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Speaker 1: Family Secrets is a production of I Heart Radio. I

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Speaker 1: turned down the hallway where the bedrooms are located. Peter,

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Speaker 1: I call again, Peter. I'm coming down the hall to

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Speaker 1: your bedroom. Okay. His bedroom is at the end of

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Speaker 1: the hallway. Its door faces me and it's open, but

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Speaker 1: I can't see anything except a corner of the bed

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Speaker 1: and a cluttered night table. I walked past my son's

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Speaker 1: bedroom with its one orange wall and ikea bed, past

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Speaker 1: Anna's old bedroom, one wall painted deep pink. I am

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Speaker 1: nearly at his door and start calling his name again

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Speaker 1: in earnest Peter, Peter. I can see into the room.

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Speaker 1: The covers on the bed are drawn back, and I

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Speaker 1: can see the crumpled white sheets. There are a few

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Speaker 1: tissues in the bed with spots of blood on them.

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Speaker 1: I'm starting to shake badly as I walk into the bedroom.

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Speaker 1: Peter isn't in the bed, so I turned towards the

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Speaker 1: master bath. Then I see him lying face up on

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Speaker 1: the floor between the bathroom and the bedroom. That's Eileen

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Speaker 1: Zimmerman reading from her book Smacked, a memoir of white

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Speaker 1: collar ambition, addiction, and tragedy. Eileen is now pursuing a

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Speaker 1: social work degree She's the mother of two young adults

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Speaker 1: and lives in New York City. But when this story unfolds,

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Speaker 1: Eileen as a journalist wife and an ex wife of

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Speaker 1: a high powered attorney, raising her teenage kids in San Diego.

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Speaker 1: They live a lovely life, a privileged life, a life

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Speaker 1: that doesn't end sordidly on a bathroom floor, because money

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Speaker 1: and worldly success inoculates us from such things, don't they.

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Speaker 1: I'm Danny Shapiro, and this is family secrets, the secrets

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Speaker 1: that are kept from us, the secrets we keep from others,

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Speaker 1: and the secrets we keep from our selves. I met

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Speaker 1: Peter when I was looking for a job. I was

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Speaker 1: twenty three years old. I had a job at CBS

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Speaker 1: News as an administrative assistant. I had worked my way

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Speaker 1: up from receptionist, and I got laid off in the

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Speaker 1: late eighties, and so I couldn't afford my apartment near

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Speaker 1: Rutger's where I just graduated, and so I moved home

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Speaker 1: to be with my mother and my sisters, which was

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Speaker 1: like living in an insane asylum. It was crazy. But

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Speaker 1: I had to find a job. So I was looking

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Speaker 1: in the Sunday New York Times and saw an ad

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Speaker 1: for a recruiter in New York named Peter at Adam Personnel,

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Speaker 1: So I made an appointment to see him, and that's

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Speaker 1: how I met him. I walked in and he was

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Speaker 1: the counselor I was supposed to meet, and he was

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Speaker 1: really young and very very sweet, and we wound up

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Speaker 1: talking for a really long time during the interview quote unquote,

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Speaker 1: mostly about stuff we like to do. He had just

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Speaker 1: graduated from Cornell and so we had a lot to

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Speaker 1: chat about. And then he said, I'll you know, I'll

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Speaker 1: call you with some interviews and things. And I wanted

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Speaker 1: to do writing, but I got sent out only for

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Speaker 1: secretarial jobs because typing fast seemed to be my most

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Speaker 1: marketable skill at that point. And um, from there we

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Speaker 1: became friends. He wound up quitting Adam Personnel and he

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Speaker 1: went back to school to be a chemist. I wound

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Speaker 1: up with a job at a law firm as a

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Speaker 1: legal assistant, which I got through a friend of Peter's,

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Speaker 1: and we just stayed friends for a few years. I

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Speaker 1: moved to Philly to work at a really small arts magazine,

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Speaker 1: and then one time I went up to Ithaco, where

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Speaker 1: he was living in New York State, to see his

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Speaker 1: band play and everything changed. I suddenly I was like, well,

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Speaker 1: maybe he could be a boyfriend. And it started was

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Speaker 1: that because you were seeing him like a different side

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Speaker 1: of him by seeing him as a musician. He was

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Speaker 1: always kind of dorky and I always felt like, oh,

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Speaker 1: we don't have any chemistry, and um, he was super

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Speaker 1: science e but nice. He was very interested in philosophy

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Speaker 1: of science then and Carl Sagan was his you know,

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Speaker 1: euro and Darwin and so he was a really interesting

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Speaker 1: guy to talk to. But I just didn't think of

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Speaker 1: him as that attractive. But then you know, he's in

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Speaker 1: this on this like homemade stage and it's of State,

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Speaker 1: New York, and there's all these people, you know, on

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Speaker 1: a hillside listening to the band, and he had long hair,

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Speaker 1: and I noticed everybody else was staying in him, and

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Speaker 1: I thought, oh, you know, maybe he's kind of cute.

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Speaker 1: And he was really nice. And so it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things where suddenly something changed and I started to

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Speaker 1: see him in a totally different lay. And then once

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Speaker 1: that happened, I really felt for him. So it took

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Speaker 1: two years. Do you think he had been biding his time?

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Speaker 1: Like he liked you? He did he made it very

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Speaker 1: clear that he wanted to go out with me, and

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Speaker 1: I just kept saying, like, I don't feel that way

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Speaker 1: about you. So I was dating some other people, you know,

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Speaker 1: nobody great, he was dating a few people. I kept thinking,

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Speaker 1: he's always just going to be my friend. He's just

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Speaker 1: a friend. I think they call it friend zoning now.

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Speaker 1: And then that changed, and I think so he was

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Speaker 1: sort of waiting. I think he was a very tenacious

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Speaker 1: person and believed he would get what he wanted. So

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Speaker 1: he did. He just sort of hung in there. What

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Speaker 1: was his instrument, by the way in the band, bass guitar.

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Speaker 1: And he couldn't read music. He taught himself by ear

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Speaker 1: to listen and just copy, and he learned tabs, how

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Speaker 1: to read tabs. Yeah, so he's pretty good. Eileen and

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Speaker 1: Peter date for a couple of years. They move in together,

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Speaker 1: get married. Peter gets his master's degree in chemistry and

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Speaker 1: begins working at a pharmaceutical company in New Jersey. Eileen

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Speaker 1: is features editor at the Baltimore City Paper. They live

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Speaker 1: in Philly, which is in the middle sort of. After

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Speaker 1: a few more years, they followed Peter's work to San Diego,

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Speaker 1: where he gets a job at a very promising startup.

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Speaker 1: Peter's job was as a bench chemist, which means that

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Speaker 1: he sits with a group of other bench chemists at

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Speaker 1: a lab table creating compounds that will be used in

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Speaker 1: experiments designed by pH d s. Peter's ambitious, restless. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't want to spend the rest of his life inhaling

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Speaker 1: chemicals and not even designing the experiments. At this point,

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Speaker 1: as he sees it, he has two choices go back

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Speaker 1: to school to get his pH d, which would take

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Speaker 1: upwards of six years, or go to law school. So

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Speaker 1: they moved back east to New Hampshire this time, and

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Speaker 1: it's during the law school years that things slowly, inexorably

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Speaker 1: begin to change. I didn't realize it at the time,

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Speaker 1: but Peter also was tired of not having enough money.

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Speaker 1: We always struggled. His family was really poor. My family

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Speaker 1: had a ton of financial insecurity when we are growing up.

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Speaker 1: My dad worked two jobs and we all worked. I

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Speaker 1: cleaned houses at twelve. We were, you know, not destitute,

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Speaker 1: but we were kind of poor in a genteel way.

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Speaker 1: So um, he was sick of it, and he said,

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Speaker 1: let me go to law school and I'll make some

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Speaker 1: money for all this education, and I was nervous, but

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Speaker 1: I was excited for something new. We thought about starting

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Speaker 1: a family only then I was about twenty nine and

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Speaker 1: decided to put it off. Things did start to change,

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Speaker 1: although I think partially it was due to law school,

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Speaker 1: and I think partially it was Peter and I just

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Speaker 1: either being in love, didn't see it or didn't want

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Speaker 1: to see it. And then it became more clear. So

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Speaker 1: he always, for instance, liked to trip. He loved acid

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Speaker 1: and everything. And I'm not a big drug person. I

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Speaker 1: just I think I'm too anxious. I don't want to

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Speaker 1: be inside my head that long. Yeah, you know, but

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Speaker 1: he he did. He liked to get high, and he

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Speaker 1: hung out in Ithaca. Um. I don't know if any

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Speaker 1: of your listeners know what Cornell is liking up there.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a very crunchy hippie. And now he

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Speaker 1: was back in school, and so it was like grades

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Speaker 1: and partying, and you know, people took no dose, which

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Speaker 1: was a stimulant to stay up all night, or coffee

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Speaker 1: or um, some coke, some smoking, cannabis, and a lot

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Speaker 1: of drinking, a lot of hard drinking. It seems that

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Speaker 1: odds in a way. All that ambition combined with the

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Speaker 1: hard partying. But this is the way Peter blows off steam.

