Personal Impact of Substance Abuse
Welcome back to another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. I’m your host, Jake White from Vive 18, and today we are hanging out with a new friend, Ryan Jensen. Now, Ryan is a Minnesota-based speaker and a formal medical examiner, death investigator. With 16 years of experience, he’s performed over 2,000 autopsies and 800 death investigations. He saw firsthand the devastating impact of substance abuse and the opioid crisis on individuals, families, and communities. And Ryan asked if we could have a discussion on the show. I was so excited to say yes. Ryan, welcome to the Drug Prevention Power Hour.
Thanks, Jake, for having me. I’m excited to be here, and thanks for taking the time. You’re doing so many great things, and I’m just glad I can hopefully contribute to you and all the people out there that have the same passion as we do. Absolutely. that’s, I mean, that’s the audience you’re talking to today is people that are ready to save lives and partner up with great organizations to do it. So just to get things started, Ryan, will you tell me a little bit about yourself? And then how did you get passionate about this kind of work that you’re doing?
Yeah, so I know we only have a short time here on the show, but I’ll try to kind of give you a condensed version. So a little bit of background, I guess this all kind of started back when I was my childhood. know, I unfortunately, as we all do, I grew up in a divorced family. My father, who I was pretty close to, he was, you know, dealing with substance use disorders and his drug of choice was opiates and that kind of thing. And ended up losing him back when I was 16 to an overdose. I was a 10th grade in high school. So that kind of set the stage as far as kind of my personal life story with drugs and drug prevention. I ended up deciding that I want to help people. didn’t know exactly how. I thought about social work and that kind of thing. I went to school actually for law enforcement.
And then I transitioned actually to career and death investigations where I did for 16 years. And that was kind of my intro as far as my path goes to kind of get me passionate to, you know, use my experience to help others, you know, make positive choices. Okay, wow. I’m very sorry to hear about your dad. When growing up in your house, was it like as a kid, it’s always interesting to look back and think of the things that I noticed or didn’t notice. Was it evident to you as a kid that this was a problem, like very clear, or was it kind of hidden?
Yeah, so unfortunately, it was definitely, I would say, a weekly problem. There was times where my father would be in the treatment and then he’d be sober for two or three months. But for the most part, I kind of grew up codependent where I basically kind of, I try to hide his drugs and I try to kind of play the parent as, growing up in that situation. So yeah, I had a lot of kind of like a lot of people out there, have to kind of grow up early and fast. And I had a lot of traumatic experiences, which I’m still working through, we all are, right? It’s a life journey, I do use those memories, good and bad, for inspiration to do the work that I do. And ultimately the goal is to help people.
Yeah, absolutely. And that led you into studying law enforcement and then becoming a death investigator and things like that. I’m very curious to hear what some of the things that you have seen as far as a death investigator. Obviously, this being the drug prevention show, is this something that showed up a lot in your work? Yeah, kind take us to that experience from your job.
Yeah yeah, no, that’s a great question. So, so yeah, you know, as far as death investigations go, so I briefed with a police officer after it, I kind of skipped that part earlier. And then I transitioned into actually doing autopsies, like you mentioned earlier, basically, you know, with the autopsy thing, the big thing is with with drug abuse, or even just trying to figure out how somebody passed away is to do toxicology and the cool thing, not cool, but the interesting thing that I enjoy about it was giving families answers and closure. If somebody’s young in their 20s or 30s, we would do an autopsy. If there is nothing anatomically wrong with them, it wasn’t a natural event like a heart attack, aneurysm, that stuff kind of happens to young people, we would do toxicology. A lot of times families and stuff, whether they’re in denial or they just had no idea you know, it would be positive for drugs or be what they call mixed drug toxicity, you know, accidental death for overdoses was classified as. And a lot of families just had a hard time, you know, accepting that.
So that was one thing about the job that I did doing autopsies and death investigations is going out to the scenes. You know, I’m just one small part of process. have law enforcement, the doctors, but just kind of being a guidance for family to give them answers whether or not it’s something that was expected or not, they did find answers eventually. part of the role that I enjoyed the most as a death investigator was helping them find answers.
Okay. And one of the questions that I think parents tend to ask this more, because I think as parents, their worst fear is that their child would end up taking something that would end their life. And right now we live in a world where there’s fentanyl. And that of course is extremely deadly. And the one, like you could take it once and pass away. Were you seeing things like that? What were some of the things that you saw being responsible for these things? If a parent were to come up to you and say, hey, what do need to look out for? What would your response be?
