Speaker 5: be able to donate more than just taking a portion
Speaker 5: of our sales. So we set up a program with
Speaker 5: University of Denver, which is where Jack went to college,
Speaker 5: and we have a program which we've been doing for
Speaker 5: the past five years where any student in the arts
Speaker 5: can apply for this scholarship in which they are given
Speaker 5: X amount of money to create some sort of form
Speaker 5: of mental health project. But it could be at any
Speaker 5: scope in the arts, ballet, sculpture, painting, video gaming. It
Speaker 5: just has to center around mental health. And we've been
Speaker 5: able to give that to some of the students and
Speaker 5: watch their projects, which has been, you know, like this
Speaker 5: tangible thing that we've been able to say. But we've
Speaker 5: donated ourselves to the Childmind Institute Active Minds. We've worked
Speaker 5: with some of the most incredible people. I always say like,
Speaker 5: I'm the luckiest unlucky person I know. We've had I
Speaker 5: mean with that billboards every year in Times Square donated
Speaker 5: to us in the mission of raising fentanyl awareness. And
Speaker 5: I've met so many families who are part of this
Speaker 5: club that know none of us want to be a part.
Speaker 4: Of but I've met We're doing Jack, We're doing am
Speaker 4: We're having an event in August about Pensanyl about, you know,
Speaker 4: raising money for ferensonal awareness. And so Brady's already introduced
Speaker 4: me to Charlie and his father. Charlie's Charlie passed very
Speaker 4: similar to the way that Jack passed and around the
Speaker 4: same time, right Bray, Yeah, yeah, So he was.
Speaker 5: A couple of years older than Jack, but similar situation.
Speaker 5: And he started this fund called Song for Charlie. But
Speaker 5: they are exclusively sentonal education, functional effects, changing the landscape
Speaker 5: within the government. He's They're incredible this Ed and Mary
Speaker 5: are the parents, and it's you know, I think what's
Speaker 5: important to note is that they created Song for Charlie
Speaker 5: after their son passed. I didn't create Happy Jack. You know,
Speaker 5: Jack created Happy Jack. And this is my son's legacy
Speaker 5: that he built. So I am just sort of taking
Speaker 5: over the reins for him. But I will not take
Speaker 5: credit for ever for my son's work, for you know,
Speaker 5: his concept, his drive to help other kids like him
Speaker 5: who struggled.
Speaker 4: Is it hard bratty because some people might say, Okay,
Speaker 4: so there's crossover, right, I don't know there's is their
Speaker 4: crossover between mental health, I don't be infentanyl awareness. They're
Speaker 4: two separate things, right, it's.
Speaker 5: Yes and no, because I look, those who struggle have
Speaker 5: a higher propensity to try stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just.
Speaker 3: I make themselves feel better.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but it could be the kid who you know,
Speaker 5: goes to any one of these schools and says like,
Speaker 5: oh my god, I have a test and I want
Speaker 5: to cram, and someone gives them an.
Speaker 2: Adderall all right, And that's what I mean, right.
Speaker 5: Because adderall is lace. Percocet is lace, xenax is lace,
Speaker 5: Cocaine is laced. I mean, you name it now, weed
Speaker 5: is lace, the vapes are laced.
Speaker 3: So just so for people who have no idea, and
Speaker 3: I also don't know so much of this. How does
Speaker 3: something get laced with ventanol?
Speaker 5: So the precursors, which are the chemicals that are made
Speaker 5: from thetonyl, are starting in China, and the Chinese are
Speaker 5: also the ones who are responsible for creating the pill
Speaker 5: press machines, so basically they press the pills to look
Speaker 5: like any other pill that you would get from your doctor.
Speaker 5: So the chemicals and this is the I'm just giving
Speaker 5: you the generic root. Yes, it might come from other means,
Speaker 5: but this is what you know sort of the normal.
Speaker 5: This is what the path is. So the precursors are made,
Speaker 5: they're shipped to Mexico. Mexico has all the cartels and
Speaker 5: the labs and so forth, and then they are coming
Speaker 5: across the border. The reason why they are using fentanyl
Speaker 5: to mix into these pills, or even use fentanyl period
Speaker 5: is because it's stronger than anything out there. You do
Speaker 5: not need as much of it to make a pill
Speaker 5: or to enhance a pill. It's a synthetic, so you
Speaker 5: can make it yourself. You're not waiting for like the
Speaker 5: you know, plants to grow in the fields in order
Speaker 5: to create opium. It just doesn't work that way. So
Speaker 5: it truly what it comes down to is greed. They
Speaker 5: can manufacture more because it's cheaper, it's stronger, they can
Speaker 5: get it onto the streets faster, and the margins are insane.
