156 - MEMORIAL MONDAY- PAIGE MAZUREK

Well, listeners, welcome to another edition of Memorial Monday on the Ash is Too Awesome podcast. I'm your host, Chuck LaFlandre, and today in Virtual Studio, we have a returning guest, Doreen Donoffrio, like right this time? Yes, yes I did. Oh, Doreen Donoffrio, there we go, okay, sorry, sorry. So, Doreen's come back on, she, you know, of course, did a beautiful piece about her daughter last week, and...

Noreen Donofrio (00:17.858)
Noreen Dinafrio

Donna Mazurek (00:22.074)
Ugh.

Chuck (00:29.634)
She's a little more involved than maybe some of the people we've had on in the past and you know, she's got her Crystal's Heart retreat and she leads a pretty big group on Facebook to say the least. She's agreed to help me out with some of this Memorial Monday stuff and I'm really appreciative of that because I could use the help. Thank you very much Noreen for coming back and thank you very much for donating some of your time. Yeah. Yeah, thank you. Our next guest is Donna Mazurek. Did I get that right? Yes?

Noreen Donofrio (00:48.872)
Thank you for having me.

Donna Mazurek (00:56.523)
Muzerik.

Chuck (00:57.782)
Missouri, okay, still sounded closer about Norton said earlier, so whatever. Anyway, and Donna is, well, it's Memorial Monday, so you know why Donna's here. I don't wanna tell that story, that's just not my story to tell, so.

Noreen Donofrio (01:00.981)
Hehehe

Donna Mazurek (01:01.121)
Ah.

Chuck (01:15.662)
Why don't you start with where you think the story starts? You know it better than anybody else does. And kind of take it from there, Donna, and we'll jump in as we deem necessary, if that sounds okay to you. Yeah. Okay, yeah.

Donna Mazurek (01:17.481)
BOOM

Donna Mazurek (01:28.248)
Okay?

Noreen Donofrio (01:32.712)
So if you want to just start telling us about Paige.

Donna Mazurek (01:36.215)
Okay, Paige was our youngest of five children. She had three sisters and a brother. And her brother and her had nicknames. Paige was pork chop and he was meatloaf.

over the years that's what they came up with. Paige was just a beautiful child inside and out and then uh... and she didn't have a hurtful bone in her body just like Crystal your Crystal uh... she would give her shirt off her back if somebody needed it but better yet she'd come to me and have me buy them a shirt

Donna Mazurek (02:30.063)
She was just like that, you know, her heart was just full. She never liked conflict whatsoever. And then when she was 17, she needed a tooth extracted. And so she went to the dentist and he gave her pain medication. She said, oxies, we can't come up with a script.

at this time and it took us a long time to actually find out that it was oxys But in looking through things her dad Actually had to get a tooth extraction the following week and what I had originally called the dentist He said they said oh, they don't give out that stuff well the day after pages

tooth extraction, her dad was prescribed hydrocodone from the dentist for his tooth extraction a week later. So go figure. I mean, it's out there and they're still giving it out. Opioids are everywhere. So anyway, she became addicted. It only took one pill.

From there, our nightmare began, and it was for five years. It was a roller coaster. And she had stayed, she would buy drugs off the street or steal them from her brother, basically, because he had a couple hand surgeries on his finger and he was given hydrocodone. So, you know, there were so many pills at our house.

Noreen Donofrio (04:21.917)
Thanks for watching!

Donna Mazurek (04:24.799)
and she had already become addicted because only one pill. So it took a few years before we actually totally realized how bad she was. And one day she just told us that she was doing heroin. She had a boyfriend and she always looked for the bad boys and right now I have a Doberman next to me that wants attention, so.

But she always, you know, she had to have a bad boy in her life and he showed her how to shoot a paracetamol. She ended up with an abscess in her arm. She almost lost her arm and had she lost it, sometimes I wish she would have because maybe she'd still be here. Maybe that would have been her awakening. She ended up with hepatitis C.

Noreen Donofrio (05:20.596)
Hmm.

Donna Mazurek (05:26.087)
Her liver doctor told her, we can get it out of your system, but I won't do it unless you are clean for six months. Because otherwise, it's not worth it. It's over $100,000.

Donna Mazurek (05:45.127)
Paige and I were really, really close. We had a really good relationship through this. They had a, her brother ended up going on a sting to get her away from the guy and the boyfriend because she took off with him and wouldn't tell me where she was. And she became addicted in Florida.

Noreen Donofrio (06:10.865)
Hmm.

Donna Mazurek (06:11.003)
She was down in Naples in a bad area and the police called me because they wanted him. And then his sisters, her sisters told her that I'd had a heart attack once in the hospital. And then they turned around and called me and said, don't answer the phone if she calls you. So they finally got her out of that house. But there was like five or six cop cars behind her brother and.

