The Other Pandemic

I had a talent and passion for drumming that was as strong as my love for music. I lived for drumming, until I didn’t. Here is my story.

My fatal journey began in 2010, as a freshman in high school when I began smoking marijuana. My curiosity and desire to escape grew stronger and I began experimenting with ecstasy, mushrooms, acid and eventually heroin. As each year passed, each experiment drove me closer and closer to the edge until I overdosed. I came from a stable family, and I knew my parents were concerned. My sister and I knew, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that our parents loved us, but something I had dabbled in, soon became an addiction that I thought I could control.

I successfully completed two rounds of rehabilitation but the yearning for heroin was greater than I could handle. I overdosed a second time in my home. I knew I was almost gone that time, but the paramedics revived me. I heard my parents say, “We can defeat this.” I wanted to believe them, but I knew down deep that I was the one who had to defeat it.

Eventually, we decided that I should attend Recovery Unplugged Rehab in Austin, Texas. I learned a lot there. I also struggled there.   I was in and out of Recovery Unplugged three times. Sometimes I was clean and thriving with a steady job and a network of recovering friends who helped me and whom I was able to help. I hated being an addict, so I kept fighting.

I had my third overdose at a sober living home, and I know it devastated my parents. They begged and pleaded with me to resolve to stay clean and choose life. It was indeed a difficult time for all of us. They loved me enough to stop enabling me, get me the necessary help and then they put the ball in my court.  I tried really hard.

But, my last overdose, in an empty parking lot, was the fatal dose. September 11, 2019. Late at night. Alone. Accidentally.

Jacob Andrew Burdette
October 11, 1996 – September 11, 2019