Death from drugs is a devastating reality for many families. To shed light on this issue, we’re joined by our VIP guests Florencia Lozano, Charlene Giannetti, and Sarah T. Schwab. Today, we’re talking about the opioid crisis and speaking with the creators and lead actress of an independent film called “Life After You.” Inspired by a true story, the film shows a suburban family’s struggle with the death of their 19-year-old son following an overdose of heroin laced with fentanyl.
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Listen to the podcast here
What Your Death From Drugs Leaves Behind With Florencia Lozano, Charlene Giannetti, And Sarah T. Schwab [Episode 50]
Life After You
I’m super excited. We’re talking about the opioid crisis, something that’s certainly close to my life and my family and devastating in my own life and my family. We’re talking about the independent film Life After You, What Your Death from Drugs leaves Behind. Is that right, ladies?
It’s based off of the book Life After You: What Your Death from Drugs Leaves Behind by Linda Lajterman. The film is just called Life After You.
There you go. Thank you for correcting me.
The film centered around a suburban family struggle with the death of their nineteen-year-old son following an overdose of heroin laced with fentanyl.
We’re excited to be joined by the movie’s producers and lead actress. We’d like to show you a trailer, so that you can see why the movie is being recognized internationally.
That was powerful. Ladies, thank you so much for joining us. Can each of you introduce yourselves and share your role in the film?
Sure. My name is Sarah Schwab. I am the Director, the Co-writer, and one of the Producers.
Nice to meet you. Thanks for being here.
I’m Charlene Giannetti. I’m one of the Producers of the film, and I published Linda’s book that inspires the film.
I’m Florencia Lozano and I play Linda Lajterman in the film and I co-wrote the film with Sarah and am one of the producers on it.
Thanks for joining us, all three of you. It is haunting. It’s just an amazing movie and it also obviously reminds me a lot about my own life and my own family. What inspired you to take on this project, ladies?
Charlene, do you want to go first since you’re the seed of the whole thing?
Danny Lajterman died in February of 2014. I had a small book publishing company and she came to me to ask if I would work with her on publishing her book. Her book was really a wakeup call for young people because of what happened with Danny. She did not want to see another family devastated the way their family had been devastated. After I published the book, I got to know Linda, her husband Tito and their family.
What was happening in our country, I really felt that telling the story of this typical New Jersey family that was close and loving, and yet did not know that their young son was doing this and was so devastated. What happened to them after he died could be a very powerful film and a wakeup call for parents and their children. I approached Florencia, having interviewed her for my website, Woman Around Town, and asked her if she would be interested in playing Linda, because I really felt that she would be perfect for this role. She agreed. Sarah came on board as Director and they worked on the script. We managed to get it done right before the pandemic, luckily. Now we’re on the film festival circuit, and we’re really hoping that this is going to help make a difference.
I think there’s no doubt in my mind that it will, that it is making a difference and will make a difference for a long time to come. What was the time period between his death and the time that she wrote the book?
Dr. Flowers, it was very quick because what had happened was she went on Facebook after he died. She went into a tailspin afterwards. She went on Facebook and started to post saying, “Don’t let this happen to your family.” To her surprise, which we show in the film, she was getting outpourings from all over the world from people of all walks of life like a police chief in California and people in Australia. It was just overwhelming. That’s when she decided that she should actually write this book. That’s when she came to me. We worked on the book together and got that out as quickly as we could. It took a while to get the film together because making a film of this nature was a challenge. We really wanted to do justice to the story and also to be very respectful to the Lajtermans because they were brave enough to come forward and tell this story.
Was she a consultant or anybody in their family consultants, or did they participate in the movie at all?
Not creatively. Obviously, Sarah and Florencia talked with Linda and with Tito a lot as we went through this process just to find out some of what had happened after Danny died. There are parts of the film that are dramatized that aren’t actually things that happened to the Lajtermans, but it’s pretty true to their story. When they saw the film, which you can imagine was hard for them to see their story on film, they were very happy that their story was told respectfully. They’re very brave going out there. Linda has talked to groups and she’s had people show up at her door with the book after they read it saying, “You saved my life. You saved my child’s life.” She’s had an impact with the book, and now the film will continue that.