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Speaker 1: He's very driven in law school. He's going to be

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Speaker 1: number one editor of the Law Review, and he is

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Speaker 1: all the while burning the candle at both ends. What

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Speaker 1: changed was he prioritized the work of law school over

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Speaker 1: everything else, over our relationship, over being present in any

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Speaker 1: way with our respective families. And when we had our daughter,

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Speaker 1: it was the beginning of his third year. And I

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Speaker 1: even remember we had an argument in the hospital the

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Speaker 1: night she was born because there were these kind of

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Speaker 1: pullout chairs the size of twin beds in the hospital.

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Speaker 1: It was Brigham and Women's in Boston, and he was

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Speaker 1: complaining that he wasn't going to get a good enough

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Speaker 1: to night's sleep because he had midterms the next day.

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Speaker 1: And I was thinking, I just pushed a human being

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Speaker 1: out of my body, and I'm kind of freaked out too,

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Speaker 1: And he had invited friends of his from Boston to

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Speaker 1: come and they brought beer and stuff to the hospital room.

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Speaker 1: And I was exhausted, and I wasn't a kid, I

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Speaker 1: was thirty three, and I was freaking out that I

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Speaker 1: was being woken up every two hours like I had

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Speaker 1: I was trying to adjust to this whole new paradigm,

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Speaker 1: and he just wanted to like celebrate and hand out

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Speaker 1: cigars and party. And then we went back to New

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Speaker 1: Hampshire the next day and I had said, let's get

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Speaker 1: your mom or someone to come and help for the

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Speaker 1: first week, and he said, no, this is our thing.

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Speaker 1: We're going to do it ourselves in our way. And

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Speaker 1: I just remember walking into the dark apartment with my

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Speaker 1: daughter and she started crying, and I was thinking, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be the middle of winter here in New Hampshire.

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Speaker 1: All of the friends here are his. I mean, I

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Speaker 1: knew the law school widows. They called them the ones

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Speaker 1: that are left behind by law school, but it was

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Speaker 1: really his world. We were there for him, and I

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Speaker 1: felt so lonely and scared, and I had some postpartum depression.

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Speaker 1: But he didn't want us to lean on anyone else,

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Speaker 1: and so we had to do it ourselves, which meant

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Speaker 1: me because he went back to school. And I don't

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Speaker 1: think he ever really prioritized our family again, our kids,

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Speaker 1: and I think he loved them, but what always came

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Speaker 1: first was him. Was you know, he was going to

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Speaker 1: be the best, and he would justify it by saying,

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Speaker 1: I'm doing this for the family. When you went back

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Speaker 1: and read your journals, did you have any consciousness of

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Speaker 1: that or any awareness of that at that time? Do

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Speaker 1: you think what I noticed in the journals was the

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Speaker 1: beginning of this kind of pathological relationship he had with money.

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Speaker 1: Eventually it became the thing he used to have power

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Speaker 1: over people and to show love. So, you know, if

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Speaker 1: if I was doing what I was supposed to do,

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Speaker 1: you know, he'd buy me a computer. But if not,

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Speaker 1: he would remind me who paid the mortgage. So there

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Speaker 1: was always this push pull between that. But I wrote

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Speaker 1: in my journal that I guess we'd had some argument

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Speaker 1: or some discussion about being tired. We were both really tired,

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Speaker 1: and he pointed out everything in our little apartment that

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Speaker 1: he had paid for because I was actually earning more

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Speaker 1: money because he was working a bunch of part time

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Speaker 1: jobs and going to school and I was working full time,

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Speaker 1: and our benefits were through that. And I wrote in

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Speaker 1: my journal, I said, I don't know why he has

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Speaker 1: to do that, Why he has to stake claim to everything.

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Speaker 1: I don't care. And I kept thinking, well, maybe after

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Speaker 1: law school this will go away. Maybe when we have

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Speaker 1: more money, he won't feel but it never and he

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Speaker 1: always felt like his money was his money. And he

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Speaker 1: wanted me to understand I had nothing to do with

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Speaker 1: earning it, that being there at law school with him

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Speaker 1: did not mean I had any hand in his degree

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Speaker 1: or his success. It was the beginning of prioritizing his

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Speaker 1: earnings and his career and kind of himself over everything else.

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Speaker 1: And at the time I just thought it was anxiety

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Speaker 1: or just our poverty being in law school. So Peter

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Speaker 1: graduates law school at the top of his class. He

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Speaker 1: and Eileen and their eight month old daughter moved back

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Speaker 1: to San Diego, where he again has a job waiting

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Speaker 1: as a first year associate and a law firm. Now

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Speaker 1: Eileen thinks life is going to get easier, no more

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Speaker 1: all nighters. He'll be home and it's the exact same thing,

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Speaker 1: only he's more depressed. One night, my daughter was like,

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Speaker 1: I don't know, fourteen months old, maybe not even and

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Speaker 1: I woke up and Peter wasn't home. I could tell

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Speaker 1: he'd never come home. So I was panicked, and we

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Speaker 1: had those flip phones then, so I call him and

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Speaker 1: he picks up and he says, no, I just slept

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Speaker 1: under my desk because I have a brief to this morning.

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Speaker 1: And he got home and we had this big discussion,

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Speaker 1: and I knew he was fried from like thirty two

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Speaker 1: hours of being awake, but I just said, I don't

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Speaker 1: get it. I said, I thought this ended at law school,

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Speaker 1: these all nighters. You know, you're an adult man now

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Speaker 1: with the family. And he was incredulous. He was just

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Speaker 1: kind of like, what are you an idiot? This is

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Speaker 1: the way it is. It's going to be like this,

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Speaker 1: you know, until I make partner, which wasn't gonna be

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Speaker 1: for ten years. And that's the way it was, you know,

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Speaker 1: And he was just like, you better get used to it.

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Speaker 1: This is why it's going to be. He started hanging

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Speaker 1: out with a bunch of younger attorneys that smoked a

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Speaker 1: lot of pot, and the pot was much stronger than

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Speaker 1: we had done in high school, and he hadn't really

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Speaker 1: smoked since then. And one night he called me and

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Speaker 1: he said, I can't even come home and he was vomiting.

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Speaker 1: He's like, I'm like hallucinating, like so he stayed, but

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Speaker 1: he hung out with them a lot, and he would say, like, oh,

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Speaker 1: after work, we went out for drinks and I started

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Speaker 1: to think, then he's getting high with them, but I

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Speaker 1: thought it's pot you know. I would say to him, like,

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Speaker 1: are you smoking. He'd be like a little bit, but

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Speaker 1: you know, that's the beginning of the lying. And so

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Speaker 1: I think that was when he started to think this

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Speaker 1: is a way of coping. This kind of feels good.

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Speaker 1: And I think it escalated from there. Not that cannabis

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Speaker 1: is a gateway drug necessarily, but I think then when

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Speaker 1: we split up, I mean, he may have been doing

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Speaker 1: coke and stimulants said he could inhale or adderall, but

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't have known. I wasn't sophisticated enough. But he

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Speaker 1: was always tired when he came home. So if he

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Speaker 1: did them during the day, he crashed when he got home.

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Speaker 1: Peter's working more and more and more hours. You have

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Speaker 1: your second child. We have we decided to have a

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Speaker 1: second child, and Peter's the whole thing was, you know, like,

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Speaker 1: now I'm a fourth year associate, so in a couple

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Speaker 1: of more years, I'm going to be up for partner.

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Speaker 1: And I kept thinking, okay, all right, well we got

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Speaker 1: through law school and so all of a sudden I

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Speaker 1: readjusted and I thought, oh, okay, So being an associates horrible.

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Speaker 1: But in six or seven years he's going to be

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Speaker 1: a senior associate. He'll be having underlings to delegate workout too,

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Speaker 1: and then he'll be a partner, and then we can

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Speaker 1: be like all the other guys, by the way, who

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Speaker 1: were all divorced two or three times by then, right.

