Speaker 1: Pushkin.
Speaker 2: All I think about besides my kids, are these pills?
Speaker 2: How many can I take? When can I take them?
Speaker 2: Where can I get them? How can I keep it
Speaker 2: a secret? I was a full blown attic and I
Speaker 2: was a full time mom.
Speaker 1: Shortly after Laura Cathcart Robins had her second child, she
Speaker 1: developed a crippling anxiety disorder and severe insomnia. Within a
Speaker 1: few years, she was addicted to sleeping pills. Laura was ashamed.
Speaker 1: She felt like motherhood came so much more easily to
Speaker 1: her friends, and so for years she kept her addiction
Speaker 1: a secret, until one day she reached a breaking point.
Speaker 2: The mom that I imagine myself to be that I needed
Speaker 2: everyone to see me as failed. That image shattered.
Speaker 1: On today's episode when the mask of perfection falls away,
Speaker 1: I'm Maya Shunker and this is a slight change of plans,
Speaker 1: a show about who we are and who we become
Speaker 1: in the face of a big change. Laura wrote a
Speaker 1: memoir called Stash My Life in Hiding, and in it
Speaker 1: she describes a difficult childhood and how she eventually worked
Speaker 1: her way into an entertainment publicist job in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1: That's where she met her husband, a film and TV producer,
Speaker 1: and they became a sort of Hollywood power couple. Laura
Speaker 1: loved the glissy, fantastical world of entertainment, a world where
Speaker 1: she could hang out on TV sets and catch a
Speaker 1: ride with celebrities on their private jets.
Speaker 2: I was new to this world.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: The world I had grown up in was very poor.
Speaker 2: My mother was on welfare, like shoplifting groceries on welfare
Speaker 2: kind of thing. So this very lux world was new
Speaker 2: to me and very glamorous. And I had grown up
Speaker 2: in front of the TV. Everything that I wanted to
Speaker 2: be was on television, and so now here I was
Speaker 2: immersed in this world that I had grown up watching,
Speaker 2: and I embraced that.
Speaker 1: Moment you mentioned that everything you wanted to be was
Speaker 1: on TV, tell me a bit more about that. What
Speaker 1: do you mean by that?
Speaker 2: I mean, that's how I knew what adults were like.
Speaker 2: That's how I knew what adults did. Like all these
Speaker 2: different aspects of who one could be. One could be
Speaker 2: someone who worked for the city, or you know, when
Speaker 2: the Cosby Show came along, you could be a doctor
Speaker 2: in a lawyer, even if you were black. You know,
Speaker 2: like all these things opened up, all these possibilities for me.
Speaker 2: But I also loved the shows themselves. I loved the actors,
Speaker 2: I loved the idea of the costumes and what went
Speaker 2: behind them. I was able to really enjoy both sides
Speaker 2: of it, the fantasy aspect and the reality of what
Speaker 2: it took to make the shows.
Speaker 1: And I mean, I know you had a really challenging childhood.
Speaker 1: You had a verbally abusive stepfather, and you mentioned getting
Speaker 1: swept up in the fantasy of TV. Was TV and
Speaker 1: these visions of adult life a form of escapism for you?
Speaker 2: One hundred percent? I absolutely went there to escape from
Speaker 2: the reality of what was going on in my home,
Speaker 2: which was emotional abuse. Like you said, so.
Speaker 1: You're living this really glamorous Hollywood life and your husband
Speaker 1: are living it up. And so tell me a little
Speaker 1: bit more about what motivated you to become a mom.
Speaker 2: I don't ever remember being that child or that teenager,
Speaker 2: that young adult who was like I want to have babies,
Speaker 2: like I can't wait to have babies. That was really
Speaker 2: never me. I never really took much interest in other
Speaker 2: people's children. I was not the babysitting kid, but I assumed,
Speaker 2: you know, again, going back to television, this is what happens, right.
Speaker 2: You fall in love, you get married, you have kids.
Speaker 2: So that was going to be next for me. I
Speaker 2: wasn't at verse to it. I just didn't want it.
Speaker 2: I didn't want it the way I wanted the other things,
Speaker 2: like the glamour, my career, the stability, the romance and it.
Speaker 2: You know, I have a peer group and they were
Speaker 2: all getting married and excited about having kids, you know.
Speaker 2: And part of my deal growing up in my house
Speaker 2: was that, because it was a violent home, not standing out,
Speaker 2: keeping myself small allowed me to survive in my home,
Speaker 2: and I carried that with me into adulthood. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to stand out from my peers in that way.
Speaker 2: I wanted to want the same things they wanted, or
Speaker 2: at least I wanted it to look like I did.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned the context around your stepfather and never
Speaker 1: wanting to stand out right because that might come with
Speaker 1: punishment towards I mean verbal punishment for you, and then
Speaker 1: from what I've read, physical violence towards your mother. Were
Speaker 1: there any other factors based on how you grew up
Speaker 1: that led you to not want to stand out?