I can’t wait to watch the journey of the film.
You won a slew of awards. Tell the audience about some of the awards you’ve won and which ones meant the most to you, or surprised you.
Sarah should tell that story.
We’ve gotten to into, I think, eight film festivals internationally now, which is really fantastic for multiple reasons. Our first festival was at World Fest Houston. Florencia Lozano won best lead actress in the film, which was fantastic. She was up against great talent and it was just a beautiful reward. The film won a special jury prize for a first feature as well. It was very special. That one came as a surprise for us. Having that be our debut to share the film with people, it was a very exciting and beautiful evening.
At that event in Houston, we had members of the community who came and spoke about the opiate crisis and prevention and just advocates to get this message out there. They were part of the Q&A afterwards. That was very special. We won Best Lead Actress again for Florencia and Best Feature in the Nice International Film Festival in France. In Madrid, we are up for Best Feature, Best Director, Best Lead Actress, Florencia, Best Lead Actor, Best Editing and Best Original Screenplay.
Portraying A Grieving Mother
Florencia, roses and thorns. What was the best part, and what was the worst part about representing the worst days of this mother and her family’s life?
The worst part is just that this story is more relevant than ever. Part of us was like, “We need to make this film now.” All the time that we were making the film, it was always in the news. We kept sending each other articles. It was like, “We really need to tell this story.” It felt like a very urgent message. It feels more urgent than ever now.
That’s disheartening. I guess I thought by this time, things would be different. I think the pandemic really hurt so many people, but the isolation caused by the pandemic. One of the major things I learned in this film is that community and addiction are the opposite of each other. When one has that sense that you are not alone, other people are also suffering. You can come together and to not have that. As Charlene said, we filmed this right before the pandemic and then once we went into the pandemic, to start hearing about the number of people who had lost their community, it was just devastating.
It really was devastating for so many people when you’re used to going to meetings and you’re used to having a community around you and surrounding you and all of the support network, and then all of a sudden, going on lockdown and not having that. In the beginning, no one knew what Zoom was. Even having a Zoom meeting is so much different than sitting in a room with a community of people who have been through the things that you’ve been through.
Alcohol use and drug use just went through the roof during the pandemic and is continuing to do so now. I think in Houston alone, domestic violence was up over 100%. Alcohol use was up something like 800% just in this alcohol sales in the city of Houston. I mentioned that I happened to own three treatment centers. People will say, “How was the pandemic? How did it affect your business?” I literally hate saying. “It was the record year for admissions.” It was. I’m glad we’re there to help people but it just was such a direct impact from the pandemic and being shut down and shut out from so many meetings.
Leonard Kincaid and Richard from the Houston Recovery Center were at our screening, and it was so amazing and sad to hear them talk about what they were doing during the pandemic, how they were going out on calls, administering Narcan, and how devastating it had been to the Houston community. This was happening. I think 98,000 people died from overdoses during the pandemic. It really did have an impact on, unfortunately.
Challenges Faced During Filming
Speaking of an impact, Sarah, I can imagine shooting this film took a tremendous emotional toll on both cast and crew. What are some of the other challenges that you all faced and what was the overall impact really on your life in particular, making this film?
This was my first feature film that I had directed and that I had co-wrote with Florencia. That alone coming onto a shoot was very scary. I was very lucky that I had a fantastic producer team who was just absolutely supportive. Fantastic actors and crew. We were all one family. We were a family telling this family’s story. To have that foundation, that really just helped me find what the through line of the story and the importance of the story was. It was not only to get the Lajterman’s unfortunate tale out there in the world, but that this is happening way too much.
