Episode for September 30, 2024
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A prominent advocate, speaker, author, and media commentator, Ryan Hampton travels coast-to-coast to add solutions to our national addiction and drug overdose crisis. In recovery from a decade-long opioid addiction, Hampton is regarded as a forefront expert and thought leader in America’s rising addiction recovery advocacy & drug policy reform movements. An alumnus of the Clinton White House, he’s worked with multiple non-profits and addiction recovery organizing campaigns. He’s now a prominent, leading face and voice of recovery advocacy and is working to change the longstanding negative narratives about those impacted by addiction, recovery, and overdose.
Through his books and media, organizing campaigns, and social content that reaches millions, Ryan breaks down cultural barriers that have kept people suffering in silence and is helping to inspire a new generation of advocates recovering out loud, pushing for common-sense policy.
He was part of the core team that released the first-ever U.S. Surgeon General’s report on alcohol, drugs, and health in 2016 and was singled out by Forbes the following year as a top social entrepreneur in the recovery movement. Ryan connects a vast network of people passionate about ending the overdose crisis in America. He has been featured by—and is a contributor to—media outlets such as the Today Show, the Associated Press, USA Today, MSNBC, ABC News, Fox and Friends, the New York Times, NPR, HLN, Vice, Slate, The Hill, the Wall Street Journal, and others.
Ryan has received praise from Democrats and Republicans alike for addressing addiction as a trans-political issue—crossing the political spectrum to build an inclusive coalition focused on solutions. He works closely with the White House, Senate Democrats, Republicans, U.S. House leadership, and state legislatures across the country. Notably, he helped craft binding provisions addressing substance use disorder in the historic SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, signed into federal law in October 2018.
In 2016, he created the web series Addiction Across America, documenting his 30-day, 28-state, 8,000-mile cross-country trip visiting areas hit hardest by the addiction crisis. His first bestselling book, “American Fix — Inside the Opioid Addiction Crisis and How to End It,” was released by St. Martin’s Press in August 2018. His second book, “Unsettled: How the Purdue Pharma Bankruptcy Failed the Victims of the American Overdose Crisis,” was released in September 2021 and chronicled his behind-the-scenes efforts representing tens of thousands of victims in the Purdue Pharma opioid settlement litigation. Ryan is currently working on his third book, scheduled to be released in 2024.
In 2019, Ryan was named by Facebook as an inaugural community leadership fellow and created the national advocacy initiative, Mobilize Recovery. Since its inception, Mobilize Recovery has recruited and trained over 8,000 new advocates from all 50 states focused on community-based solutions to end the addiction and overdose crisis. In 2022, Mobilize Recovery traveled to 25 states, hosting 35 organizing and advocacy training events throughout September and October, distributing 10,000 doses of free naloxone and over 11,000 fentanyl test strips.
Through the Overdose Response Initiative, a not-for-profit coalition Ryan helped to form in 2019, over 625,000 free doses of naloxone have been distributed in 21 states as of December 2022. The alliance comprises nearly 40 organizational stakeholders nationally, including Direct Relief International, the Clinton Foundation, and Mobilize Recovery.
He lives in Nevada with his husband, Sean, and their boxer puppy, Quincy.
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