Episode
From 40 Foster Homes to 100 OD’s & F3ntanyl Addiction | Ep 160
- Podcast
- Get a Grip Podcast
- Published
- May 6, 2026
- Duration seconds
- 4779
- Processing state
not_requested
Actions
POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/get-a-grip-podcast-7141471/episodes/from-40-foster-homes-to-100-od-s-f3ntanyl-addiction-ep-160/transcription-requests
Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/get-a-grip-podcast-7141471/from-40-foster-homes-to-100-od-s-f3ntanyl-addiction-ep-160.md
Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.
Summary
In this episode of Get a Grip Podcast, Louis Essig and Aaron Garnes sit down with Chase Tomak for one of the most intense and unfiltered conversations yet—a story that starts in chaos and somehow finds its way to hope.Chase was born into addiction, entering the world as a crack baby and immediately facing odds stacked against him. By the time he was in 5th grade, he was already being expelled from school, and soon after, thrown into a foster care system that would bounce him through over 40 different homes. What he experienced inside those homes is hard to hear—violence, neglect, and kids hurting each other and animals, all while he tried to survive and repeatedly attempted to run away.Eventually landing at Buckeye Boys Ranch, things didn’t stabilize—they escalated. This is where addiction began tightening its grip, setting the stage for a life filled with crime, trauma, and destruction. Chase opens up about deeply disturbing moments from his past, including forcing his own sister into a life-threatening situation, catching serious charges involving kidnapping and weapons, and spiraling further into chaos.Then came fentanyl.Chase describes what he calls “falling in love with fent”—a relationship that nearly cost him everything. Over 100 overdoses. Violence. Running from consequences. Watching the people around him break, including a girlfriend battling her own demons and attempting to take her life.But somehow… he survived.At his lowest point, something shifted. Chase began the long road toward recovery, eventually getting clean and entering treatment. It’s there he meets the woman who would become his wife—but even that journey wasn’t smooth, with relapse still part of the story before real change took hold.This episode is raw, dark, and brutally honest—but it’s also…