Insights from a Death Investigator
Yeah, so, you know, a lot of the scenes I went out to, you know, ⁓ it’s not your typical thing like you see on TV where, you know, you’re in a, you know, you’re in a dark alley at midnight. You know, a lot of these are affluent neighborhoods, you know, with teenagers especially, you know, I would go out to scenes and, you know, and I would say the average age range is probably near from like 12 to, you know, all the way up to 30 is probably the most common. Usually one or two things are commonalities that I see at the scenes. Usually I’ll go in someone’s bedroom and you’ll see a white powder. Obviously, like you said, it’s usually fentanyl. I’ve even seen even marijuana and even gummies nowadays have fentanyl in it. It’s not as common, but fentanyl is going to come in everything to save costs. The dealers, people, they’re selling the stuff on the streets. They want their supply to go faster.
So they’re pretty much mixing in anything they get their hands on because they want repeat customers and ultimately it comes down to money. So a lot of times, I mean, you’ve probably heard too, there’s actually something called carfenol out there, which is even worse than fentanyl, which is essentially an elephant tranquilizer. And I had a couple of cases like that where some younger people were, they had the blue M20 pills that they were smashing up and they were calling a dollar bill and they were snorting them and they carfenol in it. As a first responder to last responder, when I went out to that scene specifically, that stuff is so pulled, it just takes a grain of sand. And actually I had to have an ambulance on standby, a whole kind of, I call them moon suits, or kind of those astronaut looking suits for my own protection, because there’s stuff out there that’s even worse than fentanyl, and kids nowadays have access to it, which is scary. Dang. Yeah, that is scary. And actually, I hadn’t heard of that before, before you mentioning it.
Yeah, it’s not as common as fentanyl, but it’s out there. You know, get a bad batch of it. And I had two people actually the same scene that pulled pest away from carfentanil and they’re right on top of each other. That’s how quick it was. Okay, yeah, thanks for sharing that. When, with your background and now doing the work that you do supporting communities and even speaking, what are your, what’s the message you’re really passionate about bringing to the world, what are some of the things that you’re excited to teach others?
The Dangers of Fentanyl and Carfentanil
Yeah, that’s a great question, Jake. So, you know, the biggest thing that the message I try to bring to high school students and in prevention is, you know, to be real with them. I usually, you know, I don’t try to use a scare tactic approach. You know, I’m real with them. I do tell stories, obviously in more of a, you know, I don’t use the word dumbed out way, but less graphic way, because I know obviously that you know, to get your message across to kids, you know, they need to understand, you know, the positive aspect of choices, different options. So my big message is when I go and teach at schools is I get a little bit of background about myself. I talked to them about, I start out by saying, you know, I’m not going to sure-co anything. You know, these are stories that I’ve actually seen in real life. You know, this isn’t on TV. And I kind of give them every five or 10 minutes that I’m kind of talking to them about resiliency and positive choices and different things that they can do. You know besides going down the path of You know as you call it kind of a quick fix right to kind of solve their problems Which we all know you know makes things worse, but I try to be interactive with them You know as you know with with high school students you have to be able to be engaging and you know Otherwise, they’re just gonna kind of fall asleep and if you can’t hold the room for an hour as you know You know things can go south pretty fast So I just kind of to keep that in mind as I tell stories. I tell them exactly what I see at the scene consequences I’ve seen, but also give them solutions and reasons why making positive choices is not always going to help them from being a victim of opiates or drugs, but also it’s going to help their career and ultimately their future by starting young by making those choices early.
Yeah, and that’s so important when we bring prevention into the picture is the message isn’t just don’t do this, you know, and students saying, well, what can I do or how can I deal with stress or how can I get the things that I want, feel the way I want, have friends and fit in like all these all these questions. And as you’ve been around our website for a little bit now and we’re, you know, doing some research. Is that something that I think it’s probably like the number one reason why we get booked or rebooked is because they said it wasn’t a don’t like, don’t do this message. It was a, you can do better things. You can have a great life and relieve stress and build community. and then giving those skills. And I know from reading about you, that’s, that’s part of your story too, is like resiliency and, developing good skills. So what do you think, what do you think are these skills that students need to continue making good choices.