She finally came out and he went to jail. They took her to the police department and basically interrogated her. And then she decided she was gonna move back to Michigan and live with one of her sisters. So she kinda lived with all of her sisters at one point or another.

and she met another bad boy up here. And she ended up, she was given, she started having grand mal seizures in Florida from doing the drugs. So she had a neurologist that gave her something that she shouldn't have been given.

And along with that, with her seizure medicine, she ended up in a psychotic episode. So one night, I was getting pictures of her slicing her arms and her legs, and she tried to hang herself. Her boyfriend broke down the bathroom door, but he wouldn't take her to the hospital. He wouldn't call the hospital because she begged him.

You know, don't do it, I won't do it again. Please don't do it, you know, and so he listened to her. And had she gotten that help, maybe she'd still be here. She did a, probably, I would say at least three times in jail, wasn't long enough. The first time she went to jail for 30 days for paraphernalia and then she was scheduled for a,

Donna Mazurek (08:35.951)
You guys, please stop. She was scheduled for a, to go into a rehab. She was mandated to that for 30 days. Wasn't long enough. They really thought that she was gonna make it. But after about three or four months, she was done. And she ended up back on the drugs and the heroin.

So five years later, it was the week of Easter. That Sunday, the Sunday before Easter, can you take care of these dogs? Sunday before Easter,

Donna Mazurek (09:23.235)
I couldn't get a hold of her.

Chuck (09:23.71)
Well, we'll just pause for a second while you get them out there because it's really overwhelming. So, if you need to take a minute, if he's going to take the dog, then somebody else is going to, you said? Yeah, yeah, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah. That's what it was, right? It was, yeah, right? So, I think I'll be able to filter most of that out, but yeah, if we, yeah.

Donna Mazurek (09:30.999)
Yeah, he just took them. I'm sorry.

Noreen Donofrio (09:34.443)
Even the dog nails on the floor is loud.

Donna Mazurek (09:37.927)
I'm sorry. I thought they were gonna be okay and they're making me lose my train of thought.

Chuck (09:47.491)
If you want to make God laugh, make plans. So yeah. Yeah. Ah-ha. That's a lot of energy in two dogs. That's what that is. Yeah. Especially that Doberman. Velcro breed. My last dog I had was a Dobie. And oh my God. You just, you couldn't do anything. Right? It was just always there. Anyway, back to work. Edit, edit, edit. Okay.

Donna Mazurek (09:49.399)
Yeah, we have a Doberman and a Husky. So.

Mm-hmm

Donna Mazurek (10:10.483)
And so she was given medication and that's what happened. She ended up in that psychotic episode for a weekend. I spent more of my time up in Michigan than what I did in Florida. And we had, you know, we lived in Florida 12 years. Then the week of Easter, that Sunday night she had a fight with her boyfriend. And...

I couldn't get a hold of her. I tried and tried and tried. Well, she had a girlfriend pick her up. They went and got five hits of heroin. Little did we know that it was straight fentanyl, or at least one of them was. Her girlfriend went to work the next morning and came home at 4 o'clock because she couldn't reach Paige and found her in the bathroom.

But that morning I went out on my daughter's porch and I just, you know, I knew what she had gone through, the rehabs, everything, and you could see how broken she was. And she would tell me, Mom, I have something to tell you but I can't. She had lost a baby and she couldn't forgive herself, too. So I went out on my daughter's porch because she had overdosed the month before

up in Michigan getting her more help and she left rehab again. And I was doing my morning prayers and I finally said, God, if you need to take her, take her. As long as you're on one side of me and she's on the other, I'll be okay. Ten o'clock that night, my son called and said, Mom, are you sitting down? And all I said was, is she gone?

and I just got goosebumps, you know? And he wanted to make sure I was sitting down. I said, John, don't tell me, don't ask me if I'm sitting. Just is she gone? Because they didn't come to her address in Michigan. They came to our house in Florida. And yes, she was gone. So the next morning, I got a call from her judge. Her.

Donna Mazurek (12:34.663)
Judge Jody and she ended up leaving the bench six months after Paige passed because she took Paige's story across the country and internationally now.

Noreen Donofrio (12:46.016)
When you say she was her judge, can you clarify that?

Donna Mazurek (12:52.056)
She had sentenced Paige to jail, put her in rehab, wasn't long enough, and she realized that later. She called me that morning, I had never met her, and she cried all night because Paige was the first one that was a heroin addict that she had lost.

Noreen Donofrio (13:11.911)
Wow.

Noreen Donofrio (13:17.82)
And she really tried to help, sounds like.

