Russell Bouchard was a fun-loving kid with a lot of energy, as any kid growing up in the late 70’s and early 80’s! We spent our summers playing in trees and riding bikes with the neighborhood kids. Russell was a smart kid, but school was no place for a kid with ADHD in the 80s, so Russell dropped out of High School and got into construction, allowing him to follow his passion for building things. He excelled at it.

 

He was a perfectionist and always took pride in his work. He pretended like every house he worked on was his own. One day, he was working on a roof and lost his footing and slipped off the roof and fell two stories, and landed on his back. He was put on heavy doses of OxyContin, and it didn’t take long before he found himself hooked. He didn’t even know it until he found himself becoming physically ill every time he ran out of meds.

 

When the pharmaceutical companies, drug stores, and medical community finally caught on to what they had done, it was too late. They cut him off, but he was already addicted. And he had no insurance. He progressed to buying pills on the streets, to other opioids, including the cheapest and easiest to get…heroin. Then, the drug dealers started cutting with Fentanyl. He was scared that he wouldn’t live much longer.

 

He went to rehab numerous times. He never wanted to be addicted. He didn’t even take it to get high. He only took it to avoid withdrawal. They would accept him at the Recovery Center, but, since he had no insurance, once the drugs were out of his system, they discharged him. He would have benefited from a much more intense inpatient treatment plan.

 

He never missed a day of work. That’s how they found him. He didn’t show up for work, so his boss went to check on him. He had relapsed and had gotten a bad batch of heroin cut with too much fentanyl, and it killed him instantly. He was 39 years old. 

 

His death shocked our family and his lifelong friends. After his celebration of life, I decided to create something useful for others in similar situations to help support them through their recovery journey. That is when the Russell Bouchard Addiction Recovery Fund was founded.