About this episode

Briana Noda shares her personal journey through addiction, motherhood, and recovery, detailing her experiences with fentanyl, heroin, and xylazine.

In this episode of Get a Grip Podcast, Louis Essig and Aaron Garnes sit down with Briana Noda for a raw and deeply personal conversation about growing up around addiction, becoming a mother, fentanyl and heroin addiction, xylazine, incarceration, and finding a way into recovery. Briana opens up about her childhood and what it was like growing up with addiction in her family. She shares how both of her parents struggled with drugs and how her grandfather was involved in selling cocaine. Despite everything around her, Briana had plans to join the Navy—until she found out she was pregnant. Her story continues with prescription painkillers, becoming a mother, and eventually moving back in with her father. Briana describes how her drug use progressed and the first time she experienced fentanyl pills, including taking an entire 30mg pill and losing consciousness. From there, Briana's addiction escalated from fentanyl pills to heroin. She explains why she preferred snorting heroin over injecting it, the brutal reality of withdrawal, and eventually moving to Florida in an attempt to escape the cycle. But moving didn't solve the problem. Briana found herself using heroin and crack in…

People in this episode

Hosts: Louis Essig, Aaron Garnes

Guest: Briana Noda

Topics covered

• addiction
• recovery
• personal story
• family dynamics
• drug use
• incarceration

Keywords

• fentanyl
• heroin
• xylazine
• addiction
• recovery
• incarceration
• personal story
• family

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Navy

Products: fentanyl, heroin, xylazine, cocaine

Places: Florida, Ohio

More episodes of Get a Grip Podcast

• I Got High on My Grandma’s Fentanyl Patches | Ep 210 · September 9, 2026 · 1h 12m
• How I Wenat From Crack in High School to a Full-Blown Heroin & Meth Addict | Ep 209 · September 6, 2026 · 1h 10m
• My Mom Introduced Me to Cocaine… Then I Got Hooked on Perc 30s | Ep 208 · September 4, 2026 · 2h 55m
• I Was Prescribed Xanax at 14… Then Fentanyl & Xylazine Destroyed My Life | Ep 207 · September 2, 2026 · 1h 16m
• I Was a Notre Dame Professor Smoking $800 of Crack Every Day | Ep 206 · August 30, 2026 · 1h 51m
• How Hiding My Sexuality Kept Me Shooting Oxy and Heroin Until I Finally Came Out | Ep 205 · August 28, 2026 · 2h 5m

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