From Teacher to Griever | How Katie Rizzo Survived Opioid Loss

One phone call. One prescription. One life split into before and after. Katie Rizzo, a former AP biology teacher, lost her firstborn son, Nicholas, to opioid addiction and overdose. In this raw conversation about grief, caregiver resilience, and trauma recovery, Katie shares how she rebuilt her identity when loss stopped being an event and became her permanent companion.

One phone call, one prescription, one quiet apartment, and a life splits into before and after. We sit down with Katie Rizzo, a former high school anatomy and AP biology teacher, to talk about the loss of her firstborn son, Nicholas, to opioid addiction and overdose, and the brutal moment she realized grief was no longer an event; it was part of her identity.

Katie brings a rare mix of tenderness and clarity to subjects many of us avoid: bereaved parenthood, the stigma around substance use disorder, and the chaos a family carries while trying to save someone they love. She walks us through Nicholas’s story, from an adventurous childhood to injuries, painkillers, and the spiral that so often defines the opioid crisis. We also get honest about anger, blame, and how “legally acceptable” prescribing can still create devastating outcomes.

Then Katie shares the framework that changed how she survives: the “trimesters of grief.” She explains why grief can feel like a pregnancy you cannot end, how art becomes a lifeline, and why telling the truth out loud can be a form of healing. We also talk about non-opioid pain management options, shame, recovery support, and why law enforcement and healthcare need more trauma-informed responses during wellness checks and overdose calls.

If you care about grief support, addiction recovery, opioid addiction education, or helping families after overdose, this conversation will stay with you. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review with the line that hit you the hardest.

Transcript

Welcome And Why Katie Is Here

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Good afternoon and welcome back to another episode of A Contagious Smell Unstoppable. I cannot wait for us to just have a conversation. Katie Rizzo is with us, and she is just a plethora of information. She is a wonderful person. When I was getting ready to meet with her, I started learning about her, and you just felt such warmth from her. You're gonna learn her story. You're gonna learn about what makes Katie Katie. And you'll see why. I was so excited that she agreed to come on and talk with us. I just can't wait just to even carry on a conversation with you, Katie. Thank you so much for being with us today. I really appreciate it. Oh, you're so sweet. Me too. I appreciate the chance to talk to

When Grief Becomes Part Of You

SPEAKER_01 0:42

you. Now, most people ask what grief feels like for anyone who's never been through anything, like you have. I want to ask something completely different. When did you first realize that grief wasn't just something that was happening to you, but it was a part of you?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

That's a great question. Spoken from a griever. Okay, that was good. I think about two months in, I realized that I couldn't get away from it. I I think you and I have both been through quite a lot of things where we felt like this is now something different from what everybody else has experienced or a lot of other people have experienced, and hard work and perseverance and all that isn't gonna help me get away from it. Right. So about two months in, I realized the only way that I was gonna get rid of this grief is if Nicholas was gonna come back. And obviously, I haven't found a way for that to happen. And so I realized I was gonna have to do some heavy lifting and figure out how to live with this. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

And for the listeners who haven't caught on yet, Katie went through, I can't even, I can't even imagine. And my daughter, Faith, has been, you know, she's special needs, she came early and we almost lost her a bunch of times for medical reasons. But you like I got so emotional reading about this. You lost your firstborn son in September of 2024 to addiction. Right. I can't even like telling you I'm so sorry for your lost doesn't even feel like it's anything that even touches what really, you know, to be a mom and to go through something so unimaginable. I can't even fathom. Can you kind of tell us a little bit about him and and shine light on this wonderful man that you

Remembering Nicholas And His Spirit

SPEAKER_01 2:46

would love to?

SPEAKER_00 2:46

I would love to. I'd love to talk about him. And I'd also like to say that a lot I know that people go through things. I think in our society that we just have this Instagram version of us and we pretend, like, oh, hey, you know, I have this perfect family. So I know that I'm one of many. And I know there are a lot of moms who've lost more than one kid. And so I don't, I don't want to come across as, oh, I've been through the worst, I'm a martyr. I've, you know, look at how sad my life is because there are a lot of people out there who've gone through equally or worse things than I have. So, but that being said, let me tell you about Nicholas. So our son was born in '97. He he was just a joy. He was a kid who came out wanting to live in his body. He he was just a happy, very physical kid. He kind of a funny story about him is we had three boys. He and Nicholas was the oldest. I had to go to the OBGYN with our third, which I mean, women know this, you know, you can't get a babysitter every time. And I look over and Nicholas is licking the stirrup. What? I was like, what are you doing, bud? I mean, he was four and a half. And he's like, Well, you never told me not to. So that's that's a little about his personality. He was very, he just wanted to experience the world.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:21

