My Journey Through Recovery Took Me From Jail to Cannes

Let me begin by stating that I’m not from the advertising or marketing world. So you can imagine my surprise when I was invited to attend the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity to present a project to the Titanium Lions jury. I had no idea what to expect. I hadn’t even met the team I was working with in person. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

How it all began 

My expertise lies in the addiction and recovery realm. As an opioid survivor who struggled with addiction for years, this topic is near and dear to my heart.

About six months prior to Cannes, I received an email from a team at Serviceplan Munich inviting me to join a project they were working on. The team had been researching people who managed to quit opioids—people who shared their stories with thousands of others and were happy to do so. 

After weeks of research, they found my Soberdogs videos on TikTok and YouTube and contacted me. Connections like this cemented in me the marketing power and reach of social media—it’s absolutely incredible that a team in Germany found a TikTok I shared and were able to reach out.

The project was about a recovery helpline called 855-HOW-TO-QUIT. Callers who were struggling to quit opioids were able to dial the extension of the unique imprint code from their opioid pills, which led to a story from someone who quit that same pill.

The concept blew me away. I had never seen a campaign about opioids in such a precise way, and with pills as the main element. It reminded me of an experience during my time in jail: A speaker resonated with me because I could relate to his story. And now I could be that someone for somebody else. I immediately got on board.

I’ll admit, I initially had some doubts about how seriously a team based in Germany—none of whom were in recovery themselves—would take this project. But that doubt disappeared after our very first video call. They were genuinely interested and had a great idea. And we had the option of reaching even more people. That’s the power of advertising and marketing: You can make a real impact on those in need. 

En route to Cannes 

As I prepared for the trip to France and researched the festival, I began to grasp the magnitude of this event. It’s often described as the “Super Bowl” of the marketing industry.

My journey to France had a bit of a rough start. Just as I landed in Europe—for the first time ever—the airline lost my luggage. Along with several others.