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Speaker 1: I mean, his direct boss at his first firm was

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Speaker 1: in his late sixties and he was dying his hair blonde,

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Speaker 1: and I was on his third wife. So he was

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Speaker 1: a grandfather and the father of grammar school aged children,

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Speaker 1: and this was not uncommon, you know, but I thought

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Speaker 1: that wouldn't be us um, And so that's what happens

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Speaker 1: is you kind of decide, okay. So we had the

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Speaker 1: second child, and we moved. We bought our first home

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Speaker 1: we had been renting near San Diego State University, very

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Speaker 1: kind of middle class, upper middle class community with good schools,

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Speaker 1: and Peter just absented himself from family life. There was

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Speaker 1: a time where San Diego is famous for zoo and

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Speaker 1: in the summer they have the night time zoo. So

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Speaker 1: I brought the kids to the zoo at night, which

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Speaker 1: is very thrilling for a child to be in the

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Speaker 1: zoo after dark, and we were coming back from some

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Speaker 1: show we saw there and there was a full moon

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Speaker 1: and our shadows were in front of us. And my

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Speaker 1: daughter was seven and she was skipping and she said, look, mommy,

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Speaker 1: there we are. We're almost a whole family. And we

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Speaker 1: got home and Peter's in his office in the garage,

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Speaker 1: and I don't know what he was doing in the

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Speaker 1: garage for six hours while we were walking around the zoo,

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Speaker 1: but you know, he should have been with us. So

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Speaker 1: Eileen is increasingly unhappy in her marriage. But she's grown

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Speaker 1: so accustomed to a life filled with goal posts. You know,

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Speaker 1: if we just do this, accomplish that spent these years

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Speaker 1: paying our dues, if we do these things, will eventually

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Speaker 1: be happy. She can't imagine leaving Peter. She grew up

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Speaker 1: in an atmosphere of scarcity, and she's afraid of going

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Speaker 1: back there. Peter represents security to her. She's put her

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Speaker 1: career at a far distant second to his. What can

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Speaker 1: she do? Do you think that that kind of allowed

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Speaker 1: you to adjust to what was not a happy situation,

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Speaker 1: sort of like a frog in boiling water, where you know,

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Speaker 1: you put the frog in the pot and you turn

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Speaker 1: the heat on the frog never really realizes that the

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Speaker 1: frog is boiling until the frog is boiled. That is

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Speaker 1: a perfect and I and I won't even let myself

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Speaker 1: off the hook that much. I do think there was

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Speaker 1: a feeling that, you know, I was a freelance writer

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Speaker 1: working part time because Peter could not parent. He was

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Speaker 1: busy and exhausted, so he did what he could, but

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00:16:34,080 --> 00:16:36,320
Speaker 1: it was not much, and I knew that that was

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Speaker 1: the deal kind of, so I did feel like if

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Speaker 1: I were to leave him, it would be back to scarcity.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he earned all the money pretty much. I

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Speaker 1: think at that point I was probably earning as a

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Speaker 1: freelance writer, and I was also writing for the New

329
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Speaker 1: York Times. I was probably making thirty five dollars a year,

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Speaker 1: so you know, like in Buffalo, New York or Cleveland,

331
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Speaker 1: maybe I could make it. Not in San Diego, where

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Speaker 1: gas was, you know, four dollars ago, and it was

333
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Speaker 1: just not possible. And knew it, and he knew it.

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Speaker 1: Was it something you entertained. I thought about leaving in

335
00:17:05,280 --> 00:17:08,359
Speaker 1: law school when things were like that. I just always

336
00:17:08,400 --> 00:17:12,240
Speaker 1: felt like, and I think this is on me, but

337
00:17:12,359 --> 00:17:15,320
Speaker 1: I think I was raised in my family to believe

338
00:17:15,400 --> 00:17:17,600
Speaker 1: that I didn't really have a lot of value. I

339
00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:18,920
Speaker 1: have a scene in the book where I tell my

340
00:17:18,960 --> 00:17:21,440
Speaker 1: dad I'm getting engaged, that we're getting married, and when

341
00:17:21,440 --> 00:17:23,080
Speaker 1: Peter goes to the bathroom, my dad looks at me

342
00:17:23,119 --> 00:17:25,439
Speaker 1: and says, don't blow it. And it was clear I

343
00:17:25,520 --> 00:17:28,520
Speaker 1: was the lucky one. I believed it. I believed he

344
00:17:28,600 --> 00:17:30,320
Speaker 1: was right. When I was little, he used to say, Oh,

345
00:17:30,320 --> 00:17:33,000
Speaker 1: it's a good thing you're smart, because you're not pretty.

346
00:17:33,680 --> 00:17:38,360
Speaker 1: Jewish families they're so great, all families really. I mean

347
00:17:38,359 --> 00:17:41,960
Speaker 1: those like sort of internalized messages, they can be so damaging,

348
00:17:42,359 --> 00:17:45,760
Speaker 1: so because they become the stories that we tell ourselves

349
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Speaker 1: that have absolutely no correlation to the truth. You know,

350
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Speaker 1: you're sitting here with me in this room, and you

351
00:17:51,600 --> 00:17:55,040
Speaker 1: know you're you're this beautiful woman, and like, I just

352
00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:58,320
Speaker 1: you know, you just think, like you internalize a message

353
00:17:58,400 --> 00:18:00,520
Speaker 1: like that, and then it becomes kind of your reality

354
00:18:00,520 --> 00:18:03,040
Speaker 1: in a certain Even as you say that, I'm thinking, no, no,

355
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:05,679
Speaker 1: I'm not, like, You're right, It's it just took a

356
00:18:05,720 --> 00:18:07,480
Speaker 1: few words, you know. And my dad did a lot

357
00:18:07,560 --> 00:18:09,480
Speaker 1: of that ground. He'd call it hey stoop, like a

358
00:18:09,560 --> 00:18:12,359
Speaker 1: nickname for stupid, because I had trouble with math, and

359
00:18:12,640 --> 00:18:14,840
Speaker 1: so I always thought I'm not good at numbers, and

360
00:18:14,920 --> 00:18:19,360
Speaker 1: Peters so and he was so smart. He was a really,

361
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Speaker 1: really and probably one of the smartest people I've ever known,

362
00:18:22,000 --> 00:18:25,320
Speaker 1: super intelligent about everything, and so you start to feel

363
00:18:25,359 --> 00:18:29,160
Speaker 1: like maybe you are lucky. And I felt really afraid.

364
00:18:29,280 --> 00:18:31,240
Speaker 1: I felt really afraid to leave. And part of that

365
00:18:31,320 --> 00:18:33,479
Speaker 1: was like, who's going to be with me. I'm in

366
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Speaker 1: my forties, and am I going to really leave? He's

367
00:18:35,840 --> 00:18:39,119
Speaker 1: making half a million dollars a year and I make forty.

368
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:42,399
Speaker 1: I was terrified. And you know, sometimes the misery you

369
00:18:42,440 --> 00:18:45,320
Speaker 1: know is better than the misery you don't, So I

370
00:18:45,359 --> 00:18:51,919
Speaker 1: think that's what I did. So what was the last straw?

371
00:18:52,640 --> 00:18:55,159
Speaker 1: The last row was Peters started having a relationship with

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Speaker 1: someone else. But I had told him many times. I said,

373
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Speaker 1: we need to go to counseling, and we did, but

374
00:19:00,600 --> 00:19:02,520
Speaker 1: he didn't show up half the time because of work.

375
00:19:02,600 --> 00:19:04,440
Speaker 1: He would say, I can't make it. We have a meeting,

376
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:07,359
Speaker 1: So of course it didn't work. And I remember one

377
00:19:07,400 --> 00:19:11,120
Speaker 1: time saying to him, if things don't change somehow, then

378
00:19:11,400 --> 00:19:14,040
Speaker 1: I'm going to leave when our son graduates from high school.

379
00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:18,040
Speaker 1: And he said to me, if you leave me before

380
00:19:18,080 --> 00:19:19,840
Speaker 1: they are grown up, I will never see the kids

381
00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,800
Speaker 1: because I work so much. And I remember thinking, Okay,

382
00:19:22,920 --> 00:19:24,600
Speaker 1: I'm going to have to stick it out until my

383
00:19:24,680 --> 00:19:27,040
Speaker 1: youngest can drive, and then he can go see Peter

384
00:19:27,080 --> 00:19:30,439
Speaker 1: whenever he wants another, another goal post another. I was like,

385
00:19:30,520 --> 00:19:32,440
Speaker 1: five more. I just gotta make it five more years.

386
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:34,399
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, then when we split everything, at

387
00:19:34,440 --> 00:19:37,320
Speaker 1: least there'll be more money for me. And then Peter

388
00:19:37,400 --> 00:19:39,959
Speaker 1: had an affair and it ended a year later, and

389
00:19:40,000 --> 00:19:43,080
Speaker 1: I begged him to stay. I was terrified of him leaving,

390
00:19:43,680 --> 00:19:45,800
Speaker 1: and he his idea was that I would allow him

391
00:19:45,800 --> 00:19:48,600
Speaker 1: to have this relationship and still be married. And that's

392
00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:52,000
Speaker 1: when I thought, you know what, I'm really unhappy he

393
00:19:52,080 --> 00:19:54,720
Speaker 1: wants out. Let's have this. So we did. We stayed

394
00:19:54,720 --> 00:19:57,679
Speaker 1: married for a while, we stayed connected physically for a while.

