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I'm Major Jackson and this is the slowdown. Last winter, a cousin of mine passed away. Mark was born two weeks prior to me. Our mothers raised us as if we were

brothers. We often wore matching holiday outfits and we played the same sports.

We grew apart in our teenage years.

He made different choices that led to a cycle of crimes, rehab facilities, and stints in jail, as did many of our

friends we grew up with in North Philadelphia.

He was a great storyteller. Some of what he relayed about his brushes with violence,

selling street drugs, could make for its own very compelling podcast. I was there for some of it. Like the time aunts and uncles

secretly ferried him to me after some friends, associates, put out a hit on his life.

I drove him out of town to a bus station and purchased a ticket to Nashville,

where he resided for a decade. None of us believed he would live as long as he did.

Because of my family's addiction issues, I spoke out of fear to my children, and often rather harshly.

I worried particularly that they would fall prey to the opioid epidemic that hit the state of Vermont,

a fentanyl crisis as severe as the rest of the country.

Several friends grieved the loss of children to overdose.

...