Emily Featherston
For sports broadcaster Lauren Sisler, March 23, 2003 was the last “normal” day of her life.
Sisler, who reports on college sports for ESPN and the SEC Network as well as other outlets, was a freshman at Rutgers University in the spring of 2003.
At 1 a.m. on March 24, she received a frantic phone call from her father, ultimately finding out that her mother had passed away.
She got on the next flight home, expecting to see her father at the airport waiting for her.
Instead, her uncle picked her up — and delivered the news that her father had also died.
“And in that moment, I remember looking out the window and thinking that life was over, and I had lost all control,” she said.
Sisler lost both of her parents to a fentanyl overdose just hours apart.
“So here we are, my family left with so many questions that to this day, 15 years later, very few answers as to what happend,” Sisler said.
Sisler told her story at the March Vestavia Hills Chamber of Commerce luncheon, which was part of the March 13 proclamation of Freedom from Addiction Day in the city.
Sisler said her parents had both been dealing with chronic pain, her mother, who died at age 45, from degenerative disc disease, and her father, who passed at 52, from his service in the Navy.
“Both of my parents had been prescribed various drugs to deal with the pain and the depression they had been experiencing over the course of several years,” she said. Ultimately, those many prescriptions led to addiction that eventually took their lives.
Sisler said she struggled after returning to Rutgers to finish out her studies and gymnastics career.
“I lived in so much fear and guilt for so many years,” she said. “I was in denial, hiding from the truth of what stole my parents’ lives.”
Eventually, through the help of family and friends, she was able to see her parents’ deaths for what they were, and finally able to face what caused them.
“Now with education and a better understanding of what addiction is and what ultimately stole their lives, I’m proud to stand up here in their name and in their honor in an effort to save someone’s life, even if it’s just one person,” she said.
Sisler volunteers with the Addiction Prevention Coalition, and encouraged guests at the luncheon to give or get involved with organizations that are working to prevent and treat addiction wherever they can.
“Everybody deserves a chance at a quality life, no matter how far and how deep things have gotten,” she said.
For more information on the Addiction Prevention Coalition, visit apcbirmingham.org.