395
00:19:57,760 --> 00:20:04,360
Speaker 1: It was hard, but eventually we did get divorced. We'll

396
00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:13,159
Speaker 1: be back in a moment. Peter moved out in two

397
00:20:13,240 --> 00:20:17,159
Speaker 1: thousand nine into a one bedroom apartment a mile and

398
00:20:17,160 --> 00:20:19,760
Speaker 1: a half from the office. It seems not to have

399
00:20:19,800 --> 00:20:22,879
Speaker 1: occurred to him that this meant his kids would have

400
00:20:22,920 --> 00:20:26,359
Speaker 1: nowhere to stay, so then he moved again to a

401
00:20:26,400 --> 00:20:30,359
Speaker 1: condo in another beach community, and the following year he

402
00:20:30,440 --> 00:20:34,359
Speaker 1: bought his dream house, a gorgeous architectural marvel with a

403
00:20:34,440 --> 00:20:38,200
Speaker 1: view of the ocean and the lagoon. His upward trajectory

404
00:20:38,240 --> 00:20:41,520
Speaker 1: in real estate helped hide the fact that Peter, the

405
00:20:41,560 --> 00:20:44,879
Speaker 1: bench chemist, number one in his law school class, was

406
00:20:44,960 --> 00:20:49,600
Speaker 1: losing control. So the way that you write about it

407
00:20:49,680 --> 00:20:54,800
Speaker 1: and smacked, there's very much a sense that there's this

408
00:20:56,200 --> 00:21:00,959
Speaker 1: downward spiral, yes, that begins to happen. Your kids are

409
00:21:00,960 --> 00:21:05,280
Speaker 1: witnessing something. You're witnessing something, but you don't know what

410
00:21:05,320 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 1: it is. Can you talk about that a little bit?

411
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:09,800
Speaker 1: Because that to me, the subtitle of your book is

412
00:21:10,119 --> 00:21:13,720
Speaker 1: a story of white collar ambition, addiction, and tragedy. The

413
00:21:13,760 --> 00:21:19,399
Speaker 1: white collar ambition part can really obtiscape so much in

414
00:21:19,520 --> 00:21:22,399
Speaker 1: terms of what we can allow ourselves to believe or

415
00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:25,320
Speaker 1: not believe about what might be going on. Absolutely, it's

416
00:21:25,320 --> 00:21:29,000
Speaker 1: like a perfect cover. I just figured Peter was being honest,

417
00:21:29,200 --> 00:21:30,880
Speaker 1: you know, like I didn't see why he would lie,

418
00:21:31,440 --> 00:21:34,840
Speaker 1: which maybe is my again my naivete. Well let me

419
00:21:34,840 --> 00:21:36,920
Speaker 1: stop you there, though, Like it was it you felt

420
00:21:36,920 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 1: he was being honest or that because he was successful.

421
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:44,720
Speaker 1: It couldn't be street drugs. It couldn't be I didn't

422
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:46,880
Speaker 1: even consider it was drugs. I just thought like, well,

423
00:21:46,920 --> 00:21:49,120
Speaker 1: that couldn't possibly be it. I mean, he's And that's

424
00:21:49,119 --> 00:21:52,800
Speaker 1: where I recognized I had these implicit biases that I

425
00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:55,640
Speaker 1: hadn't really been aware of because I'm I'm pretty, I'm

426
00:21:55,720 --> 00:21:58,479
Speaker 1: very liberal, I'm progressive. I'm studying social work now. And

427
00:21:58,520 --> 00:22:01,919
Speaker 1: here I was, you know, my ex husband was this rich, white,

428
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,159
Speaker 1: well educated lawyer. I was like, well, he's not going

429
00:22:04,200 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 1: to be using drugs. That's not what it is. It

430
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:09,680
Speaker 1: must be an eating disorder, or he's bipolar, he's having

431
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:12,399
Speaker 1: a psychotic break, or it's the stress, the chronic stress.

432
00:22:12,400 --> 00:22:14,480
Speaker 1: And I knew about all of that just as a reporter,

433
00:22:14,600 --> 00:22:16,720
Speaker 1: and I tried to figure it out. But I was

434
00:22:16,800 --> 00:22:21,320
Speaker 1: watching him die. We all were this kind of slow,

435
00:22:21,480 --> 00:22:24,960
Speaker 1: torturous death from drug addiction and then from this infection

436
00:22:25,040 --> 00:22:29,440
Speaker 1: from drug addiction. But I didn't recognize a single symptom.

437
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:33,320
Speaker 1: And it was precipitous. I think it started about fourteen

438
00:22:33,359 --> 00:22:37,640
Speaker 1: or fifteen months before he died. So I know from

439
00:22:37,720 --> 00:22:40,919
Speaker 1: my research and my sleuthing that he had started ordering

440
00:22:40,960 --> 00:22:44,160
Speaker 1: pills off the dark web almost immediately upon moving out,

441
00:22:44,200 --> 00:22:47,320
Speaker 1: and those might have been stimulants and supplements, so he's

442
00:22:47,359 --> 00:22:51,000
Speaker 1: doing oral drugs. Whatever they were, I think they became opioids, which,

443
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:54,600
Speaker 1: by the way, in addition to being great pain killers,

444
00:22:54,640 --> 00:22:58,119
Speaker 1: they're also kind of antidepressants. They make people feel much better.

445
00:22:58,400 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: Some people, so when I take if I could in,

446
00:23:01,040 --> 00:23:04,080
Speaker 1: I vomit. When Peter took it, he felt fantastic. And

447
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:05,879
Speaker 1: this is a man that had a lot of anxiety,

448
00:23:05,920 --> 00:23:08,840
Speaker 1: who I think was clearly depressed, and this made him

449
00:23:08,840 --> 00:23:11,240
Speaker 1: feel better. So he would take those, and then he

450
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 1: always liked coke. When we were younger, I didn't do it,

451
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,600
Speaker 1: and then I figured we that was over for him.

452
00:23:16,600 --> 00:23:18,399
Speaker 1: We had kids in a family. But I think he

453
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,959
Speaker 1: started doing that too, because he would stay up he

454
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:22,600
Speaker 1: was dating, and he would be up really late, or

455
00:23:22,600 --> 00:23:24,520
Speaker 1: he'd go to l A to these clubs really late,

456
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 1: and I'd think, how is he doing that? He used

457
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,840
Speaker 1: to be like so tired, and he was switching nights

458
00:23:29,880 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 1: a lot for the kids, So I think that happened

459
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,440
Speaker 1: and then he fell in with a crowd of people.

460
00:23:34,480 --> 00:23:36,760
Speaker 1: I think from what I could tell, that kind of

461
00:23:36,840 --> 00:23:38,760
Speaker 1: kicked it up a notch with him. And decided that

462
00:23:38,840 --> 00:23:43,480
Speaker 1: they would try injecting. And the thing is, Peter was

463
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:45,720
Speaker 1: a chemist and really smart and knew a lot about

464
00:23:45,720 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 1: the body and pharmaceuticals, so I have to believe he

465
00:23:49,359 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: knew how it would affect him. But there's also a

466
00:23:52,000 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: level of arrogance at that point where you feel like

467
00:23:54,440 --> 00:23:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm not going to be an adict, like I'm going

468
00:23:56,000 --> 00:23:58,479
Speaker 1: to control this, And I think it was much more

469
00:23:58,520 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: powerful than he ever anticipated. Yeah, I was thinking as

470
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,960
Speaker 1: you were talking just now, the phrase better living through

471
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:07,679
Speaker 1: chemistry kept on running through my mind, like his history,

472
00:24:07,840 --> 00:24:11,920
Speaker 1: his knowledge base, his arrogance, his being smart is being

473
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:15,359
Speaker 1: the smartest, is being the best um and having you know,

474
00:24:15,440 --> 00:24:17,480
Speaker 1: both the chemistry and background and this sort of the

475
00:24:17,520 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: legal analytic background, the whole idea that it wouldn't be

476
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:25,159
Speaker 1: bigger than him, that he would be bigger than it.

477
00:24:25,400 --> 00:24:27,320
Speaker 1: And I think we see that a lot in powerful

478
00:24:27,320 --> 00:24:29,639
Speaker 1: men and women, especially powerful men. Just like if you

479
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:31,800
Speaker 1: look at like Bill Clinton having an affair with an intern,

480
00:24:31,800 --> 00:24:34,159
Speaker 1: nobody's going to find out, you know, he's you know

481
00:24:34,200 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: that kind of thing or what we see now. And

482
00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,440
Speaker 1: I think Peter just thought, I'm not like those other people.