Speaker 5: So their hope is to create addicts.
Speaker 4: How do you get bray I was gonna I've been
Speaker 4: thinking about this a long time. It doesn't the only
Speaker 4: part that doesn't add up is that it's so lethal,
Speaker 4: right that the makers of it, you know, are losing.
Speaker 4: They're trying you're trying to create an addict in terms
Speaker 4: of right, if you're not trying to, you know, kill
Speaker 4: your source, and it seems to be phentanol is so deadly.
Speaker 2: I don't even know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is there an amount that you got in that
Speaker 3: doesn't kill you?
Speaker 1: It?
Speaker 5: Two milligrams is a lethal dose. And I told you
Speaker 5: that it's like like grains of sand if you have
Speaker 5: some sort of tolerance. I suppose two milligrams is not
Speaker 5: going to do the trick in order to just stop
Speaker 5: your life. My son and all of these kids, they're
Speaker 5: they're not what you envision to be. Perhaps someone in
Speaker 5: the streets, someone in drug rehabs. There kids who may
Speaker 5: try something for the first time, that may take a
Speaker 5: Mali at a party. You know, they're these are kids
Speaker 5: who are you know, athletes and academics and successful. And
Speaker 5: it blows away every stereotype that people might have of
Speaker 5: those who are passing from fetanol or from drugs period.
Speaker 5: So the manufacturers of the product, they don't care if
Speaker 5: they have some casualties along the way, They'll just make more.
Speaker 5: They just they don't care.
Speaker 4: You think about the fact that these kids are the brains,
Speaker 4: especially boys, right, they're not developed until what they're twenty
Speaker 4: six years old. Boys' brains. You're sending out your kid
Speaker 4: into the world at age eighteen nineteen, and of course
Speaker 4: I would have taken something in college.
Speaker 5: You passed me a p we write, Jen, you thought
Speaker 5: you were invincible.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, one hundred percent. I remember taking what
Speaker 4: is that one? Not molly?
Speaker 2: Ecstasy? Remember ecstasy?
Speaker 4: That was big when I was in college, and yeah,
Speaker 4: everybody was doing I don't even know what it is.
Speaker 4: They called it ecstasy then in Texas. But it was
Speaker 4: like funny, you know who's at that age? You're not
Speaker 4: thinking about shit, You're thinking, no tonight, there is no
Speaker 4: rap party.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So how does a parent talk to their kid to
Speaker 3: try to stop this? I mean, telling them not to
Speaker 3: ever try anything? Is that realistic?
Speaker 2: What do you do?
Speaker 5: Probably not? I don't think that if I I mean,
Speaker 5: of course I taught Jack don't do drugs, right, I
Speaker 5: mean my kids smoke weed, which I didn't have an
Speaker 5: issue with some parents do, but I was like, yeah,
Speaker 5: but it's in MYSS, it's described to you and for
Speaker 5: you, you really can't. There's no such thing as recreational drugs anymore.
Speaker 5: It just doesn't exist the same way like Jen was saying,
Speaker 5: it just doesn't exist. So they have something called fentanyl
Speaker 5: test strips. Basically, you have to take the pill and
Speaker 5: crush it and dilute it in water, and then you
Speaker 5: take it's like a dipstick. You dip, you dip the
Speaker 5: stick in and if it comes out like a pregnancy
Speaker 5: test two lions, one lion, it's either negative or positive.
Speaker 5: There can be false positive false negatives, but they're pretty
Speaker 5: accurate fentanyl test strips. You can buy them anywhere. You
Speaker 5: can buy them on Amazon. The only my biggest hesitation
Speaker 5: lies in the fact that you can take one pill
Speaker 5: right jack, and like I could split it in half.
Speaker 5: You can take half, and I can take half, and
Speaker 5: I don't wake up in the morning, but you do.
Speaker 5: It's because the fentanyl is not evenly distributed in the pill.