Speaker 2: I think really it all kind of stems from the
Speaker 2: way that it was in my home, and the way
Speaker 2: that I was in my home is just like you know,
Speaker 2: who I was authentically just rubbed him the wrong way,
Speaker 2: so I could be another version of myself, an edited version,
Speaker 2: and be okay. I certainly took that out into the
Speaker 2: world with me, right, So I learned to edit anything
Speaker 2: that either didn't blend in or made me stand out,
Speaker 2: or that seemed to not be met with enthusiasm, you know.
Speaker 2: And I was the only black kid in my entire
Speaker 2: school for a long time. My day to day was
Speaker 2: I was surrounded by all white kids, and that's another
Speaker 2: reason for me not to want to stand out. And
Speaker 2: I have an undiagnosed language based learning disorder. Is what
Speaker 2: I believe. Can't do math, can't figure out numbers, never could.
Speaker 2: By the time I got to Hay School, I was
Speaker 2: hiding my inability, you know, my confusion around math and
Speaker 2: the inability to even just do a simple problem. So
Speaker 2: I dropped out in the tenth grade because I started
Speaker 2: failing all my classes and didn't really tell people about that.
Speaker 2: I kept showing up to campus like I was still
Speaker 2: going to class for a while and I wasn't. And
Speaker 2: so all these things, right, this the way that I
Speaker 2: was being the only black person in my school, being
Speaker 2: the only one who dropped out, being the only one
Speaker 2: who never went to college. All these things were things
Speaker 2: that I felt like I needed to contain somewhere far
Speaker 2: away so that no one would ever discover it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes so much sense. You're hiding, and you're
Speaker 1: also you're playing the part, yes, of what you feel
Speaker 1: other people expect of you or are performing themselves. And
Speaker 1: so as we discussed the next correct step for you
Speaker 1: was to have kids, and you ended up having two
Speaker 1: boys within a two year timeframe. Laura, what was the
Speaker 1: experience like for you after your second was born and
Speaker 1: what role did your expectations play in all of this
Speaker 1: around what you thought it was going to be?
Speaker 2: Like, Yeah, so you know, I I told you all
Speaker 2: the things that I wasn't just now that I wasn't
Speaker 2: a college graduate. I wasn't a high school graduate. But
Speaker 2: because I had hustled my whole life, and because I
Speaker 2: figured things out, and because I had done really well
Speaker 2: in my career, I was just going to slay motherhood,
Speaker 2: like for sure, that's a given. This is the next
Speaker 2: challenge to bring it on. Like I didn't have any
Speaker 2: experience with it, but I had been and I had
Speaker 2: seen other people doing it. So I was told it
Speaker 2: was going to be hard by my peers. I was
Speaker 2: told it was going to be hard by my mom.
Speaker 2: I did not believe any of them. I just felt
Speaker 2: like I have the whole package to be able to
Speaker 2: really do great. And I was really surprised by how
Speaker 2: not great. Now I shouldn't say that I wasn't great,
Speaker 2: but how ill equipped I felt, And especially after my
Speaker 2: second son was born, I remember that whole time period.
Speaker 2: Is like I remember the first time I went under
Speaker 2: the water in the ocean and the waves were kind
Speaker 2: of moving me around and I could see like the
Speaker 2: bubbles going up, and I really was just like I'm lost,
Speaker 2: Like I was scared, right. I remember that feeling of
Speaker 2: kind of being clobbered by it and taken under, And
Speaker 2: that's what it felt like to me. I was doing
Speaker 2: everything that I was supposed to be doing. I looked
Speaker 2: like I was okay, but I felt like I was
Speaker 2: underneath the waves getting cloppered. Being a new mom among
Speaker 2: other new moms, was or just other mothers? Was I
Speaker 2: mean that I'm going to use the word humiliating, And
Speaker 2: I don't know that it's quite accurate, but that's the
Speaker 2: way it felt at times, and I needed desperately to
Speaker 2: hide my ineptness around them. I didn't know how to
Speaker 2: do what they did. I was always comparing what I
Speaker 2: was doing with them, and I felt like I was
Speaker 2: always coming up short. But I wouldn't let anybody see that.
Speaker 2: It just wasn't anything that I had imagined it would be.
Speaker 2: It really wasn't. And as I had prepared for a
Speaker 2: lot of things in my life, I wasn't prepared for this.
Speaker 2: I have kids that it just really didn't sleep well
Speaker 2: unless I was near them, which you know, maybe my fault,
Speaker 2: maybe not my fault, maybe just how way they were designed.
Speaker 2: But they would only really knock out when they were
Speaker 2: in my presence. So putting them to bed meant, you know,
Speaker 2: two hours later, one of them starts crying, wakes the
Speaker 2: other one up. Toddler comes running in. He's wet is bed,
Speaker 2: So now I have to change that. I put him
Speaker 2: in mind while I'm changing his so maybe he can
Speaker 2: stay sedated, you know, like and and he hops up
Speaker 2: and down. The other ones up and so it was
Speaker 2: like that. It was like, you know, all night long,
Speaker 2: I was changing sheets, I was changing beds. Eventually, at
Speaker 2: the end of the night, I was bringing them both
Speaker 2: into bed with me. That's the way it went. I
Speaker 2: didn't know what else to do yet, know how I
Speaker 2: was going to get the three hours of sleep I
Speaker 2: was going to need in order to start the day
Speaker 2: over the next day. Because my husband was usually working,
Speaker 2: he was out of the house, you know, and he
Speaker 2: was back late, and so I was on again come
Speaker 2: seven am. It wasn't like I had the day off
Speaker 2: after being up all night.