And I I guess I should have said, Hey, no, licking the stirrup. But he was the kind of kid who we put him in gymnastics and he saw this huge rope that went all the way to the top of the ceiling. It's probably two and a half stories high. Oh wow. And I think he was seven. And that kid, he climbed all the way to the top. Like we asked, is it okay? And they said, Oh, yeah, sure. He climbed all the way to the top, and then he let go. And everybody looked at me like, What is wrong with you? And I was like, I didn't know that I needed to tell him not to jump off. He was okay, but that's kind of an intro to who he was. He just was the kid who he was all in. He had a really good sense of adventure. Yeah, adventure in his legs and his arms. And he he got really good at soccer. He ended up doing well in club sports for soccer. He ended up doing really well in varsity soccer. He ended up getting a D2 scholarship in soccer. But that came with a lot of injuries. And every time he got an injury, you know, he's he'd broken bones, he he broke his um clavicle, he I think he broke his arm twice, his leg twice, his knees needed repairing. And each time they would give him painkillers, mostly codeine. And I wish now, I know that that codeine isn't like the thing that got him addicted, but it's one part of the his addiction story. I mean, he had genetics as well. But looking back, I wish I would have stopped

From Sports Injuries To Opioids

SPEAKER_00 6:05

him from whenever you know he would go in and get something worked on, they would definitely give him codeine. And he started a pretty big love affair with pills from that. He went to college. I thought he was doing normal experimentation with pot. He went to school at Colorado in Colorado in Grand Junction and at CMU, Colorado Made City University. And I kept thinking, oh, you know, all kids experiment, kids get drunk a lot, kids smoke pot. But I feel like he just was not capable. His body was the kind where if you gave him a little, he wanted more. So he came home after graduating, and uh it was obvious to us he was living at home and he had a pretty good job, but it was obvious to us that the pills were a big part of his life. He let me back up a little bit. He had dislocated his elbow, and my husband went out when he was still in college, and the doctor kept giving him painkillers, and Nicholas kept saying, I need more than that. And the doctor said, I can't legally, this is the maximum for even somebody twice your your size. And at that point is when I think my husband and I were like, something's going on, you know? So flash forward and he was living with us, he wasn't, he wasn't doing well, he had like lazy eyes. You could just tell he was he was using, he'd gotten into a few car accidents. I don't know if you know a lot about addiction, but people who have addiction, they kind of carry chaos around them. And my family just got into this tornado of you know, chaos. We were lying to ourselves, we were trying to hold on to anything. We joined Al Anon, which is a support group for people who love somebody who's suffering with addiction, and that helped. But pretty soon we had to ask Nicholas to leave the house and he moved to an apartment. He tried some rehab and was kicked out for not participating, and that's kind of when he things got really bad. He he overdosed in his apartment alone. And that was kind of the beginning of my story with grief. So yeah, that's a little bit about him.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

I am so sorry. He sounded so amazing and so wonderful. I can see the love. There's no question.

SPEAKER_00 8:50

He missed his brothers. Dad misses him, I miss him. We gotta figure something out. Like, how do we build a time machine and go back, right?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

Right. That's gotta be so you actually describe grief like a pregnancy. And I was so taken by that, and I couldn't wait to hear how you explain that. I actually do counseling and I actually do work with some people, family members, and you know, people who are going through addiction. And I've created courses for both parties um in the academy as well, but that we can talk about off screen because this is about you. But and my best friend lost her son to addiction too.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

And so I I can ask what he was addicted to opioids.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

Okay, yeah, yeah. It was really, really tough. And it's only been a few years that he's been gone. So it's been, you know, really trying thing for her as well. And and she wrote a book, and I'm gonna try to get you guys to talk because she'd love to meet her. She is amazing and a wonderful person, and she's been trying to find ways to talk to Alex and get him back, just like you. And and I really see such I mean, I definitely want to get you guys together. But so you describe grief like a pregnancy. Was there a moment you realized that you couldn't terminate the grief, that it doesn't just go away?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, I don't know. When when we lost Nicholas, I the first thing that happened was I felt like my head, I if you haven't been pregnant or if you had an easy pregnancy, you probably wouldn't know this. But with all three of mine, it was this feeling. The first trimester was this feeling where my head just kind of exploded and I wasn't really in my body. I was so nauseous. I would do anything to get out of there, out of the body. And with with this grief, it was just this this terrible irony that do you like I remembered feeling this way with Nicholas, and here it was, it was in grief, and it just it shattered me. I kind of got through that phase and moved on to what I would call my second trimester, where everybody was going on without me. But I I I was harboring this this deep grief, and I laid in bed a lot and slept a lot and put his dirty laundry around me and made a nest, and just it was it was a terrible time. And it was one of those times where you just kind of go inside, and that reminded me a lot of the second trimester. I mean, in my second trimester with Nicholas, I remember my husband and I were driving somewhere and I was so tired. It was maybe an hour away, and I was like, I need to rent a hotel room halfway because I'm ex, I'm just exhausted. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

And so that was that it still mirrored pregnancy for me. Uh I found the third trimester of my grief was when I kind of exploded. And when you're showing in your third trimester of pregnancy, you're not really showing in grief, but I wanted everyone to know. And not only was I writing poetry, which I'd never done before, but I wrote poetry. I started putting it on Instagram and Facebook, and it was super cringy. And I'm sure my other two wanted me to stop, but both of them kept saying, No, mom, like, tell people. I went to the grocery store, and if somebody seemed like, you know, how they were they were open, they're like, How's your day going? I would tell them, all of our exercise instructors, we do last smells body pump, which is totally bizarre. But I would tell them, you know, they would say, like, oh, how's your weekend? And I would say, pretty good for somebody who just lost a kid. So the third trimester for me was just kind of showing everybody, telling everyone. Yeah. And then I read this article by Nick Cave. I don't know if you know him. He's a musician and a father who lost two sons, I think both to suicide. And he talked about his grief. And he said that there was a time where he couldn't live with it just so close and so big. And he had to like tell it, hey, grief, I need you to sit right next to me. And I thought, well, he's actually talking about delivery. And so I sat down with with my grief and I thought about how Nicholas and I made a placenta, you know, 25 years ago or 26 years ago, and it was this thing that was half him and half me. And this grief really is half him and half me. And so I pictured having it