Empowering Youth Through Real Conversations
Yeah, you know, I think the biggest thing and is as far as the skills go is, know, students, you know, a lot, you know, my, my experience myself as a teenager, even just kind of, you know, as well as, know, you don’t have to have everything figured out. You know, one, one thing I try to tell them is, is, know, you know, you can be doing all the right things in life and you’re going to come across adversity. You know, we all do, right? That’s it doesn’t matter what family you’re from. You know, some families are, you know, might have a little bit easier than others, but no matter what course you’re dealt per se, you have the opportunity to, you know, how you’re gonna react, you know? So, and those kind of obviously break it down to choices. I try telling them that, you know, small choices, you know, they add up obviously to routines, to habits, to lifestyle changes, you know, the, you know, kind of a cycle. So, you know, I try to tell them that, you know, a lot of your friends, a lot of your peers that you may or may not know, you know, they’re not out there using drugs, you know, they’re out there having fun, they’re in sports, theater, whatever it is, there’s all their alternatives. And ultimately, with hiding, running from your feelings, whether it’s you’re frustrated with school or your friends or your parents or home life, that you still can choose. You can choose what happens to you, but can choose saying no to drugs. You can choose doing positive things. Even if it’s going outside, going for a walk. Growing up for me, my dad was using I would go down and walk by the river just to get out of there and get my mind right, you know? And it’s not the easiest, as we all know, but teenagers and kids need to understand that there’s other options out there. And even if you’re in a tough family situation, you can overcome it. If I would have chose to go down my dad’s path, I wouldn’t have been able to get law enforcement. I wouldn’t have been able to do the things I’m doing. And I wouldn’t be right here talking to you, to Jake right now, you know? So every choice he makes it obviously influences your future and that’s really why I try to explain to them that ultimately they can choose how they react to every situation.
Yeah, that’s so important. And I’m like imagining, you know, being a student in the audience and hearing your story. I’m also imagining you do share like how it personally affected you and your dad and things like that. I remember being in Los Angeles and I was speaking to a group of students and I don’t know if this has ever happened to you before, but sometimes people expect you to stink.
Right? They’re like, they’re like, Hey, the students aren’t going to listen or you’re doing drug prevention. good luck. These students are using drugs every day. Yeah. Boring right? You’re still a boring speaker, right? Yeah, no, yep, exactly. Yes, yes. And before they see you, I mean, that’s the standard. That’s the standard is that, drug prevention speakers or assembly speakers are boring. They’re not relevant. The students aren’t gonna like it. They won’t listen to you. So the bar is very, very low. Which that’s a shame, you know, right? Like someone came in and did that to make the bar that low. But I remember being in LA and people were saying, hey, these kids, they’re not gonna resonate with you. Like, hey, don’t feel bad if they, they’re on their phones the whole time. And I’m listening to this thinking like, all right, I haven’t even started and you are, you’re not giving me the benefit of the doubt. You’re not giving the students the benefit of the doubt. Like I’m going to believe the best in these students and they deserve a great show. Not one where I walk in all insecure and like afraid they won’t like it. Now it was a small group, maybe like 30 to 50 high school students, all have behavioral issues at school, getting in trouble. And that’s probably why that person said that to me. But we had a blast, went through the program, talked back and forth about the content, about prevention and choices and what can we do instead. And at the end, they were all super excited. They’re like, Jake, can we throw sober parties like you do and get sponsors and all that stuff? So they were 100 % in, but the best part again, keep in mind what we were being told about the experience. And then at the end, this young girl comes up with her teacher and says, Jake, I didn’t expect to like this because of what I’ve seen before, but you just gave me permission to not repeat and to go in my mom’s footsteps. She really struggles with addiction. And I realized today with you, I don’t have to do that.
And I imagine Ryan, that’s a big permission of hearing you speak is that you have this choice when you see addiction in your family to think, well, that’s just gonna be my life. I’m gonna go down that route and this will be my outcome. Or you have the choice to say, no, it stops here. Me, I’m gonna end it for generationally for my family. Like I’m gonna go for something better. yeah, that’s why it got me excited about your story too is the students are gonna put themselves in your shoes and they’re gonna be resonating with that moment, especially the ones who have parents that are using at home, which unfortunately happens more than we would like.