483
00:24:39,560 --> 00:24:42,919
Speaker 1: I'm you know I I can control this um and

484
00:24:42,960 --> 00:24:47,120
Speaker 1: I think because I probably didn't recognize the science because

485
00:24:47,119 --> 00:24:48,840
Speaker 1: I felt like, well, I don't need to be familiar

486
00:24:48,840 --> 00:24:50,919
Speaker 1: with these signs. This isn't in my life. That you know,

487
00:24:50,920 --> 00:24:53,240
Speaker 1: it is a terrible thing, but I this isn't gonna

488
00:24:53,240 --> 00:24:57,040
Speaker 1: happen in my world. So what were the signs? So

489
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,119
Speaker 1: he had every one of the signs. And also I

490
00:24:59,119 --> 00:25:01,640
Speaker 1: should say people that are struggling with addiction are also

491
00:25:01,960 --> 00:25:04,960
Speaker 1: fantastic liars. So he was very good at keeping this

492
00:25:05,080 --> 00:25:07,679
Speaker 1: secret from all of us and his family, from his children,

493
00:25:07,720 --> 00:25:10,760
Speaker 1: from me, from his extended family. Some of the signs

494
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,040
Speaker 1: that he had, for instance, are very common. There's a

495
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,200
Speaker 1: lot of weight loss. There's very big mood swings from

496
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 1: euphoria to very deep depression. There's irritability. His skin was

497
00:25:21,440 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: very gray, he was losing his accelerated hair loss. He

498
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:27,480
Speaker 1: was also using meth amphetamine. I found out later on

499
00:25:27,520 --> 00:25:30,320
Speaker 1: after he died, so he had kind of the yellowing teeth.

500
00:25:30,680 --> 00:25:32,520
Speaker 1: He had a lot of sores on his hands on

501
00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:36,120
Speaker 1: the sides of his face from scratching. We oddly enough,

502
00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: stayed good friends. He didn't have a lot of friends,

503
00:25:38,840 --> 00:25:40,920
Speaker 1: and so even after we divorced, he would still kind

504
00:25:40,920 --> 00:25:43,199
Speaker 1: of talk to me about his family and stuff. And

505
00:25:43,240 --> 00:25:44,680
Speaker 1: he called me one day and said he was having

506
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,479
Speaker 1: a terrible problem with constipation, and I said, well, are

507
00:25:47,520 --> 00:25:52,360
Speaker 1: you drinking water? Eat blueberries? It's incredibly common with opioid addiction,

508
00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 1: is opioid constipation, Like that's what he was having. And

509
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 1: he had terrible, terrible stomach pain because if you're injecting,

510
00:26:00,960 --> 00:26:03,560
Speaker 1: you know, opioids and ampheta means it's going to affect

511
00:26:03,600 --> 00:26:05,879
Speaker 1: your guests or intestinal tracts. So he was living on

512
00:26:05,960 --> 00:26:08,640
Speaker 1: Tom's and I kept saying him, maybe you should stop

513
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:11,760
Speaker 1: eating dairy, you know, It's like, no, maybe he should

514
00:26:11,800 --> 00:26:15,199
Speaker 1: stop shooting up. It's really but I decided that it

515
00:26:15,240 --> 00:26:17,080
Speaker 1: could not be that. So it was not going to

516
00:26:17,119 --> 00:26:21,959
Speaker 1: be that the country was in the throes of an

517
00:26:22,000 --> 00:26:27,440
Speaker 1: opioid epidemic. This was two thift Sam Queen noniez Is

518
00:26:27,640 --> 00:26:32,160
Speaker 1: best selling book Dreamland about opioid addictions, had just come out.

519
00:26:32,920 --> 00:26:35,480
Speaker 1: But it never entered Eileen's mind that Peter could be

520
00:26:35,520 --> 00:26:41,000
Speaker 1: an addict. She imagined everything and anything. But I have

521
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 1: occasionally on this podcast talked about a psychoanalytic term I

522
00:26:44,880 --> 00:26:48,639
Speaker 1: came across while doing research for my book Inheritance. The

523
00:26:48,800 --> 00:26:54,119
Speaker 1: term is the unthought known. The psychologist Christopher Bolas coined

524
00:26:54,119 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: it and describes the unthought known as something that we

525
00:26:57,640 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 1: absolutely know in our deepest into earreer, but cannot allow

526
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,960
Speaker 1: ourselves to think. To think it, to bring it to

527
00:27:05,000 --> 00:27:09,679
Speaker 1: the surface of our consciousness is impossible, dangerous, so we

528
00:27:09,800 --> 00:27:13,720
Speaker 1: just don't. It certainly wasn't conscious. I mean, I was

529
00:27:13,840 --> 00:27:16,440
Speaker 1: shocked when the medical examiner said she thought he died

530
00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,399
Speaker 1: of an overdose. I was like, are you crazy? You

531
00:27:19,400 --> 00:27:21,800
Speaker 1: know I had still even at that moment. I was like, no,

532
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:27,800
Speaker 1: that is not it. So walk me through that morning

533
00:27:28,080 --> 00:27:30,600
Speaker 1: and why you go to his house that day and

534
00:27:30,640 --> 00:27:35,800
Speaker 1: what happens. So he had been behaving increasingly erratic, and

535
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:38,400
Speaker 1: he wasn't reachable, and when he was reachable, he would

536
00:27:38,400 --> 00:27:39,840
Speaker 1: say I'll call you back in ten minutes and it

537
00:27:39,880 --> 00:27:42,439
Speaker 1: would be three hours, and he would come up with

538
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,719
Speaker 1: something like I, well, I was dehydrated and I had

539
00:27:44,720 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: to get something to eat. And then he would tell me, oh,

540
00:27:47,400 --> 00:27:49,520
Speaker 1: and I lost my wallet, and then like I got

541
00:27:49,560 --> 00:27:51,280
Speaker 1: a call from a neighbor that found his wallet, and

542
00:27:51,280 --> 00:27:52,800
Speaker 1: I would have to call a secretary and say, can

543
00:27:52,840 --> 00:27:54,359
Speaker 1: you find him and she's like, well, he hasn't been

544
00:27:54,359 --> 00:27:57,639
Speaker 1: in in three days. It was nothing made sense. So

545
00:27:57,760 --> 00:28:00,320
Speaker 1: my kids had gone to his house on a Monesday

546
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,800
Speaker 1: night and he just had a complete meltdown and was

547
00:28:03,840 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 1: screaming at them. And he was not a yeller. He

548
00:28:06,440 --> 00:28:09,000
Speaker 1: had a very long fuse before he would raise his voice.

549
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,359
Speaker 1: Probably I could get him to raise his voice, but

550
00:28:11,680 --> 00:28:15,320
Speaker 1: not his kids. He was in his bedroom the whole time.

551
00:28:15,320 --> 00:28:17,919
Speaker 1: He would only leave. He left, he would cross the

552
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:19,720
Speaker 1: kitchen to get a brownie out of a pan of

553
00:28:19,760 --> 00:28:22,560
Speaker 1: brownies he made, and he'd go back into his bedroom.

554
00:28:22,720 --> 00:28:25,480
Speaker 1: And craving sugar is also a symptom of obiloid addiction.

555
00:28:25,960 --> 00:28:29,679
Speaker 1: And my son walked in his room to say, like,

556
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:31,840
Speaker 1: are you okay, dad? Because he was really sick. He

557
00:28:31,880 --> 00:28:33,600
Speaker 1: said he had the flu. This was going on like

558
00:28:33,720 --> 00:28:37,080
Speaker 1: eight months. And Peter got up and vomited onto the

559
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: floor and threw a washcloth over it and went back

560
00:28:39,600 --> 00:28:42,880
Speaker 1: to bed. My son said, I'm taking you to the hospital.

561
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:45,720
Speaker 1: That's it, and his dad snapped at him and said no,

562
00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:48,080
Speaker 1: you're not, Like, I'm not going because he he was

563
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:51,080
Speaker 1: not gonna have anybody find out how old is your

564
00:28:51,080 --> 00:28:54,560
Speaker 1: son at this moment. He's sixteen, and Peter even held

565
00:28:55,360 --> 00:28:57,959
Speaker 1: she was eighteen. She was home for the summer, and

566
00:28:58,040 --> 00:29:00,880
Speaker 1: he yelled at my son, who ever yells at And

567
00:29:00,920 --> 00:29:03,440
Speaker 1: he went downstairs to his sister and he said, I

568
00:29:03,440 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: think he was close to crying. And he was just like,

569
00:29:05,680 --> 00:29:07,080
Speaker 1: we have to get dad. We have to take dad

570
00:29:07,120 --> 00:29:09,240
Speaker 1: to the hospital. And she said, what's the use. He's

571
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:12,040
Speaker 1: not going to go. I think they my son's just

572
00:29:12,200 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 1: calling an ambulance. And my daughter said, he'll kill us,

573
00:29:14,200 --> 00:29:17,200
Speaker 1: like he'll be so angry. So they left it. And

574
00:29:17,320 --> 00:29:20,000
Speaker 1: the next morning I called my son and said, is

575
00:29:20,080 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: dad okay? And he said, I'll talk to you about

576
00:29:23,120 --> 00:29:24,920
Speaker 1: it when I get home. And I said, look, I

577
00:29:24,920 --> 00:29:27,200
Speaker 1: could come up and make him some soup, because you know,

578
00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,720
Speaker 1: he was all alone. He had some relationships, but nobody

579
00:29:30,760 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: was in his life that much. He said, no, don't

580
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:35,240
Speaker 1: do that. He doesn't want you to come up here.