The Chaos Of Loving An Addict

SPEAKER_00 13:40

sit next to me. My grief looks like a little baby orangutan, and sometimes it needs a ton of attention, and sometimes it's kind of resting, but it's always sitting next to me. And that I got some relief from that. I mean, not like, oh, grief's gone, but I'm able to kind of work with my grief and live with my grief that way.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

You mentioned your two other sons. How are how are your two sons and your husband handling all of this?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Um Billy Bob Thornton says that at any one moment he's half sad and half happy. And I think that my family's gonna be that way for her for until you know we we go. My husband and my kids are doing pretty well. For somebody who's lost a kid or a brother, I think the arts have really saved my husband and I. Um, my Nick, my husband, Nick and my Nicholas share a name, so we call our son Nicholas and my husband's Nick. My husband learned to play the guitar right after Nicholas passed. It's been kind of a thing for him to just at night, he's gotten pretty good. But he'll play and I'll write poetry, and it's kind of a way for us to heal. My other two, my two sons, they're okay. They, I mean, they definitely miss their brother. Of course. I've watched them, they're both in their 20s, they both are in grad school. I've watched them with their girlfriends, and I think I think that they realize that love is a lot more special and a lot more fleeting than it was before. And I think that they appreciate the people around them more. I think their emotional IQ has grown. I think they realize how important they are to me now. I mean, I think I tell them that a lot. Our youngest Joey, right after Nicholas passed, Joey went to his dad and said, Dad, I need you to tell us you love us a lot more. And I think Nick did a lot, and I think he showed it, but it's something we can't. Yeah, I think I think we tell each other that all the time now. I think we realize how precious we are to one another. And one other thing is that if you love somebody who has an addiction, I think you know how crazy it is. The family system just goes into chaos. With Nicholas gone, it became really quiet because we were kind of in a system where we had, you know, everybody was working to try to save him. And with him gone, it became really quiet. And so now we're when we're together, it's kind of a time where we're all trying to listen and acknowledge the pain, but also not try to fill that void with more chaos.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

That makes sense. Now you're also you used to be a teacher, a high school teacher.

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:58

So you taught anatomy and yep, anatomy and AP bio. Did you ever find yourself trying to like scientifically understand the whole terminology of grief in that manner?

SPEAKER_00 17:11

Yeah, maybe a little bit. I definitely try to look at nature a lot. Like if I sit down and I have a big emotion, I try to look at it from ecology or from other how other organisms deal with it. My Nicholas, before he died, he I don't think he knew who Jane Goodall was. I think he thought Jane Goodall was like a guru because I would talk about her so much. And sometimes I'd, you know, he and I would sit down and I'd say, Nicholas, look, we need to do this. And he'd say, Don't go

Grief As Pregnancy Trimesters

SPEAKER_00 17:50

all Jane Goodall on me. And I think about that a lot. When she died, I I hope that I hope there is an afterlife. I hope that Nicholas and Jane Goodall are somewhere together. Yeah, so I I think I have been trying to look at addiction as just, you know, the physiologic uploading of receptors and how he every time he did coding, he increased his numbers of receptors so that he was never gonna feel that kind of uh euphoria or feelings of dopamine, whatever dopamine is in the brain. And he got himself to a point where he needed that hit in order to feel just a little bit okay. And it's just so sad. I wish I wish there was a better way to help people with addiction, because I know whatever we're doing right now isn't helping. No. Katie, do you ever blame the doctors for constantly? I blame, I can blame anyone. Give me somebody to blame, I'll blame them. I think that's a part of grief too, right? Yeah, yeah. I went through a period of real intense anger with his doctor who was prescribing benzos and opioids for three years before he passed. I took his doctor's name to the district attorney and asked them to look at his license. I went to the DO board and asked them to look at his license. But fact is, he was prescribing what is legally acceptable, and it breaks my heart. Like I get, it's hard to breathe thinking about it. But this is what we as a society have decided is okay. The DA came to give us Nicholas's phone and his computer once they had gone through it all. And he said, you know, in his experience with people who use opioids, he said that for him, the magic number is eight days. If you use opio to him, if you use opioids for eight days or more, it's it's almost impossible to get off of them, according to him. And I think he's right. Yeah. If you look at the the relapse rates for kids who try to get off of opioids, it's really it's the relapse rate is high, and the the ability to get off of them is just, it seems like it's impossible. Somebody told me meth is harder, maybe. I don't know. I think us a society have to decide like what do we value our kids or do or are, you know, I think every seven I've read that every seven minutes somebody overdoses. I read that. Yeah. About a year ago, I was in Mexico and there were two women on the beach complaining that they couldn't get their opioids. Because you know, you can go to Mexico and get them. Um, and they were like, Oh, they're making it so impossible now to get my opioids. And I wanted to just shake them and be like, Well, what do you like? Unless you're in severe pain, I uh what do you do in your body? Like right. I don't know. There's there's a lot of other ways to find freedom. And I hope we as a society start promoting those ways too.