Speaker 5: It might have just been stuck in my half, but
Speaker 5: you're fine. So unless you dilute the entire substance, you
Speaker 5: will not know truly whether.
Speaker 4: What kind of these what kid is has the wherewithal
Speaker 4: to say, I'm gonna go into the bathroom for I mean,
Speaker 4: they're dipsticks, like they're like, these kids are not maybe
Speaker 4: not all of them. I think that there are, you know,
Speaker 4: and we're all we all try with our kids, and
Speaker 4: but that's the part that is, so my kids are
Speaker 4: they're older now, maybe they're still stupid.
Speaker 2: I don't even I don't know.
Speaker 5: But they do give out fentanyl test strips and a
Speaker 5: lot of the fraternities and the sororities, so today they're
Speaker 5: much more aware, really. And there's also something called narcan
Speaker 5: which reverses the effects of an overdose, which is a
Speaker 5: spray that you put up each nostril, but you have
Speaker 5: to have someone with you. A lot of these kids
Speaker 5: who take something are by themselves, so that narkhan doesn't apply.
Speaker 3: And so narcam works for fentanyl. Correct, And how quickly
Speaker 3: do you have to you? How quickly does fentanyl take
Speaker 3: effect in you?
Speaker 5: It minutes?
Speaker 3: Minutes?
Speaker 2: Wow?
Speaker 5: How horrifying?
Speaker 3: Is there a world? So I don't know too much about.
Speaker 3: I know obviously ventinels in the news, But is there
Speaker 3: a world in which fentanyl is completely wiped out from
Speaker 3: the drug supply.
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I don't see it happening. It's
Speaker 5: too easy to make and there's too much money to
Speaker 5: be made. I think that's about in line. As long
Speaker 5: as there's money to be had, people just don't give
Speaker 5: a shit about human life, you know.
Speaker 4: Brad I have been close for a while and I
Speaker 4: just always I said to you last week, Bra, like
Speaker 4: I feel like sometimes I just say the wrong thing,
Speaker 4: and of course it's all well intentioned. But we talked
Speaker 4: about it about one of your other best friends who's like,
Speaker 4: you know, I want to say to you. I wouldn't
Speaker 4: say that now, but maybe when it first happened, you know,
Speaker 4: time time, time, time. I mean, I don't know if
Speaker 4: time is helping or I obviously I follow you and everything,
Speaker 4: but I follow you on TikTok, and you're so open
Speaker 4: and you have so many experiences every day dealing with
Speaker 4: this grief that just doesn't quit, you know, and.
Speaker 5: Think for me, And I've said this just recently, like
Speaker 5: it feels like it just happened, Like it feels like
Speaker 5: it just happened yesterday. I wake up every morning and
Speaker 5: I go through like the litany of things that I
Speaker 5: did that day or before or Jack's life, and so
Speaker 5: I feel like I'm like treading water, standing still. But
Speaker 5: everybody else is moving on as they should, because the
Speaker 5: world keeps spinning. But it's hard for me as the
Speaker 5: kids move further away from my son's passing, and my
Speaker 5: friends even move further away from Jack's passing, and I
Speaker 5: sort of like still here, and it's equally as hard
Speaker 5: for me. You know, I see all of these kids
Speaker 5: growing up and my son doesn't get to do that.
Speaker 5: And you keep in mind, my son grew up with
Speaker 5: Jessee and all these kids, and I watched them, i know,
Speaker 5: meeting their significant others and working going out into the world.
Speaker 5: And my son was a baby. He was nineteen years old.
Speaker 5: I mean, he was almost twenty, but he didn't even
Speaker 5: make it to his junior year in college. It's just like,
Speaker 5: you know, you just say, like, it's not fair, just
Speaker 5: not fair.
Speaker 3: So how do you how do you get through the days?
Speaker 3: And have you gotten help for yourself mental health treatment.
Speaker 5: I have a daughter who looked at me shortly after
Speaker 5: and said, do not go numb on me. And I
Speaker 5: will never forget that, and I have to show up
Speaker 5: for her, have to. I will not disappear. I will
Speaker 5: do anything to make her life easier, to make her happy,
Speaker 5: so that she doesn't, you know, continue to wallow in
Speaker 5: her brother's passing. And I'm very sensitive to that. So
Speaker 5: you know, people like I could never, I could never.
