I Watched Myself Die | Kent’s Overdose and Recovery StoryI Watched Myself Die | Kent’s Overdose and Recovery Story
Hard Knox Talks: Sober Stories. Real Talk.
Kent recounts his journey from childhood trauma, drug dealing, and multiple near-fatal overdoses to early recovery, counselling, and studying addictions and mental health. He reflects on grief, relapse, and the support and inner work that help him build a simpler, sober life.
39:05•17 Apr 2026
From Out-of-Body Overdose to a New Life: Kent’s Hard-Won Recovery Story
Episode Overview
- Early unresolved trauma and hidden drinking laid the groundwork for decades of addiction and crime.
- Brief detox stays without addressing underlying pain led to repeated relapses and heavier use.
- A counsellor with lived experience challenged Kent to face his abuse, grief, and PTSD instead of numbing them.
- An overdose with an out-of-body experience and the fear in his loved ones’ faces pushed him toward real change.
- Ongoing counselling, NA meetings, spiritual practice, and new sober friendships help him build a simpler, meaningful life while training in addictions and mental health.
“I was literally above myself, looking at myself in the bed.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? Kent’s story on Hard Knox Talks hits that question head-on with raw honesty, dark humour, and zero sugar-coating. He looks back to grade four, when hidden childhood trauma and secret after-school drinking quietly set the stage for decades of addiction.
From there, things escalate fast: early drug dealing, crack at 13, planning break-ins with school friends, and later building a reputation in the drug trade, surrounded by violence, murder, and near-death experiences. He jokes about “hustling till the casket drops”, but the stakes are deadly serious. Kent describes holding a girl as she overdosed and died, getting stabbed twice and driving himself to hospital while bleeding out, and eventually using up to two thousand dollars’ worth of drugs a day.
His first attempts at detox were mostly to keep others off his back, and short bursts of sobriety always turned into “celebration” relapses.
Things start to shift when repressed memories of sexual assault resurface and he meets a no-nonsense counsellor he calls his “gangster grandma”, who tells him bluntly, “Cut the bullshit already… unless you deal with the problems inside your head, you’re always going to have the same shit going on.” That challenge pushes him toward real emotional work, abuse counselling, and later NA meetings.
The turning point comes after an overdose where he codes, needs four shots of Narcan, and says, “I was literally above myself, looking at myself in the bed.” Seeing his girlfriend’s fear, losing friends to addiction, and finding a loved one dead from an overdose push him into a different kind of commitment.
Now in his first year of sustained recovery, Kent is studying addictions and mental health, keeping high grades, and building a quieter, simpler life centred on school, work, counselling, smudging, and gratitude. He’s clear that cravings still hit, but he wants to become the kind of counsellor he never had and reminds anyone listening that they’re not alone and that healing starts by facing the pain you’ve been trying to outrun.
So if you’ve ever wondered whether years lost to addiction mean you’re finished, Kent’s story might make you ask yourself a different question: what could your life look like if you gave recovery one more honest shot?
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