Addiction Is Real

My name is Tiffany Foster. I am a resident of Washington, MO located in Franklin County. We are a small community of roughly 15,000 residents approximately 50 miles west of St. Louis. Washington is an old town with old family blood lines. Our community has embraced this for decades. Washington is a middle to upper middle-class community. We have incredible schools, both public and private, and are considered a wonderful community to raise a family in. Franklin County has also been recognized as one of the top ten counties in Missouri for substance use overdoses and deaths for years. From the methamphetamine crisis to the current opioid epidemic, Franklin County has remained a leading county in Missouri despite the family-oriented communities we base our small towns on. We are recognized as a Midwest HIDTA (High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area), and sadly, our tight nit community fails to acknowledge and recognize this. On August 29, 2021, I lost my son, Zackary to fentanyl poisoning. Zack was staying the night at a friend’s house, his friend found drugs in the home, and they decided to experiment. Thankfully, Zackary’s friend survived. Zack died eight days after turning 13. He was my only child. It was very important for me to speak at Zackary’s funeral. To use his eulogy as an opportunity to recognize that tragedies like Zack’s do not just happen to those who come from broken homes, or those who were raised in violence or addiction. His passing, the loss of his life, can happen to any family regardless of the social status they hold. I was very fortunate to meet Addiction Is Real (AIR) in 2023 while speaking at a substance use event in Columbia, MO. One week later I was honored to become part of their Board of Directors. Since joining AIR, I have had the privilege of speaking to thousands of students, parents, and caregivers throughout the St. Louis area sharing Zack’s story, and creating early childhood awareness on substance use. While our organization is accepted in urban communities, rural communities continue to show hesitancy in acknowledging the dangers of substance use and overdose deaths in theirs. Smaller towns like Washington continue to use the “not my child” approach, and to this day continue to, for lack of better words, brush it under the rug. My goal, the goal of AIR, is to end stigmas and acknowledge that regardless of the communities we live in, substance use and substance use-related deaths can and will happen. Through open conversations and education, we can and plan to change the stigmas surrounding both urban and rural communities, and I plan to make sure Zackary’s story is part of that. One of the many amazing opportunities AIR gives parents and caregivers during our presentations is our Hidden in Plain View bedroom display. Through this display, we are able to share with adults 70+ signs of risky behavior and early drug use. And that is only the beginning. I was not a parent who ignored signs or brushed anything concerning under the rug. We had many conversations with Zack about substance use, and while I do not regret anything about how Zackary was raised and the conversations we had, I wish so much the knowledge I have now I had when he was alive. I failed to talk about the dangers of fentanyl. I failed to realize that my small family-based community could possibly have this danger. I was wrong, and so many others continue to think this way. Your support will be used to end the stigma and to bring much-needed awareness to rural areas struggling with substance use and the need to create early awareness. I cannot thank your organization enough for what you do for our communities, both urban and rural. You have given AIR a reason to believe that there are others who strive for the same changes AIR focuses on, to change the stigma that this is not only an urban threat but one that greatly affects our rural communities. Thank you all so much for giving AIR the opportunity to speak with all of you. Together, we will save lives and make change happen.