I Was A Harvard Student Secretly Addicted To Oxy And Xanax

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning · Aug 23, 2026 · 1h 17m

On paper, Emma Gray had every advantage — a New York City upbringing, elite schools, a spot at Harvard, and eventually a six-year finance career. Underneath it, she was a person who, in her own words, couldn't sit with an uncomfortable feeling for more than a moment without needing to escape it.

Emma started with alcohol, which never agreed with her, and then found the thing that did: first weed, then the downers that would take over her life — Oxy and Xanax. She describes the exact mechanism of her addiction with unusual clarity: the second she felt relief from a drug, she was already…