Donna Mazurek (13:19.919)
Yes, her daughter said, Mom, why are you crying? And her daughter was only about 11 years old then. She showed Grace Paige's picture and said that she was a heroin addict and she overdosed and died. And Grace said, she doesn't look like an addict. And her mom says, they don't. You know, they can be your neighbor. Nobody knows.

Noreen Donofrio (13:42.312)
Wow, there you go.

Donna Mazurek (13:51.387)
So anyway, she ended up seeing Paige before Paige was even ready to be shown at the funeral. And the funeral director called me and said, I have this lady that wants to see, this judge that wants to see your daughter, and I'm telling her no. I said no, let her in. She can go in. So she made promises to Paige. I don't know what they are. But she saw Paige. And when the...

The funeral director heard her name a couple times. He says, oh my gosh, she got my daughter out of an abusive relationship. Of course I'll let her in to see her. So, you know, it was like that. And the pastor at Paige's church that she went to, Paige actually gave herself to God again in jail with him. And he knew.

the judge, and the funeral director. So everybody knew one another.

Donna Mazurek (14:57.967)
God just works in mysterious ways, I guess. And God really held me up because I was a strong person. I had four kids that were basket cases along with my husband. And I could never figure out why I wasn't crying constantly. I knew Paige and I were really, really close, but still, you know, I always cried at funerals and you know, everything else, and this was my daughter.

So we had decided to move back to Michigan to be close to the kids. And the night before we moved, I had a prophecy at Page's Friends Church. And God told me, this lady had never met me, put her hand on my head, and God told me, I took the worst pain away from you so that you could help other moms.

Noreen Donofrio (15:57.94)
Well...

Donna Mazurek (15:58.471)
and dads.

Noreen Donofrio (16:00.517)
It's amazing, isn't it Donna, how-

We see our children suffer so much that it is in a way a blessing for them to go home because we see the trauma that they have done to themselves.

Donna Mazurek (16:12.827)
Yeah.

Donna Mazurek (16:20.799)
into the whole family. I mean it's just not them. She affected all of us. You know, yeah, and it's horrifying. But I had turned it over to, I turned her disease over to God, probably at least a year before she died because I couldn't do the roller coaster anymore. I just couldn't. I ended up backing in.

Noreen Donofrio (16:22.557)
Sure.

Noreen Donofrio (16:28.04)
Yeah, it's a family disease.

Donna Mazurek (16:49.703)
to a brand new Lincoln coming out of Sam's Club one day. And Paige, that was right after the episode where she tried to kill herself. And this little old man got out and said, "'You're okay, I'm crying,' "'cause I was getting an IV, "'so I had my hand was all bandaged for my IVs.'"

and I'm crying to this man and he says, don't worry, it's okay, it's okay, you didn't hurt my car. And he let me go and all the way home, I said, God, you have to handle this, I can't do this anymore. And I loved her, I got her into plenty of rehabs, but, and I told the whole family.

Because she had lots of aunts and uncles. She had lots of aunts and uncles that didn't know.

Noreen Donofrio (17:46.248)
You think of the roller coaster.

Noreen Donofrio (17:53.564)
think of the roller coaster ride you're speaking of that we were on, imagine what they're going through. They didn't want that any more than we wanted it for them, right?

Donna Mazurek (18:04.003)
Right, she didn't want to die. She didn't want to die. She didn't know there was fentanyl. You know, and I asked her, right, like two weeks before, you know, I said, Paige, if you don't stop, you're gonna die. She said, oh no, mom, I got two dealers and they got my back. Yeah, right. The one started putting fentanyl in. All of his stuff. And she was gone.

Noreen Donofrio (18:38.096)
Can you share a little bit, Donna, about what you have done with your tragic loss, what you have done to make a difference?

Donna Mazurek (18:51.451)
Well, I had actually asked Judge Jody to write Page's memorial, and I never met her until the week after the funeral. And she had sent Jeannie Richards, who is no longer with us, she had lost her son Brian, and Stacey Burns, who is in recovery with drug-free All-Stars now, they came to Page's funeral and they were telling me, because I really didn't know what was going on out there.

And back then, eight years ago, we were only losing about 70 people a day. Now it's over 300. You know, and I was just floored. And so we decided at that point in time that, or the Lord decided that we were gonna do a 501C3 and we were gonna fight. So that's what we did. And...

Noreen Donofrio (19:49.736)
What does Page's Promise do? What do you do in your non-profit?

Donna Mazurek (19:55.515)
It's awareness, education, and recovery. We will help anybody. I'm out, I tell Paige's story to cashiers in the grocery store. Anybody I meet. And they can be a complete and total stranger, but God knows they need to hear something. And it's amazing because when she died there was not Narcan.