Speaker 1: Basically, yeah, you know, it's so interesting when we think
Speaker 1: about ideals of motherhood and models of motherhood, because I
Speaker 1: still heard in the language you use culpability. You said,
Speaker 1: I have two kids that just didn't really sleep, and
Speaker 1: like maybe it was my fault, maybe it wasn't. And
Speaker 1: I think that's part of the challenge. And I see
Speaker 1: women especially, I think maybe parents do this across the board,
Speaker 1: but they feel this sense of moral responsibility and blame
Speaker 1: no matter what the outcomes, and it just strikes me
Speaker 1: that it can really set everyone up for failure. It's
Speaker 1: an unreasonable goal.
Speaker 2: I heard myself say that too, and I I think
Speaker 2: that that fault finding, especially with parenting. It feels like
Speaker 2: everyone feels like that's their job. Yeah, totally into what's
Speaker 2: going on with you and your kids, and then they
Speaker 2: want to be able to diagnose it, say whose fault
Speaker 2: it is, and then give you the solution, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and usually unsolicited. So this is another reason, and thank
Speaker 2: you for bringing that up. Why I didn't let people
Speaker 2: see that I was struggling. I didn't want that invasion
Speaker 2: into what I was doing. I didn't want the unsolicited advice.
Speaker 2: I didn't want to try what worked for them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you when you had images in your mind
Speaker 1: of the perfect ideal mom, the perfect Laura in her
Speaker 1: role as mother, what did that look like to you?
Speaker 2: So it definitely looked like getting myself together before I
Speaker 2: left the house, looking like a together person when I
Speaker 2: dropped off my kids, being interested in, being involved in
Speaker 2: whatever they were doing, being the type of parent that
Speaker 2: other parents could count on, being the person who had
Speaker 2: the house that everybody's kids wanted to go to, being
Speaker 2: the field trip parent, you know, being like those were
Speaker 2: the parents I saw and emulated. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: like them. The missing ingredient, I think from you, because
Speaker 2: I did all that stuff was cheerfully. I wanted to
Speaker 2: cheerfully be the mom who showed up. I wanted it
Speaker 2: to be genuine. I didn't want to just go through
Speaker 2: the motions doing that stuff, which is what I was doing.
Speaker 2: I really wanted to do it cheerfully, and I didn't.
Speaker 2: That was the ingredient. I couldn't figure out how to
Speaker 2: source it, Like where does that come from? When you're
Speaker 2: exhausted from the night before and you're exhausted all day long?
Speaker 2: I didn't understand.
Speaker 1: It strikes me that it's a really tall order for
Speaker 1: Laura to be telling herself, you not only need to
Speaker 1: do all these things that embody perfect motherhood, you need
Speaker 1: to want to want to do all those things right.
Speaker 1: And I'm just so curious to know. I mean, where
Speaker 1: did those high expectations come from? Like? Why were you
Speaker 1: expecting this of yourself?
Speaker 2: The best I can figure is that because my ex
Speaker 2: husband and I were were this interracial power couple in Hollywood,
Speaker 2: we enjoyed this status, you know, and I did enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I very much enjoyed it and the status of you know, obviously,
Speaker 2: no one's perfect, but it felt like people always said
Speaker 2: that to us, you guys are the perfect couple. You
Speaker 2: guys had the perfect marriage, you had the perfect wedding,
Speaker 2: and it was like perfect, perfect, perfect, And it just
Speaker 2: followed to me. It tracked that I should then be
Speaker 2: the perfect mom, right, the mom who hears all these
Speaker 2: same compliments. You're the perfect mom. I wish I could
Speaker 2: be more like you. You're always here, You're always there, You're
Speaker 2: always doing this. And I did see women doing the
Speaker 2: things that I was doing before I started doing them.
Speaker 2: I was watching and observing kind of like, this is
Speaker 2: the path for the dope moms, right, All the cool
Speaker 2: moms are on this path. The ones that are off
Speaker 2: that path aren't as well regarded. The ones who openly
Speaker 2: talked about having postpartum anything were secretly judged by small groups.
Speaker 2: I'm sure I was included in those groups. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: like things like that, I didn't want to be that knew,
Speaker 2: I knew what it was like. I wanted to be
Speaker 2: on that path toward being like the epitome the cool mom.
Speaker 1: So you mentioned, you know, by the end of the night,
Speaker 1: every night your boys end up in the bed with you,
Speaker 1: and you were full time caregiver at this point because
Speaker 1: your husband's either working or traveling. You ended up developing
Speaker 1: pretty debilitating insomnia.
