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This episode of Survival in the Trenches: Life Beyond Loss features Steve Kiefer, founder of the Kiefer Foundation, who shares his heartbreaking yet inspiring journey after losing his son, Mitchel, to a distracted driving accident. Steve discusses the mission of his foundation, which works to raise awareness, advocate for legislation, and promote technology to eliminate distracted driving. Through resilience and purpose, Steve turns tragedy into action, championing initiatives that save lives and inspire others to make a difference.
This episode is a must-listen for parents, young drivers, and anyone who has ever been tempted to use their phone while behind the wheel. It offers a powerful reminder of the devastating consequences of distracted driving and provides actionable insights into how we can all help combat this issue. By listening, you’ll gain a deeper understanding of how small changes in behavior and advocacy can lead to safer roads and saved lives.
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️ Introduction and Background (00:00 – 10:13)
Kiefer Foundation and Distracted Driving (10:13 – 21:20)
Technology and Legislation (21:20 – 32:21)
Global Perspective and Future Goals (32:21 – 43:54)
If you’re facing mental health struggles, emotional distress, alcohol or drug use concerns, or just need someone to talk to, call or text 988.
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In healthcare, we are trying to fix what’s broken, not prevent the break. Leo and I have thought a lot about, how do we prevent the break?… Psychedelics is not just a medication. It’s a whole process, and it needs to be timed. We know that. And so that’s one of the things that we. A big challenge that we have is trying to figure out how to bring the different parts of the healthcare system together in concert in a window of time when it’s most effective and at the time when the patient needs it the most, to the patients that need it the most.
“I worry that if this gets FDA approved then there’s a whole other aspect of the commercialization beyond people that need it. The people who’ve gone, who have the means, is this going to create another inequity where if you have the means, you had access to this treatment. If you don’t, this is not available to you.”
In our society, we think of psychedelics as drugs that are illegal for the most part, and, you know, dangerous… but through the span of human history, they’ve been part of our culture. These kinds of compounds grow all over the world. And so humans for millennia have been utilizing them for medicinal reasons, for ritual reasons, for religious reasons. For most of human history, they’ve been very accepted as part of our healing systems.
The EMTs allowed me to go say goodbye to my husband. And when I did, I promised. I thanked him, number one, for our life. I thanked him for the best five years of my life. And I promised him that I would take care of our family and that our baby would be a happy baby and that she would be born into love and light and not tragedy and negativity.
“So we got through the TAPS and, and I remember the doctor said, ‘I’m not here to make anybody feel better. I’m here to make sure you feel.’ So what a lot of people do is they forget to feel. They forget to feel the pain.
