In this episode, we share one couple’s story of love and loss under the weight of substance abuse – told through different recordings, twelve years apart.
Released on November 1st, 2022.
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<THEME MUSIC>
Kamilah Kashanie (KK): StoryCorps has been around for almost two decades… and these recorded conversations are basically time capsules…
That was the case for this couple…
Josh Nantais (JN): My name is Josh Nantais and I am 29 years old. Today is February 15, 2009.
Gabriel McGowan (GM): Gabriel McGowan. I’m 27 years old. I’m in Los Angeles, California, and Josh is my partner of ten years.
When they came to StoryCorps …they talked about a lot that day…like their identities, their differences… and their love.
That was more than a decade ago…and just recently, Gabriel reached out to us…
He wanted the recording… Because Josh died back in 2014…and he wanted to hear his voice again…
But he also had another request…
GM: I asked to do the updated recording because I don’t want Josh’s story and my story to be lost. And there was so much that wasn’t said at the time.
In this episode, we’re going to hear some of that update…
<MUSIC>
And what we’ll find… is often…things are often much more complicated than they seem…
GM: If I could use two adjectives to describe our relationship it would be exhilarating and terrifying…
KK: And sometimes… there’s a chance to tell the full story…
It’s the StoryCorps Podcast from NPR. I’m Kamilah Kashanie.
<MUSIC>
Gabriel McGowan met Joshua Nantais in the late 1990’s in Southern California… Back then, dating looked a little different…
They were in their late teens…and they used America Online… You know, the social media… before social media, where you could meet people and join chat rooms.
Josh was really into this singer Ani Difranco, so he did a search for other guys in the area who liked her too… and he found Gabriel…
GM: We started chatting and I asked him to send me a photo. This being the dial up days, I remember sitting in front of my computer and the photo loaded so slowly…And then I saw his smile and his full face.
I did not have very high self-confidence at that time. So the fact that this guy who was just gorgeous could have any interest in me blew my mind… And he kept talking to me.
Our first date was about a week later. He was an hour late, and I was beyond nervous. I barely spoke.
And then, I remember one other moment…
…we were sitting in the car together, parked outside his parents place, and we had been sitting there for like 2 hours. I wanted to kiss him so badly, but I could not bring up the guts to do it. He just turned to me and he’s like, ‘If you do not kiss me by midnight, I am going inside and I’m turning into a pumpkin’. I waited until 11:59. I was just like, ‘oh my God, I love him.’
KK: …They fell in love… and when they came to StoryCorps it was right around a pretty big anniversary…
JN: Did you think you were ever going to be in a relationship for ten years?
GM: (og) You know, you’re the second person that I ever dated. And you were so different and beyond anything that I’ve ever known… I was just a little overwhelmed…
<MUSIC>
GM: He was everything that I had been told to stay away from. He smoked. He drank, went out to clubs. He went out to gay clubs. He just did not care what people thought of him…And you know on the one hand, I was scared of him. But I was also just completely transfixed.
KK: In a lot of ways Josh and Gabriel were complete opposites… Josh was raised in a conservative home… and Gabriel a really liberal one….
And while Josh grew up to be a confidant gay man… Gabriel stayed pretty guarded.
GM: My mom, she had always told me when I was a kid that if she could put me in a bubble and protect me from all the evils of the world she would have.
She really tried to insulate me from anything that she thought was bad. And so it created this idea in my head that life is just very black and white –– There are certain things that are good, there are certain things that are bad…And you want to stay away from the bad stuff.
Realizing I was gay was kind of the first time that I was like, ‘Wait a minute. There’s this part of me that is quote unquote “bad”.’
Growing up, I would work very hard at passing as straight. And I remember when I first met Josh one of the hardest things for me was feeling like anyone who would see me with him would know that he was gay and that by association, you know, that I’m gay, too.
KK: At this point in his life… Josh was unapologetically himself…
But it wasn’t always that way…
I remember a story that he told me. His parents had put him in a religious elementary school. And he had come home from school on a particular day. And he hid under the bed and prayed… that the flamboyance that was a part of him could just be taken away. He said he felt, like, ashamed that God could see the type of person that he was. And if he could hide who he was, that maybe he could make that part of him go away.
He wore who he was on his shirt sleeve. And he didn’t have a choice to hide it.
KK: Gabriel asked Josh more about this in their 2009 recording…
GM (og): When you were growing up, your parents were very religious and they’re both ordained ministers. And you would go out and get dressed up in drag and perform. And your mom would want to turn her head when you came out, into the, into the house. I wonder how that made you feel about yourself?
JN: That was definitely, like, one of the formative times in my life where I was really exploring who I was. And I was always hurt that they couldn’t take part in that part of my life at all, that they wanted to turn their heads like they were ashamed.
KK: But Josh did eventually get that acceptance from his parents that he had longed for…
Later in his life…His mom ended up getting lung cancer and she had a year where she was starting to really decline. And they would sit on the couch together and they would watch RuPaul’s Drag Race. I just remember that being so important to Josh, that his mom could truly appreciate who he was in a way that she never could before, and his confidence had come full circle.