Speaker 2: I had this anxiety that's not the typical anxiety I
Speaker 2: hear new parents talking about. I wasn't like worried they
Speaker 2: weren't breathing or were something was going to happen to
Speaker 2: them all the time. That wasn't my worry. My worry
Speaker 2: was that they were going to meet me and I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to hear them. That killed me. The idea
Speaker 2: that they would wake up and say mommy or cry
Speaker 2: and I might not hear them, or they might cry
Speaker 2: for too long. So I didn't know what was going
Speaker 2: on with me, but I I was on edge. I
Speaker 2: was irritable, I was anxious. I was just short tempered
Speaker 2: with everybody, and I just wanted everybody to go away
Speaker 2: except for my kids. And I wanted to cry maya
Speaker 2: in the middle of those nights, like you know, the
Speaker 2: second change of sheets. Most of the time, I would
Speaker 2: sit there just almost like you know, like dry heaving
Speaker 2: to throw up. I would be like dry crying, like
Speaker 2: just like it wouldn't come out. I was so depleted,
Speaker 2: I wouldn't even have tears. And so I saw a doctor,
Speaker 2: and you know, I told him what was going on,
Speaker 2: and He's like, so, how long has it been since
Speaker 2: you haven't slept? And I told him and he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: we got to get you sleeping first. I can't even
Speaker 2: diagnose you until we've gotten you sleeping for a little bit.
Speaker 2: And he gave me a pill that I had never
Speaker 2: heard of at the time. You know, this was in
Speaker 2: the early two thousands, called Ambion, and I took it
Speaker 2: that night. You know, I'm sitting there waiting for this
Speaker 2: pill to take effect, hoping for sleep, and then this
Speaker 2: heat starts rising behind my eyes. And at first it's
Speaker 2: a little scary because I hadn't experienced anything like that.
Speaker 2: It feels like warm oil is just entering my body
Speaker 2: and flowing through me. It was the most incredible feeling
Speaker 2: that I've ever had. But the thing that followed was
Speaker 2: even better. Everything clicked off. The alarm bell that had
Speaker 2: been ringing in my head for two plus this year
Speaker 2: is stopped ringing. The first time it was silenced, And
Speaker 2: I mean, I can't tell you what that meant like,
Speaker 2: to not know that there's an alarm bell ringing in
Speaker 2: your head for two years, to not know that your
Speaker 2: nerve endings are frayed and on edge and then it
Speaker 2: was just, ah, this is what's been missing. I felt
Speaker 2: freed in that moment in a way that I hadn't
Speaker 2: been before, and I realized, oh my goodness, with this,
Speaker 2: I can be that mom that my kids deserve, you know,
Speaker 2: not the one who's just going through the motions every
Speaker 2: day doing what she needs to do. I can be
Speaker 2: the mom who wants to do this stuff. And I
Speaker 2: wanted to just grab up my kids and say, I
Speaker 2: am so sorry I've been this crazy mom. Things are
Speaker 2: going to be different, We're all going to be okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So how did your relationship then with Ambion evolve
Speaker 1: over time?
Speaker 2: So after that first night, that blissful sleep, I woke
Speaker 2: up and the first thing that popped into my head
Speaker 2: two words again please. Like I said, I had this
Speaker 2: kind of new lease on life and I wanted to
Speaker 2: go and experience that with my kids because I felt rested.
Speaker 2: And you know, for anybody insomnia or not, when you
Speaker 2: have a good night's sleep, yeah, feeling of being rested
Speaker 2: and ready to tackle the day is like if we
Speaker 2: could bottle that, put in a little pill. No, but
Speaker 2: it's just the best feeling. So I had that feeling.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel like I needed to take another one
Speaker 2: right away, but I wanted to, but I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like I needed to. And at that point where I
Speaker 2: was and in my addiction, I think that my ability
Speaker 2: to distinguish what you need and want was clear. Like
Speaker 2: I didn't run through a bottle really quickly, not until
Speaker 2: the second year, when I I was taking them every night.
Speaker 2: As things progressed, it was like, not just one to
Speaker 2: get to sleep, but one and a half and then
Speaker 2: one half in the middle of the night when I
Speaker 2: woke up, because the wake up was now inevitable. The
Speaker 2: ambient just didn't do what it did to me earlier
Speaker 2: when I first started taking it. So this progresses over
Speaker 2: the years, and then approximately six years later, I am
Speaker 2: taking them every night. I'm taking them in the middle
Speaker 2: of the night when I wake up, and all I
Speaker 2: think about, besides my kids, are these pills. How many
Speaker 2: can I take? When can I take them? Where can
Speaker 2: I get them? How can I not be discovered? How
Speaker 2: can I keep it a secret? This is my every
Speaker 2: waking thought besides my children. And it's an obsession. It
Speaker 2: was an obsession. I believe I was fully addicted at
Speaker 2: that point. It's around this time that I start washing
Speaker 2: these pills down with vodka. I wasn't able to recapture
Speaker 2: that feeling of euphoria the way I had in the
Speaker 2: early days, and the booze really helped. You know, Benadryl
Speaker 2: came into play at some point because benadryl actually boosted
Speaker 2: the effect of it. I was a full blown at it.
