Justin Krompier: Heroin, Xanax, Ambien, Robbing Dealers, and his path to Yosemite and Recovery

This week on the Wednesday Dose of Dopey!, Photographer and adventurer Justin Krompier, known on Instagram as Just Passing Through, shares his journey from suburban New Jersey opioid addiction to building a life around recovery, creativity, and the open road.

Justin traces his early relationship with prescription medication, his fascination with drug culture, and the college painkiller habit that eventually became heroin addiction. Along the way: padding his student-film budget to buy pills, getting paid to participate in cosmetic testing, offering dealers gas instead of money, getting robbed at knifepoint in his pajamas, and crushing up his remaining pills while a police officer approached his totaled car. In an eerie connection, that last incident mirrors the overdose story he had already turned into his senior thesis film.

After a relapse at the Peach Music Festival, a Christmas visit from his cousin helped Justin finally recognize his addiction. Watching Wild also awakened the possibility of a different life. He returned to treatment, embraced a twelve-step fellowship, and slowly rebuilt—delivering pizzas, working at UPS, and developing his photography between shifts. A trip to Yosemite and Big Sur eventually inspired him to leave UPS, build out a van with help from his recovery community, and pursue the adventures he once believed were impossible.

All that and MORE on this week’s Dopey Dose!