581
00:29:35,800 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 1: So he came back to my house and he told

582
00:29:38,200 --> 00:29:40,720
Speaker 1: me that he had been screaming and that Peter had said,

583
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:43,040
Speaker 1: you and your mother are making me sick. She's always

584
00:29:43,040 --> 00:29:45,520
Speaker 1: telling me to go to the doctor. So that's why

585
00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,200
Speaker 1: my son had said, don't come up. He doesn't want

586
00:29:47,240 --> 00:29:49,719
Speaker 1: any help. So I thought, all right, well, fine, I

587
00:29:49,760 --> 00:29:53,160
Speaker 1: want then. And that was then Thursday morning, and then Friday.

588
00:29:53,160 --> 00:29:54,840
Speaker 1: We kept trying to reach him and he wouldn't answer,

589
00:29:55,200 --> 00:29:56,760
Speaker 1: and I said, no, I'm going to go up there

590
00:29:56,800 --> 00:29:58,240
Speaker 1: and I'm going to take dad to the hospital. I

591
00:29:58,280 --> 00:30:01,280
Speaker 1: don't care what happens. He's going. And so I drove

592
00:30:01,400 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: up there and I had a book in my bag,

593
00:30:02,920 --> 00:30:05,280
Speaker 1: and I was all set for like a hospital stay.

594
00:30:05,320 --> 00:30:08,120
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe he's going to be unconscious, maybe he

595
00:30:08,160 --> 00:30:10,440
Speaker 1: will have soiled the bed. I don't care. I'm gonna

596
00:30:10,480 --> 00:30:12,080
Speaker 1: call nine one one if I have to, but I'm

597
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,600
Speaker 1: getting him to a hospital. And then I walked in

598
00:30:14,680 --> 00:30:17,680
Speaker 1: the house, which I had a key too, and I

599
00:30:17,760 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: found that he had died. Did you understand as soon

600
00:30:23,400 --> 00:30:27,040
Speaker 1: as you saw him that he was dead? No, I didn't.

601
00:30:27,520 --> 00:30:29,480
Speaker 1: That's how powerful he seemed. I thought, well, maybe he's

602
00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 1: just lying down. And then I went over to him

603
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:34,680
Speaker 1: and I could see his arm with stiff and I

604
00:30:34,720 --> 00:30:37,040
Speaker 1: had called nine one one and they said an ambulance

605
00:30:37,120 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: is coming. Do chest compressions. And I couldn't move his arm,

606
00:30:40,880 --> 00:30:44,280
Speaker 1: and even then, and I could see his fingernails were blue.

607
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:47,160
Speaker 1: I didn't think he had died. And then I looked

608
00:30:47,240 --> 00:30:51,400
Speaker 1: up at his eyes and they had risen out of

609
00:30:51,400 --> 00:30:55,720
Speaker 1: their sockets, which, um was obviously horrifying, and I was thinking,

610
00:30:56,040 --> 00:30:59,560
Speaker 1: that does not look like someone who was alive. But meanwhile,

611
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:02,560
Speaker 1: I'm standing over this man's almost naked body. He's only

612
00:31:02,560 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: in his underwear in socks, and there are track marks

613
00:31:05,680 --> 00:31:08,560
Speaker 1: and holes all over his arms, his legs, his hips.

614
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,640
Speaker 1: I see nothing. All I saw was one hole that

615
00:31:11,680 --> 00:31:14,320
Speaker 1: had bled out, and I thought, well, that's weird. He

616
00:31:14,400 --> 00:31:17,000
Speaker 1: must have cut himself falling down. And I just ran

617
00:31:17,040 --> 00:31:18,520
Speaker 1: out of the house to wait for the ambulance. I

618
00:31:18,600 --> 00:31:22,000
Speaker 1: just I just couldn't even you know, imagine that it

619
00:31:22,040 --> 00:31:26,520
Speaker 1: was anything but a cut. So then it's when the um,

620
00:31:26,920 --> 00:31:34,280
Speaker 1: the police come, the detective and one of them tells you, right,

621
00:31:34,440 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: I said. She was asking me all these questions about

622
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:38,800
Speaker 1: alcohol and drug use, and I was like, what is

623
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 1: the point of this? And then I said, well, what

624
00:31:41,160 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: do you think it was? And I assumed, you know,

625
00:31:43,520 --> 00:31:45,520
Speaker 1: I assumed at that point he had a heart attack

626
00:31:45,560 --> 00:31:49,480
Speaker 1: from working too hard, and she said, um, no, I

627
00:31:49,520 --> 00:31:51,560
Speaker 1: think he had an overdose. And even then I was like,

628
00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 1: an overdose of what? And she was like I think

629
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:59,680
Speaker 1: it's probably amphetamines. And then I realized, oh, she thinks

630
00:31:59,760 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: he was using drugs, Like that's impossible. It's remarkable what

631
00:32:03,440 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: your brain will do. But it took a long time.

632
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,760
Speaker 1: It took several hours for me to understand that, no,

633
00:32:07,960 --> 00:32:10,360
Speaker 1: this was what happened. But I think it did seem

634
00:32:10,400 --> 00:32:13,320
Speaker 1: to my kids and me that he was too smart

635
00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:16,600
Speaker 1: and too powerful, like he had so many resources if

636
00:32:16,600 --> 00:32:18,920
Speaker 1: he was unhappy or needed to escape. Why pick this?

637
00:32:19,640 --> 00:32:21,440
Speaker 1: Why would you do this when you have kids sleeping

638
00:32:21,480 --> 00:32:24,960
Speaker 1: down the hall. So there's a very, to me, very

639
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,880
Speaker 1: moving part of your book where it sinks in for

640
00:32:28,960 --> 00:32:32,080
Speaker 1: you that he's died of an overdose, and there's a

641
00:32:32,120 --> 00:32:35,640
Speaker 1: social worker there, and there's the question of what you're

642
00:32:35,640 --> 00:32:39,040
Speaker 1: gonna tell your kids. I'm gonna get choked out people

643
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,440
Speaker 1: talking to you about this, and the social worker has kids,

644
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,360
Speaker 1: you like sort of ascertained that. So you say to

645
00:32:43,400 --> 00:32:47,880
Speaker 1: the social worker, like, what would you do? And her advice,

646
00:32:48,520 --> 00:32:52,160
Speaker 1: one mother to another, an incredibly human moment in the

647
00:32:52,200 --> 00:32:56,600
Speaker 1: midst of searing pain, her advice was, I would tell

648
00:32:56,640 --> 00:33:00,880
Speaker 1: them because really, what other option is there? What other

649
00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:04,560
Speaker 1: path to any future healing? This is what family secrets

650
00:33:04,600 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 1: is all about. So I thought like, Okay, I'm gonna

651
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:13,040
Speaker 1: try this. And then when I did tell them, especially

652
00:33:13,040 --> 00:33:15,560
Speaker 1: for my son, who had seen the worst of it

653
00:33:15,600 --> 00:33:18,440
Speaker 1: because he was with Peter every other weekend and during

654
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 1: the week um my daughter had been at college, so see,

655
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:24,040
Speaker 1: he had seen the decline and he was lying to

656
00:33:24,120 --> 00:33:26,520
Speaker 1: himself too. He was like, oh, it must be you know, Dad,

657
00:33:26,680 --> 00:33:28,920
Speaker 1: he's always working. He's crazy, you know, it's this way

658
00:33:28,960 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 1: he is. Um. He felt completely responsible for Peter's death

659
00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:34,920
Speaker 1: because he hadn't taken him to the hospital, and so

660
00:33:35,000 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: when he heard this news that no, he was already

661
00:33:37,120 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: quite sick. You could just see him physically let down,

662
00:33:41,640 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: like he was like okay, okay, so I couldn't have

663
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,200
Speaker 1: done anything. And and then I thought, Okay, this was

664
00:33:47,240 --> 00:33:50,280
Speaker 1: the right thing to do, because as hard as it was,

665
00:33:50,320 --> 00:33:52,719
Speaker 1: it was also oh, now we know what it was.

666
00:33:52,800 --> 00:33:55,120
Speaker 1: There was this big secret he was keeping from all

667
00:33:55,120 --> 00:33:56,880
Speaker 1: of us, and he was lying to all of us.