Speaker 2: A junkie is what I thought of myself as in
Speaker 2: my mind, and I was a full time mom.
Speaker 1: How many ambient pills were you now taking?
Speaker 2: I was taking up to ten pills a day, which
Speaker 2: most most people don't get up off the floor after
Speaker 2: I say that, they're like what, they just faint because
Speaker 2: it's way too many pills. It's it's a lethal dosage, right, Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was not taking ten pills at one time. I
Speaker 2: was being very strategic and I would write down, you know,
Speaker 2: how many pills I had to pick up, how many
Speaker 2: refills I had. For someone who wasn't good at math,
Speaker 2: I became very good at math, and I calculated out
Speaker 2: what I could take. The thing was during the day.
Speaker 2: Even though I couldn't knock myself out with ambien because
Speaker 2: I would go to sleep, I couldn't be entirely without
Speaker 2: it either. I needed to have some of it in
Speaker 2: my system so that I would avoid a debilitating withdrawal.
Speaker 2: And if I can just tell you a little bit
Speaker 2: of what that would look like, it's like the worst
Speaker 2: stomach flew, body aches, headache, sweating, lack of appetite, not
Speaker 2: being able to make eye contact with anyone, visibly, trembling,
Speaker 2: shaky fingers, rapid heartbeat like dying is what it looked like.
Speaker 2: It looked like I should have been admitted to an er,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't. I would kind of chip away at
Speaker 2: a corner of an ambient here, a corner of an
Speaker 2: ambien there. It wouldn't take away the withdrawal, but it
Speaker 2: would make it a manageable amount of withdrawal. And I
Speaker 2: could time it. If I take this chip, which is
Speaker 2: like a corner of an ambien before lunch, then I
Speaker 2: can do an hour and ten minutes for lunch without
Speaker 2: it becoming unbearable. But then I got to get myself
Speaker 2: out of there and get myself back home.
Speaker 1: So you can take another little Yeah, if.
Speaker 2: I had enough, I would take another one. Otherwise I
Speaker 2: would just basically just endure the withdrawal at home. Oh, gosh, okay,
Speaker 2: because I needed to have enough to go to sleep
Speaker 2: at night. That was my biggest fear.
Speaker 1: Did you confide in anyone during this period of time, Laura,
Speaker 1: or like, did anyone just know what was happening?
Speaker 2: Well, not only was my husband traveling a lot at
Speaker 2: this point, but we were getting a divorce, and you know,
Speaker 2: so for him, I'm sure there was a huge sense
Speaker 2: that something was wrong. But it's hard to know, especially
Speaker 2: if you have an idea the person that you're engaged
Speaker 2: with as an addict, Right, you haven't seen this behavior
Speaker 2: from them. No one was checking for me to be
Speaker 2: an addict at this point, right. So the withdrawal, not
Speaker 2: the physical withdrawal, but the withdrawal from society, the isolation,
Speaker 2: the sadness, these are all things that can be attributed
Speaker 2: to getting a divorce. So it was in a way
Speaker 2: it was lucky for me, or at least that's the
Speaker 2: way it felt, because it masked what was really going
Speaker 2: on from the outside world. It shielded me.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in a moment with a slight change
Speaker 1: of plans. At the peak of Laura's ambient addiction, she
Speaker 1: was taking ten times the recommended dose to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
Speaker 1: She even needed ambient during the day, she'd cut up
Speaker 1: the pills into tiny pieces and ration them out. Still,
Speaker 1: she remained determined to play the part of the active,
Speaker 1: engaged and happy mom and to hide her situation from
Speaker 1: her community.
Speaker 2: So when I showed up to my kids' school, I
Speaker 2: brought Starbucks in the morning to all the guards. I
Speaker 2: came back at ten fifteen to do snack for my
Speaker 2: younger son. I would do hot lunch with everybody, and
Speaker 2: then I would volunteer in the library or like I
Speaker 2: was on campus with them almost as much as they were. Wow,
Speaker 2: I was in these little pockets, right, I'm a half
Speaker 2: hour here, I'm thirty minutes here. Everybody had this impression
Speaker 2: of me that one I was happy, and two I
Speaker 2: was doing the thing. I was also someone that everyone liked,
Speaker 2: but no one really knew at school. I was someone
Speaker 2: who would be invited to all the different stuff, but
Speaker 2: I hadn't really had like a deep conversation with anybody.
Speaker 2: No one really knew me. That was that was you know, intentional.
Speaker 2: And so while I was able to show up on
Speaker 2: campus and kind of skirt any deep conversation and get out.
Speaker 2: Now it was getting harder. And I remember this one
Speaker 2: time I was there to volunteer in one of the classrooms,
Speaker 2: I can't remember which one, and I was needing a
Speaker 2: corner of an ambien. And I went into this bathroom
Speaker 2: and I was opening my pill bottle to get the
Speaker 2: corner of an ambient out so that I could go
Speaker 2: and do whatever it was I was scheduled to do.