Addiction wasn't a disease. So the stigma when she first died was horrific and it's still, it's pretty bad still but when she, literally when she first died I couldn't believe it. And you hear all the time, oh not my child. And then later on it may be their child. They just don't know.

But they've come a long way with that stuff and mats too. You know, like we have fentanyl testing strips and the Narcan medically. Yes. We do.

Noreen Donofrio (21:11.548)
You give this stuff out, right? You go around and pass it out. And where do you pass it out?

Chuck (21:17.669)
And we're gonna take a quick break for a PSA. It's the perfect time, so, okay.

What we do right now is, I've got a few commercials that we play. The PSA said everybody should carry Narcan. That's what we believe, and we preach it in every episode. I have since my very first one, so that's what I'll be playing right now, is a commercial saying, you know, if you don't carry Narcan, you should. And then what we do is if, because like in Canada, it's free everywhere. Narcan is just like, they just hand that shit out all over the place, right? I guess in some parts of the US, you still have to pay for it, right? Or, yes, right?

Donna Mazurek (21:30.811)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (21:49.827)
Yes, yes you do.

Noreen Donofrio (21:50.428)
Yeah, some places.

Chuck (21:52.336)
That's crazy, right? They think it's not needing a prescription is the, like, this is what we're doing for the world, right? But, like, I can't imagine. Like, I can go right now and pick up 10 Narcan kids if I want, right? In a second. So, what we say to people is, if you can't find it for free in your area, show us an email, we'll find it for you, or I'll send you some, right? So, let's go. And we've been doing that since the very beginning. We only had a few people call me up on it. First one to call me up on it was in South Africa. Fuck.

Noreen Donofrio (22:13.46)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (22:17.694)
Okay, I guess I'm sending some there, right?

Noreen Donofrio (22:17.705)
Wow.

Noreen Donofrio (22:20.8)
Donna has some connections to get it as well, if you know people that need it.

Chuck (22:24.618)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Down, and that's the thing, on the south side I do, on that side of the border, right? Absolutely, yeah, I do, right? Because I have a lot of connections down there. I have a few now, for sure, right? So, yeah. Where are you from, Donna? What part of the world?

Donna Mazurek (22:38.995)
Michigan.

Chuck (22:40.41)
Okay, okay, okay. So, okay. Over on the east side there, yep. I haven't had somebody on the west coast. Not one, not one guest from the west coast, which is funny, because like San Francisco is probably the worst. Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Donna Mazurek (22:43.12)
Yes.

Donna Mazurek (22:53.782)
We're on the west side of Michigan.

Donna Mazurek (22:59.309)
Eh. Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (23:00.624)
I can hook you up with that, Chris.

Chuck (23:06.41)
It's important, the geographic seeds, I don't know if I ever explained that to you, right, but it's important for growth of the show, that's for sure. Everybody lately has been, well, I've had, I don't even know how many from Florida, a ton of them. I had a ton from Alaska, because Alaska is the worst state in the province, or in the province, sorry, in the country, right, believe it or not, for fentanyl deaths. Yeah, yeah, this Indigenous community there.

Donna Mazurek (23:23.239)
Wow.

Noreen Donofrio (23:25.268)
Well, I have a few from California and a couple from Seattle, so I can...

Chuck (23:29.322)
Yeah, yeah, I haven't, either place, I haven't had anything, right? Texas, I've had a few. Yeah, definitely a few from Texas for whatever reason, but. Anyway, let's get back to it. You can continue on with your story here, so edit, go ahead.

Noreen Donofrio (23:38.588)
Okay.

Donna Mazurek (23:43.443)
And so along with at the funeral, Jeannie actually read Page's memorial that Judge Jody I had write and Judge Jody left the bench six months later to take Page's story across the country and she even goes internationally. So she does have her own law firm too.

Noreen Donofrio (24:03.434)
Wow.

Donna Mazurek (24:16.671)
So that's when we decided that Paige's promise was going to be born. But since then, I mean, God's put me on an amazing journey. I've gone to Purdue Pharmaceuticals and marched with 500 other moms and dads who had lost children. I went to Harvard to march to take the Sackler name off the buildings.

Noreen Donofrio (24:45.844)
Beautiful.

Donna Mazurek (24:46.871)
I've gone to Dayton, Ohio a couple of times, spent a week in the Epic Center because they were the worst in the country. And then they got better, and then they got kind of bad again with COVID. Dayton closed up all their bathrooms because there were so many people dying in them. You know, so if you're there, you can't find a public restroom to go in when we were there.

saw somebody overdose on meth, so we called EMS, got him Narcan. There was also a drug bust on the street because we were staying in an Airbnb on the street and down farther on that street is where they had all the body bags in the beginning and they had the refrigerated trucks because they didn't have enough room in their morgues. So they were really bad.

Noreen Donofrio (25:44.992)
Mm.

