13 Investigates 'Russian roulette' for addicts seeking fentanyl

KEMAH, Texas (KTRK) -- Justin Mowell felt alone and abandoned.

After his dog was hit and killed, he didn't know how to deal with his emotions.

"I had went and did the same amount of fentanyl that I usually do, and I woke up in the parking lot," Mowell said. "I had passed out and I guess I had overdosed and I was having seizures."

Mowell said if that happened to his friends, he would have called 911 or given them Narcan, a drug used to treat opioid overdoses.

But, nobody was there for him.

"I woke up and I had no idea what had happened. I woke up to the police, Galveston County sheriff's, pulling in, and they asked everybody there that I was friends with if I can stay with them and nobody, nobody, would let me just stay the night," Mowell said. "That kind of hit me kind of hard, but I realize now that I was pretty messed up and not in a good state of mind. I wouldn't have let me stay with myself either."

Mowell said that wasn't the first time he overdosed on illegal drugs. But, the abandonment he felt this time led him to rehab.

13 Investigates spoke with Mowell in September when he was 34 days clean at Kemah Palms Recovery.

Despite how lethal fentanyl can be, Mowell said he sought it out because the high was better than anything else he's taken and the lows came quicker, too.

"Withdrawing is definitely like hell. My skin would crawl. I feel like there's stuff under my skin. I've literally s*** on myself before," Mowell said. "Can't sleep and literally the only thing that would make that better to me at the time would be to use that drug again and it's just repetitive over and over and over."

Daniel Comeaux, a special agent in charge at the Drug Enforcement Administration's Houston Division, said it's alarming to hear some addicts are actively seeking out the highly addictive and deadly drug.

"Essentially what you're telling me is this gentleman is willing to play Russian roulette with his life," Comeaux said.

Statewide, 45% of all drug deaths were related to fentanyl, according to the Texas Department of State Health Services.

The number of fentanyl-related deaths has been increasing every year over the last five years, with 2,189 deaths in 2022, according to the state. Already this year, 841 Texans have died of fentanyl poisoning.

In Harris County, 583 people died from fentanyl-related deaths, according to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences. The youngest victim was just 11 years old.

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Comeaux said because fentanyl is manmade, it's easier to produce than other drugs like marijuana.

The DEA says a majority of deaths they investigate happen because someone thinks they're taking a particular drug, not knowing that it also has fentanyl in it.

Last year, about 40% of the counterfeit pills the DEA seized had fentanyl in them. Now, Comeaux said 70% of fake pills have some trace of the deadly drug.

"A lot of the cartels are pressing pills in Mexico and flooding our United States with them. But you also have some gang members, street folks in the Houston area making their own pills, and that's a problem because there's no regulations. It's just a person in a garage making pills that our citizens are taking, causing overdose," Comeaux said.

He said the DEA has partnered with police departments, sheriff's offices and district attorneys' offices across the region and currently have 20 active cases in the Houston area where they are targeting fentanyl dealers responsible in cases where someone died.

"We want to track it all the way back to the person who sold them that pill, but not only that, where did the pill come from? Who was the source of supply? And we will link it all the way back as far as we can go and put everyone in jail that's associated with that death," Comeaux said.

'Numb my soul'

Mowell was 23 years old the first time he took fentanyl in the form of a back patch. Soon, he said he would withdraw immediately if he wasn't wearing one.

Mowell said he would do whatever he could to feed his addiction, from stealing items that he would exchange for cash at the store to pawning off his parents belongings whenever they asked him to house sit.

Desperate for any drop of fentanyl he could get, Mowell would even take the patch off his back and start chewing it.

"I didn't even really care if it killed me. Like I really just wanted that high," Mowell said. "When I would chew it up, it would just take everything away that I felt, like it would numb me. I didn't know how to deal with normal emotions, so I got hooked on something that would numb my soul pretty much."

Daniel Scott, director of operations at Kemah Palms Recovery, said equine therapy is one tool he uses to help clients deal with all the difficult emotions that come up during the recovery process.

"Sometimes it's a lot easier to connect to an animal than it is to another person," Scott said. "Most people that have come through here have some trauma related to other people, right? We're the most mean to each other and so I think having an animal a lot of times already breaks down some of those barriers."

Mowell said recovery has helped him face difficult parts of his pass, like finally starting to mourn the death of friends who overdosed, but he still feels angry sometimes and knows staying clean will be a lifelong battle.

"I will always be an addict. It might lie dormant inside of me, but I'll always be an addict and the only way to keep it dormant is to work on this program," Mowell said. "I hope that if you're addicted to drugs, any kind of drug, that you seek help and you know it's going to be okay, and that you can be clean because if I can be clean, then anybody can be clean."

'One pill can kill'

When we met Mowell last month, it wasn't his first time at rehab. The last time he lasted a week and a half before relapsing.

Within two days of being back on the streets, Mowell said he almost got arrested and almost died. He realized the people he called his friends were so deep in their own battles with addiction that they weren't really friends at all.

Barefoot one night after selling his shoes for drug money, Mowell said he found his way back to the rehab facility where he slept outside until he could be admitted in the morning.

"They were kind enough to let me sleep on the side of the building, which broke my heart because it was so amazing. I felt so safe that they would let me sleep on the side of the building instead of having to walk around Kemah and get arrested," Mowell said. "When I got into detox and they let me in, I felt such a weight off of my chest."

Scott said about half of his clients come in addicted to fentanyl. But now, because so many other drugs are laced with it, he thinks there are some clients who come in thinking they're addicted to heroin or meth, when really they're also addicted to fentanyl.

His recovery facility has 10 beds, with a 24-hour nursing staff, so clients can successfully detox.

Scott said in the past, it was easier for young people to party and experiment with drugs without the same high risk of dying. Now, he said, because anything could be laced with a lethal dose of fentanyl, partying is "a dangerous game."

"It's changed the entire game as far as what's out there. I don't think anything's safe," he said. "They're putting it in cocaine, they're putting it in methamphetamines. And the pressed pills, I think, is the scariest thing in the world - that something could legitimately look exactly, color, shape, markings, score marks, look exactly like what you're used to out of the bottle and it could be lethal and you have no idea."

Comeaux said no one should take a pill that was not prescribed to them and that was not legitimately purchased from a pharmacy because counterfeit pills laced with fentanyl look more and more like the real deal.

"One pill can kill," he said. "You can make one mistake, one day and you can be dead. None of your family members or friends will ever see you again from that one mistake of taking one pill one day."

Scott said the drug is impacting all parts of society, regardless of race, gender, educational background or socioeconomic status. In addition to the stigma of addiction, Scott said since the withdrawal symptoms happen so quickly after using fentanyl that it is scary for addicts to contemplate getting help.

"(They're) almost PTSD and afraid of that withdrawal because it's so bad, then logic starts going out the door, intelligence starts going out the door, and even the concept of getting clean might seem unattainable because (they) don't want to experience that withdrawal," Scott said.

Mowell said everyone's rock bottom is different. For him, it was waking up at 34 years old with no car, no credit, no schooling and no home.

"I couldn't manage my life. I looked at people that were successful and I envied them. Like, I just wanted to be normal," he said.

As he lay in a parking lot earlier this year, alone and abandoned after overdosing on fentanyl, Mowell's numbness stopped him from feeling anything, including hope for a future.

Now, he's more than two months clean, staying at a sober living facility and no longer afraid to feel.

"I feel really good. I feel the best I've ever felt in my life. I feel like I can do whatever I want to do in life again," Mowell said. "Dreams that I have, they don't have to be dreams anymore, like I can do them and that's awesome."

For updates on this story, follow Kevin Ozebek on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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