668
00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,040
Speaker 1: But now everything makes sense. And as sad and hard

669
00:34:01,080 --> 00:34:02,719
Speaker 1: as that was to hear, I have to say it

670
00:34:02,800 --> 00:34:06,320
Speaker 1: was the biggest relief. It was like, Okay, now I

671
00:34:06,360 --> 00:34:08,279
Speaker 1: can clean this up and I can move on with

672
00:34:08,280 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: my family. Imagine if Aileen had made a decision in

673
00:34:12,520 --> 00:34:15,800
Speaker 1: that moment not to tell her kids. They had already

674
00:34:15,840 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 1: been kept in the dark because of their dad's addiction,

675
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:22,440
Speaker 1: and now in the wake of Peter's death, Imagine if

676
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:26,040
Speaker 1: their mother had decided to also keep a secret. Secrets

677
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: on top of secrets, a house of cards built out

678
00:34:29,520 --> 00:34:33,839
Speaker 1: of fear and shame just waiting to blow over. As

679
00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:36,360
Speaker 1: a journalist, I really, I do believe the truth is

680
00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:40,400
Speaker 1: very freeing. And it's funny because there were some members

681
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: of Peter's extended family that did not tell his parents

682
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,239
Speaker 1: why he died. And I didn't feel I mean, I

683
00:34:46,280 --> 00:34:48,040
Speaker 1: wasn't their daughter in law. I didn't feel like it

684
00:34:48,120 --> 00:34:50,840
Speaker 1: was my place. But before I wrote a piece about

685
00:34:50,840 --> 00:34:53,000
Speaker 1: this for The New York Times that focused much more

686
00:34:53,080 --> 00:34:56,439
Speaker 1: on the legal profession, the Times had decided they wanted

687
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,839
Speaker 1: to run some photos of Peter, so I allowed it.

688
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,160
Speaker 1: And I called his mo um a few days before

689
00:35:01,160 --> 00:35:02,440
Speaker 1: it was going to run, and I said, I have

690
00:35:02,520 --> 00:35:05,799
Speaker 1: to tell you something, And honestly she was so relieved.

691
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:08,880
Speaker 1: She said, you know his father, And I kept thinking,

692
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:11,080
Speaker 1: this does not add up, this does not add up.

693
00:35:11,120 --> 00:35:12,840
Speaker 1: I mean, he was fifty one he didn't have a

694
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 1: heart problem, and she was like, how do you get

695
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,120
Speaker 1: an infection in your heart? You know, you get it

696
00:35:17,160 --> 00:35:19,400
Speaker 1: when you have a lot of openings into your veins

697
00:35:19,440 --> 00:35:23,080
Speaker 1: and your skin. That secret had been really bothering her

698
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:26,200
Speaker 1: for two years, and now she was like, Okay, I

699
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 1: get it. And it turned out. I think the decision

700
00:35:28,880 --> 00:35:31,480
Speaker 1: was made to protect them, was made out of love,

701
00:35:31,719 --> 00:35:35,080
Speaker 1: but really it probably caused them more aggravation and pain.

702
00:35:35,400 --> 00:35:38,680
Speaker 1: You know, well, it's interesting too, that phrase you used

703
00:35:38,760 --> 00:35:41,200
Speaker 1: that she said of you know, it didn't add up.

704
00:35:41,200 --> 00:35:44,040
Speaker 1: It didn't add up. You know, there's this kind of rumination.

705
00:35:44,120 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 1: I think that then starts to happen, you know, people

706
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:49,160
Speaker 1: like lying awake at night just thinking this doesn't make sense,

707
00:35:49,200 --> 00:35:51,440
Speaker 1: This doesn't make sense, this doesn't make sense. And and

708
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: in a way it then kind of boomerangs back on

709
00:35:54,960 --> 00:35:58,400
Speaker 1: the person who's doing all the ruminating. You're carrying a

710
00:35:58,400 --> 00:36:00,719
Speaker 1: burden because you don't and you don't even know you're

711
00:36:00,760 --> 00:36:03,799
Speaker 1: carrying it. And that is such a good description of

712
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,319
Speaker 1: what it felt like. Before I wrote that story in

713
00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,239
Speaker 1: The Times, I felt like I had to keep it

714
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 1: a secret for almost two years. I just I came

715
00:36:14,000 --> 00:36:15,880
Speaker 1: up with this line to tell people when they because

716
00:36:15,880 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 1: I think when someone dies young, you know, it's a

717
00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:21,799
Speaker 1: normal human instinct to be afraid, and you want to

718
00:36:21,800 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 1: think what can I do to fix my own life

719
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,000
Speaker 1: so I don't die this way? So to a one,

720
00:36:26,080 --> 00:36:28,759
Speaker 1: everybody said, how did it happen? And I said, well,

721
00:36:28,840 --> 00:36:31,640
Speaker 1: he was living a very unhealthy life. I just said,

722
00:36:31,640 --> 00:36:33,400
Speaker 1: you know, he was working a lot, and he was smoking,

723
00:36:33,440 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: and he was taking tough to sleep and to stay up.

724
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,200
Speaker 1: And so I wasn't lying, but I wasn't telling the truth.

725
00:36:39,719 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 1: And then when I finally did in the Times and

726
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,879
Speaker 1: I got mostly positive feedback from other people who've been

727
00:36:45,880 --> 00:36:48,799
Speaker 1: through it, it was like magical, you know. I was

728
00:36:48,840 --> 00:36:51,920
Speaker 1: just like, oh my gosh, I'm not alone. And also

729
00:36:52,239 --> 00:36:55,080
Speaker 1: it started a conversation in the legal profession about you know,

730
00:36:55,320 --> 00:36:57,879
Speaker 1: this issue and lawyer mental health, and I it made

731
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 1: me think like we should be talking about this because

732
00:37:01,640 --> 00:37:09,000
Speaker 1: he wasn't the only one suffering. It's a beautiful thing

733
00:37:09,200 --> 00:37:12,520
Speaker 1: when we have the opportunity to make meaning out of trauma.

734
00:37:12,840 --> 00:37:17,280
Speaker 1: I think Eileen personifies this. She takes a tough, tough

735
00:37:17,360 --> 00:37:21,320
Speaker 1: experience and shapes it, shares it in order to help others.

736
00:37:22,280 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: But first she needs help. She begins a kind of

737
00:37:25,680 --> 00:37:30,320
Speaker 1: therapy called e M d R, or Eye movement desensitizing

738
00:37:30,360 --> 00:37:34,320
Speaker 1: and reprocessing. This may sound a little weird to some listeners,

739
00:37:34,520 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: but look it up. E M d R. Eileen is

740
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,440
Speaker 1: a huge believer, and so am I. E M d

741
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:44,840
Speaker 1: R is a method that allows the patient to literally

742
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 1: reprocess and desensitize a traumatic memory, not to erase it,

743
00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:53,960
Speaker 1: not to forget about it, but to diffuse it, to

744
00:37:54,120 --> 00:38:00,560
Speaker 1: learn to live more comfortably with it, to move on. So,

745
00:38:00,680 --> 00:38:04,640
Speaker 1: and is that experience part of your decision to go

746
00:38:04,719 --> 00:38:07,440
Speaker 1: to social work school? You know, it was part totally

747
00:38:07,480 --> 00:38:09,239
Speaker 1: part of my decision, and I had I have and

748
00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,320
Speaker 1: I had a great therapist who administered it and helped

749
00:38:12,320 --> 00:38:15,120
Speaker 1: me through so much of it. But also I think

750
00:38:15,920 --> 00:38:19,080
Speaker 1: when I found Peter and I was kneeling by his body.

751
00:38:19,400 --> 00:38:21,880
Speaker 1: It may sound odd, but at the time that I

752
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:24,400
Speaker 1: saw that, I realized that he was dead. I thought,

753
00:38:25,000 --> 00:38:27,359
Speaker 1: I can't keep doing what I'm doing anymore. Like I

754
00:38:27,400 --> 00:38:29,360
Speaker 1: just felt like I'm going to have to change my life.

755
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:32,279
Speaker 1: I was writing a lot about startups and technology for

756
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 1: The Times and other publications, and I just thought, this

757
00:38:36,160 --> 00:38:38,520
Speaker 1: doesn't feel meaningful. To me, I think I need to

758
00:38:38,520 --> 00:38:40,200
Speaker 1: write about other things, and I think I need to

759
00:38:40,239 --> 00:38:42,480
Speaker 1: be more involved with end of life things. And I

760
00:38:42,560 --> 00:38:46,440
Speaker 1: just I kept thinking, you know, ex husbands and ex wives,

761
00:38:46,440 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 1: there's a lot of it's hard to be divorced. And

762
00:38:48,560 --> 00:38:51,560
Speaker 1: Peter was my friend and also sometimes my biggest nemesis.

763
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,200
Speaker 1: But I loved him, and seeing your friend there like that,

764
00:38:55,280 --> 00:38:58,799
Speaker 1: and thinking was he scared? Was he in pain? Was

765
00:38:59,520 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: you know? Was he regretful? Like I thought. I couldn't

766
00:39:02,400 --> 00:39:04,360
Speaker 1: have saved him at that point, but I could have

767
00:39:04,400 --> 00:39:07,120
Speaker 1: held his hand, so he wasn't alone. But I've always

768
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,080
Speaker 1: been an activist, and so I thought, I'm going to

769
00:39:09,160 --> 00:39:10,960
Speaker 1: go back to work for social work and think about

770
00:39:11,040 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: end of life care. I guess there's a way to

771
00:39:13,719 --> 00:39:15,799
Speaker 1: make up for what I couldn't give Peter because I

772
00:39:15,840 --> 00:39:18,000
Speaker 1: didn't see what was happening. I didn't know his secret

773
00:39:18,440 --> 00:39:20,080
Speaker 1: and I have. But I wound up my first year.