Speaker 5: I don't have a choice, you know, I have a daughter,
Speaker 5: and I have a significant other who loves me. I
Speaker 5: have amazing friends and amazing parents, and I'm so grateful
Speaker 5: for their support. I'm not a big group mental health
Speaker 5: person in terms of like sitting in a group that
Speaker 5: does not work for me. It just brings me down
Speaker 5: to hear about other people's pain. So I'm I do
Speaker 5: one on one occasionally, but even that, I just like,
Speaker 5: I don't feel like crying for forty five minutes straight,
Speaker 5: Like I just don't have it in me. I'm exhausted,
Speaker 5: So I sleep a lot. I sleep a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 5: an medication.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'm not even asking you. I just don't
Speaker 4: for myself, like a right. It's like I don't know
Speaker 4: if there's enough prosact.
Speaker 5: In the world, of course I don't. Yeah, but it's
Speaker 5: like it's like, do you ever you know that feeling
Speaker 5: of like when you're present but not really present. Yes,
Speaker 5: like you're there physically, but you're not there mentally. That's
Speaker 5: what it feels like a lot of the time.
Speaker 4: I know you get sometimes just a surprise like letter,
Speaker 4: text or whatever from one of his friends. Yeah, I know,
Speaker 4: how like that just now that lights you up because
Speaker 4: he has an impact on so many of these kids.
Speaker 5: Really, you know, it's so consistent what all of these
Speaker 5: kids say about him. You know, like Jack told me
Speaker 5: what was important in life. He didn't you know, give
Speaker 5: a shit about anything else about and you know, it
Speaker 5: was just about what he was doing and his happiness
Speaker 5: and you know, forget about the nine to five, do
Speaker 5: what makes you happy. And they believed in him, and
Speaker 5: he believed in them. And you know, one day he
Speaker 5: came up into my room and he's like, Mom, I
Speaker 5: really think it's helping me to help other people. And
Speaker 5: I was like, Jack, that's amazing. It's amazing. But you know,
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, I couldn't take that
Speaker 5: anxiety away from him. I couldn't take his relentless need
Speaker 5: to do more. He's very existential, very introspective. He was
Speaker 5: he called like limited drops, one of one. He was
Speaker 5: one of one.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 4: How do you think those parents that you've gotten to know,
Speaker 4: is it similar their grief and what five years later?
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, But I don't know. I
Speaker 4: just talked to Charlie or whatever. I'm about to meet
Speaker 4: Charlie's dad. But is the pattern there are similar patterns
Speaker 4: in terms of how parents.
Speaker 5: I will tell you that every single person grieves differently,
Speaker 5: and I passes zero judgment. You know, some people immerse
Speaker 5: themselves in work, some people immerse themselves in the cause.
Speaker 5: Some people just becomes stagnant and can't leave their heal.
Speaker 5: You know, I didn't. I don't think I left my
Speaker 5: house for six months. I look. I moved out of
Speaker 5: New Jersey to Florida because it hurt me so bad
Speaker 5: to see all of these people that I had to
Speaker 5: like sort of face what happened. And every time I
Speaker 5: saw everyone, They're like, oh my god, what's the matter.
Speaker 5: And it just like brings you back. And I every
Speaker 5: baseball field, every soccer field, every pizza place he worked at.
Speaker 5: It's really painful, incredibly hard. And I go back obviously
Speaker 5: because all my friends are there and my daughter lives
Speaker 5: with her father primarily, but it's it's hard for me.
Speaker 5: It's really hard, and I don't I guess I feel
Speaker 5: like sometimes people forget how hard it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nobody knows how So few people that we know
Speaker 4: understand how hard it is. Yeah, we imagine it.
Speaker 3: You know, what would you like to see happy Jack
Speaker 3: going forward?
Speaker 5: And I would love it to flourish. I would. Jack
Speaker 5: launched the site in the first sight, and he was
Speaker 5: disappointed because he wanted it to the site to crash
Speaker 5: because so many people are on it. You know, I'd
Speaker 5: love for it to be self sustaining. I'd love for
Speaker 5: me to be able to help kids more than I
Speaker 5: already do. I'm happy to speak to anyone and everyone
Speaker 5: to let them know that, you know, Jack is you Jack,
Speaker 5: You're no different than my son, and this is the
Speaker 5: reality of the situation. And you know, I had one
Speaker 5: of his friends say to me afterwards, I could have
Speaker 5: been any one of us.