Yeah, no, that’s, know, and when you talk about sword parties too, I mean, that’s, that’s like just, you know, that was a genius and just such an awesome way to approach things differently, you know, and I’m not knocking the deer program of the nineties or, know, or, you know, kind of, you know, that kind of thing. Cause I believe that that was a lot of good too. But like you were saying, you have to have a fresh outlook. need something different, you know, if you, you know, even when it comes to PowerPoint, right? You know, you have an outline.
But if you’re not engaged and you’re just reading to the kids, you’re going to lose them in about five minutes. So to add to your point, that’s the reason that I do what I do, you do what you do, and a lot of people out there that are listening do is if you can make a difference in one person’s life, I don’t care how far you travel, it was worth it. ultimately, you’re not going to be there for them when they make those decisions or everybody. But just to get the students to think, if I made this choice, maybe I’ll remember what Jake said, maybe I’ll remember what Ryan said that resonated with me.
And just letting them pause as you know, or think through things versus having that immediate response and a lot of teenagers, and even us as adults do, right? It goes a long way. So yeah, and that’s what inspires and motivates me is making the choices. I decide for myself, I have three young kids at home that I don’t want them to have to go through. went through and I use that as motivation. Was it a bumpy road? But obviously it’s not the road you’re on. It’s where you end up and we’re constantly through life can be on that road. But if kids can just know that they don’t have to go down that path, you know, the hard path, you know, is obviously, you know, is hard to follow like we all know, you know, so just, guess, you know, for people out there listening and stuff, you know, what you and I bring is just originality, empathy, excitement, and you know, you can replicate that and students will spit you out if they don’t see that you’re genuine and you’re not there for the right reasons.
That’s important for anybody that’s doing prevention work. You know, gotta show that you wanna absolutely. I know that resonates because some of the like some other people listening have been thrown into a gym with a couple hundred students and you know, maybe they had a little training, maybe not. Right, right. We all got to start somewhere, you know, and you can feel your crowd out, you know, if it’s a crowd that’s maybe more quiet or that kind of thing, you you got to get them more interactive, you know, and adjust. But overall, if you bring that energy, you know, you’re going to get it back. Let’s do it.
Mental Health and ADHD as a Superpower
Yeah, absolutely. Dang. What’s been doing this work so far? What’s been one of the most rewarding experiences for you? Yeah, you know, that’s a great question. you know, just to kind of add a little bit, you know, as you mental health piece is obviously a strong opponent, as we all know, for addictions and family cycles and stuff. You know, when I grew up, had a hard time in school, even going to college, even sometimes in different law enforcement situations.
You know, I had a hard time working crazy shifts, you know, I figured I worked 24 hour shifts as a death investigator So I figured I was tired all the time because you know, it’s just it’s part of the job, right working crazy hours and being on call but about three months ago actually, um, I was diagnosed with ADHD which which I still am NOT an expert on but but essentially what I’ve gathered is You know a reason that a lot of people That have it, you know, it’s it’s it’s basically you know, your prefrontal cortex, like, and I’m not a doctor by any means, but basically you’re not getting that dopamine rush that a lot of people who I guess you call neurotypical that don’t have ADHD, you know, they have to get those from other sources. So what I’ve learned myself and which I also teach to students and stuff is, you know, you can use it as a superpower. So for students out there listening and stuff, you know, you can be successful. I wasn’t good in high school. I didn’t get good grades.
But with ADHD, I use a superpower now where I’m able to basically hyper-focus and if there’s something that I’m interested in, which is prevention, know, was forensics for a lot of years, I was able to overcompensate ADHD, you know, by focusing on things. And a lot of kids that kind of have that or they feel left out or they might not feel like they fit in in class, maybe they don’t fit in with their peers, I just want them to know out there that, you know, that you can you know, you can turn that into a superpower and be successful in life, you know, you might be labeled you might you know, what specials medications stuff too I know some kids are like, you know, he’s on Adderall or medications or that kind of thing But you know what that doesn’t define who we are as a person, know So just want people to know that they can be resilient and they can they can with mental health issues They can you know still make an impact in people’s life So I just want to that little little word on there as far as a little bit of my background ADHD. Yeah, that is important. I even had one guest on the show. His name is Jeff. He says he just calls it ADHD. He doesn’t even use the last D. It’s not a disorder, you know? And I was like, wow, that’s really cool that he said it that way.