<BEAT>
GM: One of my favorite memories of Josh is we were driving down the freeway and he had the windows open. He wore ‘L.A. Looks’ hair gel. And I remember the scent and the cologne that he wore, kinda mixed with cigarettes. And he had this song playing, and the song was, um… The Ballad of Lucy Jordan by Marianne Faithfull.
<MUSIC: BALLAD OF LUCY JORDAN>
I just felt so happy and so free. I had found a life that was just completely cut off to me.
He had opened up this just universe to me that I never thought I could be a part of… And I don’t know that it became less exciting… as much as it became more unstable…
<BEAT/MUSIC>
KK: Some fractures had started to show up in their relationship.
GM: I know in our original StoryCorps interview, I asked him, ‘when did he first know he loved me?’ And he said:
JN: I remember the first year that we were together thinking that I might lose you… That’s kind of when I realized that I really loved you.
GM: And he didn’t mention why he thought he was gonna lose me….
At the top of the episode, we hinted that things aren’t always what they seem…
What Gabriel didn’t know… until later… was that Josh had been carrying around a huge secret for the first year of their relationship…
We’ll find out what that was…After the break …
Stay with us…
MIDROLL (:30)
XPROMO (:15)
Welcome back.
Josh and Gabriel came to StoryCorps after being together for 10 years…
We’ve been listening to parts of that conversation…
…but what we haven’t heard is what was left unsaid…
And just a note…the rest of this story involes some sensitive topics like drug abuse, overdose, and suicide…
<BEAT>
Let’s go back to their first date… Gabriel said that Josh was about an hour late…
GM: We were out at dinner and out of nowhere he just pulled up his sleeve and there was like a line in the middle of his arm. And I had no idea what that was. And I’m like, ‘Are you okay? Like are you sick? What’s going on?’
He’s like, ‘It’s a track mark’.
KK: Because Gabriel grew up sheltered, he didn’t know much about drug use… or drug abuse.
GM: When I was in high school, I got selected to be a student ambassador to the DARE program, the Drug Abuse Resistance Education. My school sent me to this series of workshops where, like, some nurse gave us these presentations on the dangers of drugs. They told us, if you did ecstasy, you could start bleeding out of all of your pores. And I didn’t know any better.
KK: Back then, Gabriel still moved through the world as if it was black and white… just like his mom had taught him… so he wasn’t quite sure what to do…
All he knew was that he loved Josh, and he’d do anything to stay with him…
<MUSIC>
Josh promised Gabriel that his drug abuse was a thing of the past… and Gabriel took his word for it…
And for a while, they went on with their relationship…
<BEAT>
But then Gabriel went through something really difficult in his own life.
GM: The second half of our relationship really started –and I can pinpoint the day– my dad called me and he was like, ‘Have you talked to your mom?’ And I was like, ‘No.’ My dad said, ‘I’ve been trying to call her from work and like she’s not answering, which is weird for her.’
KK: Gabriel’s mom was found unconscious…
She had bipolar disorder…and struggled with mental illness…
GM: I went into the E.R. and she was just kind of like coming out of it, but she wasn’t really… very lucid. I was like, ‘Oh, my God, hi, mom. Like, what’s going on?’ And she’s like. And the first thing she said to me, she’s like… ‘Why didn’t you let me die?’
<BEAT>
GM: And I was hysterical. I was just, like, sobbing.
Josh ended up coming to the hospital and in the hospital waiting area he pulled out this little tiny white crumb. He’s like, ‘Just take it. It’ll make you feel better.’ It was a little piece of a morphine tablet that he had gotten from his mom…In that moment, I was like… okay. If It’s going to make me feel better… Okay.
The whole, like, DARE thing never really came up because it was a pill. Like, it was medicine, and it was prescription medicine. And his mom was a nurse practitioner. And, you know, it just felt different than buying heroin on the street.
Within 15 minutes, I just felt this rush of warmth, like putting a really cozy jacket on and you don’t feel the cold. And like all the feelings that came with what was happening… were blunted. Whatever I needed to do in this moment to handle it, whatever I needed to say to my mom, I could do that. I could say that.
KK: Gabriel had always been someone that dealt with anxiety… and now he was also trying to cope with the realities of his life at home…
He realized he could self medicate to control his emotions…
Whether it was a bottle of prescription cough syrup from the bathroom cabinet… or a piece of a pill that Josh would offer him…
GM: As time went on, I started really enjoying it beyond just situations where I couldn’t sleep or I was really anxious. Then I was like, well you know, I also get nervous in staff meetings. I get nervous meeting new people. Those were all occasions for pills.
And It started becoming from you know a couple of times a month… to every weekend… to couple of times a week.
KK: Gabriel started building a tolerance… and his friends could tell something was wrong…
It became less and less about getting high… and more about fighting off the withdrawal to just feel normal…
And as he kept doing drugs, so did Josh… and their lives started revolving more and more around using.
But they kept it pretty secret from the outside world…
<MUSIC>
When Josh and Gabriel came to StoryCorps together, they were both years into their addictions….