774
00:39:20,120 --> 00:39:21,800
Speaker 1: They said, you know, where would you like to do

775
00:39:21,880 --> 00:39:23,759
Speaker 1: your field work? And I said, anywhere with addiction. I

776
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:25,919
Speaker 1: don't want to do addiction. That's exactly what I did,

777
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,120
Speaker 1: and it was actually remarkable and rewarding, and I learned

778
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:31,880
Speaker 1: a lot. So that was where I made that pivot.

779
00:39:32,680 --> 00:39:34,759
Speaker 1: You know, I think we all know we're going to die.

780
00:39:35,480 --> 00:39:38,759
Speaker 1: I've never seen someone dead. I was like, this is

781
00:39:38,760 --> 00:39:41,200
Speaker 1: going to happen. Man, that's not gonna happen this way,

782
00:39:41,320 --> 00:39:44,080
Speaker 1: and it may not happen tomorrow, but it's like, this

783
00:39:44,200 --> 00:39:46,239
Speaker 1: is really going to happen. And so I have to

784
00:39:46,239 --> 00:39:48,360
Speaker 1: think really carefully, what do I want the rest of

785
00:39:48,360 --> 00:39:52,759
Speaker 1: my time to look like. My friend Sylvia Borstein, who

786
00:39:52,800 --> 00:39:55,799
Speaker 1: was my guest during season one of this podcast. If

787
00:39:55,840 --> 00:39:58,359
Speaker 1: you haven't heard her episode, go back to season one

788
00:39:58,360 --> 00:40:01,960
Speaker 1: and listen to her episode. Don't duck. You'll thank me

789
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:06,200
Speaker 1: later anyway. Sylvia, who is one of the most beloved

790
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 1: teachers of mindfulness meditation in this country, recently told me

791
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: a Buddhist parable. A monk is walking through the woods

792
00:40:14,760 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: when he realizes he's being stalked by a tiger. The

793
00:40:18,400 --> 00:40:23,080
Speaker 1: monk walks faster, the tiger picks up speed. The monk

794
00:40:23,320 --> 00:40:26,200
Speaker 1: gets to the edge of a cliff. There's nowhere to go.

795
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:31,000
Speaker 1: The tiger's closing in, but then the monk notices a big,

796
00:40:31,120 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 1: thick vine hanging from the side of the cliff. He

797
00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 1: jumps off, clinging to the vine. His salvation for the

798
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:42,880
Speaker 1: moment his life has been saved. The tigers up there salivating.

799
00:40:43,920 --> 00:40:47,640
Speaker 1: The monk sees that there's one beautiful, big, red ripe

800
00:40:47,800 --> 00:40:51,560
Speaker 1: strawberry on the vine. He's looking at the strawberry, and

801
00:40:51,600 --> 00:40:54,719
Speaker 1: then he sees that a little mouse has also just

802
00:40:54,840 --> 00:40:57,759
Speaker 1: noticed the strawberry and has poked its head from the

803
00:40:57,800 --> 00:41:01,840
Speaker 1: cliff where the vine is attached. The little mouse starts

804
00:41:01,880 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: to gnaw on the vine. So what does the monk do.

805
00:41:06,080 --> 00:41:10,799
Speaker 1: The monk plucks the strawberry and eats it. We're always

806
00:41:10,800 --> 00:41:15,880
Speaker 1: hanging on the vine. I tried to be more present,

807
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:17,680
Speaker 1: and Peter always used to make fun of it, like,

808
00:41:17,680 --> 00:41:20,799
Speaker 1: oh yeah, But I feel like Peter and people like

809
00:41:20,960 --> 00:41:23,880
Speaker 1: him are kind of running away from the existential reality

810
00:41:23,880 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 1: because if you're really really busy and important, you're not

811
00:41:26,480 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 1: going to die, you know, you're you're too busy. And

812
00:41:29,120 --> 00:41:31,200
Speaker 1: I thought that. I thought, he's so busy, he's not

813
00:41:31,239 --> 00:41:34,440
Speaker 1: going to die. You know, Peter doesn't die, but we

814
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,120
Speaker 1: all do. You know, we live in a world where

815
00:41:37,280 --> 00:41:39,319
Speaker 1: everyone's always asking me, so what are you gonna do?

816
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:41,239
Speaker 1: Are you going to do social work? And you know,

817
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:43,959
Speaker 1: are you gonna this? And it's like it's so nice

818
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:45,840
Speaker 1: to talk to you. Sometimes I feel like saying, you know,

819
00:41:45,960 --> 00:41:49,360
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm gonna get through this and just

820
00:41:49,400 --> 00:41:53,440
Speaker 1: sort of see what happens. But that is an uncomfortable

821
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:56,239
Speaker 1: place for most people to be. They want my plan.

822
00:41:59,239 --> 00:42:03,120
Speaker 1: If you compare are your inner life now and say

823
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,240
Speaker 1: your state of whatever you want to call it, contentment, happiness, peace,

824
00:42:08,160 --> 00:42:12,759
Speaker 1: two where you were when you were, you know, in

825
00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: that house in San Diego, still married, thinking okay, well

826
00:42:17,040 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: one more goal post. I'm going to stick it out

827
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: until until my my son can drive. Um. If you

828
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:26,279
Speaker 1: compare the you now you know, the Eileen now to

829
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:31,600
Speaker 1: the Eileen, then how would you describe your inner state

830
00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:35,640
Speaker 1: now as compared to them? I was so lonely. I mean,

831
00:42:35,680 --> 00:42:38,680
Speaker 1: I think marriage can be the loneliest place if it's

832
00:42:38,719 --> 00:42:41,600
Speaker 1: not a good one. And I remember thinking, this house

833
00:42:41,719 --> 00:42:44,800
Speaker 1: is full of people, and I am so terribly lonely.

834
00:42:45,480 --> 00:42:48,440
Speaker 1: I felt disconnected from everything, and I was so caught up.

835
00:42:48,480 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: In five more years ten, this will be at she'll

836
00:42:50,960 --> 00:42:53,040
Speaker 1: be out of college, and I feel like I have

837
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:56,960
Speaker 1: more space inside me. I feel much more content and

838
00:42:57,000 --> 00:42:59,120
Speaker 1: I feel much more at peace, Like I feel like,

839
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: you know, the world is can be a somewhat bleak

840
00:43:02,560 --> 00:43:04,680
Speaker 1: place right now. I feel scared, but I sort of

841
00:43:04,719 --> 00:43:06,799
Speaker 1: feel like I'm just going to be open to it.

842
00:43:07,680 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: And my kids and I will often remind each other

843
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 1: because sometimes my son too. He just graduated from college

844
00:43:13,000 --> 00:43:14,520
Speaker 1: and he's like, so I'm going to do this for

845
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:16,279
Speaker 1: three years, that I'm gonna try this, And just the

846
00:43:16,320 --> 00:43:18,560
Speaker 1: other night he was saying it, and he said, of course,

847
00:43:19,080 --> 00:43:20,800
Speaker 1: I don't know if any of that's going to come true.

848
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: And I used to say, remember, Dad, if you would

849
00:43:24,560 --> 00:43:27,120
Speaker 1: have asked me. I used to be rehearsing, how am

850
00:43:27,120 --> 00:43:28,920
Speaker 1: I going to manage if he has a girlfriend at

851
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:31,400
Speaker 1: my son's graduation, I'm gonna have to where am I

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Speaker 1: going to sit? But he was dead by my son's graduation,

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Speaker 1: and I thought, you can plan as much as you want,

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Speaker 1: but really I just have to sort of go with it.

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Speaker 1: I feel much more at peace. I can handle it.

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Speaker 1: I can get through this. I'd like to thank my guest,

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Speaker 1: Eileen Zimmerman. You can learn more about Eileen's memoir Smacked,

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Speaker 1: a story of white collar ambition, addiction, and tragedy, at

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Speaker 1: Eileen Zimmerman dot com. Family Secrets is an I Heart

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Speaker 1: Media production Dylan Fagan is the supervising producer. Julie Douglas

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Speaker 1: and beth Ann Macaluso are the executive producers. Special thanks

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00:44:20,239 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: to Derek Clements for his help with this episode. If

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Speaker 1: you have a family secret you'd like to share, you

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00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,239
Speaker 1: can get in touch with us at listener mail at

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Speaker 1: Family Secrets podcast dot com. You can also find us

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00:44:33,000 --> 00:44:37,640
Speaker 1: on Instagram at Danny Ryder, Facebook at Family Secrets Pod,

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Speaker 1: and Twitter at FAMI Secrets Pod. For more about my

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Speaker 1: book Inheritance, visit Danny Shapiro dot com. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,