Faded

Faded provides comprehensive answers, help and resources for the widespread problem of addiction for no personal gain except for the satisfaction of reaching out to others suffering the pain they've endured and survived as a family. Many can benefit from this family's shared experiences and those of their guests on Faded.

It seems within any cross section of people there will likely be a mix of those who are dealing with addiction, those who are sober & managing addiction, those who have a friend or family member dealing with addiction, or those with a friend or family member who lost their battle to addiction. I’ve had two family members lose their battle each within four months of each other, one was my father, the other his sister, my aunt. I was personally exposed to addiction for almost the first 30 years of my life. This podcast has helped provide some insight & understanding to coping with the loss of a loved one, even after over 10 years later. So even if your loved one is no longer in your life, I still highly recommend giving this podcast a listen, and hope it helps you find peace while allowing you to gain some valuable insight.

Thank you for your honest and thorough feedback on our approach thus far and your personal experiences with this disease. Congratulations on your own sobriety and strength. After reading your review and spending time discussing as a family, I would like to share some thoughts in response. First of all, thank you for tuning in. Whether or not you agree with how things have started off, it supports the fact that the topic is important, people are eager for discussion, and resources in support of the disease are critical. We do truly value everything we’re hearing in feedback since we launched just over a month ago, and are certainly wide open to understanding what will help shape the future of our content and message so that it resonates with as many audiences as possible moving forward. Your feedback is a part of that, and we hear you. You’re right, we are privileged. We recognize that, we are learning about our role as privileged people every day (especially now), and have spent time in great discussion specifically around how we use that privilege to do good and give back, hence why we decided to start the podcast in the first place. While maybe our message hasn’t come across as openly as that to some, and surely our special guests haven’t met the mark on diversity, what I can assure you is that our goal is to educate as many people as possible about a disease that left our family broken, and led us to the solution of recovery. Is there a perfect way to do that? No. But we’re trying. With a topic that holds such a stigma in our society, and based on our experience of having nothing to work from when we needed help, what we do know is that openly sharing our experiences is what we are able to offer. So, in order to embark on this effort of recording, editing, and sharing such a personal project, we did what most would do - we started with what we had. A few amazing people who happen to all be white and generally come from the same types of backgrounds. Do we recognize the point there? Yes. But for the purpose of starting out and what we were trying to accomplish, they did all carry the same message - a message of hope and recovery from a disease that doesn’t discriminate. A message we believe and know that can impact peoples lives as we move forward, that not enough people know about. Do we have a ways to go and room to grow in how we offer that message? Yes! There is SO much to do, and plenty of discussion to cover, but we’ve only just started and we did that with what we had. I hope you can understand that, and please know we understand your concern. In light of your comment about the racial injustice in our country and the weeks preceding this, we did choose to pause in solidarity rather than release an episode and asked (through our social channels) that our audience take that same window of time to listen, watch, read, or learn about the racial injustice and equality issues in our country via suggested materials we provided. We don’t quite have a formally established network of resources to pull from to pull off what would have been an incredible, topical episode based on your mention, so we took a pause as a gesture based on what we knew we could do. And whether it seems like lip service in this moment or not, we have had plans in the works for future episodes to support some of what you mention we’re missing. We also understand that releasing those episodes in the future is the way we prove that, so we will. We just ask that there is understanding from our audience that these episodes don’t come to life overnight. We want to be intentional and accurate and strategic in what we share. This is a hard project. We have full-time jobs on top of trying to learn how to record and edit, and we’re everyday people just trying to share what we know. We don’t have any professional guidance, and are doing our best to tell our story. Like anyone, we have plenty of room to grow, and we’re committed to that growth. At the end of the day, we’ve seen darkness and found light (just as you have) as a family and are motivated to share that story. But we hear you. Lastly, we would love to offer you the chance to join us on the podcast if you’re every open and interested in that (the email accessed via our website or any social channels goes directly to me as the host, and I’m happy to chat via phone at any point too). We see the value in all of the points you made and are always open to continuing that discussion. We only hope that we can prove our words above in action soon. Thank you for sharing.

It is refreshing to hear such raw experiences that shed light on a typically taboo subject. The podcast has already helped me grow in my understanding of the cycle addicts fall into and how the 12 steps root out the underlying issues that cause the disease. I have one family member who is a recovered addict and another who is still fighting addiction. The work you’re doing is so important to bring light into this dark topic that affects far too many lives. Keep up the good work in helping spread awareness and changing lives for the better.