Earlier on, you were saying the word haunting, that the trailer is haunting. I’m so happy that that’s the adjectives that you chose to use, because that was the point. This is a horror story. This is a drama, but it is also a horror story that is happening way too often. To come out of that trepidation of not knowing, if I could help steer this really choppy ship and choppy waters, and to come out the other side of it and to see just what a beautiful, heartbreaking story it is, feels just really purposeful. Very satisfying.
The Opioid Epidemic
Charlene, I have a question for you. When we’re looking at the opiate epidemic in the United States and as a journalist, understanding Purdue Pharma, the maker of Oxycontin, what is your thought on what’s going on with Purdue Pharma, the Sackler family and how they have impacted our world really as a whole, but especially as it pertains to opiate use and deaths?
I think what I hope is that moving forward, we’ve learned something from this because this was a tale of a marketing push to make money. What was ignored was the fact that these medications were incredibly addictive. They were being over-prescribed. They were being pushed all the way down the line from the top of Purdue Pharma all the way down to the compounding pharmacies and the pharmacies and the doctors.
I know at the time there was this philosophy among the medical profession that people shouldn’t experience pain. That’s what the opioids were supposed to deal with. The fact is that there are lots of ways to deal with pain. Now we find that doctors are very reluctant to prescribe opioids and instead will send you away with Tylenol, Advil and other medications that can work efficiently and just as well. I think a lot of people are disappointed that like the banking crisis, no one’s gone to jail for this.
In the paper, they were talking about the settlements and a lot of that money will it trickle down to the people that were actually hurt because cities and states spent a lot of money battling this crisis. That’s where a lot of these funds are going to go to first. If you’ve lost someone from an overdose, are you ever going to be compensated? Really, what will compensate? I know that the Lajtermans and other families will never be compensated for the loss of a child. There has been a lot of backlash. The Sackler name has been taken off of a lot of buildings all over the world.
Museums and universities, and most of what their philanthropic activities went to have removed their names. Part of what brought this on was back in the ‘90s, when Bill Clinton, I don’t think he did this intentionally, I think he did it trying to help people, but personally is my belief, when he signed the bill into law that healthcare programs and healthcare facilities and hospitals must treat pain adequately. It didn’t say they should treat pain adequately. It said they must. That word must opened Pandora’s box.
The Joint Commission and Medicare came out and said, “Hospital systems and physicians, if you don’t treat pain adequately, we’re going to take your license away.” It just opened this huge plethora of opportunity for Purdue Pharma and other manufacturers. Purdue Pharma spent about $150 million in their first year of advertising and marketing that one medication, Oxycontin. I wonder if any of the three of you know what the single most quoted sentence is in literature actually has to do with the opiate crisis. Do any of you know what that is?
No.
In JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association, the most respected medical journal in the world, the editor of JAMA said in his opening letter in JAMA back in the ‘90s, “Oxycontin is not addictive.” That sentence has been quoted more times than any other sentence in American history. Yeah, absolutely.
That’s crazy. That’s blowing my mind.
Advice For Parents
Isn’t that wild? In fact, just a couple of years ago, the editor in chief of JAMA wrote in his editorial opening of JAMA an apology letter for writing that sentence. Of course, retracting it, but what, 20, 30 years later? Too late. Pretty amazing. Charlene, you’ve spent so many years as a journalist and author, educating parents. Tell us how they can talk to their children about drugs.
I should tell you, before I tackled this film, and before I launched my website, Woman Around Town with a co-author, I wrote eight books for parents of young adolescents. We dealt with all the issues that come up during the teenage years. Margaret, my co-author, and I used to say that the way to guarantee that you will have no one come to our talk is to publicize it as a talk about drugs.
Parents were always in the mode of, “Not my child. He’s not going to take drugs. I’ve told him about how dangerous it is and all of that. He’s not going to take drugs.” Getting around that and trying to get parents to understand that the dangers are out there, and peer pressure plays a big role. I think the real danger with what we’re seeing now is that a young person can take just one pill and die. We’ve seen this. We’ve seen the headlines on this because if it has Fentanyl and where these drugs are coming from, they’re using cheaper products and they’re amping up the power so that you know you can die. We used to talk to middle school parents, and they were upset that we were talking to young adolescents about drugs.