SPEAKER_01 21:31

Yeah. And see, what really got me, Katie, is you know, I've had over a hundred surgeries to go through everything I went through.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

And I and you've never taken them at the end. I've never taken a single how did you know? Like, how, like, where, you know, how did you figure that out?

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Well, honestly, I was pregnant when the abuse transpired, the whole pregnancy. And nobody gave me anything when he broke my nose or broke my shoulder or broke my jaws. Like, this is I have 26 pieces of metal in my face. So, like, you can see all the so. I didn't want to put anything in my body when I was pregnant, obviously, because I didn't want it to affect her. And then when she was born, she came early and she was life-flighted. And I sat in the NICU with her for six months after I got out of the ICU. Anyway, so what happened is every time I had to have a surgery, they were like, Well, we'll give you opioids. Like just here. And I'm like, don't even give me the script. I don't want it. Don't even fill it out. Because the thing is, is that at that point my daughter had a tracheostomy. So she had a tube in her neck to breathe. She was having a feeding tube to eat because she couldn't eat by mouth. And I was like, I'm a single mom. I'm a caregiver, single mom, taking care of this. She's epileptic at this point. I cannot be under the influence of anything. She has 20 appointments a week with therapies and doctors and you know, everybody with an ist at the end of their name. I'll, you know, I can't. So I had to deal with it. And the thing is, is that, and I've said to them, every time I go, it's like, here, do you want something? Do you want something? And it's like, no, because I would be the biggest addict at the point. You know, I was doing surgery like every six weeks.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:06

Right. And I was like, I have to work through the pain. And it was unbearable. I mean, I'm an amp, I'm a recent amputee. I lost my arm three years ago. And I never ever took the first pain medication. And I was like, don't even write a script. I'm not. I go, I am followed through pain management. And I go in there, and this is pain management, right? At one of the finest institutes here in Atlanta. And I go in there and they're like, do you want why why won't you take anything? Do you want something? I'm like, I don't even want, you know, like anything that's non-narcotic because I don't want to keep putting all that in my body, number one. So I've had a spinal stem router and I've had tens units and things that electrocute you and things like that. But it's, it's literally, you know, I had no choice because I was taking care of my daughter. But they're so quick to be like, oh, here, let me just give you this and let me give you this and let me give you this. And then they mix with other medications because I've I've I've worked with the most amazing people who didn't ask for this. They didn't ask to break their leg and get oxycodon and then get addicted to it. They didn't ask for it. But then their whole life changes and society,

Shame Anger And A Broken System

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Katie, just swallows them up in this negative light, like they're this horrible person because of something that's not their fault.

SPEAKER_00 24:18

Yeah. The shame is really a big deal. I think that I I think oxycodon is terrible, but I also think that there's like this weird shame that comes with it. Uh yeah. I mean, I think I think you understand shame from being abused. Absolutely. And it's like it and once you realize that there is no shame in it, maybe it's a beautiful thing. And I wish I could have brought Nicholas to a place where he realized that we weren't ashamed of him.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Right. And I can see that just talking with you that you weren't, right? You absolutely and still do unconditionally love him. But it's not his fault because he it's it's a different scenario where if you're on the streets and you're doing drugs, right, than somebody who might have gotten an injury and gotten pain medication.

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Still, but still, like they're by the grace of God, right? Now, I feel like this has taught me so much about who are the people that are on are on the street. They're they're they are kids of a of a of a parent. And they're by the grace of God, Nicholas could have been them like that in the heartbeat. And I have a friend who got out of prison for do for I think two or three DUIs, which is a terrible thing. I'm not condoning DUIs ever. And he has an addiction that led him to not be able to control himself. And in in prison, he said he thought around 90% of the people who were there were doing drugs. And that amaz, I mean, I here I am so naive thinking, like, oh, you go to prison and you quote, get better. Whereas they're they're getting addicted. And I just feel like our society is so just waiting in shame. And everybody's trying to put on this face of, I'm a I'm a good person, our family's a good family. And maybe we could just relax a little and and see each other as being just humans. And we're all we're all faulty and right.

SPEAKER_01 26:23

We're not a case, we're not a patient number. Yeah, we and that's what I don't get is like you're so quick, doctors are so quick to be like, oh, you're still hurting. Let me give you oxy, let me give you morphine, let me give you demerol, let me give you, you know, whatever. And now they even have these films that you can put in your mouth to give you that faster, right? But then if you're mixing it with something like GAVAPentin or you're mixing it with all these other medications, they have interactions with each other. But then when you go and you go to the hospital, because you might be out of oxy or you might be at whatever, then you literally go to the hospital and they look at you like you're a drug seeker. But let's go back to why. I mean, right? And the thing is that doctors do get kickbacks. You know, there are other things that that's a billion percent on that one.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:09