Speaker 2: And my hand slipped and the bottle spilled, and all
Speaker 2: the pills went all over the floor, not just in
Speaker 2: the stall where I was of this girl's bathroom, and
Speaker 2: maya something else took over. Then I didn't care how
Speaker 2: I looked. I didn't care. All I cared about, oh
Speaker 2: my goodness, was getting those pills. I didn't even care
Speaker 2: that they're probably on a urine stained floor. I just
Speaker 2: needed those pills back in that bottle. So instantly, I'm
Speaker 2: on my hands and knees on this floor, picking up
Speaker 2: each pill so carefully and putting it back into the bottle.
Speaker 2: And I'm about halfway through this process when my kid's
Speaker 2: art teacher walks in, and the way I remember it
Speaker 2: is she looked at me. I looked at her with
Speaker 2: a terrified look on my face. Because I felt busted. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and then she quietly turns around, goes the other way,
Speaker 2: and walks out. I don't know she read the bottle.
Speaker 2: I don't know if she recognized the pills or she
Speaker 2: was just recognizing the state that I was in, you know.
Speaker 2: And so that's that's how captive I was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So now let's visit the summer of that year,
Speaker 1: July fourth, two thousand and eight. Tell me what happened
Speaker 1: that day.
Speaker 2: So it's the afternoon of July fourth, creeping into the evening,
Speaker 2: and I am in what I remember as one of
Speaker 2: the most debilitating withdrawals I ever had, where my teeth
Speaker 2: were chattering. It was so bad my headache I thought
Speaker 2: it might kill me. This headache that I had, it
Speaker 2: was blinding, like literally I lost my peripheral vision. And
Speaker 2: so I was like, I can't take my kids to
Speaker 2: the fireworks tonight. I can't do anything. I have to
Speaker 2: get them out of here so that I can knock
Speaker 2: myself out, because that's the only thing that's going to
Speaker 2: help this. It's not going to be a corner of
Speaker 2: a pill. I'm going to have to take a full dose.
Speaker 2: And now you know, this is what I've been trying
Speaker 2: to do is wait until after my kids go to
Speaker 2: sleep to knock myself out. But at this point I
Speaker 2: could not wait, and I knew it, but I didn't
Speaker 2: want them to witness that. So I sent them to
Speaker 2: watch the fireworks with a neighbor and I went to
Speaker 2: my stash and I thought that I had, you know,
Speaker 2: a two day supply of pills in there, which for
Speaker 2: me would have been around twenty pills, but there were three,
Speaker 2: and three wouldn't get me through the night. And it
Speaker 2: was like being slapped across the face when I opened
Speaker 2: that bottle and found those three pills, and the world
Speaker 2: crumbled around me, and I just didn't what am I
Speaker 2: going to do? What am I going to do? I
Speaker 2: don't have anymore, I have a finite window of time.
Speaker 2: My kids have gone to see the fireworks, they're going
Speaker 2: to be back. What am I going to do? And
Speaker 2: so I took them, went to the freezer, got the vodka,
Speaker 2: drank some of that, went to the bathroom, got benadryl,
Speaker 2: took two of those, and nothing, not a thing. I
Speaker 2: didn't feel any of that familiar heat rising behind my eyes.
Speaker 2: I didn't feel any of the indicators that this was working,
Speaker 2: and my withdrawal was as excruciating as it had been
Speaker 2: when I walked in the door. And you know, eventually,
Speaker 2: like it, they worked for a very short period of time,
Speaker 2: less than an hour, and then I was stone cold
Speaker 2: sober again, and then withdrawal again and dry crying again.
Speaker 2: And you know, I had this moment where I was
Speaker 2: just like, I can't get loaded anymore. I took everything
Speaker 2: I had and I didn't get any relief, and I
Speaker 2: can't be like this. I can't be this shaking, headachey
Speaker 2: fluey mess all the time, right, And so I was like,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have to get help, as I can't
Speaker 2: do this. I can't do this on my own. The
Speaker 2: mom that I imagined myself to be that I needed everyone
Speaker 2: to see me as failed. That image shattered because I
Speaker 2: couldn't take my kids to the fireworks because of my addiction.
Speaker 2: I couldn't take them to this very simple thing that
Speaker 2: you know, millions of Americans around the country were doing.
Speaker 2: I could not do that because of this addiction. In
Speaker 2: my mind, it was the worst possible thing.
Speaker 1: You realize you needed to ask for help, and I'm
Speaker 1: so curious what it was like for you to reveal
Speaker 1: your secret. That was your biggest fear for so long
Speaker 1: that this moment would happen. And so what was it
Speaker 1: actually like when that secret was revealed.
Speaker 2: The first person I told was my mother, who was lovely.
Speaker 2: She didn't pry, she was warm, she was supportive, and
Speaker 2: I hung up the phone feeling like I just wanted
Speaker 2: the earth to swallow me. I couldn't believe that I
Speaker 2: had said it out loud. And you know, that's the
Speaker 2: thing with addicts is we don't want to We want
Speaker 2: to leave that back door open. Right, Oh, maybe it
Speaker 2: wasn't so bad. If I don't tell anybody, then maybe
Speaker 2: it's not so bad. I can still believe that lie. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but once I've confessed to somebody that back door shuts
Speaker 2: and locks, I don't have anywhere else to go. And
Speaker 2: I knew that when I told her that she was
Speaker 2: going to tell other people. But the secret was out.