Speaker 2: It could have and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so what would I like to see happen? Ultimately,
Speaker 5: the reason why I speak is because I want to
Speaker 5: save lives. I don't I don't want any parent to
Speaker 5: who experience this pain. It's horrific, you know, I want
Speaker 5: to you know, I'm going to break. I'm exhausted. It's
Speaker 5: really exhausting to live with the pain of it. And
Speaker 5: I don't wish that upon anyone. So if happy Jack,
Speaker 5: and if my son's legacy could prevent a family from
Speaker 5: coming down this path, and I'm going to keep launching
Speaker 5: product and raising money and creating awareness.
Speaker 4: Bray, what do you say to people who ask you
Speaker 4: what to say to their kids? And again, I mean,
Speaker 4: I know it's about two issues here, right, they're spent
Speaker 4: it all and there's mental illness. But you know parents
Speaker 4: that are sending their kids to college, and I don't
Speaker 4: know if there is anything to completely prevent this from happening.
Speaker 4: But is there are there things that you're tell you
Speaker 4: that the.
Speaker 5: I mean that it's I will say, And there's there's
Speaker 5: different stats on this. So right now, I had heard
Speaker 5: from the DEA that it's seven out of ten pills
Speaker 5: are at least right or have a lethal amount. So
Speaker 5: if you literally say to your child, if someone's giving
Speaker 5: you an adderall to stay off and you don't know
Speaker 5: where that adderall has been, look at yourself in the
Speaker 5: mirror and say, I have a seventy percent chance of
Speaker 5: not waking up in the morning, would you take that pill?
Speaker 5: I mean, that's the reality of it, even if it's
Speaker 5: one and six or what I mean, the statistics are
Speaker 5: so high, the probability is so high that it's almost
Speaker 5: like you'd have to be really unintelligent not to have
Speaker 5: that meaning.
Speaker 2: Because they are kids are stupid.
Speaker 5: That's that's my son was one of them. I'm not
Speaker 5: gonna lie. Look, my son didn't know any better. But
Speaker 5: he lived fearless. He fearlessly, he was He would have
Speaker 5: done anything, jump off a cliff, jump, dive into a
Speaker 5: pool from a roof. I mean that's how he lived.
Speaker 5: I don't think he would have lived any differently, but
Speaker 5: I could. I can't guarantee your child's not going to
Speaker 5: but I could try. I would also say, you know what,
Speaker 5: if your kid's going to school and they're having such
Speaker 5: extreme mental health struggles, pull them at a school, Like
Speaker 5: not every kid is going to take the same path
Speaker 5: in life. Right in our heads we say like, Okay,
Speaker 5: they're gonna go to college, they're gonna get a job,
Speaker 5: they're going to live in the city, they're gonna But
Speaker 5: it doesn't work that way. So I don't know, maybe
Speaker 5: I should have pulled Jack at a school when he wasn't.
Speaker 2: Your story should have like, I know.
Speaker 5: I know, I can see it.
Speaker 2: I'm like, it's like, it's like you're telling the story.
Speaker 2: What do you think that?
Speaker 4: Like both my kids, Rachel had a great time just
Speaker 4: three years her senior year, she was unhappy. Whatever that
Speaker 4: looks like unhappy? My son was unhappy at times in college.
Speaker 2: He for a year.
Speaker 4: This was a bad I mean, I don't know. It's
Speaker 4: a hard thing to figure out, right, I mean.
Speaker 5: It just and it's like once you put yourself out
Speaker 5: there like I do on TikTok, I have like seventy
Speaker 5: thousand followers, so like there are people who are like
Speaker 5: who blame me? And I have to I have to
Speaker 5: roll with that because if there's going to be people
Speaker 5: like that, and I have to tune all of that
Speaker 5: noise out in order to you guys know, with social media,
Speaker 5: you have to tune all of that noise out.
Speaker 3: Locked, de lea, blocked, deleap any Can it be in
Speaker 3: something you smoke? Is it only in pill form something
Speaker 3: that gets cut?