They need to like go back. What if they got in an accident? You know, what if they got hurt? Are you gonna, you know, critique them like you critique your patients? It's so not fair. Look at the person, not the case number, you know, not what insurance they have. Let's try to, you know, prevent injury and let's try to help the injury without putting a band-aid on it that's you know, an opioid. It I mean, it because that's basically what it is. It's a it's a metaphoric pharmaceutical band-aid that when the band-aid gets saturated in four to six hours, you have to take it off and put a new one on.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

No, which is the another pill. So my dad had surgery and they removed his upper left lobe because he had cancer. And it was three months ago, and he was in the hospital, and they just started pumping his IV with opioids. And I'm I'm not a naturalist, like I love science. So, you know, maybe three years ago I would have been like, oh, this is good. But I asked them, there's a new drug, I think it's called Juvinex, Juva something, and it's not addictive, non-opioid pain reliever. And my sister used it for her neat. And so I asked, Hey, is there any way we could try this? I'm not saying they said, Oh, we can't, because it's a great, it's a great new drug. We love it. I pre the doctor said he prescribed it outside of Anschwitz Medical Center, which is in Denver. But he said, we don't have that that hospital and that drug company, we don't have an agreement between us. Isn't that ridiculous? Yeah, and I said, Well, okay, my son just died of an opioid addiction. And my dad said, Oh, don't worry about me. I have willpower. And there's so much, like, look at all these little layers, all these strings that we're like, okay, well, I guess my son didn't have willpower.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

But what about, you know, every time you have something done, Katie, it's like, we're gonna give you this. But I and I've asked because we almost lost our daughter a couple years ago and she went into complete organ failure. And they were like, we're gonna give her morphine. I'm like, what about Tramadol? What about tordol? They're non-narcotic pain medications that's not addicting, right? If you have to give her something, I mean, they brought her back from surgery and her stomach was still open. So she had that boom back. And I'm like, I understand she's uncomfortable and I don't want my child uncomfortable, but why can't we start something like, you know, oh, let's try, you know, tordol or tremidol or something, right? My daughter doesn't do pain meds either, but they gave her morphine and she got addicted very quickly. Did she? I'm so sorry. And then they ended up doing methadone to help her while she's still in the ICU to bring her off of it. But that was the first time she'd ever had morphine. And literally, my daughter, who has had distractions behind her ears and all this, was looking at me like, and and she's special needs. So she has an executive function disorder, so she's not mentally her age, right? But Kay, she would look at me after like four or five hours and she'd be like, Mom, I need more, I need more. And this is the first time she'd ever had morphine. And she's like, I need more, I need more. And I went to the doctor, I was like, No, we're not doing it. You could give her tramadol, you could give her a tortol, but you're not putting her down this road. We're just not doing it. And they done it during surgery.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

We've known about that road for a really long time. Like those, you know, those rats or those mice who will sit there and press a lever for the the good feeling in their brain rather than you know, water or food or sex, they'd rather die for it. And unfortunately, that was my son. And I, yeah, I don't know how to stop it except to tell people your voice. Yeah, and don't start it.

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah. And that that's the thing is that she was in a medically induced coma, Katie, and they started her morphine. I'm like, if she's in a medically induced coma, I don't think she's cognitively aware that she's in this pain. So why can't you just do like a tortillal or treminol or wait and let's see if her blood pressure rises? Let's see if she goes into a tachycardic state where that shows pain, right? Let's see if her reaction states, I need something. If she needs something, let's Tylenol, tortol, tramadol, whatever. But let's not jump to the you know, NFL Super Bowl before, right? And let's find something else, like whatever that is. Right. So she ended up on the methadone. I watched my daughter for the very first time, like with the withdrawals, the sweating, everything. And it was like I felt like my heart and my body was outside of myself. I can't imagine what you went through. So, like just to see that, I was like, this is crazy. And the doctors are like, All right, I'll see you when I'm around tomorrow at 6 a.m. Bye. And that's it. Yeah, that's all you get. That's it. And I'm like, you need to sit down and watch what you've done. You need to come cop a squat right here and visually see what your two-second penmanship and not listening does.

SPEAKER_00 32:04

Yeah, yeah. It's voices like yours that's gonna make the change. Well, let's hope. When Nicholas was in the hospital, he was in ICU coming off the benzos and the the oxycodone, and he had swelling of the brain and he had rhabdomyolysis. He was in ICU for I think six days, five or six days. It was a really long time. He didn't know his own name. He thought my name was Arugula. The one thing he knew was that he was the bigger brother. He said, I am the bigger brother, which he was. These drugs are lethal. Yes. They your body craves them like you would not believe. And I I I I want people want to point at them at the the addicts who at as a problem, but it's all of us. Right. We're all the problem, right? The more we can be honest with one another, the more we can relate to one another, the more we can see one another, I think the better it is.

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Absolutely. You told me that you you write your poems uh to speak to him, right? Has he ever answered you?

SPEAKER_00 33:15

I don't know. You know, I I don't know, I don't want you to think I'm crazy or I don't.