Parents are always in the mode of “not my child”.
It starts earlier and earlier, and you have to really talk to your child. The tragic thing about the Lajtermans is that Linda was very close to Danny, but young people, teenagers, they are really good at lying. They’re really good at covering things up. Having that communication, you don’t have to spy, you don’t have to be overbearing, but you do have to keep in touch with what they’re doing and know who their friends are, know who the other parents are. Keep your antenna up at all times so that if there’s something going on, you’re going to pick up on it.
I was going to ask, how are they getting these? Are they getting from schoolmates?
They’re getting them from schoolmates. They’re getting them from people in the school yard. They’re getting them from adults walking around the school.
In the Lajterman case, the drugs were being sold by a parent at the high school.
Going to other kids’ houses and looking in the medicine cabinets, it is so easy to access. In my own life, my sister was a drug addict, a heroin addict, and hers started with pot and escalated to heroin and cocaine eventually. When I was a junior in college, she ended up dying. She fell off of an eight-story balcony and died. I watched my mother and my family and my sisters just go through that as well as myself. It’s one of the most difficult things that any of us has ever gone through. For a mother to lose her child is one of the worst things that I’ve ever seen in my life. How is she doing now?
Linda’s amazing. She has grandchildren now. She’s back at work. She’s a nurse so she’s busier than ever. She consults with lawyers and malpractice cases and all of that. Sarah and Florencia can certainly jump in on this too. One of the things we also wanted to do with this film, and it’s so timely because of what’s happened with the pandemic, is to show how people grieve and show that there are different ways to grieve. You will find that the members of the Lajterman family grieved in different ways. There’s no timeline on it. There’s no right or wrong way to do it.
There are different ways to grieve, and there’s no timeline for it.
I think that that is going to resonate with a lot of people who have lost loved ones during the pandemic. It doesn’t have to be through a drug overdose. It can be through COVID. How you cope and how you try to hold your family together when people are grieving differently, that can be a challenge too, as we show in the film.
Speaking of grief, it comes out in many ways from different families. In my own family, when my sister fell, she fell eight stories, and the police brought my mother a brown paper sack folded at the top and just handed it to my mother. My mother opened it, and it was my sister’s bloody clothes from falling eight stories. My mother lived another 40-something years after her daughter, my sister died. I begged my mother before. I do what I do for a living at this point, but in college, I would beg my mother to throw it away. I’d say, “Mother, get rid of it. You have to throw that away and let it go.” She just wouldn’t do it.
Film Release
When she passed away, that was still, of course, in my mother’s bedroom. That was just part of her grief. My mother was one of the most resilient women in the world, but really never was able to overcome that. She lived a healthy, functional life after that. She was in recovery herself for many years and lived a great life and worked hard, but you never get over losing your child. When are we going to get to see the film? I’ve seen the trailer, of course, but the normal people, when are we going to get to see this?
How can we support it?
We have about, I think, twenty festivals in the circuit that we are still waiting to hear from. We will know what all of those festivals are. We are always putting it out there, which festivals are supporting the film. You can see it that way by going to the festival. After that, we are hoping and planning on having a theatrical release nationally and doing a road trip with the film and going to different cities and going to independent theaters to show it for a week or so, and bring the community on board so that we can have discussions afterward. After we do a theatrical release, we are definitely going to be putting on video on various streaming services.
On top of that, because there is an educational component to this, there’s a great company out there called Kanopy that we are absolutely looking to work with them. What this company ultimately does is they get films into libraries around the country, into colleges, into high schools, so that their students, and the members of the community can actually watch this for free. That’s also part of our mission, in every way possible, just to get people talking and get the realities of what’s happening during this during this crisis out there.