Donna Mazurek (25:45.967)
but we got with different things and found out what they were doing to make it better. I heard that Portugal was doing amazing stuff, and now I'm hearing maybe it's not what they thought, you know, because they had taken their overdoses down to about 20 a year.

Chuck (26:05.426)
It's... Everything, if you see a statistic, there's money behind it, right? So at some point, you always have to question all of the statistics. And what I understand of what's happened in Portugal was a wonderful thing. I haven't heard the opposite yet, and maybe it hasn't, I don't know. But anytime, there is no easy answer to any of this. And I think it's...

Donna Mazurek (26:25.999)
It's just been recent.

Donna Mazurek (26:30.51)
Mm-mm.

Chuck (26:33.906)
special interest groups, you always have to wonder where the information's coming from, right? As soon as you see a statistic, somebody paid for the statistic, somebody wanted something to come of it, right? And then that's where you have to always question that stuff, right, so it's just not face value, but.

Donna Mazurek (26:47.799)
I've been filmed for a documentary called Needles in the Hay. It's about the heroin epidemic in the Midwest. It's not a movie yet, but hopefully he will be able to do that. It's by Brett Myers. And it's awesome. It has people shooting up, you know, people, pages of stories in there, Judge Jody speaks on it.

And then when I went to Purdue Pharmaceuticals with 500 other moms and dads, all I said was, I want to confront them face to face. And so I was one of 28 people out of about 180,000 that was picked to talk to them face to face in the bankruptcy court. It was over.

Noreen Donofrio (27:42.128)
And every one of us would like to do that.

Donna Mazurek (27:45.059)
Yep, and it was over the laptop on Zoom. But anyways, the next morning, what I had said was the headline for the New York Times, you murdered my daughter. And they also took her story from Facebook and that and put it together and it went internationally all over the world. So.

God made that happen because it was on my heart to be able to do that. I'm in the bankruptcy lawsuit, but it's evidence-based and you can't come up with scripts from 2010. They're destroyed, so we're kind of like lost there.

Paige, the week she died, there were 15 other people that died from surrounding neighborhoods in Oakland County. And I bet all of their death certificates say, undeterminable. Well, undeterminable is unacceptable to me, but can't get it changed. And when I kept going to the coroner, she finally said,

We were told by higher-ups to put undeterminable on their death certificates. So you lose out on insurance claims and they don't want their property values to go down.

Noreen Donofrio (29:24.628)
Wow.

Donna Mazurek (29:33.412)
I've also gone back to Dayton and spoke at the Dayton Fellowship for their 25th anniversary and I gave them a tree and a plaque from rooting for recovery. I was one of the founders for that, a founder for the global recovery movement. I both have left those two but I still do plaques.

Noreen Donofrio (30:01.044)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (30:02.972)
And afterwards, I had people come up to me after I spoke and said, oh, I needed to hear that. You know, will you hug me? And I'm a hugger anyways, you know, but they would say, oh, I just got goosebumps. I had a gal who was in recovery, but she was pushed from a 10-story floor window.

broke a hundred and eight bones in her body. And we talk off and on still.

Donna Mazurek (30:42.535)
So the dogs are coming back.

Noreen Donofrio (30:48.983)
What would you like to see happen?

Donna Mazurek (30:53.379)
I would like this epidemic to end. You know, one death is one too many.

Noreen Donofrio (30:53.832)
going forward. Right.

Noreen Donofrio (31:00.884)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (31:02.615)
You know, and Page's Promise, we have a $500 scholarship every year that we give out for somebody going into college. A lot of times they've been through recovery. They're going to college to fight substance use disorder. I give out 10 bags a month filled with blankets and...

flip-flops and water bottles and rain ponchos. We probably, you know, information on where to get help, like from Hope Not Handcuffs. I put Crystal's Heart Healing House in there. Information, we do Bibles and journals and pens. Whatever we think might help somebody that's homeless or just getting into recovery.

or just leaving a recovery home. And then we got asked by the health department to do 300 bags for the jail. Because when people get out of jail, and this is just one county in Michigan, which is New Agro County, but when they get out of jail, they're homeless. They've got nothing. So we're in the process of doing that.

Chuck (32:02.222)
Thanks for watching!

Donna Mazurek (32:29.891)
and they came up with a few grants to help us along our way. Because everything costs money. And we do a lot of fundraising, but it's tough. It's really tough. Yeah, I wanna see this end. And then we do support for grieving parents. I've talked to moms.

Chuck (32:37.262)
Thanks.

Noreen Donofrio (32:39.4)
That's a beautiful thing.

Donna Mazurek (33:00.075)
and have numerous friendships now. Support for people that are trying to keep their kids alive because the substance user isn't calling us for help. It's normally the parent or the brother or an aunt or uncle. But I'll help anybody that gives us phone call.

