 Christmas time, it's me. Thanksgiving, it's me. My parents' birthdays, it's me. Mother's day and Father's day, it's me. Only me. And I've asked myself, why am I the one who is left alive and my brother is gone? My mother said to me a couple of weeks ago, the only thing people remember about her sons is how they died. You never think this is going to happen. We never did. On a cold January morning, I got a phone call. January 24th, 2005, I got a phone call from Todd's girlfriend telling me that she couldn't get him up. Told her to call 911. I was there within minutes. It was obvious to me that Todd was already dead from a heroin overdose at 28 years old. We were shocked. So when it happened again two and a half years later, a little more than two and a half years later, we were really devastated. This time it was my mother calling me to tell me that my youngest brother, Josh, at age 25 had died of a heroin overdose. It's a pain that will never go away. With that, I was left as the last man standing, so to speak, the last living child of my parents, which made it that much more difficult for me in 2011 to tell them that I was entering inpatient drug treatment for an addiction to prescription pain medication. The stigma around the disease of addiction really kept me and keeps many, many people using and keeps people sick. We are in the worst ever drug overdose death epidemic that the state or the nation has ever seen. Who is being affected by drug addiction today? It is really everybody. It is white, black, young, old, rich, poor. Oftentimes we only hear about the failures. We need to hear about the success in the recovery. Two of the biggest barriers to treatment are funding and stigma. This administration is addressing all of those things as well as many, many others. I look at the path I have taken and the experiences I've had in my life and look at where I am today. It's hard for me not to think that this is not somehow where I'm supposed to be and that this is my mission.