809: The Call
Update: 2023-09-10
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One call to a very unusual hotline, and everything that followed.
- Prologue: Ira talks about a priest who set up what may have been the first hotline in the United States. It was just him, answering a phone, trying to help strangers who called. (2 minutes)
- Act One: The Never Use Alone hotline was set up so that drug users can call if they are say, using heroin by themselves. Someone will stay on the line with them in case they overdose. We hear the recording of one call, from a woman named Kimber. (13 minutes)
- Act Two: An EMT learns he was connected to the call, in more ways than he realized. (16 minutes)
- Act Three: Jessie, who took the call, explains how she discovered the hotline. She keeps in touch with Kimber. Until one day, Kimber disappears. (16 minutes)
- Act Four: We learn what happened to Kimber after she called the line. (10 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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Notice the desperate shrieks of terrified HORROR from the domestic terrorist party? (FAGA) That's what happens every time Ronald McDonald CHUMP racks up another legal loss. Whoops, hope that doesn't trigger anyone...like it...matters. I switched to Spotify, much better system. Sometimes I drop in to UTTERLY HUMILIATE the wrecked loser party. (Recucklickins' lol)
This most recent episode is a perfect example of the storytelling approach that This American Life did a lot to invent and popularize. It's a beautifully crafted, brutal and moving story from the front lines of the opioid epidemic in the US told through interviews with three people whose lives intersected. Quite apart from anything else, it's told me something I had not realized that put the opioid crisis in perspective. More people die of overdoses now than die in car accidents
such a good episode