SPEAKER_01 33:21

I do not at all because my best friend says he that her son has answered him.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I feel like a lot of times in the morning I get up, I make my coffee, I feed my dogs, and then I'll say, Hey, Nicholas, and we'll sit there and write. I mean, usually I'll since I love science so much, I'll think about something that we saw in nature or I saw in nature recently, and then I'll write about that and I'll think about how that applies to Nicholas. And nine times out of ten, it's not that I feel like he's writing the words, but I feel like he's there. And you know, my world is different now. Of course. I'm I'm a liminal person. I'm half here and half there with him, wherever there is. And that's how I'm getting by. I I'm not saying my poems are, you know, I'm they're not the best poems, but they're not the worst poems, and they they make me feel close to him. And that's what matters. Yeah, that's what matters. Absolutely. Absolutely. It's just you want me to read you one?

SPEAKER_02 34:30

I was gonna ask you if you would.

SPEAKER_00 34:32

I didn't know if I should have asked you that before we recorded. I was like, You're gonna are you ready? Yes, okay, that's called the skate park. I put my backpack down near the entrance while you, along with the other kids, skittered to the back and stared down the steepest bowl. I watched the group of kids part in two as you hopped on your board, eyes on the horizon, the muscles of your fence of your face clenched, you rolled horizontally, and then when the lip gave to endless space, you went airborne. And I wished that this is how it was done. All it took was an enormous pool of faith, not practice. You didn't need an x-ray, your L-shaped bone like the turn of a phrase. I asked you why you tried the hardest thing first, and you looked through me as if mulling over that I didn't believe your wings could fly. Oh, see, he's there. I got a little glimpse. I love that. Yeah, I did. I love the ending. Oh, you're sweet. I love putting it on the internet, not because of anything except that maybe like some way he'll find it, right?

SPEAKER_01 35:52

If Nichols could jump into our interview right now or our conversation right now, what do you think he would say to you?

SPEAKER_00 36:01

Oh that's such a good question. I think he would say, Go visit my brothers. He loved his family. Like family was everything. And he I think he'd say, Well, you know, what do you what are you doing with your life? You need to go see family more. And he's he's a hundred percent right. I do need to go see his brothers. I haven't seen them in a few months. He was all about family. Yeah, I think he would tell you he's okay. I really hope he is. Somebody, I don't know if you believe in mediums or not. I don't know. I heard on a podcast about a medium, and she told a mom who had lost her daughter. She said, the medium said, Your daughter wants you to know that every time you're happy, she's happy. And that felt like permission to me, right? Like you don't need to be at home in bed, that like you're not spitting on my face when you're out being happy or trying to find joy in the world.

SPEAKER_01 37:06

Yeah. Yeah. What do you feel is the most dangerous misconception about grief that you just wish people would stop repeating over and over again?

SPEAKER_00 37:19

Well, I've been to a lot of grief groups. So we've been to Compassionate Friends, which is a great one. We've been to Lit Love in the Trenches, another fabulous one for people who've lost their kid to addiction. We have been to Grief Share, There's Grasp, which is also good. And we went to a grief retreat in Sweden, which was amazing. I think that a lot of people get stuck in in what I would call the second trimester where you curl up are at home and you're just in the fatal position. Yeah, and the the world is go passing by. And you feel like there is this thing in grief where you feel guilty for for living when they aren't. I definitely feel that way sometimes. And I think in grief groups, I've seen people who are really in that in that stuck place, and maybe that's where they need to be. And I'm not judging. Recently, we went to a group where there was a woman who she showed up and she was fine. She was giving everybody hugs. And in the middle of it, she kind of slumped over, and then pretty soon she was on the ground. And I I I've seen that before. I know she took a benzodiazepine. I've seen it in my own son. I watched it happen, and you know, if you're gonna overdose, there's probably the best place to do it, is in a group full of moms and dads who lost a kid to addiction because we're gonna take care of you. And I get that feeling of like, hey, I don't want to go on if he can't be here.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:05

But I think we're all here for something else, right? Like you are here to give this message of that life's beautiful and that it doesn't have to be this perfect Instagram picture that you can be real, like we can kind of let go of ego and see each other as real human people. And maybe that's the best thing that's come out of grief is not trying to be anything that I'm not and just trying to see one another

Poetry Presence And Permission To Live

SPEAKER_00 39:40

as real. Yeah. I think that's the most important thing that we are humans who need one another. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 39:49

Absolutely. You know, I'm so glad the academy that we set up, I've already I've just shy of offering out. We just hit almost 600 uh scholarships and over a third are for people gone through addiction.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

That is so awesome. I need to look into that.

SPEAKER_01 40:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:06

So be really happy.

SPEAKER_01 40:07

Yes. We we, you know, I and the thing is is that these courses, you know, have been valued at hundreds of dollars, but I don't think that somebody's financial status should warrant whether or not they get their healing, right? And so a lot of classes are free. Some of them are like $5 because I'm trying to cover the cost of the platforms.

SPEAKER_02 40:25

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 40:26

And I have some people who do donations for, and then those donations help me cover all the cost of the platforms. I've never taken a paycheck, but it it goes straight into this. And it's just a a little more than a third of the almost 600 in the last few months have been for people going through addiction recovery.

