I Had A Degree And A Career While Secretly Addicted To Fentanyl

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning · Aug 18, 2026 · 1h 31m

On paper, Ava Garcia was the kid who had it together — straight-A student, captain of the varsity basketball team, an artist, the responsible firstborn. Underneath it, she was raising herself in the chaos of two parents in active addiction, competing for attention with a younger brother who needed all of it, and by 13 she was already using. She sold Xanax to fund an opioid habit while keeping her grades near-perfect, convinced that as long as she was checking every box, she couldn't really be an addict.

Ava's story is a decade-plus odyssey that most people wouldn't believe: opioids that gave…