Understanding The Human Condition
A final question for me really is for each of you. The title of our show is Understanding the Human Condition. How do you feel your own human condition was affected by this film and then what do you do to take care of yourself?
It is crazy that doing this film, writing it with Florencia and then going through the process of producing it and actually shooting it, and then post-production, all the things that we’re doing to get it out there happened right before the pandemic, before COVID, because like what Florencia said, people have been isolated in ways that they never really have in certainly our lifetime. People have dealt with that sort of darkness in their own individual ways. People that I knew a year ago are different now because of their own personal suffering, whether that’s with substance abuse or depression, or whatever it is.
It’s a very interesting thing to do this film and to have had that understanding of that sort of darkness before actually entering into darkness. Honestly, I think that it helped keep my own head above water during some moments that I was feeling the effects of COVID. I feel very blessed that I had that opportunity to dive deep before everything happened.
Absolutely. Thank you so much.
Can you tell the folks what other projects you guys have going on? Is there anything else that you want to let everybody know about?
Florencia, did you want to talk about the other question?
If it’s okay, I’d like to just add on to what Sarah was saying about the paradox of having told this story that is so tragic. As you said, Dr. Flowers, what drew me to this was that the fact of a family losing their child, of a mother losing their child, the pain of that is kind of incomparable, and because of that, it felt like Charlene’s passion to tell it, the need to tell it. She had never produced a film. She never written a film. She had nothing to do with film at all. She was so driven to tell this story, and then meeting Linda.
Life After You: What Your Death From Drugs Leaves Behind, that book she wrote, that novella, or pamphlet, in a way, that started on Facebook, it was like a cri de coeur. It was just screaming into the void and saying, “By whatever means necessary, I must be heard. Children in particular, let me tell you what happens when you gamble with your life in today’s age where things are different, where Fentanyl is part of the reality that wasn’t when I was a child. That wasn’t on the landscape.”
It was a real wakeup call. I didn’t know either of these women. It was like, “Yeah, we’ve got to make this film.” Now, to make a film takes a tremendous amount of money, luck, talent, fortune. To me, the fact that we made it gave me such faith in what is possible when the is there, the need is there, the mission is on target with actually helping. You’re making something. That’s what we do when we tell stories. We do it in the service of humanity and not too grandiose about it.
There were so many times where I thought, “What are we doing? I have no idea what I’m doing.” We did it in spite of that, and we did it together. The fact that we made this makes me feel like anything is possible. That’s not just for me, but that’s like in this world, we can create beauty out of pain. We can find meaning in our lives in this moment of deep despair. Oftentimes, it’s in the darkest places that we find the light . I’m not a religious person, but I do feel inspired by the fact that there is so much to believe in. That is each other and what we can make together.
We can create beauty out of pain and find meaning in our lives in moments of deep despair.
That was beautiful. I was just imagining you accepting your Best Actress Oscar, and giving that speech just now. I can see her on that red carpet right now for sure. I know. Go ahead.
Wearing these earrings.
Yes, there you go. They’re gorgeous.
Dr. Flowers, I just want to add that one of the things that during the pandemic, I couldn’t see my two children. That was really hard, to go through the holidays without seeing them, being isolated from them. It brought home to me how important family is. I think that maybe coming out of this pandemic, some of those things that have gotten lost maybe we’re pulling together again a little bit, trying to get back to a place where we embrace the things that really mattered to us. I think family is essential there.
I think that’s a beautiful statement about family and something shiny that did come out of the pandemic. I told you that was my last question, but one more question. I could talk all day. How did you guys raise the money for this? If you don’t want talk about it, that’s okay.
No, it’s interesting because the topic hit home with a lot of people. As with anything else like a campaign, we had some large contributors and investors, but we also had people who donated small amounts of money. I think that, to me, sometimes, was more meaningful, getting those small donations from people who would say to us, “This topic really means something to me. I know somebody who. Died from an overdose.” Sarah can speak more to this because she’s going on to make other films and still has to raise money. It’s a struggle. If you come up with a good film idea and a good team and a compelling story, I think people are going to be willing to get involved.