SPEAKER_00 40:43

And I love that. And the thing is, this is that in my opinion, and I am really interested in hearing yours, is that you're planning seats, right? Like I used to always with Nicholas, like, think like this is gonna be it, we're we're moving on, he's free of it, we've gone on. But in reality, really, you're just it's baby steps, right? And even if like only one percent of those get clean the next day, who knows what's gonna happen in 10 years, right? And who knows for those kids who have taken it, what effects that will have on their family too. Right. So that's just a beautiful thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:22

It is, absolutely, absolutely. And I'm also trying to work with law enforcement to help them realize that when they do respond to these scenes, that maybe, you know, a different approach, because they're not trained that way. They're absolutely not trained that way. And when you go to the scene, you know, it's immediate like, oh, that they're a threat and you've got to handcuff them and you're exacerbating, you are escalating this way where than you have to. And you can just carry a conversation and treat someone like a human being because everybody has bad days. It's like when an abuser, you know, just belittles and degrades a child because that child's having a bad day. But how come they can't have a bad day and you can have a bad day, right? That we're all human. But when you go to these scenes and and you're like, oh, there's an overdose, you immediately go in there with this judgment and you don't even know the situation. And they need to go in there with better training and better purpose and more understanding, and not just for the individual, but for the family. I mean, I go on a lot of calls. Do you really advocate? I do. I advocate and I even go to court. I go to court and help.

SPEAKER_02 42:25

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 42:25

Thank you. And I go to court and I help even the addicts because I don't say that they're, I hate that word, but it's like I go in there and help them find their purpose. I help them get back on their feet, I help them find jobs, I'll write letters of recommendation. And it's like you don't need to see this person as a medical discharge file. You need to see this person for who they are, not what happened to them. And I'm gonna bring that to light. I'm gonna show you that this is a beautiful person who had a really unfortunate circumstance. And I'm gonna help show this person that when they even say, like, I don't have that light anymore, you know, I go on scene when somebody's like, I just don't want to be here anymore. And the first thing I'll ask him is, do you have that little flicker of light still within you? You have a little hope, right? And they'll say, Yeah, but I just, I'm just done. See that bottle over there? And I'll say, you know what? That little tiny flicker of light can start a wildfire. And I'm gonna show you how. I'm gonna help you out. Just let's talk. And even if it's just sitting in the room and listening and not opening your mouth, they're feeling heard, which they're not used to.

SPEAKER_02 43:26

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 43:27

They're feeling heard, and it's so important. It is so important to let them feel valued and heard because one thing I have learned is that they feel like they don't matter. They feel like, oh, that's just another, I'm just gonna pop another pill because I don't want to be a bother. I'm somebody's bother, you know, like people look at me like I don't matter anymore because for whatever reason I'm where I am today. You're where you are today, but I want to help you get to where you belong tomorrow. I want to help you get to where you belong because this isn't your fault. Yeah. And we can help. We can help. And if it's one person, that's one more than there was before.

SPEAKER_00 44:03

Yeah. And that's just so much shame in it. There's so much shame in it. Just because the chaos, like Nicholas ended up stealing from us. He had numerous DUIs. He had his car was just like every day there was another ding in it. And his car was like his pride and joy. It was like it just you could just tell that everything that he held important to him, this drug was just taking away from him.

SPEAKER_01 44:33

Right. You know, I did, I said one time in court, a specific case, the judge was just so adamant. And I was like, Your Honor, I'm begging for a continuance. And I and I'm not a lawyer. And I was like, I'm his advocate. I'm his medical power of attorney. I am the family's advocate. And I was like, here's what I'm asking. And I was like, what you're seeing right now is not XYZ. It's not Joey Bag of Donuts. What you see right now is Oxycodon. And that is his Oxy is his first name, Codon's his last name. I'm asking you to give me three weeks and then meet Joey Baggy Donuts, who is a completely different person. Because that's like somebody coming in and stealing something. What you're you're seeing is Oxy. You're not seeing Joey Bag of Donuts. Please, just it's not going to offend you. If nothing's going to happen to you, let me bring in Joey Baggy Donuts for you to see who this beautiful person is. This is not his fault. Let's give him a chance. Don't just throw him as a statistic. He's not a statistic. This is somebody's son. This is somebody's brother. This is somebody's husband or child or, you know, just give him a chance. Don't throw him into the system and say to heck with you. And then watch how this is going to downspiral because somebody needs to believe in them and nobody does anymore. I do. And I am going to be here front and center and I'm going to help, please. And it's like, I'm not asking for anything more. The court's time. You're still going to have court cases on the docket. Just give me three weeks, you know, give me enough time for him to detox and for him to get out of that, you know, that that plethora of emotion that he's going to go through justifiably. And then let him come back and let you see who he really is before you. He did. And he was like, Wow, you know, I'm so stunned because you actually came back. He goes, I really thought you were going to bring back Oxy Codon. And he remembered how I introduced him. And I was like, no. I said he's a little on the shy side, but he's a good person. He was a straight-A student before. He was a member of FBA, you know, like all of these things. It's not his fault. You know, let's give them a chance. He's not a murderer. He's not a rapist. He is somebody who fell in the cracks of a doctor who said, I'll see you for three minutes. I'm running the mill of kickbacks and you know insurance. And to me, I don't remember your name if I don't look at the file.

SPEAKER_02 46:47

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Right? Something you said that was really interesting to me is I don't know if you ever do EMDR with your people or if you like EMDR.

unknown 46:56

I do.