Speaker 2: I couldn't go back to pretending. And you know, in
Speaker 2: each person who I told, each one felt like that
Speaker 2: I was desperately afraid of being id'd as the mom
Speaker 2: who went to treatment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you've said that the impact of your time in
Speaker 1: treatment didn't really hit you until towards the end when
Speaker 1: you heard a comment from one of the nurses, Can
Speaker 1: you say more about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I hated it there. I was there
Speaker 2: for thirty days. I hated every minute I was there.
Speaker 2: I never leaned in. I did not feel safe there
Speaker 2: like a lot of people did, and I didn't feel
Speaker 2: like I had changed. In fact, I was planning to
Speaker 2: pick up a refill about, you know, nine miles from
Speaker 2: where the treatment center was, on my way back to
Speaker 2: Los Angeles. I use my phone time, which is a
Speaker 2: privilege that you get at the end, to call in
Speaker 2: that refill, take prescribed and go live my life. And
Speaker 2: as I was checking out the nurse who had checked
Speaker 2: me in thirty days before, she said, the lights have
Speaker 2: come back on in your eyes and she started crying.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, she started crying, and I felt I was
Speaker 2: so just like solid stone. I didn't want any part
Speaker 2: of this emotional exchange with her, but I felt my
Speaker 2: body warming, and then I felt the tears in my
Speaker 2: eyes despite myself, and I felt something that I hadn't
Speaker 2: felt before. I didn't stop me from wanting to pick
Speaker 2: up that refill, but something got in. Then, something penetrated
Speaker 2: that armor, and I felt something which I can now
Speaker 2: identify as hope, but I didn't know that's what it
Speaker 2: was then. I was just like, it doesn't have.
Speaker 1: To be this.
Speaker 2: It's going to be this. I'm going to go pick
Speaker 2: up that refill and go do this. But it doesn't
Speaker 2: have to be this, because look what just happened. Thirty
Speaker 2: days later, I'm off of it entirely, and the lights
Speaker 2: are back on in my eyes.
Speaker 1: See, you said you didn't realize that it was hope
Speaker 1: in the moment, but that yeah, and I love this refrain,
Speaker 1: like it doesn't have to be that way. And there
Speaker 1: is this experience about two months after you leave treatment
Speaker 1: where now I mean, now that I hear you say that,
Speaker 1: it seems like it's a it doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: that way situation, right, Like, can you tell me about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I should start by saying that I didn't actually
Speaker 2: pick up that ambion on the way back from treatment.
Speaker 2: And I had been sober at this point where you're
Speaker 2: talking about for about two months. And so my kid
Speaker 2: is sick and I called to get medication delivered for him, antibiotics,
Speaker 2: And when the delivery comes, I opened the bag and
Speaker 2: I can tell already that the bag is too heavy
Speaker 2: for just a bottle of antibiotics. There's also a bottle
Speaker 2: of cough medicine, which is the most delicious orange elixir
Speaker 2: for coughs ever invented. And this would be like a
Speaker 2: little treat for myself when I was sick, Like, you know,
Speaker 2: I would get it when I was sick, and I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed the warmth that whatever narcotic is in there provided.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't ordered it. I had only ordered the
Speaker 2: antibiotics for my son, and so I was very surprised
Speaker 2: by the appearance of this cough medicine and delighted that
Speaker 2: it was there. And I really quickly did the math.
Speaker 2: You know, I have two days with my kid at home.
Speaker 2: My younger son was with my now ex husband. I
Speaker 2: could enjoy the contents of this bottle and no one
Speaker 2: would know, And so I kind of figured I would
Speaker 2: wait till the end of the day. And you know,
Speaker 2: I kind of rushed through his dinner, like hurry up
Speaker 2: and eat eat your soup. We watched a couple of
Speaker 2: shows and I waited for him to fall asleep, and
Speaker 2: I went into my claw with it. I had had
Speaker 2: a kind of a big closet and so I was
Speaker 2: pacing around in there with this bottle, and I was
Speaker 2: imagining how it would feel when I drank it, and
Speaker 2: I was imagining how it would feel in my body
Speaker 2: and when it hit my bloodstream, and what it would do,
Speaker 2: and the warmth and the wonderfulness of it. And I
Speaker 2: feel these arms around my waist, these hot, small arms.
Speaker 2: Of course they belonged to my son. And he puts
Speaker 2: his arms around me and lays his head against my back.
Speaker 2: I'm still holding the bottle out in front, and he says, Mommy,
Speaker 2: I need you, and that made me emotional too. I
Speaker 2: went and put him back in bed, but he wouldn't
Speaker 2: let me go, and that bottle was calling me from
Speaker 2: the closet. But my son's voice was louder, and it
Speaker 2: was like there was a mirror in front of me.
Speaker 2: At that moment, I could see myself being reflected back.
