They Fell In Love Helping Drug Users. But Fear Kept Him From Helping Himself

She was in medical school. He was just out of prison.

Sarah Ziegenhorn and Andy Beeler's romance grew out of a shared passion to do more about the country's drug overdose crisis.

Ziegenhorn moved back to her home state of Iowa when she was 26. She had been working in Washington, D.C., where she also volunteered at a needle exchange. She was ambitious and driven to help those in her community who were overdosing and dying, including people she had grown up with.

"Many people were just missing because they were dead," says Ziegenhorn, who is now 31. "I couldn't believe more wasn't being done."

She started doing addiction advocacy in Iowa City while in medical school — lobbying local officials and others to support drug users with social services.

Beeler had the same conviction, born from his personal experience.

"He had been a drug user for about half of his life — primarily a longtime opiate user," Ziegenhorn says.

Beeler spent years in and out of the criminal justice system for a variety of drug-related crimes, such as burglary and possession.

In early 2018, he was released