SPEAKER_00 46:57

It's like eye movement, rapid desensitation, something like that. But something that was a real big trigger for me was something that you had said is when the police found Nicholas, because we had to do we called the police and said, Could you do a check on him? A wellness check. Yeah. Yeah. And they the police called me and was like, I don't smell anything under the door, so he's probably fine. It was just awful. But and then it's so disappointed. I know.

SPEAKER_01 47:26

I know.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

But they ended up finding him. They ended up not calling us back for hours. Finally, my husband went and found the police there. It was just terrible for us. It didn't go well for us. So um I've spent a lot of money on therapy for that because I it it brought up so much shame of that. That was my son.

Seeing People Not Case Numbers

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Was he treated kindly? He was there at the last moments. Did somebody uh hug him? Did somebody tell him he was loved? It just like it was just kind of everything there. And so I don't know. I think that it would be beautiful if if more police realized, I don't know, maybe they thought he was a great kid. I thought he was a great kid, but I really worried that he was just a number, he was laying there alone, and he wasn't treated with respect. That's how I in my imagination it it happened.

SPEAKER_01 48:25

And see, the irony of is before I was even abused, my my husband now was a former law enforcement officer, and I actually was an instructor in law enforcement. And I would go in and teach people, just in general, long before any of this happened, that when you go to a scene of a situation, because they have what's called Hell Week and Officer Survival Week that they have to go through scenarios and stuff. And I would say to them, I mean, I want you to imagine going into a call. You don't know what it is. The number one most dangerous call for a police officer is domestic violence, right? And it's a he said, she said, and immediately it's oh, I know you, don't worry, I'm gonna turn a blind eye.

SPEAKER_02 48:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

What if you just close your eyes for a minute before you open that door? And I used to say this all the time, and imagine that that's your daughter. I guarantee you'll handle it differently. Right? Yeah. If you go to someone and they say, My son is autistic, and this is how you need to talk to him, instead of immediately tasing him because you're like, he's just throwing his arms up and stuff, why don't you just listen to the people around you who are like, Look, I'm telling you, let me talk to him, let me be in the room with you. I won't be a threat. I'm not a threat. I'll stand in your peripheral vision, whatever it is. But utilize what's around you. Don't just go in there and be like, oh, automatically, because imagine that it's your family member when you respond to these calls. Imagine that that's your daughter, right? And then imagine that it's your son who just hit your daughter. And instead of just being like, dude, I know you're on the job or whatever, just calm down, you know, go for a drive. Imagine that that's your son, or imagine that that was your daughter who just got hit, right? And I don't think that they go into these situations anymore with open eyes. I think that they're so quick. Like when you said, you know, we asked them to go do a wellness check, I immediately thought they did not give him respect immediately because they don't they did.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

I know, and I hope they did, yeah. I absolutely hope they did.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

But I'm probably telling you, and I don't want to say this because I think you're just a beautiful person. I don't think that they did because they just go in there and it's like, oh, I gotta wait now for this person and this person, and then they have to go out of service while they're waiting on these other agencies or other individuals to come to the scene. And then you have to like, is it a crime scene? Is it this? Is it that? You know, and do we have to look for things? And and some, you know, officers are great. Some are like, great, I'm out of service the rest of the day, or you know, whatever the case may be. It's not a service call. And I wish they would wake up and see that. It's a human being, it's someone's son, it's someone's life, it's their child. Act like it, right? Don't act like it's just a call on the computer that you're responding to. And that is such a huge, that is one of my big pet peeves. I hate that. Treat people the way you want to be treated. What if that was you? You know, you know, you got hurt on the job.

SPEAKER_00 51:07

That could be you. So don't act like that. And maybe call the mom and say, Hey, which they didn't. Like we were we kept calling and calling and calling, but it would it's I really wish that they would have said, Hey, this is your last time to say goodbye. I would have shown all the I and because I had didn't have the wherewithal, like um, but it's easy to point fingers and and being all day long, yeah. Yeah, yeah. But I wish, I wish that they would have said, Hey, it's terrible, and it's gonna be a hard day for you, the worst day of your life. But you you might want to come in and give them a hug. I would have loved that.

SPEAKER_01 51:49

Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. Oh yeah. Tell everybody how they can find you and get a hold of you and read your books and okay, so

Books Website And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 52:00

heavy topic.

SPEAKER_00 52:01

So I have a website, it's katyrizzo.com, so k-a-t-i-e-ri-z-z-o.com, and there you'll find I have two books coming out. I have one, it's called The Trimesters of Grief, and it's part memoir. That's June 16th, right? So June 2nd, it's coming out and then for pre-orders, and then October 6th, it will be out wherever you find books. And then my book of poetry, which is called None of Them Are You, is coming out October 31st. But you can go to krizzo.com and you'll get updates, and I have a blog there too.

SPEAKER_01 52:40

So promise me you'll come back.

SPEAKER_00 52:42

Oh, I would love it. I would really love it.

SPEAKER_01 52:45

I would love that so much. I thank you so much for being here and just using your voice. And I know that Nicholas is proud of you. You've just been so amazing and such a light. And I thank you so much for for being with us.

SPEAKER_00 52:59

Thank you for your voice too.

SPEAKER_01 53:01

Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 53:03

Yeah. Thanks.