Speaker 5: I mean lately i've here I'm hearing that it's also
Speaker 5: in marijuana. There is. There are so many dispensaries out there,
Speaker 5: but they're not all licensed dispensaries. So you really have
Speaker 5: to know if a dispensary is licensed or not. Like
Speaker 5: I'll even say to my daughter who's almost twenty two, like,
Speaker 5: if you're gonna smoke, it has to come from a
Speaker 5: licensed dispensary. You have to know. You can't say like, oh,
Speaker 5: my friend got it from a friend. They're okay, they know,
Speaker 5: like no, yeah, no, Like like I look at mac Miller.
Speaker 5: My son idolizes mac Miller. Yeah, you think he's a celebrity.
Speaker 5: He has all this money, He would only get clean shit.
Speaker 5: He died the same way. It just doesn't work that way.
Speaker 5: Fentanyl doesn't care how much money you have, who the
Speaker 5: hell you are, if you're a celebrity, if you're not,
Speaker 5: it just there's it doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: And in this country, do you know how many people
Speaker 3: a year are affected by this?
Speaker 5: I mean they say, like a clane full of people
Speaker 5: a day.
Speaker 2: What, oh my god? And is the government doing things?
Speaker 3: Are you involved?
Speaker 5: Oh yeah? I mean look at look there are people
Speaker 5: who pro truy anti Trump. But at least he's trying, right,
Speaker 5: at least he's trying. You, we're gonna put enough tariffs
Speaker 5: on China, maybe they'll it'll affect change in the supply
Speaker 5: and demand. You're gonna close the borders, maybe it'll prevent
Speaker 5: substances from coming through. I do feel like he's trying.
Speaker 5: You know, people are like as long as they're that,
Speaker 5: you know, supply and demand, As long as there's demand
Speaker 5: they'll always be supply. But it doesn't mean that we
Speaker 5: can't try.
Speaker 2: You have to try. There's no what else I mean.
Speaker 5: You know, So I I'm okay with Trump for those
Speaker 5: reasons alone.
Speaker 2: Ray, how's Drew your daughter?
Speaker 5: Sherew's my daughter, She's my reason for being. I love her.
Speaker 5: She's my happy place. My daughter and I actually have
Speaker 5: been like approached by other kids saying like, how do
Speaker 5: I help my parent? And you know, I say to them, like,
Speaker 5: you will always, you will forever be your parents' happy place,
Speaker 5: like she just will. And I she's doing good.
Speaker 2: She's she's doing I know she's doing good.
Speaker 5: She's got a job, she is a huge personality. She
Speaker 5: has also has a lot of friends. I encourage her
Speaker 5: to go to therapy again. She's twenty two. She'll do
Speaker 5: with it what she will. But I love my kids unconditionally,
Speaker 5: and I love the same way Jack did. I love.
Speaker 5: When I love, I love, And if she needs me,
Speaker 5: I go to her and and I told her no
Speaker 5: matter where I am, I will always find her. And
Speaker 5: she knows that. She knows that.
Speaker 3: So I'm in all of you. I'm so sorry for
Speaker 3: your pain. I can't imagine, but your strength is unbelievable.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 4: By the way, guys, I mean all of us. I
Speaker 4: think it's helpful just to hear about the mental health thing.
Speaker 4: It's so it's not just kids, right, it's us. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's me. When I was a kid, it was it
Speaker 4: took a different form, but then I didn't get the
Speaker 4: help for it that I needed. Back in the day,
Speaker 4: when I was in college, i had crazy. It was
Speaker 4: more it's all in the same umbrella, but it was
Speaker 4: more anxiety than it was depression, debilitating anxiety. And I mean,
Speaker 4: I've been through so many different therapists until I you know,
Speaker 4: this my current one that I've been with for years
Speaker 4: and years. I didn't meet her until I was until
Speaker 4: my kids were twelve, and you know, my daughter has
Speaker 4: just been diagnosed with diabetes. Anyway, the point is that
Speaker 4: like there there are things. There are so many things.
Speaker 4: And I'm a big medication fan when it comes to
Speaker 4: mental illness.
Speaker 2: I mean, and Bray, you and I have spoken about this.