GM: Neither of us would have ever acknowledged it. We never brought up our addiction during the original recording, but listening back to it, I can hear the cracks.
<BIG BEAT>
GM: (og) If you could talk to us back in like year one, when everything was just so, like, dramatic and in your face. What would you say?
JN: To be kind to each other. I think it took us a while to get to that point where we’ve really accepted each other for who the other person really is.
GM: (og) YEAH. BUT I don’t know if I agree that we’ve come to accept each other for who we are. I think that’s our next step. I think we’ve come to have a sense of humor about who we are. And we’ve come to–
JN: –Be compassionate with each other.
GM: (og) Yeah.
But, not to accept. Yet.
JN: What do you think it’s going to take?
GM: (og) I think that. We’re both. Really resistant to change…And so I think it’s going to take both of us coming to terms with some of the challenges that we both face.
JN: I’m definitely coming to grips with some of the choices that I’ve made…
<BIG BEAT/MUSIC>
Repeated attempts at rehab… led to fights… which led to more drinking and more drug use…
GM: The most important thing to both of us was getting and staying high.
It went from going over to his place and not knowing what we were going to do –– to going over to his place and not knowing what condition I was going to find him in. My life felt like a day to day ‘I don’t know if I’m going to get drugs. or detox. Or overdose. And for someone who prided himself on things being so well under control, everything just felt terrifyingly out of control.
KK: At one point Gabriel overdosed, only to be brought back, waking up in the shower…
Their drug supply had also started to become more precarious… and Gabriel hit a breaking point.
GM: I had a nightmare that I’ve had many times. I’m, like, trying to call him and I can’t find him. And I don’t know if he’s okay. And that’s what it was like.
I’d broken up with him a million times already, giving him a million ultimatums. But something was different. I just called him and I was just like. I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to die. And I don’t want to watch you die. And I’m really sorry.
<MUSIC>
KK: Less than a year after they broke up…in 2014 Joshua Nantais died from complications of drug and alcohol abuse…
He was 35 years old…
<BIG BEAT>
JN: Even before we met, I knew I was looking for somebody that I wanted to spend my life with, somebody that I could love and be with and would be there for me. And that we could grow old together.
GM og : Do you really want to grow old? I mean.
I mean, I know that that’s something that gives you a lot of anxiety and. You know, you’re going to be 30 this year.
JN: Oh thanks for bringing that one up.
GM og: How do you feel about that?
JN: I’m proud of where I am…. But there are different senses of loss in terms of everything that I thought I would have achieved at this point.
And it took me a very long time to learn that lesson… we all have our faults. We’re all insecure.
GM: (og) But you have taught me so much about accepting people, not even in spite of flaws, but because of flaws. Things aren’t black and white, you know? You showed me a whole lot of color, and I’m really, really grateful for that.
<MUSIC>
People might look at us and think ‘what a messy relationship. there’s two people who just made a lot of really bad choices’.
Yeah, we did make some really bad choices…. We also loved each other a lot and we both really wanted each other to be happy and to be… to be okay.
I think the hardest part of telling our story is that it was our story…and I just wish he was still here to tell his side of it.
<BIG BEAT>
It’s very hard even now to not blame myself for what happened. I feel like the next lesson that I have to learn there is to forgive myself for ending the relationship.
But wherever he is, I feel like he is presenting me opportunities to talk about us, and him, and me. And to be kind to myself in retelling those stories.
<MUSIC>
KK: That was Gabriel McGowan remembering Joshua Nantais…
Gabriel went on to earn his Masters degree in social work, and he’s a therapist now. He helps people who are leaving prison transition back into the community.
Since then, he’s started working more and more with clients who struggle with addiction.
That’s all for this episode of the StoryCorps podcast.
It was produced by our Lead Producer, Eleanor Vassili, and me. It was edited by Jarrod Sport, who is our Senior Producer. Our Associate Producer is Max Jungreis. Our technical director is Jarrett Floyd, who also composed our theme song. Our fact-checker is Erica Anderson. Jasmyn Morris is our Story Consultant. Special thanks to Lauren Smith, and Whitney Henry-Lester.
To see what music we used in the episode… go to StoryCorps – dot – org… where you can also check out original artwork by artist Lyne Lucien.
For the StoryCorps podcast, I’m Kamilah Kashanie. Catch you next week.
<FUNDER(S)>
Every athlete’s looking for that extra edge — and for a lot of them, it’s their family. Who drove them to practice? Who told them to never give up? In this episode, player’s loved ones step into the spotlight.
On the first episode of a new sports-themed season of the StoryCorps Podcast, we’re talking about the game changers: People who altered how their sport was played. Some of these changes were tiny ones we now take for granted. Others changed how the sport looked. But after they made their mark, nothing was the same. If you want to leave the StoryCorps Podcast a voicemail, call us at 702-706-TALK. Or email us at [email protected].
All last season we asked our listeners to call our voicemail and tell us their stories. In this special bonus episode, it’s their time to shine. Call us at 702-706-TALK.
