Taking Up Space
I joined a writing group.
During my first meeting, the leader asked each of us to share why we had chosen to write memoir. Since most of the other writers already knew one another, I felt odd dropping my ‘why ‘on them. So, I left my 'why' in the chat.
Once everyone finished sharing aloud, the group leader said, “Let’s see what people in the chat say." And then she read what the chat said, verbatim.
When she got to my bubble, she started with, “Welcome, new member, Katie Rizzo.”
I shut my eyes, tried to ignore that her face fell as she started on my story. She said the part about me writing to try to help myself and others understand the death of my son, but instead of ending my share with a period. She finished by raising her tone, '-understand the death of her son?'
Then she apologized.
At first, I thought the apology was for me. But then she continued, “I’m sorry if this triggered anyone and you weren’t warned first.”
My life needs a trigger warning?
Playing the victim doesn’t serve me.
And I know that we respond, not to how the world is but how we are in the world, and so I played a thought game - how can I reframe this so it isn’t painful? Can I find grace for myself, to share my story without shame? And is there grace for listeners to respond on shaky ground?
Maybe.
***
Speaking of wishes…
My book is available for preorder in the middle of this month. I’m offering some swag to anyone who preorders! Go to katierizzo.com with your receipt and fill out the form! I’ll get an original Katie Rizzo poem, sticker, and watercolor to you immediately!
***
The Parent Tap interviewed me for their segment entitled: The Red Flags of Teen Addiction: A Parent's Worst Nightmare.
If you listen, I’m finding my voice: it is all of our job to help those with addiction. We ask people to get clean using tools like shame and willpower rather than targeting the cause. How can anyone get well?
The cost of treatment for opioid dependance according to NIH is astronomical.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5688890/#abstract1
And that money makes no sense when the rate of relapse for opioids is above 70%, if not 90% https://drugabuse.com/opioids/relapse/
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/drug-overdose-data.htm
According to the CDC “Research shows that majority of abstinent alcohol and/or opioid dependence subjects relapse within 1 year.”
Last year 75,000 died of overdose in the US - equivalent to a commercial airplane going down every day.
All the money we throw into drug treatment benefits corporations, the free market, but not the people trapped inside.
***
Highlights from my interview with the Parent Tap are here:
02:15 – The Deceptive Trap of Parental Guilt and Shame
04:45 – Nicholas’s Story: From Elite Soccer Standout to the ER
06:30 – The Medical Pipeline: How Early Opioid Prescriptions Hijack the Brain
10:00 – The Missing Red Flags: Anxiety, Sleep Struggles, and High School Deflection
12:15 – The Codependency Enabler: Why "Fixing" Their Mistakes Destroys Accountability
13:45 – Gas Station Heroin: The Unregulated Threat of Kratom
15:30 – The Benzodiazepine Nightmare & Systematic Failures
21:30 – The High Cost of the Rehab Game & Finding True Recovery
***
Want more?
Dr. Wayne Kepner talked on Grieving Out Loud about how 72,000 Deaths a Year Is Not a Success Story -Angela Kennecke, Grieving Out Loud: A Mother Coping with Loss in the Opioid Epidemic - story https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/why-72-000-deaths-a-year-is-not-a-success-story/id1459587875?i=1000764382800.
He makes the analogy that MADD got drunk driver deaths down, the rate stabilized and that became our new normal.
Obviously, Naloxone has helped, as have the campaigns against fentanyl. But is that it? Are we going to give up and accept 70-80,000 deaths a year in the US from overdose as acceptable?
Is there healing, hope and purpose in grief? https://open.spotify.com/episode/15GtkKaEYzvOJjHu0ZP6Dg?si=c32cd48d171d4a24 Sekani and I tried to find some!
Meat Hooks
Photos of us
from the last
years
tell our story,
no words needed.
You lean on
anyone,
usually me,
while
Dad pulls away
and your brother’s hang
their arms
In disbelief
Zooming out,
something else
appears and his
tentacles take up most the
space.
I’d say he was an uninvited
guest
but I think you’d say he wasn’t
there.
Zooming in
Your skin
is pock marked with four pronged
lines,
In varying degrees of red.
The only
evidence
that
we didn’t
let go. -Katie Rizzo
I had the opportunity to share a little about Nicholas on Logan’s Voice a podcast a platform dedicated to truth, healing, and hope in the fight against America’s overdose and fentanyl poisoning crisis.
Nicholas’s Story as told by his mom
