Kintsugi Heroes
Chris Edwards · 57 min
A father who lost his son to suicide and nearly lost himself to addiction has turned a lifetime of pain into a grassroots movement giving men permission to not be okay.
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Chris Edwards is a Year 4 teacher in his first year, a volunteer mental health support worker, and the founder of a men's walking group. Two and a half years ago, his son Josh died by suicide. In the months after, Chris's therapist and wife pushed him to find community. He joined a men's walking group called Walk It Off, then helped launch his own branch in Warragamba. The walking, the space to think, and the company of other men shifted something in his grief. It gave him focus when everything felt impossible.
But this story does not start with Josh. It starts much earlier, in a house filled with domestic violence, where Chris learned at a young age that some things cannot be spoken about. At 14, suicidal and carrying pain he had no words for, he stopped himself because of his cat, Marmalade. He spent his teens and twenties using substances to numb what he could not process. At 30, after eight months of daily heroin use, he made a decision to stop everything in one night. His body seized. He spent three months relearning how to walk and talk. He met his wife Jo while working security, told her he was damaged, and chose to stay. He built a life.
Chris carries the lesson from his father about honesty and integrity. He learned from Josh, who was an artist and digital creator, deeply empathetic and quietly carrying the pain of students around him without telling his parents. Josh was helping people while struggling himself. Now Chris creates spaces where men can cry, be silent, or speak, without being told what to do. He measures what matters by the time he has left, not by avoiding hurt. Time is precious. That is the point.
⚠️ Content advisory: this episode discusses addiction & recovery, domestic & family violence and suicide & self-harm prevention, which some listeners may find distressing.
If you need support, you're not alone. Help is available: • SMART Recovery Australia (addiction): smartrecoveryaustralia.com.au • ReachOut: au.reachout.com • 1800RESPECT (family, domestic & sexual violence): 1800 737 732 · 1800respect.org.au • Lifeline (24/7 crisis support): 13 11 14 · lifeline.org.au
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Kintsugi Heroes · Registered Australian not-for-profit · kintsugiheroes.com.au ↗