Speaker 2: Am I the mom who chooses her son over the
Speaker 2: cough medicine? Or am I the mom who chooses the
Speaker 2: cough medicine over her son? And I observed myself choosing
Speaker 2: my son. And it's all about choice. I didn't always
Speaker 2: have choices when I was in the throes of the addiction.
Speaker 2: I don't care what people think about it. I didn't
Speaker 2: have choices, but I had a choice in that moment.
Speaker 2: And we woke up and the birds were singing and
Speaker 2: it was bright out, and I gave the bottle to
Speaker 2: my ex husband. I'm like, get this out of here.
Speaker 2: I can't have it in the house. I couldn't go
Speaker 2: through another night like that. Yeah, I do that back
Speaker 2: and for it. So he was kind of like, okay,
Speaker 2: but he took it, and that was truly the last
Speaker 2: temptation I had.
Speaker 1: You've now been fifteen years sober, Laura, and I'm curious
Speaker 1: to know how this experience has changed how you think
Speaker 1: about ideal motherhood and how you carry that label.
Speaker 2: It's change everything about the way that I view myself
Speaker 2: as a mother, as a person, everything, because I had
Speaker 2: never been completely honest about everything. I always told some truths,
Speaker 2: but there were always versions of the truth. In the
Speaker 2: twelve step recovery that I chose, one of the suggestions
Speaker 2: is that the first principle is honesty. So I started
Speaker 2: to be more vulnerable, which was really hard for me,
Speaker 2: and let people into the fact that I had this
Speaker 2: abusive childhood, that we were poor, that I dropped out
Speaker 2: of high school that you know, I didn't lead with
Speaker 2: those things, but I didn't hide them anymore. And I
Speaker 2: have a woman that guides me through this twelve step program,
Speaker 2: and I call her my Master Reel because I have
Speaker 2: told her everything. She knows all about my life. She
Speaker 2: knows the humiliation, she knows the relationships, she knows where
Speaker 2: I was dishonest, and she knows about the harms that
Speaker 2: I've done to others and myself. And there's just no
Speaker 2: flinching away from those things for me anymore. I can't
Speaker 2: sugarcoat them. The way I was living before, even before
Speaker 2: the addiction, was terrifying because I had all these secrets
Speaker 2: that I was afraid that everybody was going to find out,
Speaker 2: and I was going to be exposed in this way
Speaker 2: and either be cast aside or cast out. That was
Speaker 2: my thinking. And I didn't think I had any fears
Speaker 2: when I came in. I really didn't. I didn't have
Speaker 2: my finger on the pulse of any of them. And
Speaker 2: once I was able to enjoy sobriety a little bit,
Speaker 2: there's a freedom there where I'm able to think in
Speaker 2: my best interest and in the way the best interests
Speaker 2: of others. It's a much different way than what can
Speaker 2: I get away with or what can I present myself
Speaker 2: as I love that freedom that I have in sobriety
Speaker 2: of not having to hide anything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what has it been like sharing your story with
Speaker 1: people after so many years of those secrets feeling threatening
Speaker 1: when I was a mom.
Speaker 2: I'm looking around and I'm thinking they were all given
Speaker 2: the manual and I wasn't given the manual, Like what
Speaker 2: did I miss? So that everybody knows how to do
Speaker 2: this except for me? And now I realize these women
Speaker 2: didn't get the manual either. They were running around watching
Speaker 2: what everybody else did and trying to imitate. They were
Speaker 2: keeping secrets the same way that I was, you know,
Speaker 2: hiding their quote unquote ineptitude because they didn't want it
Speaker 2: to be revealed that there was stuff they just didn't
Speaker 2: know how to do or worse couldn't handle. And so
Speaker 2: in hearing my story, they felt like they could share
Speaker 2: theirs too, which you know, that's the best thing. Ever,
Speaker 2: That's why you tell a story.
Speaker 1: Right, Hey, thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed
Speaker 1: my conversation with Laura, you might also like my episode
Speaker 1: with musician Jason I Isbel. It's called Jason Isbel finds
Speaker 1: peace with his past. We'll link to the episode in
Speaker 1: our show notes and join me next week for our
Speaker 1: conversation with the developmental psychologist Alison Gopnik. She says that
Speaker 1: when it comes to creativity and problem solving, children actually
Speaker 1: have a lot to teach us. See you next week.
Speaker 1: A Slight Change of Plans is created, written, and executive
Speaker 1: produced by me Maya Schunker. The Slight Change family includes
Speaker 1: our showrunner Tyler Green, our senior editor Kate Parkinson Morgan,
Speaker 1: our producer Trisha Bovida, and our sound engineer Andrew Vestola.
Speaker 1: Louis Scara wrote our delightful theme song, and Ginger Smith
Speaker 1: helped arrange the vocals. A Slight Change of Plans is
Speaker 1: a production of Pushkin Industries, so big thanks to everyone there,
Speaker 1: and of course a very special thanks to Jimmy Lee.
Speaker 1: You can follow A Slight Change of Plans on Instagram
Speaker 1: at doctor Maya Shunker. See you next week.