Noreen Donofrio (33:29.236)
That's right.

Donna Mazurek (33:29.583)
I've done craft shows and have stood out and told Paige a story for weekends on end. We've given numerous things away just to get people going. We work.

Chuck (33:46.322)
I think, Donna, everything you said sounds to me like connection. Connection is so important. Giving a blanket or a pair of socks or flip flops or whatever, a Bible, a journal, you're making connections with people that really need connections, and that's what's so beautiful about what you're doing.

Donna Mazurek (34:06.737)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (34:08.276)
Yes.

Chuck (34:10.334)
perceived lack of connection for me was the boot on my neck for the last two years I was in active addiction. Right? So what you're doing is, it's amazing. You know, please keep doing that. Yeah. Sorry, I had to jump in with that. Yeah. Yeah, it is. It really is. Yeah.

Noreen Donofrio (34:16.241)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (34:22.376)
Well, it's all about the love, right, Chris?

Donna Mazurek (34:25.303)
Yes, I think that's what needs to be spread because I've spoken at places and a girl got up and said, you know, when I was in active addiction, it was like nobody loved me.

Noreen Donofrio (34:44.516)
And a lot of times it keeps them in the disease.

Donna Mazurek (34:44.921)
And I would...

Chuck (34:45.197)
up.

Donna Mazurek (34:47.787)
And I was there and I said, well, you know what? I love you. God loves you. And the more people you can tell every day, God loves you. I used to, every time I went to church, I had this little old man and he would look at me, you know, and he would say, God loves you. And we just had a connection. And then his family took him back to New York and I don't know where he is.

Noreen Donofrio (34:52.694)
That's right.

Chuck (34:54.343)
So we just...

Chuck (35:16.918)
Oh no. When you're speaking of not feeling loved, we just spoke about this on a recording I did earlier today. There's one thing worse than not feeling loved, and it's not feeling lovable. And it's a thousand times worse, and it's horrible, and it's what keeps so much of us doing what we're doing. And it's an awful thing to experience, right? It's an awful thing.

Donna Mazurek (35:18.075)
But, um...

Donna Mazurek (35:39.121)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (35:42.776)
Yes, and they feel abandoned.

Chuck (35:45.482)
100%. That's my story.

Noreen Donofrio (35:47.336)
And that's why we have to fight this stigma, because these are human beings. And there's no, there shouldn't be the shame. The shame keeps them down, you know?

Donna Mazurek (35:53.275)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (35:57.834)
Nope. Absolutely, it does. 100%. Right.

Donna Mazurek (36:00.52)
Nope. When Paige overdosed a month before she died, the doctor in the hospital told her sister, we're just going to get her better, send her on her way, because the next time she comes, she'll be dead. They wouldn't put her into rehab. My daughter went to the administrator, and she...

Chuck (36:19.979)
Sorry.

Donna Mazurek (36:26.507)
She was put into detox, Paige was, and the administrator did compassion classes for these doctors. And you're talking, you know, eight, nine years ago, well, eight years ago, it was like their callous.

Noreen Donofrio (36:50.548)
We've come a long way and it's because moms like us and many others that have taken this tragedy and done a beautiful thing. You know, we've turned one terrible thing into something that's helping hundreds, thousands. Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (37:09.231)
but it's not ending. And you know, sometimes, you know, I've thought about this. You know, there is a big kick with fentanyl right now. Fentanyl's killed everybody. Now, fentanyl's an opioid, and opioids kill. Doesn't matter if it's heroin, fentanyl. Now there's a new drug out, Xyla something.

Noreen Donofrio (37:12.244)
Well.

Noreen Donofrio (37:22.523)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (37:37.31)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (37:38.395)
and fentanyl, or Narcan doesn't work on it. Yeah, so, what do we do? And I've thought about everything, and I know there's a lot of groups that have memorials, they're trying to do Times Square, they're trying to have their own Fentanyl Awareness Day, August 21st, well.

Chuck (37:38.459)
Yep.

Noreen Donofrio (37:40.892)
doesn't work for it, right?

Chuck (37:42.72)
On any of the bandsos it doesn't work.

Donna Mazurek (38:04.063)
Opioid Awareness Day or Overdose Awareness Day is August 31st. Why are we adding? It's, you know, and I think the thing of it is we have to go back because most people don't start addiction shootin' up heroin. Saying, oh, I'm gonna become an addict today and shoot up heroin. No. You know?

Noreen Donofrio (38:04.264)
Mmm.

Chuck (38:05.178)
August 31st.

Noreen Donofrio (38:10.764)
I agree. It's dividing us.

Noreen Donofrio (38:25.501)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (38:28.354)
Hmm. No. Nobody does.

