Overtaken
Introduction
After each losing a son to a drug overdose, Jodi Barber and Christine Brant joined together to create Overtaken, a documentary aimed at educating young people and families about the growing drug crisis affecting Orange County, California. Featuring the stories of grieving parents, teens and young adults in recovery, and addiction professionals, the film explores how experimentation with prescription opioids and other drugs can quickly escalate into addiction, overdose, and lives forever changed.
Produced in early 2012, Overtaken combines personal testimony with prevention and recovery education, highlighting the warning signs of substance use while emphasizing that addiction can affect anyone, regardless of their background. The documentary also encourages honest conversations about addiction and the importance of seeking help before it's too late.
Many of the young adults return in the follow-up film, Where Are They Now (2014), where they reflect on their continued recovery and demonstrate that long-term sobriety is possible. Together, the two films offer both a powerful warning about the consequences of addiction and a message of hope for individuals and families affected by substance use.
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Quotes
"People always talk about how great drugs make you feel, but no one ever talks about how serious the consequences are of taking drugs. I thought I was invincible, that nothing would ever happen to me, but it did. My entire life has changed because of the choice I made to swallow a tablet of ecstasy."
"I was able to maintain college for a year and then once my using got serious I lost control. I was failing all my classes I wasn't showing up for family events, I basically drove my car till I blew up, I lost all my jobs that I had, I was in an abusive relationship with my ex-boyfriend who I used with and to me the biggest thing I lost was myself."
"I started using Oxycontin at 15 years old and before I knew it, I couldn't stop. I like to say my addiction robbed me of my morals and my ethics. I stole thousands and thousands of dollars from my parents. I wrecked cars. I wrecked relationships. I traumatized my family … I just couldn't stop and it got to the point where I wanted to die but I couldn't do it myself. It was a miserable existence."
"As your tolerance goes up, you start to regain a little bit of consciousness, and you have to get more loaded, so you don't think about all the people you're hurting and how much you're hurting yourself. You have to stay high so that you don't care, otherwise you can't live with yourself."
"I think that's the most important thing that kids need to understand – that Oxycontin, ecstasy and all the hardcore drugs and pills that you're taking, change your brain so dramatically quickly that you become an addict. Maybe not the first time, maybe not the fifth time, but it's not if, it's when."
"I've lost six friends to overdoses in less than a year and that was heartbreaking for me and even after that, that still wasn't enough for me to stop."
"They were intended to be taken as a pill coated with a material which dissolved over a period of time and then release the something slowly. Now kids and adults have understood that if they remove the layer of the skin, then all of a sudden, you've taken a time-release drug and made it into an immediate release drug that is extremely potent."
Where Are They Now?
This 2014 follow-up features many of the young adults from Overtaken, all of whom have remained clean and sober. Their stories emphasize that recovery is possible and offer hope to those still struggling with addiction.
"Most people who end up getting overtaken by addictions, they've had a broken heart somewhere along the way, and really, with all the work I do, I focus on heart issues. And when people tell their story and there's someone else that hears and validates their journey, and can understand and help them connect some pieces, hope begins to be born."
"It's essential that the addict or alcoholic opens their heart and mind and start accepting the gift of sobriety, the gift of friendship, the gift of love. Because the drug itself beats you down."
"Once your child is in treatment, don't give up on your son or daughter. Continue to show the love and support. You don't want to enable at all but you also don't want to turn your back on your own child."
"The participation and support of the family is essential. It's known as a family disease in the treatment field and so they are required to participate so they can have the skills, the education, about how to support this and get better because everybody has their role."
"I put my sobriety in the number one position in my life. My sobriety, my recovery, is in front of my wife, it's in front of my children, it's in front of everything that I do. Nothing comes in front of it because if I am not sober, if I am not clean and sober, I won't have a wife, I won't have my children, I won't have a job, I won't have a home."
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Brenda H.
BA Psych, Grad. Cert. Addictions & Mental Health
Driven by a deep personal connection to these topics, I created AMH Resources to bridge the gap between academic knowledge and everyday support. I watch, read, and summarize a wide range of free resources to help you navigate the overwhelming amount of information available and find what resonates with your journey.