Sam Was Here:  Losing My Son to Addiction

Sam Was Here: Losing My Son to Addiction

Angie Kennedy

Episodes 65
Avg. Duration 13m
Activity Highly Active
Since Mar 2023
Latest Episode Apr 2026

Publishing Details

Schedule
Weekly
Format
Episodic
Consistency
39%
Hosting
feed.podbean.com

About This Podcast

In 2022, more that 107,000 people in the United States died of drug overdoses, my son Sam was one of them. I am Angie and too many of us parents are suffering alone. This podcast is about processing Sam’s life, addiction, and death. To share what I have experienced, learned, and my attempt to keep living with courage and joy.

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Recent Episodes

#64 The Trauma of a Child's Death: You Can Never Unsee Another Parent's Pain

Apr 27, 2026 9m

Watching other Parent's grieve a lost child is even more painful after losing my own.  This episode is a reflection of the beginning and also a discussion of what helped me in the beginning and an…

#63: New Window, New Light: Being Willing to Let Parts of My Story Take Up Less Space in My Life

Feb 09, 2026 8m

I have found that I haven't known what is going to help me move forward in my grief until it does.   Much of my healing comes in retrospect:  This worked, that didn't, and so on.    Six months before…

#62: Finding Gratitude While Grieving: A Superpower in Healing and Moving Forward

Jan 27, 2026 8m

Today's Episode is about gratitude because I think it is the defining emotion of my healing.  Finding gratitude outside of our grief helps us to and shift our mind into a different perspective. I…

#61: Letting Sam's Life Be Bigger than His Death

Jan 23, 2026 11m

After taking a couple of months off podcasting, I have realized that I am at a critical junction in healing from Sam's death.    I now want to focus more on healing and what I learned from Sam's life…

#60: Surviving the 3rd Anniversary: Memories, Vulnerability, and a New Puppy

Nov 20, 2025 14m

Sam's body was discovered on November 13th, 2022, and his funeral was on the 20th.    The anniversary of losing a child never gets easier.   The trauma lives in our bodies.    In today's episode, I…

#59 Staying Rooted in Reality: Sam's Death Feels Impossible, But So Did the End of His Life

Oct 29, 2025 9m

As I struggle with the upcoming 3rd anniversary of Sam's death, I am trying to stay grounded by remembering how difficult the end of his life was.   The only time I ever felt "safe" from potential…

#58 Every Anniversary of Losing a Child is Difficult and Complex: My Thoughts, Feelings, and Coping Mechanisms For Our 3rd.

Oct 28, 2025 11m

The anniversary of losing a child is so much more than just a date.  It involves too much familiarity with everything about the season,  recognizing the before and after, and the vulnerability of…

#57: Picking Myself Back Up Again: I Didn't Choose to Lose Sam, But I CAN Choose How I Respond

Oct 12, 2025 16m

I am just crawling back out of one of my darkest times.   We are nearing the 3rd anniversary of Sam's death and my heart felt unbearably heavy and sad.   It felt like it was almost time to give up…

#56 Sam Died Convinced I Had Ruined His Life: Living With the Unresolved Conflict When a Child Dies

Sep 26, 2025 14m

Sam told me he would never forgive me for turning him in when he robbed a bank but I was positive he would.    I knew that as soon as he got sober, he would understand that I did what I had to save…

#55: Finding Gratitude While Grieving: Why it''s Important, How it Helps Us, and How to Implement it into Your Own Life

Sep 20, 2025 13m

Gratitude is most important during the times it's the hardest to feel. such as during great loss and tragedy.   However, finding gratitude for what we once had, and what we still have now, is a…

#54: The Spiral Staircase of Life With Grief: We Can't Step Off But We Can Level Up

Sep 12, 2025 10m

I recently heard a metaphor that I want to share:  Life is like ascending a spiral staircase and because of this, we keep revisiting the same core problems and  issues time and again.      They may…

#53: Why I Talk About Moving Forward Instead of Reliving Sam's Addiction and Death

Aug 29, 2025 8m

When I started this podcast, my intention was to talk more about Sam's addiction and death than I have, but that was before I realized how important my focus is as I move forward with grief.   If I…

#52: Why We Shouldn't Expect or Wait to Feel Like Healing: Three Reason's to Start the Process as Soon as We Can

Aug 22, 2025 11m

Losing a child is such a torturous journey that If we wait until we feel like moving forward into healing, some of us may never get there.    This is why I believe that instead of waiting until we…

#51: Why Every Relationship Changes When We Lose a Child, How I Navigate This Change, and How My Childhood Family Has Helped My Healing

Aug 16, 2025 24m

When Sam died, I was surprised to notice all of my relationships were  shifting.   Some became closer and some more distant.   At first I felt hurt and misunderstood but I have learned quite a lot in…

#50: It Wasn't Just One Thing: The Risk of Oversimplifying Our Child's Death to Addiction

Aug 08, 2025 8m

When I think about Sam's death, which is large portions of every single day, it's easy for me to get locked into one specific cause or reason for it.   The problem with this is that it causes me to…

#49 Shame: 3 Things I Feel Shame About Regarding Sam's Death, How I Use Logic to Help Myself and Why it's So Important to Move Past it.

Aug 01, 2025 17m

Shame can be a good emotion if it is used to create change but most of us hold on to it long after the lesson has been learned and we suffer long term consequences because of it. In this episode, I…

#48 Sam Was Here: When the Monsters Come Out at Night

Jul 25, 2025 9m

Nighttime is often the most vulnerable time for me because I am all alone with my baseline pain of losing Sam and I cannot escape my own mind and emotions.   I am faced with the reality that daytime…

#47 Grief: We Can Compromise For Happiness or Settle For Misery

Jul 18, 2025 8m

"We can either compromise for happiness or settle into misery."  I heard this phrase about relationships on another podcast and I believe this idea supports the relationship we have with our grief as…

#46: The Forever Cloud of Grief: No Matter How Brilliant My Life Becomes Again, Sam is Still Dead

Jul 11, 2025 13m

One of the harshest realities I have had to face since losing Sam is that I live under the glass ceiling of grief now.   My best days and most fantastic experiences will never be as purely joyful as…

#45: Anger: I Am Not Angry at Sam For Being Sick, Just the Two "Peace Officers" that Allowed Him to Freeze to Death

Jul 03, 2025 15m

In my opinion, any emotion we carry after losing a Son or a daughter is valid.  I know that anger is a common emotion after losing a kid to addiction because there is so much chaos and disbelief that…

Frequently Asked Questions

How many episodes does Sam Was Here: Losing My Son to Addiction have?

Sam Was Here: Losing My Son to Addiction has published 65 episodes since March 2023, covering topics in Health & Fitness, Mental Health.

Is Sam Was Here: Losing My Son to Addiction still active?

Sam Was Here: Losing My Son to Addiction is currently highly active with new episodes weekly. Average episode length is 13m.

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