Donna Mazurek (38:31.919)
We have to go back to the root cause. And until we get rid of the root cause, we're not gonna get rid of the sub-pidemic. That's really the way I feel. And you know, Paige was an opiate. Doctors are still giving out opioids. You know, they may not be giving out as many, but really, when you think about it, only takes one for certain people.

Noreen Donofrio (39:00.304)
Yeah. I was watching the movie last night, Painkillers. It's kind of like the story of Dopesick with

Chuck (39:05.936)
Ah, second time that's come up today too. Yeah, yeah.

Donna Mazurek (39:07.951)
Dope sec? Yeah, I heard about it.

Noreen Donofrio (39:11.192)
And every time I watch these kind of series, it just gets the blood boiling because you know it's all about the money. I mean, these are lives. It's all about the money to these people.

Donna Mazurek (39:19.942)
Yep.

Yes, and you know, they're billionaires, and you know, so what do they care? Although I did hear that, you know, they're looking at doing criminal charges against the Sacklers. There's people that want them in jail. You know, and they really haven't lost anything. They really haven't.

Noreen Donofrio (39:26.506)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (39:37.82)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (39:49.712)
and there's no comparison to the loss of life.

Donna Mazurek (39:53.059)
Right. And I told them, I said, uh, what- I held up her morgue picture to them.

and said, are you able to kiss your child at night? Good night? Are you able to hug them? Well, this is what you gave me.

And Paige always had her tongue sticking out, you know, she was just the joker of the family.

Donna Mazurek (40:29.411)
She just liked to joke around, you know. She was, she kept this all going. She thought she had the best birthday ever because she was born on 7-11. And so she'd go to every 7-11 around, take every flavor they had, until she was sick. And she did that yearly.

Chuck (40:41.71)
Hehehehehehe

Chuck (40:54.544)
There you go. I think I'm going to be working out there. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.

Donna Mazurek (41:02.171)
But.

Um, you know, it's like we got a chance to go to Crystal's Heart Healing House and, um, do the retreat and it was awesome. It was the best thing. I made lifelong friends.

Chuck (41:19.934)
I'd like you to tell us about that from your lens. Of course, I've heard about it from Noreen, but your lens is somebody who's introduced to it as somebody who needed to be there. How was that for you? What was it like? Yeah?

Donna Mazurek (41:32.567)
It was great. You know, it was like Paige was there. She was with us and it's beautiful and it was serene and you know, you didn't have to do anything you didn't want to. But you know, we were there and we wanted to. You know, it was just so relaxing and we had group and we had talks and you know.

Noreen Donofrio (41:37.216)
Hmm.

Donna Mazurek (42:02.855)
Paige actually, I think it helped my husband a lot, although I'm the one that couldn't shut up. My mouth was going constantly. But my husband went through depression from all of this, and he used to call Paige his angel. And he lost his angel. Well, not too long ago I happened to find something that he broke when she died.

Chuck (42:11.822)
Hehehe

Donna Mazurek (42:32.951)
about her being its angel and being gone. You know, it's heartbroken. We all are heartbroken because we don't have her on her birthday. We're going to 7-Eleven. You know, we do birthday cakes. I know she's still with us, but...

You can't hold her. She sends, you know, signs. I mean, we would get signs. Look at all the hummingbirds flying back and forth in Georgia. They kept flying over our heads and some of them were saying, oh, it's just a big bug. No, it was a hummingbird. Just beautiful signs.

Noreen Donofrio (43:20.472)
I love the fact that your husband came too, because I truly believe that so many of the fathers get lost. You know, it's like they're in a lot of pain too. And they don't express it. It was really good to have your husband here and sharing the male's point of view too.

Donna Mazurek (43:28.852)
Yes, they do.

Donna Mazurek (43:42.703)
Well, this past year I had a father reach out to me and a few years back he had contacted Pages Promise and we must have talked. And then he called me this past New Year's Eve or New Year's Day and he said, can you send me Pages logo? So I sent him, you know, her logo and stuff. Well, he...

Noreen Donofrio (44:02.036)
Mm-hmm.

Donna Mazurek (44:13.219)
runs a snowmobile races for young kids so that they don't end up addicted. He keeps them busy in the winter. And so, and they're antique snowmobile races, I guess. So he did a snowmobile hood in Paige's logo. And it was supposed to be signed by all

people that were racing, and then he's gonna give it to me. But we didn't have cold enough weather here in Michigan last year for it, so he still has it, and hopefully we can do it this next February, I think it is. But that's just from somebody that, you know, reached out and he says, you helped me, and he lost his son.

Um, he ended up addicted in college and lost his son who was into sports and golf and everything else and he's broken. And he just needs someone to talk to, you know, and I'll talk to anybody and I'll hug everybody.

