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WINGDALE, New York – Under the cover of darkness, Daisy Talbot and Allie Haufler are sharing secrets. They squeeze like sardines onto two beds and clamor for space on the floor, fingers sticky with sugar from Sour Patch Kids and Takis chips. They talk about Sabrina Carpenter’s new album and argue about the right pronunciation of “caramel.” They joke about being in the “dead parent club,” sharing fears they’ve seldom told anyone else: I want to go on medication but am afraid of getting addicted; What if I lose someone else to overdose? I’m terrified of ending up like my dad.
These are the kinds of conversations that happen during this free weekend retreat for kids ages 7 to 17 who have lost a parent or sibling to overdose. Launched in 2022, Comfort Zone Camp (CZC) is the first overnight camp of its kind in the country, providing support after seeing a growing need for overdose-specific assistance at their general grief camps.
“People just instantly got it without me ever having to explain anything,” Talbot says. “They come from different states, are in different grades and carry different stories. But here, they’re just the girls of cabin 13, bonded by a kind of pain no child should ever have to endure.”
Talbot was 3 years old when her dad, Luke, died in his sleep from an opioid overdose. She was the one who found him. Now 14, she’s attended two CZC general grief camps but this is her first time at the overdose-specific one.
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The camp was created out of necessity. Between 2021 and 2022, CZC noticed a 30% spike in overdose losses referenced in their general grief camp applications. It’s funded through a partnership with the childhood bereavement non-profit A Little Hope.
“During COVID, there was so much overdose loss because people were at home trying to deal with their emotions and the confinements of being under lockdown,” Collopy says.
The weekend begins with 28 campers sprawled out in a grass field playing ice breakers. After dinner, they’re corralled into the gymnasium where volunteer Jenn Harris, a clinical social worker, tells them about losing her younger brother to overdose. Opioids. Harris struggled to reconcile her brother’s two personas: loving and top-of-his-class, but also manipulative and self-destructive.
“Some days I still wake up angry,” Harris says. “I realize the lump in my throat is the love I wasn’t able to give him.” Storytelling happens throughout the weekend in age-specific support groups called healing circles, led by facilitators with clinical experience. Every camper is also paired with a “Big Buddy” volunteer.
“Magic ingredient of the weekend,” Wally Brown says, whose 8-year-old little buddy Miles lost his sister to overdose four years ago. “We had the same connection: He lost his sister, and I lost mine.”
Throughout the weekend, campers participate in high-energy activities like ropes courses and team challenges designed to build trust and resilience. In younger groups, kids brainstorm coping skills for each letter of the alphabet.
Grief is like a big hand right in your face, and every time you share or hear someone else’s story, the hand moves further away. Collopy says.
Some kids open up at unexpected moments: during beach volleyball or while eating ice cream sandwiches. Many of these kids have only memories of their loved ones that include the bad – finding heroin needles, empty pill bottles, being asked for cash. But photo books passed around show laughter at Disney World, splashing through waves at the beach.
“People have this image of what an addict looks like,” Talbot says. “They look like our sister, brother, mom or dad.” They made bad choices but loved us.
Feelings of anger, guilt, regret – even relief – are normal with overdose loss. The camp’s goal is to teach kids it’s okay to feel conflicting emotions about the people they lost. They’ll carry hard feelings and good things that remind them: watching “Chicago Fire,” rooting for the New England Patriots, wearing a vintage jacket, listening to DMX.
Many of these teens are older now than their parents were when they started using. In high school, they navigate being confronted with the same substances that tempted their parents. Some friends do drugs; I don’t know how to feel about it, Haufler says. She lost her dad Kevin when she was 9 but didn’t find out it was due to overdose until more than two years later.
In some ways, today’s teens encounter a more enticing and dangerous system than generations before them – counterfeit pills containing fentanyl on platforms like Facebook and Telegram. As many as 6 out of every 10 fake pills contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
The camp wants to help teens navigate this landscape with tools that guide them in the real world.
Come Sunday afternoon, campers exchange hugs and phone numbers before dreading the train ride home to their respective states, schoolwork and being the only kid in class who lost someone to overdose. Their grief doesn’t end at camp but now they know how to carry it.
Comfort Zone Camp hosts general grief camps across the country. Campers traveled from near and far for the overdose-specific one in Wingdale, New York.