Speaker 4: I mean, you've had your own, you know, dealings before Jack, right,
Speaker 4: with mental illness. I mean, it's bitch, but I feel
Speaker 4: like there's I used to be very very very aware
Speaker 4: of it. I guess, especially when it comes to your kids,
Speaker 4: because there are there are answers, right, there's the.
Speaker 5: There's Anne's Look, genetics come into play, right, if you
Speaker 5: have mental health illness in your family, there's a higher
Speaker 5: chance that it'll you know, trickle down the bloodline. And
Speaker 5: you know, I certainly do I think about you know,
Speaker 5: my daughter has children. I mean I hope that their
Speaker 5: mental health is okay. And I I used to you know, look,
Speaker 5: there was such a stigma against kids taking medication back
Speaker 5: in the day, and I didn't want my kid to
Speaker 5: take medication. Do you remember, like in the sleepway camps,
Speaker 5: you're like, oh, well they the kids would be like
Speaker 5: they leave to go get a ill or they go
Speaker 5: to mind.
Speaker 4: Well, my kids will leave do a good growth hormoney
Speaker 4: and insulin.
Speaker 5: They go to them. They're lining up like nobody right,
Speaker 5: this stigma is gone, and you know they say, like,
Speaker 5: if you were physically ill, you would take medication. So
Speaker 5: if you're emotionally not well, and it's not just like
Speaker 5: I'm sad, I'm going to take a pill, it's that
Speaker 5: underlying sadness that I told you that you can't look.
Speaker 5: I remember my mother looking at me and saying like,
Speaker 5: what is it? Why are you so unhappy? Like what
Speaker 5: did you this? Did do that? And she did what
Speaker 5: I did, Like you try and find the thing, because
Speaker 5: as a parent, all you want to do is fix
Speaker 5: the problem, and you cannot. You can't fix it. I tried,
Speaker 5: My mother tried, like but when I went on medication
Speaker 5: and found the right medication, I got my life back.
Speaker 2: Me too, me too.
Speaker 5: So you know, one hand, I'm saying, don't take medication.
Speaker 5: On the other hand, I'm saying, take medication.
Speaker 4: Hey, that's prescribed by a doctor that you're picking up
Speaker 4: at CVS.
Speaker 3: Very different, And I'm going to sit down and have
Speaker 3: a talk with my kids because I didn't know any
Speaker 3: of this, and I didn't know how prevalent it was,
Speaker 3: and that alone could change the trajectory of their lives.
Speaker 4: So thank you for that was our whole I remember,
Speaker 4: just yeah, after Jack passed, all of us were like
Speaker 4: and our kids wore the same age as Jack, and
Speaker 4: we're all like, do you understand not once, not even once?
Speaker 4: Can you take a pill? That's never? It is not
Speaker 4: that world never.
Speaker 3: So where can people find out more about the charity,
Speaker 3: How can they get involved, how can they help it grow.
Speaker 5: So the site my son created is called Happyjackworld dot
Speaker 5: com and there's a donation link, you know, right on
Speaker 5: the site. But it makes me happy when people buy
Speaker 5: his designs and I get to see the kids in
Speaker 5: college at parties and all that, like wearing Happy Jack
Speaker 5: shirts or Happy Jack has.
Speaker 2: By the way, they're the best. I cannot believe that.
Speaker 2: I'm so stupid. I didn't put on my sweats today.
Speaker 3: I have.
Speaker 2: Literally, they're my favorite.
Speaker 4: They're not like shitty sweats, like qually heavy, fabulous sweats,
Speaker 4: Rachel Wars like lit'sten my hands.
Speaker 3: We did.
Speaker 2: It's just it's not just half webpads. They're amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 2: they're so great.
Speaker 5: It's you know. We were donated a pop up store
Speaker 5: in South Street Seaport right after my son passed, and
Speaker 5: we had all of his artwork and we had this
Speaker 5: amazing wall where people would come in and write about
Speaker 5: their mental illness and people come in just read the
Speaker 5: balls and we sold merchandise and it was like one
Speaker 5: of the best things that if I could do that
Speaker 5: all over again, I would. I would do it because
Speaker 5: I think once people hear the story from me from
Speaker 5: a mother and people see my son's face, you know,
Speaker 5: like I want I don't want it to just be
Speaker 5: a story. I want them to like, look at my son.
Speaker 5: He was nineteen years old. You know, he played lacrosse.