Noreen Donofrio (45:26.172)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (45:36.692)
There's a lot of pain out there. It's awesome that you do what you do and the awareness and the fighting and the sacklers and everything you do. Thank you for that, Donna.

Donna Mazurek (45:48.627)
Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me. But the other thing I learned at Crystal Heart Healing House Retreat was a heart hug.

Noreen Donofrio (45:58.815)
Mm-hmm.

Chuck (45:59.31)
Oh? It was a heart hug.

Donna Mazurek (46:02.315)
Noreen can... Yeah, you hugged heart to heart.

Noreen Donofrio (46:02.44)
You want to describe the heart? Okay.

Noreen Donofrio (46:08.084)
It's usually the opposite way of what you tend to want to go. We hug our heart to heart. Mm-hmm.

Chuck (46:08.272)
Ah, okay, okay.

Chuck (46:16.014)
Okay, okay, okay. Oh, I like that, yeah. Okay.

Donna Mazurek (46:16.848)
Yeah.

Yeah, and we let off balloons and we painted rocks and yes and we made angel bookmarks and we had a lot of fun doing that. Pages Promise does angel bookmarks and we do rear view mirror hangers and things like that. Just trying to make a little extra money. I do shirts now and my one shirt says.

Noreen Donofrio (46:24.04)
biodegradable balloons.

Chuck (46:26.19)
Of course they were, of course they were. Anything else would be irresponsible to us.

Donna Mazurek (46:49.915)
I fight overdose awareness for my daughter, Paige, forever 22. And then my other one, the back of it says, I am a recovery supporter of substance use disorder.

Chuck (47:06.246)
It's almost a wrap. I like that though. I think that brings us to my favourite part of the show. That's the Daily Gratitudes. And I appreciate ladies, I think you guys are well into your healing now, so it's not so hard. Sometimes we're in the sadder topics, it's when we need them the most, the Gratitudes.

Noreen Donofrio (47:10.228)
It's awesome.

Noreen Donofrio (47:19.732)
to daily gratitude.

Chuck (47:34.506)
I'll say it, kind of behind the, peek behind the curtain for the listeners. I was in a pretty wildly cranky mood half an hour, an hour ago. It's been a long day, you know, we're having some tech problems and I'm sitting here listening to both of you and I'm putting everything in their perspective. And thank you for that. So I'm going to throw out a gratitude right off the cake. Go and say thank you. Because, you know, yeah.

Noreen Donofrio (47:53.012)
Well, thank you for that. How about you, Donna? What's your daily gratitude?

Donna Mazurek (47:54.894)
Eh.

Donna Mazurek (47:58.799)
Well, my first one is God. I'm grateful for him. My second one is family. And my third one today is that I'm honored that I was asked to do this interview. I'm very grateful.

Noreen Donofrio (48:06.9)
Mm-hmm.

Noreen Donofrio (48:18.044)
Well, thank you for doing that and spreading the awareness and all the help that you do for others.

Chuck (48:25.225)
Absolutely.

Donna Mazurek (48:25.327)
Yep, and if you ever need me again, just let me know. And maybe it'll go a little smoother without my dogs. Ha ha ha. Oh.

Chuck (48:30.039)
Ah, absolutely.

Noreen Donofrio (48:33.94)
Hehehe

Chuck (48:34.038)
shine the logo up in the sky and it'll be a Batman thing there. Yeah, I'm just kidding. Okay, and for the final gratitudes, it goes out to you, everybody listening right now.

You guys, whatever you're doing, please keep doing it. The numbers keep going up. We keep getting the message to more and more people. You know, if you're on Spotify, comment. If you're on Apple, do the like and the review, or the rating and review. You know what, if you see the logo anywhere, please just like, comment, share. You know what to do. You know all the things. Every time you do any one of those things, you're getting me a little bit closer to living my best life, and that's to make a humble living spreading the message. Message is this.

If you are in active addiction right now, today could be the day. Today could be the day as you start that lifelong journey. Reach out to a friend, reach out to a family member, go to a meeting, call the detox, do whatever it is you need to do to get that journey started, because it is so much better than the alternative. And if you are the loved one of somebody who is suffering an addiction right now, just taking the time to listen to us, if you could just take one more minute out of your day, text that person, let them know they are loved. Use the words. Use the words, you are loved.

Noreen Donofrio (49:33.724)
Let them know their love.

Donna Mazurek (49:35.291)
Yep.

Noreen Donofrio (49:38.516)
You are loved.

Chuck (49:38.722)
That little glimmer of hope, that little glimmer of hope just might be the thing that brings him back.

Donna Mazurek (49:44.495)
And I love you guys.

Noreen Donofrio (49:44.668)
Edit, edit, edit.