“I had no idea what I was getting into,” he replied.
Addison says those words haunted her.
Tyler’s closest friend, Cody, who dealt Tyler the drugs that killed him, had the same thing to say: he had no idea.
“Just the first two people I asked said they didn’t know,” says Addison. “That got me thinking: I bet nobody else does either.”
After recovering from the loss of her only child to overdose, Addison began searching out how to handle that vacuum of knowledge. That’s when she found Foundation for a Drug-Free World online.
“The first time I saw it I couldn’t believe it. It was everything that I wanted these kids to know,” she says. “I don’t want the frills, I just need the cold, hard facts and that’s what you offer.”
Addison’s childhood friend, now a teacher in their hometown, contacted Addison and asked her to share her story. She did so, and then presented The Truth About Drugs to the students she was speaking to.
It wasn’t long before other teachers began contacting Addison, who was soon going from school to school, telling her son’s story, screening The Truth About Drugs documentary and distributing booklets to hundreds.