We have a fantastic relationship with this company called The Film Collaborative, and basically, through the government, they can give fiscal sponsorships to projects of their choosing. We had a many socially responsible programs and just the message of the film and what we want to do with it, so we got that fiscal sponsorship. The donations that came in were all tax deductible, which was a huge incentive for a lot of people. That was really great to have on top of also being able to accept investments.
Is there a way for people to continue to help you? Are you looking for that?
Always. On our website, LifeAfterYouMovie.com, there is actually a link that says that if you’d like to donate to the cause, that would be absolutely helpful to us.
We will definitely get that word out for you guys.
Thank you so much.
Upcoming Projects
Thank you. We’re running out of time, but your projects. Tell us about some projects you’ve got coming up.
Thank you for asking that. I’m currently working on a Netflix show in Vancouver. I didn’t tell you guys this, but it’s no longer called Breathe, because there’s another show by that name. We have come up with a new show, but it’s a show about survival stories, basically. Speaking of the human condition, what’s the difference between a person who survives in an extreme situation like a plane crash or a boat accident, and the person who doesn’t make it out? Really exploring what are the things that we need to go on physically and emotionally, spiritually, all of those things.
That just gave me chills. I can’t wait to hear more about that. I think that is so true. One of my current patient’s mother left our office and it was in a horrific automobile accident. The only thing left of her BMW was the seat that she was sitting in, just about right where she was. Almost everything else was gone. It’s just crazy. She had a few scratches and bruises and bumps, and it’s like, “What in the world happened?” Thank God she didn’t get hurt in that. What is it in our life that keeps us safe? Is it a higher power? What higher power is it? Why wasn’t it me this time? Thank you for sharing that. Anybody else? Any projects that you guys want to talk about that you’re currently working on?
I just finished principal photography on my second feature film in New Milford, Connecticut. I directed and wrote it, and it is a love story but it also deals with end-of-life decisions and choices. Talking about human condition also, it ultimately asks the question, who gets to decide how and when you die? Really looking at that argument from two very different points of view, where neither person is wrong and they’re coming at those arguments from a place of love and ultimately, what is decided. That’s starring Karen Allen from Raiders of the Lost Ark and William Sadler from the Shawshank Redemption.
My favorite movie, Shawshank Redemption.
Mine, too.
It is just amazing. I went through that with my own mother who was suffering from Alzheimer’s for years and end of life decisions. That’s going to be very powerful as well, because it was such a difficult decision, just watching her or just a difficult situation, watching my mother die and going through that process. Thank you for doing that as well. You guys make inspiring movies. Difficult, but inspiring.
We’re making musical comedy next.
Yeah, that’s the next one. It’s going to be in a romcom musical.
Thank you again for taking time out of your day to spend time with us, you guys. This is great.
Thank you for having us.
We’ll do whatever we can to support you, so reach out.
We wish you guys all the best.
We want to come back to Houston. It’s a great city.
Be sure and let us know.
We will.
Thank you.
You’re welcome.
I’d like to remind everyone reading that there are numerous platforms to find our show, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, Spotify, Stitcher, and iHeart Radio. Please share this episode on social media with someone that you think could help. Dr. Flowers, if they want to reach you at the J. Flowers Health Institute?
The easiest way to do it is go to JFlowersHealth.com.
Thank you, guys, so much. Have a wonderful rest of the week.
Thank you. We want to remind you that a clear diagnosis is the key to the most effective treatment possible. See you next time.
Important Links
- Life After You: What Your Death from Drugs Leaves Behind
- Life After You
- Sarah Schwab
- Charlene Giannetti
- Florencia Lozano
- YouTube – Understanding The Human Condition
- Apple Podcasts – Understanding The Human Condition
- Spotify – Understanding The Human Condition
- IHeart Radio – Understanding The Human Condition