Speaker 5: He plays it like he Yeah, he's no different, no different.
Speaker 5: So I think that it's once you make it as
Speaker 5: real as you can for these kids and have it
Speaker 5: not like sit down, Like look at his face. Look
Speaker 5: at his initial posts on Happy Jack. He started this company,
Speaker 5: not me. Go back on Instagram, you know, at a
Speaker 5: Happy Jack world and look at his original posts. He'll
Speaker 5: tell he was very He'll tell you I have anxiety,
Speaker 5: I struggle with depression. I want to be the voice
Speaker 5: for kids who have none. That was well him, and
Speaker 5: I'm just trying to continue what he started. And that's
Speaker 5: why I am as transparent as I am today.
Speaker 4: Okay, I love you madly. Over the Moon Beyond and
Speaker 4: you guys were having an event in August, so we'll
Speaker 4: both Brady and I both and Jackie obviously I'd love
Speaker 4: to be there. Yeah, and a big fundraiser which we'll
Speaker 4: talk more about. But I don't even what do you say, Brady,
Speaker 4: I just I love you. I'm in awe of you,
Speaker 4: your pain is our pain.
Speaker 5: You know, I love you dearly. You know that. I
Speaker 5: would just say, even if your kids tell you you're annoying,
Speaker 5: keep talking, yeah, keep talking, going to you know, I sent,
Speaker 5: I was the mom, I sent the videos, I pharted
Speaker 5: all that shit that we you know, we all do, right.
Speaker 5: Jack would say like, do you ever send me anything good?
Speaker 5: I'm like, but it can happen, And He's like, man,
Speaker 5: you worry too much. Well, I know.
Speaker 4: Rachel's like, how many times do you send me a
Speaker 4: video of Bret? How do I break out of my
Speaker 4: car if it goes underwater? It's how many of those
Speaker 4: who would have watched.
Speaker 3: I didn't even think of that, Oh jeez, because they
Speaker 3: come up and then you just forward forward for I know,
Speaker 3: it's very scary.
Speaker 5: The statistics are a bit higher with a fantastical but yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, anyone could reach out to me. I'm you know,
Speaker 5: our email addresses on the site, their resources on the
Speaker 5: site as well. We've had a ton of press coverage.
Speaker 5: You know. I encourage everyone to speak out and own
Speaker 5: who they are and just keep talking.
Speaker 3: Thank you for everything that you do, because you could
Speaker 3: have very easily just you know, crawled up in the
Speaker 3: ball and and not let anyone see your face. And
Speaker 3: you took the complete opposite route and decided to make
Speaker 3: Jack's mission your mission. And you probably have saved so
Speaker 3: many lives that you don't even know about.
Speaker 5: I hope.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I'm sure you have.
Speaker 5: I hope.
Speaker 2: I love you.
Speaker 5: I love you more. Thank you, Brady, Thank you guys.
Speaker 3: That was a description of my worst nightmare all of
Speaker 3: all mothers. I just I don't know that I can
Speaker 3: talk right now.
Speaker 4: I know, well you have to because someone has to
Speaker 4: close out the segment.
Speaker 3: But I think, if anything, it will start a very
Speaker 3: important conversation in my house that has never been had,
Speaker 3: and I would guess a lot of people have never
Speaker 3: had with their kids because you're.
Speaker 4: Timing of this is really perfect in terms of like
Speaker 4: you're sending your kids off to college soon.
Speaker 2: I feel like that is just such well.
Speaker 3: Also, they go to curious time, and you know, it's
Speaker 3: so scary to think that people are so reckless with
Speaker 3: other people's lives and to think of the amount of
Speaker 3: pain that she has to carry every.
Speaker 4: Day, every day, and it doesn't That's why I said
Speaker 4: to her, how are you doing?
Speaker 2: Are you? I say, stupid? Ship?
Speaker 4: Is it getting any better. No, it's not getting better.
Speaker 4: It's never going to get better. It'll get different, maybe
Speaker 4: not better, you know, all.
Speaker 3: Right, you're amazing for that event, and keep me posted,
Speaker 3: keep us well posted on the details, and it's so
Speaker 3: important and happy Jackie. Guys, So to happy Jack buy
Speaker 3: some merchant charity.
Speaker 2: Okay, lovey bye guys, Bye guys,