After fentanyl killed her soulmate, recovering drug user fights to end stigma of addiction

When Paul Francs Duffy II received a name that one other individual was delivered to the emergency room after an overdose, he would placed on his go well with and head to the hospital. Duffy, as a peer assist specialist, would provide assist to survivors — and encourage them to hunt therapy, identical to he had.

However for a time, at the same time as he labored to assist different addicts, Duffy was quietly struggling together with his personal sobriety. 

“That is the madness of habit, proper?” Gwen Dudley, Duffy’s companion, informed Fox Information. “Duffy knew from his job how harmful this was, however he thought he had it beneath management.”

The final time Dudley noticed Duffy alive, they had been arguing about him going to get therapy.

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“He thought he may lose his job,” she stated. “He was fearful to achieve out and admit that he had been utilizing and get assist.”

“The stigma, even for individuals in restoration, it’s sturdy,” Dudley, herself a recovering addict, stated. 

Duffy, 32, died Could 2, 2021.

“He handed away because of a fentanyl poisoning, which is what I discuss with it as, as a result of it’s,” Dudley informed Fox Information.

‘He saved individuals’s lives’

Since Duffy’s loss of life, Dudley has fought to finish the disgrace related to habit in hopes that fewer individuals will silently endure till it is too late to hunt assist. She’s satisfied stigma prevented her “soulmate” from searching for assist.

“Dependancy does not discriminate. It does not have a face,” Dudley stated. “It’s all people.”

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Duffy, who glided by his final title, was born and raised in Annapolis, Maryland the place Dudley and her son nonetheless reside. Like so many others, Duffy received hooked on opioids via a reliable prescription — he’d initially been given OxyContin in highschool for a again harm, Dudley informed Fox Information.

However when prescription opioids grew to become unaffordable, Duffy turned to a less expensive and extra accessible possibility: heroin. Later, his drug of alternative grew to become cocaine and different amphetamine-like substances, although he would nonetheless use opioids to come back down from the stimulants. 

Duffy was first launched to opioids in highschool when he was prescribed OxyContin for a again harm. 
(Courtesy of Gwen Dudley )

Dudley met Duffy in restoration virtually 5 years in the past. He’d been clear for a few yr, however had intermittent relapses, together with his longest interval of sobriety stretching 4 years.

“Duffy was charismatic, he was humorous,” Dudley stated. “He was giving and loving and vivacious and had a lust for all times that most individuals do not.”

The 2 shortly constructed a life collectively and had their son, Luca, who’s now 3 years outdated. Whereas in restoration, Duffy was targeted on bodily well being and was enthusiastic about serving to others.

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Finally, Duffy received a job as a peer assist specialist for the Anne Arundel County Well being Division in Maryland, a place created in a part of the county’s effort to battle the fentanyl disaster. 

“He saved individuals’s lives,” Dudley stated. “I used to be so happy with him.” 

“He was so amazed to have the ability to try this as a job with all the pieces he’d been via,” she added. “Turned his ache into goal.”

‘Dependancy does not discriminate’

Early in 2021, Duffy’s psychological well being started to show. The couple’s hectic work schedules grew to become even busier with a toddler — and Dudley’s father died of pancreatic most cancers.

Duffy died after he unknowingly took medicine laced with fentanyl.
(Courtesy of Gwen Dudley)

“I used to be positively conscious that Duffy was struggling,” she stated. “He was very depressed.”

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Duffy sought out a therapist who he finally didn’t join with. As a substitute, he turned to alcohol, considering it was a substance he had management over. Quickly, Duffy was abusing medicine once more after practically three clear years.

Dependancy is “by no means what you assume it seems like,” Dudley stated. “It stems from trauma, it stems from psychological well being points, it stems from ache.”

“He tried to cease, however he couldn’t,” she informed Fox Information. “He was primarily utilizing towards his will.”

After two months, Duffy promised he would get assist after only one extra rating.

However he by no means got here dwelling.

Duffy unknowingly purchased medicine laced with fentanyl, an artificial opioid 50-100 instances stronger than morphine, based on the Nationwide Institute of Drug Abuse.

Dudley stated Duffy knew concerning the risks of fentanyl from his job however was “primarily utilizing towards his will.”
(Courtesy of Gwen Dudley)

“Fentanyl is terrifying,” Dudley stated. “It retains me up at evening. It makes my abdomen flip.”

Dudley was headed out with Duffy’s mom to search for her companion when she obtained a name from the hospital. Duffy had been discovered hours after overdosing and was nonetheless unconscious since nobody with him had Narcan.  

Duffy was on life assist for 3 days earlier than docs declared him brain-dead because of a scarcity of oxygen. He was taken off life assist two days later.  

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She mirrored on Duffy’s reluctance to hunt assist. He was afraid he’d be judged for his habit — one thing Dudley considers a illness.

“To deal with this as some sort of ethical failing to me is mind-boggling,” she stated. “It is actually a medical problem.”

“All of us must know what fentanyl is, what it is in, and educate the individuals round us as a result of it is a public well being disaster,” Dudley added.

Drug overdose deaths surpassed 100,000 for the primary time in U.S. historical past in 2021, based on the CDC. Over 64,000 of these deaths had been because of artificial opioids like fentanyl. 

“That is coming in over the borders,” Dudley stated. “The border insurance policies are failing.”

“And I do not wish to make it political, but it surely’s only a reality,” she added.

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Dudley has devoted her time to dismantling stigma surrounding habit so others struggling may search assist sooner.  
(Courtesy of Gwen Dudley )

‘Heroic in his personal method’

Dudley, aiming to finish the stigma and make individuals extra comfy about searching for therapy, now works remotely as a nationwide outreach coordinator for Ascend Restoration Heart in West Palm Seaside. She makes use of TikTok as a platform to boost consciousness concerning the risks of fentanyl. 

As her son will get older, “I will let him know that his dad was sick,” Dudley stated. “That he was heroic in his personal method and saved lives, however that he struggled with this sickness and clarify fentanyl to him.”

Although she nonetheless grieves, Duffy’s loss of life has introduced Dudley a brand new sense of goal. 

“I might thank him for believing in my energy earlier than I did,” she informed Fox Information. “And displaying me how one can assist individuals from the guts and never care what different individuals assume due to the better good.”

“It is what permits me now to convey which means to his loss of life and take that spirit with me and assist different individuals,” Dudley stated.