One thing i learned right away is theres nothing i could have done. In the beginning you were pretty guilty about his death but they were telling you you couldnt have. Right, theres nothing i could do from 1994 to october 2, 2016. Nothing i could have done to change. But its hard as a mom. You spend months on this video, went up to williamsport and met with the peace folks and attended the group. Youve been with them long after words. What was your ambition when you started, and what did you find out as i think it was important andd this is something we discussed early on, that we wanted to show the faces of the people that have been impacted the most by this epidemic. Its easy to talk about numbers and statistics. Its something that we wanted to showcase and sell when we first went down to williamsport, she told us about this group and it sounded like a good place to meet more families whose story was shared the same so when we first went to the group therapy, it was in the backyard, it was a beautiful evening and it was heartbreaking hearing all these degrees and going to the runs seeing how many people have been infected in the Community Via be epidemic and i am curious to hear because you were also at the run. Oreview taken by surprise how many people does have impacted and touched or was this something that you were aware of even asked your own son was going through his . Last year was the first year they did the five k. And it happened to be about three weeks after he passed. My sister who was in the Williamsburg Area said my friends want to start a team for him. So there were probably 30, my nephews and friends, family and i think for the First Time Ever there were 600 people at the five k. And ten k. So this year, you know, i think it surpassed that. And yes i was surprised because everybody has a story. Whether it affects them directly as it did us, or its a nephew, cousin, friend, grandchild. It seems like theres no more than 1 degree of separation at this point in the epidemic. If you dont know someone whos tried it personally, you have a neighbor or cousin or nephew or someone who knows someone is dying. And so many stories are the same about how it starts with painkillers. Ive heard so many stories like that that starts off with painkillers and progressives to heroine or other substances. Was his injury football injury . It was an accident. Independent pain pills were prescribed at the hospital. Were you surprised by anything you found him doing the work on this . I think i was surprised by how many people throughout the race honestly. That did take me back a little bit. I think especially when you are physically in that space and see everyone there and how many have been impacted. And welcome support is the home of Little League baseball. So you go there and there are statues of little kids playing baseball. Its as american high as you can get. So it is kind of disconcerting to be in while you see all these families have been impacted by this epidemic. At the moment, there are three u. S. Senators waiting to come out here and speak on the Opioid Epidemic. Theres a whole bunch of folks here from the dc area who may be able in their own corner of the world to do something. As parents of someone who passed on overdosed on opioids, what do you want them to do, not speaking as policymakers or anything, but wha it needs to be done to the end of the curve on the Opioid Epidemic . Well, as people have seen from the 60 minutes episode, the one bill needs to change command for the life of me, i cannot understand why attorneys for the dea switched sides. It is unethical and immoral for them to switch sides to be attorneys and then to be attorneys for the big drug companies. Thats something i cannot understand. When i was first told about it a couple of months ago, i thought it a work at a federal prison, im against anything that ties the hands of another federal lawenforcement agency to their job. How about treatment. Was it difficult for him to get treatment . We already pointed out that it wasnt the most effective. We were so naive we didnt know how to do anything like okay find him a place to go. But our daughter is quite the researcher and found hed love to lift weights and was at the gym every day. She said i found one that has a little gem so everything just fell into place and it wasnt terribly far from our home we just wish the end results would have been better do you think theres a reason why he relapsed twice . Now i think maybe the anxiety for drug court because he had friends that he met through things that mayb maybe havent e well and he didnt want to go back to jail. I see that you have a tattoo, do you mind showing that . This is a portrait that i have done i think in december and then this is the first tattoo that he had for switzerland. My son is always with me an in y heart and here on my arm and some of his ashes are here. When we travel places sometimes if we go someplace to spread his ashes like at his grandparents house different places and pennsylvania but there was a little bit left in here so i spread them out and put his ashes inside of it. She didnt like to travel so much, so its kind of like one of those gotcha. At least for me. [laughter] thats all the time we have for this session. Hopefully it is effective in the war on opioids. Thank you all very much for listening. [applause]