Harm reduction strategist Chad Sabora shares the lived experience, personal loss, and nonprofit lessons that led to the founding of Aftermath Strategies, a consulting firm helping mission-driven organizations survive governance failure, burnout, and system collapse.
Intro: Not the Addiction Memoir You Were Expecting
People always want an origin story. They expect trauma, chaos, and the kind of childhood the addiction memoir industry loves to package. Mine wasn’t like that.
I didn’t grow up in dysfunction. I grew up in a house full of love, books, and expectations. And that’s exactly why I’m telling this story. Addiction doesn’t need a stereotype to ruin a life. Harm reduction doesn’t require a redemption arc to matter.
Growing Up Privileged Doesn’t Make You Immune; It Just Changes the Mask
My parents were brilliant. My dad, a person in long-term recovery, became an executive in the treatment field. My mom paused her career to raise us, then went to law school at night and became a prosecutor. Northwestern grads. Principled, relentless, loving. I inherited a lot: drive, grit, emotional intensity. All great until they turned against me.
Drugs Didn’t Derail Me, Grief Did
I started using drugs at 13. Not because of trauma. Because I was curious and reckless. And for years, it never spiraled. I went to law school. Passed the bar. Then everything unraveled.
First, my dad was diagnosed with leukemia. Gone in five months. Then my mom. Lung cancer, brain metastases. She held on for eighteen months.
That grief didn’t destroy me overnight. It hollowed me out over time. I used drugs not to party but to endure.
I Didn’t Hit Bottom. I Stopped Digging
Six years. Functional, until I wasn’t. Still holding it together until I couldn’t. I didn’t get saved. I got supported. Compassion worked where punishment never could.
I didn’t fall into harm reduction. I walked into it with grief in one hand and purpose in the other. My dad spent his life in treatment work. My work is the remix.
Everything I Do Is an Amendment to My Parents’ Legacy
I co-founded numerous harm reduction nonprofits. Did outreach. Gave out naloxone. Treated wounds. Built trust. Served people who society wanted to write off.
This wasn’t a redemption arc. It was an act of loyalty.
From Street Outreach to Federal Policy
Eventually, people noticed.
SAMHSA. CDC. ONDCP. I co-authored the federal Harm Reduction Framework. I trained policy leaders and front-line workers. The media came next: New York Times, NPR, Salon, Vice.
But my authority didn’t come from headlines. It came from living through every layer of this system.
Nonprofit Work Is Sacred. Nonprofit Governance Can Be Brutal
Starting a nonprofit teaches you two things:
- The work is holy.
- The politics will eat you alive.
I’ve seen organizations crumble because of internal failures. Not mission failure, but governance failure. Bad bylaws. Weak oversight. Dysfunctional boards. Broken leadership. I lived it. Then I studied it. Then I started helping others survive it.
Aftermath Strategies Was Built for the Storm
I created Aftermath Strategies for organizations caught in that in-between space. Still doing critical work but barely holding together behind the scenes.
I help nonprofits:
- Design governance that will not implode under pressure
- Train leaders to stand firm when the funders get controlling
- Build structures that actually support peer staff and community programs
- Prevent takeovers, legal disasters, and unforced errors
- Navigate federal grant compliance without losing their mission
- Recover from burnout, trauma, and bureaucratic sabotage
I Don’t Do Corporate. I Do Real
I’m neurodivergent. I’m blunt. I’m allergic to bureaucracy. And I still think punk rock ethics work better than most policy memos.
If your board is violating bylaws, I will tell you.
If your strategic plan is garbage, I will shred it.
If you are on the verge of collapse, I will show you how to rebuild from the wreckage.
This Isn’t Theoretical. It Is Aftermath Work
I’ve lived enough aftermath for several lifetimes.
Now I help others avoid or survive their own.
After All the Policy, the Laws, and the Work, the Guilt Stayed
No matter how many policies I helped write, how many grants I secured, how many lives we touched, I still felt it.
That gut-level feeling. That debt I owed my parents. The kind of debt that no professional milestone could ever erase.
I was getting frustrated. Burnt out. Haunted by the idea that nothing I did was enough.
Then it happened.
Becoming a Father Changed Everything
I had my son in 2015. My daughter in 2018. And today, I am a full-time single dad.
When I look at my kids, when I see the love, the books, the warmth I was raised in being recreated in my own home, I know that debt has been repaid.
Not with awards. Not with titles. But with continuity. With love.
And that is why I keep doing this work.
Call to Action: Let’s Talk
If your nonprofit is working in harm reduction, recovery, reentry, behavioral health, or peer support and struggling with structure, burnout, funding stress, or political pressure, let’s talk.
You do not have to fix it alone.
AFTERMATH STRATEGIES 