combat deaths. maxwell baker died of an overdose. and joining me is judy gerhart and her daughter judy payne. thank you for both joining us on this day. commander, let s start with you on this. can you talk about your nephew and what happened with him and now maybe one of the key recommendations you would like to see implemented. certainly. my nephew, maxwell, we called him mackey, he was 23 years old. he had been struggling with addiction since he was 15. in recent years he was in recovery, he was doing well. he had a job, was going to school. he hood a girlfriend and he was looking forward to being doct like his father. he had an accident and following that he had surgery. and despite the awareness of the addiction the doctors prescribed
with mackey before he died, what can we do going forward to help people suffering from addiction like mackey was and the number one thing he said, we need to remove that stigma because when addicts feel safe to come out of the shadows they will seek help. what normally does work here, commander, to for those who are addicted to come out of the shadows as michelle is describing? what works? well, i don t know that the answer is quite that simple. i think it s a very complex solution moving forward. but i think first and foremost we need to care about those people who are suffering from this. we need to look at addiction differently. and rather than seeing it as a character flaw we need to see it as an illness. we need to help those people, support those people that are struggling with this so that they have an opportunity to choose treatment. to seek treatment in every day life so their lives can get better. we want to instill hope that those who are suffering from addiction can r
him opioids. a month later he was found dead from a heroin overdose. it was a catalyst for us to become more aware of what was happening in our own communities with opioid epidemic, it was our call to action if we could do something we needed to do something. we wanted to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. michelle, also very sorry for your loss. to your relative. as you look at how solutions might be good going forward, there s this idea that you re very familiar with, it s stigma, right? and does the stigma of drug addiction, does it make it harder for folks like mackey to ask for help? it absolutely does. the stigma is something that we really need to work on going forward. one of the last conversations that my uncle mackey s dad had