Yeah, you’re not labeling, you know, yeah, it’s basically not labeling yourself, you know, it’s, you know, and yeah, that’s, like that. Yeah, yeah. That’s very interesting that, have you gotten requests because your story, I mean, your story seems to focus, it’s got prevention and mental health. Have you seen that there’s more interest in one or the other from the schools that are bringing you out?
Collaborative Efforts in Prevention
Yeah, you know, I mostly focus or target on the drug prevention aspect, but during my, you know, when I’m talking to classes and when I book talking to schools, you know, I do mention my mental health piece. I’ve had kids come up to me after class and say, hey, you know, I have ADHD and I, you know, I want to do just what you’re doing and now I know I can do it. You know, so just an inspiring piece, you even if there’s one or two kids in the class.
And a lot of first responders and a lot of people in our profession too, you we have the emergency response, a lot of them have ADHD because they’re drawn to that, you know, to that action, you know, and one of the reasons that I think, you know, it resonates well with schools and stuff is a lot of teachers, a lot of, you know, kids have it that aren’t diagnosed and they feel different. They’re like, you know what? I’m just like Ryan, I can do this. it just, you know, from an inspiring standpoint, you know, it just, you know, it really resonates well for them. And it’s been a good success as far as booking things to add that element to my talks.
Yeah. And it’s all correlated. So it’s very, very much on topic. I want to throw in, I don’t know if you saw this on our, on our site, but it’s, it’s so correlated. actually have a partnership with a company called Brighton and it’s a mental health and wellness app that when we’re done speaking, if the school wants to have a support system that stays there and lives beyond the message, like we have our, you know, peer led clubs and our toolkit and that kind of stuff, which is helpful, but like, school counselors are really overworked these days and they have caseloads are huge. And I’ve heard from them multiple times, like, hey, we had this speaker come. It was great. Students are asking for help, which is amazing, but I don’t have the resources to follow up with everybody. So they do their intake and they find out about the students, what they need. And then the follow-up is this app is it’s like a journaling app that allows them to, you know, to keep track of their mood, how they’re doing, reflect.
Wow, that’s awesome. The amazing thing is that the actual anxiety and depression symptoms in the case study have gone down in some communities by up to 50 % just by using the app regularly. So they integrate it into their homeroom schedule or SEL time or whatever it is. Right? So I had to do a shameless plug there. If you haven’t seen it on our website or check out Brighton, it’s B-R-I-G-H-T-N. It’s an app that they could use on their laptop or phone. And it comes back to this, like people asking, hey, like, is there any competition in prevention? And the answer is no, there’s absolutely none. You should be using all these resources. And if you brought Vive 18 to speak before, you probably should be looking at other speakers as well, like Ryan, because we’re not going to reach every student with the same exact strategy. There are all different types of partners and there’s coalitions and different services that we’re using. And that’s how we save lives. Cause we, can’t necessarily compete with the billions of dollars that companies have that are trying to sell this stuff. But if we work together, we can do our job and we can protect and save more lives for sure.
That’s amazing. What a great resource. is right? It takes a village, man. It really does. No, that’s great. I appreciate that. And like I said, everybody brings just such a unique aspect and different aspects and stuff. And the main thing is we’re all human. We all want to help each other. We’re all compassionate. At the end of the day, it’s all about prevention. And like I said, and as you know, you’ve been with us for a long time, if you can make a difference in one person’s life, it was worth it. And if you get enough people, work gets out there, you keep growing, Vive 18, I mean, you’re already making an impact. We can just keep on fighting this opioid epidemic and make it where it’s not mainstream anymore. That’s all our goal is just to get rid of fentanyl. It’s just, yeah, let’s keep at it, Yeah, thank you. You too, Ryan. We’re getting close to time. Ryan, please tell people how they can learn more about you and check out your offers, your speaking reel, all that good stuff.
Yeah, thanks, Jake. yeah, if you guys want to check out my speaking website and book me or find more information, you can go to ryanjensenspeaks.com. I do offer online courses as well. You just got to shoot me an email. If you need anything kind of tailored, whether it’s to counseling, students, different kind of audiences, I can definitely do that for you. But yeah, I appreciate the time today love to an opportunity to speak to these schools that are interested. That’s great. For everyone listening, this has been another episode of the Drug Prevention Power Hour. We will see you next Monday.
