When Gretchen Burns Bergman testified in California in 2014 for a bill that would let organizations distribute naloxone, someone asked why she wanted to support drug use.
She was thinking about what a mother might need in her medicine cabinet.
“Mothers are oftentimes the first responder, right?” she told me during Brave Recovery: The Women Impacted. “So why would I not be able to have it in my medicine cabinet?”
That question has stayed with me. Gretchen knew the moment she was trying to prepare for. She also knew that the people writing the rules did not necessarily see it the way she did.
Throughout National Recovery Month, we spoke with twelve women whose lives have been shaped by substance use, recovery, overdose, incarceration and grief. They brought different experiences to our conversations. Some had sought treatment themselves. Some had lost children. They are now researchers, employers, writers and advocates. Each had something to say about what should happen differently for the next person.
As one conversation led to another, I kept hearing about the distance between what people need and what our systems expect them to do.
Brandee Izquierdo described how, after her children were temporarily placed in the care of social services, she felt people looking at her as if to say, “You’re a terrible mother.” She began to believe it herself. Years later, Amanda Hall was fourteen years into recovery when she noticed other mothers at her children’s baseball game looking at her “like I’m not a real mom.”
Those moments matter in their own right. They also tell us something about the conditions in which a person decides whether to speak openly, ask for help or trust the people offering it. Brandee sees what happens when the same assumptions reach people with authority. “People make policy,” she said, “and if the policy is embedded or ingrained in stigma,” the result is discriminatory practices.
The conversations also made clear how much recovery depends on what happens outside a treatment appointment. Mary Beth O’Connor warned against insisting there is only one path that works. Kelly Lyndgaard has built a business that offers women in recovery a chance to work. Patty McCarthy spoke about the support people need as they build lives in recovery. The specifics varied. The question underneath them was much the same: once someone is ready for help, will the next step actually be within reach?
For Morgan Godvin, that question extends to what we lose when we rely on punishment. After years involved in the criminal justice system, she now researches drug use. “I can’t even think about how much human potential we are squandering in this society,” she told me. “Like, why am I the outlier?”
Morgan is asking us to look beyond the cost of a prosecution or a prison sentence. What might someone have done with those years if care, stability and opportunity had been available instead? Her experience cannot answer that for everyone. It makes the question harder to ignore.
We ended each conversation by asking what gave the women hope. Their answers were specific. Laura Didier spoke about students who now present alongside her. Angela Kennecke spoke about people who survived overdoses after receiving naloxone distributed by her organization. Brandee spoke about more people with lived experience taking seats where decisions are made.
Amanda pointed to a law her coalition helped pass this year: Kentucky’s Senate Bill 122. It allows judges to consider whether a person cares for a child when deciding a sentence and to order participation in programs or services. This bill brings the impact on the child into the sentencing decision. Her son, once separated from her by incarceration, attended the signing.
These women did not share their experiences so we could end the month feeling moved. Gretchen took her argument to a hearing. Amanda worked with a coalition to change a law. Others are building services, conducting research and making room for people whose expertise has too often been dismissed.
That is a lesson for our work at the Overdose Prevention Initiative and for public health advocates far beyond it. The person closest to a failing rule may be the first to see its consequences. We still need evidence, resources and the political will to make change. We also need to hear from that person while there is still time to make a different decision.
The twelve Brave Recovery conversations are available to watch. If you make decisions about treatment, overdose prevention, family support or reentry, listen for the point where someone needed help and met a barrier instead. Then ask whether the policy in front of you would make that moment different for the next person.
When Gretchen Burns Bergman testified in California in 2014 for a bill that would let organizations distribute naloxone, someone asked why she wanted to support drug use.
She was thinking about what a mother might need in her medicine cabinet.
“Mothers are oftentimes the first responder, right?” she told me during Brave Recovery: The Women Impacted. “So why would I not be able to have it in my medicine cabinet?”
That question has stayed with me. Gretchen knew the moment she was trying to prepare for. She also knew that the people writing the rules did not necessarily see it the way she did.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (September 29, 2026)- The National Safety Council (NSC) and the Global Health Advocacy Incubator’s Overdose Prevention Initiative (GHAI) applaud the U.S. Department of Labor and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for giving employers practical guidance on responding to an opioid overdose at work. Released on September 24, “Save a Life Day”, during National Recovery Month, the guidance calls on workplaces to keep opioid overdose reversal medication accessible, prepare workers to use it and call 911 when an overdose occurs.
CMS's proposed CY2027 payment rule rewards screening, weakens treatment accountability and opens new questions about AI and sensitive patient information. Here is what GHAI’s Overdose Prevention Initiative’s told Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
