Hitting rock bottom doesn't mean you have to stay there.

My name is Andrea and this is Adult Child.

Welcome back to Adult Child, where we take a deep dive into the impact of growing up in a dysfunctional family.

And today, we are diving deep with a true miracle, Tom Wolf.

Now, in 2018, Tom was a homeless opioid addict, living on the streets of San Francisco,

doing whatever he could to feed his addiction, and by the grace of God, he was granted the gift of recovery.

And now he is a recovery advocate doing whatever the hell he can to make real changes to address this horrible addiction epidemic that has engulfed this city.

And I will be talking to Tom about all of this, and I will say that this is a topic that I get a little heated over.

I get a little worked up over this topic as you'll hear in the conversation, but what is happening to this city is truly tragic.

And perhaps this headline from December of 2020 will help put things in perspective for you.

Overdose deaths, far outpaced COVID-19 deaths in San Francisco.

A record of 621 people died of drug overdoses in San Francisco so far this year, a staggering number that far outpaces the 173 deaths from COVID-19 the city has seen thus far.

And God, I remember reading this headline and just being so pissed off.

There are over 8,000 homeless people living on the streets of San Francisco.

I've heard statistics say that half of those are addicts. I would venture to say it's a lot more than half.

And it is a regular site to see people shooting up on the sidewalk or smoking a meth pipe.

There were over 700 fatal overdoses in 2020, and this is compared to 441 in 2019, and it's looking like 2021 will surpass the 2020 numbers.

It is just so sad. There are so many people out there suffering. And in my opinion, I don't think that the city is doing enough to help.

And let me just say, I do not have the answers. I don't know how to fix this fucking problem, but what I can say is that what is being done to address the problem isn't making anything better.

To me, it seems like things just keep getting worse. I've lived here for over 7 years and have just seen the homeless and addiction crisis continue to progress.

And I will tell you, it's something that you don't get used to. There is no exposure tolerance that occurs.

To be exposed to the darkest aspects of humanity, to see human suffering on some of the darkest levels on a daily basis is truly soul crushing.

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