Today we’d like to introduce you to Debbie “Aunt Debbie” Camp.
So, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
I’ll start with where I am today and then jump to the beginning and then fill in the middle. Where I am today… I am Aunt Debbie. I am a Nurse by day and an advocate after-hours. I earn a paycheck as a nurse, serving the LA area. After work, I coordinate and provide overdose awareness, education and prevention. My passion in life is to break the stigma of addiction and overdose. I believe this is the first step in ending the Opioid crisis that has devastated an entire generation. I believe knowledge is power and I want to empower young people. The beginning… I lost my nephew James July 13, 2016, to an overdose. He was 25 years old. He was doing well in treatment, here in SoCal, but then left abruptly and was suddenly back home in Michigan (my home state and where most of my family still lives). He died within 24 hours of arriving there. The middle… Losing James is the single worst thing that has ever happened to me. There are still times when it doesn’t seem real. He died in July 2016 and in August, I attended my first Overdose Awareness Day Event in Huntington Beach. They had a huge, beautiful banner with pictures of people lost to overdose. The event inspired me.
Through my job as a nurse, I started to network and met people who were doing overdose awareness, education and prevention in the LA area. I developed a project at work about opioids and other prescription medications, which I used to educate the community. I ended up transferring to another department, where this was no longer part of my work duties and that’s when I became an after-hours advocate. I officially became “Aunt Debbie” in 2019 when I planned the first public Overdose Awareness Day Event in Los Angeles. The 2016 Huntington Beach event helped and inspired me so much that I wanted to attend every year. I couldn’t find anything in 2017. And then again, nothing in 2018. I decided to plan an event in 2019 so that I could attend. I chose Clover Park in Santa Monica. I needed to advertise the event, so I created “Aunt Debbie’s Overdose Awareness Page” on Facebook. Overdose Awareness Day is August 31 every year and events are planned around the world. I gathered a group of dedicated advocates and we planned art, music and education activities, along with a memorial ceremony. The goal was to build a community and move toward healing. We’ll be there next year and every year to come, and we hope people find us and join us. This brings me back to where I am now.
Since the Overdose Awareness Day Event in August, I have joined up with End Overdose to do Narcan trainings. Narcan reverses an opioid overdose and it’s super easy to carry and use. With Narcan, no one has to die from an opioid overdose ever again. End Overdose is an amazing non-profit organization that does Narcan trainings. End Overdose and I are also planning programming to take to Fraternities and Sororities at local universities, which will focus on opioid and prescription medication education, along with Narcan training. College students are in the age group with one of the highest overdose death rates in LA County, but they aren’t on the radar as far as education and prevention is concerned. That’s going to change soon. I am also partnering with MAD (Mom’s Against Drugs) to help them plan the Drug Epidemic Awareness Walk Across America in Los Angeles. This is an epic event, started by a group of grieving moms who met on several online Facebook groups and have organized walks in cities all across America. The walks will feature banners with the faces of their children who they have lost to overdose. I think there are 8 or 9 banners right now, but the movement is growing quickly as more and more families learn about it, so there will likely be twice as many banners by the time we march in 2020.
Has it been a smooth road?
I wouldn’t say it’s been a smooth road. Turning grief into action is not easy. It took me a while to be able to think straight again. And then for a couple of years, I had occasional unpredictable panic attacks, usually triggered by certain songs or pictures of James. And also, when I started talking about Fentanyl back in 2016, everyone I talked to said that it’s not a problem here in LA that it’s only on the East Coast. That made me a little nervous because I know what happened back east and in the Midwest. Fentanyl was everywhere and cut into everything. Prince died from an accidental Fentanyl dose that was in Vicodin. Well, in 2018 we started seeing the same thing here on the West Coast. Fentanyl is everywhere now. Even a small amount is deadly. Sadly, I’m not sure the West Coast was ready for it and I’m afraid for what we will see in the next few years.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
My life as “Aunt Debbie” is a work in progress. I wouldn’t exactly call it a business or company. I am a networker and a connector. I know a lot of people in many different areas of Los Angeles doing related work, but each in their own way and touching on different aspects of the same issue… the overdose epidemic. For example, Wendy McEntyre, of Jarrod’s Law, is an expert on the issues surrounding inappropriate sober-living houses and treatment facilities and she is working on changing laws to protect people seeking treatment. Lori Hill leads a grief support group for people who have lost loved ones to overdose. End Overdose does Narcan Trainings. And then there’s all the work that LA County SAPC is doing. I am connected to all of this and more. When I started planning the Overdose Awareness Day event, I realized that I can connect my contacts and help them accomplish their goals, help their work grow. I also have a background in education, so I am able to develop curriculum and educational materials, which, as I mentioned earlier, we will bring to college students. I want to be known as someone who moves the solutions forward… someone who walks the walk and gets things done. This is part of my higher purpose on this earth. I want to be a helper, as Mr. Rogers says we all should be.
What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
I live my proudest moment as Aunt Debbie over and over again, which is every time I say I am James’s aunt; I am Aunt Debbie. Saying his name makes me proud. I feel James’s spirit is with me at times, nudging me to continue this advocacy work and take it farther than I ever knew I could. I am the proudest Auntie on the block!
Contact Info:
- Phone: (310) 428-5694
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuntDebbiesOverdoseAwarenessPage
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