I Was A Drug Counselor Getting High On Fentanyl Between Sessions

Rise Above with Kevin Lanning · Aug 16, 2026 · 50m

From the outside, Laura Bonczek was the picture of success — a well-known family in her Connecticut town, a teacher mother, a father in long-term recovery, good grades, sports, and eventually a master's in social work. She built a career as a therapist and rose to clinical director of a substance abuse treatment facility. And the entire time, she was secretly living the exact disease she was being paid to treat.

Laura's addiction started young — alcohol and weed at 12, ecstasy and opioids in high school, hydrocodone giving way to the "thirties" she'd chase for years. She was, in her own…