Latest / 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before. / When You Lose a Child... You Don't Lose the Love: Katie & Nick Rizzo | Episode 19

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When You Lose a Child... You Don't Lose the Love: Katie & Nick Rizzo | Episode 19 · 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before.

• Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Most people think resilience is about overcoming adversity, but what happens when there's nothing to overcome? What happens when the future you imagine disappears? How do you rebuild when the person you love isn't coming back? Our guests today know that reality firsthand. Katie and Nick Rizzo lost their son Nicholas at the age of 25. What followed wasn't a journey around grief, it was a journey through it. Today we're talking about love, addiction, loss, marriage, healing, hope, and the surprising ways a relationship can continue even after death. This is Katie and Nick Rizzo's story, and this is Rebuild and Fulfill. Welcome back to Rebuild and Fulfill, where we have real conversations about life's toughest challenges and what it takes to rebuild, recover, and move forward. Today we're joined by Katie Rizzo, author of the upcoming memoir, The Trimesters of Grief, and her husband Nick. Together they experienced every parent's worst nightmare: the loss of their son Nicholas after a long battle with addiction. What makes their story so powerful? ⁓ Isn't simply what they lost, it's how they've chosen to continue living, loving, healing, and helping others after that loss. Katie's memoir offers a deeply personal look into grief, identity, hope, and the ongoing relationship we can have with those we love even after they're gone. Katie, Nick, welcome to Rebuild and Fulfill. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Thanks, I'm glad to be here. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Thank you. Before we talk about addiction, grief, or loss, let's talk about Nicholas. So who was he and what do you want people to know about him? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Do you want to take that? Okay, I hope you chime in. So Nicholas was the eldest of three boys. I think that was really important to him. He loved being a big brother. He ⁓ loved soccer. of our favorite memories of him are watching him on the soccer field. I think he was kind of a nervous kid and he found an outlet for ⁓ being feeling free, I think, on the soccer pitch. ⁓ We have some really good memories of just watching him kind of just live in the moment and realizing that just how hard it was for him in real life sometimes, just because I think he had a lot of anxiety. ⁓ He wasn't the best student in the world, but he wasn't the worst. I think he was really interested in what people thought about him. In high school, he... was voted the prom king. And he was so embarrassed and like mad that he had to do it because he was worried it was, he was worried that it was like a joke or something and it wasn't. I don't know, he, his mind was his own worst enemy. So yeah. What about you? What are you? Yeah, I mean, we... We have a lot of pictures up around the house and some little videos and just before the last few years, I'm just reminded of what an active kid he was. Loved, know, even from the age of one, we had this Johnny jump up thing that hangs in a doorway and the baby can bounce up and down. And I remember we would put him in there and he was maniacal. He would just bounce and bounce and bounce and bounce and bounce. And then we got a trampoline and he always just loved to be active and jumping. And we have videos from the beach where we buried an exercise ball and he and his brothers would run and jump and bounce off the exercise ball with his cousin and they would do flips and stuff. So really enjoyed the physical aspects and probably in part because as he got older, You know, even when he was young, he was nervous, but once you get into your teen years, ⁓ you know, he was, he was, didn't want to stand out. He was very insecure and everybody's kind of that way. But I think with Nicholas, it was more than that. And we worked on it. You know, we tried to have him talk to people. And of course, you know, in hindsight, we're, always like, ⁓ well, obviously, you know, we should have done more. It was a lot, lot worse. So that's something that we've had to manage that I think all parents who've lost someone have to fight. thinking about regrets. But yeah, just a fun kind of wild kid and a little bit reckless. We've also seen that from other people we've met who've had similar, whose children have had similar problems with drugs and alcohol. There's a component, the anxiety is very common and then also a little bit of recklessness, a little bit of stubbornness too. We fought many times over him wanting to do the same thing until the answer was yes. But in general, he was a great kid and obviously we loved him very much and it's really awful ⁓ to have the most recent years be not good. And so we try and think about the years before things went so wrong. Unfortunately, those are further back, but you know, the pictures help. Initially, I didn't like them. Kate's a big picture person. And so she likes them up all over the house. But I think for the first year or two, it would get me too upset. So I kind of try and avoid looking at it. But now I'm able to kind of look with more distance and it's been, what's it been, two years? Two years? Almost two years. So yeah, so. But yeah, great soccer player. Some of our best memories are him out there on the pitch. And I remember I wrote him a letter when he was a senior and I said, thought that those were the times when you could just see he could leave his anxiety behind and he could just run like the wind and just, you know, leave, leave his cares and really just perform to the best of his abilities. So those are enjoyable as a parent. And of course we were codependent and wanted him to. do really well like most parents and we're quite crazy soccer parents but you get the idea so Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, so I will say this. I have three boys of my own, and they have had their own issues. And what I will tell you for whatever it's worth, and I'm sure a lot of people have told you this, so just add me to the list. What you're describing about your son, the the reckless behavior, some things where he feels more at home than in other places, feeling awkward in some social situations, you just about described every teenage boy that I've ever Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: So for what that's worth. So it's it's hard to know when they're truly struggling versus when they're just being a teenager and all teenagers struggle with stuff. So which that which that's gonna actually lead me to my to my next question. So at at what point did you realize that Nicholas was facing something bigger than the typical struggles of a young adult? And how differently did each of you experience that journey as parents? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. Yeah. That's a complicated question. You want me to take it? Yeah, go ahead. OK. I think that in hindsight, we were very naive. ⁓ But Nicholas kept getting hurt in soccer, and he kept getting put on painkillers. ⁓ I That should have been some pretty big red flags to us. think when I first realized things were bad was Nick went to, Nicholas went to CMU. for D2, for on a D2 scholar college scholarship and Nick went down because Nicholas hurt his elbow and they were saying to me, the doctor and Nick were saying that there wasn't enough painkiller that they kept giving Nicholas more and more and it wasn't even touching the pain. That should have been a huge red flag to me that he was using. We had a number of incidents and, you know, again, it's behind sight to do, to think we could have done anything differently, but for the sake of other people out there, There were a number of drug incidents. One, he went away to college, basically. That's when he, in high school, you know, we found bongs in his room and, you know, threw him out and yelled at him. It was only weed as far as we knew. ⁓ When he went away to school, it was okay for the first year or two, but then his grades were kind of questionable. He stopped doing as well on the team. And, you know, he called us one night saying there were people outside the house and just fantastical stories. And we're like, okay, what's going on? So, you there were some incidents and there were other incidents ⁓ of drug use or alcohol use around family where we were trying to convince him that he had a problem. tried and, you know, we got, became part of Al-Anon and that encouraged us to kind of They don't tell you to do anything, but it's natural to say, okay, boundaries are important. And so we started modifying how we were treating him because we realized that this, this is a problem. ⁓ and he went, you know, went to rehab two, three times ⁓ kicked out because he wasn't cooperative. he wasn't participating. wasn't, yeah, he wasn't participating. He never, he didn't get to the point and maybe we'll. get to this later where he was still in the, don't have a problem. I'm here because of my parents forced me to that kind of thing. So I think we, we realized, I mean, we would have been idiots not to realize it. I mean, he ended up graduating, the DUI, you know, multiple DUIs, withdrawal symptoms one time, we checked them into rehab, other evidence of pills. mean, it was by the, later years, it was obvious. We couldn't have ignored it. We kick ourselves saying like, ⁓ man, why didn't we do something sooner? But that's only natural. But you don't ever think like, ⁓ wow, this is gonna go horribly wrong. For the second part of his question, do you wanna start that? What was that? Like how did you handle it as a man versus me as a woman, like noticing it? Wasn't that the second part? Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean and not man versus woman, just you know, Nick versus Katie. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: I think it was easier for me to kind of put distance between myself and Nicholas and be kind of the grumpy dad. Kate and Nicholas would love, she would run up to her bedroom and hide when Nicholas would come over high, which he would do a lot and we would tell him not to. Well, first we kicked him out because he was living here and we're like, if you're not going to be sober, you can't live here. And then, you know, when he would come back, he would just want to talk and talk and talk. He'd stand in the doorway of our bedroom with Kate laying in the bed and they would just argue forever. Nicholas thinking, Hey, I can talk my way out of this, you know? And I wouldn't do that. I'm like, dude, I'm not going to engage with you. So we handled it differently. Kate was definitely more like still mothering and wanted to talk to him. I would not that it's better. It's just different. I would just probably get. more angry, you know, he'd come to me and be like, dad, what should I do? And my answer was always stop using drugs. And then he would say, I'm not using drugs. He never would admit it, which I found so frustrating. But of course that's the addict, right? I mean, then you could catch them with it in their hands. They're going to say they're not using drugs. Like it's not logic. Their brain is different. So that was a big difference between us was how we engaged. And then I would say, And you know, because mothers and fathers feel a different level of closeness to their kids for sure. And I've seen that with Kate, because, know, he was part of her So think the bond is is a little stronger, but that also made it. A little easier for me, when we did start putting up even stronger boundaries, like there was stealing involved, which is very common. ⁓ I ended up calling the police ⁓ on him I don't think Kate wanted or could have done that. That's like a dad thing where, at least in our relationship, where it's like, nope, we've ignored the stealing long enough. We got to get the police involved, which we didn't want to do, but. I think it helped. That wasn't why everything went horribly wrong, but, ⁓ just, those are examples ⁓ of how I we handled it a little bit differently It wasn't my first instinct to reach out further when I would see him high or, ⁓ yeah, wanting to discuss. So Kate, can. I think we covered it. That was pretty good. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's it's just so hard as a parent to know when tough love is the right approach versus, going back to the the nurturing and understanding and reasoning and ⁓ it man, the parent of a teenager or a young adult, it's really freaking hard. ⁓ You know, ⁓ and I mean can only imagine adding addiction to that because I I certainly have dealt with that with with my boys, thank God. But I mean, it still has not been an easy road for me. I can only imagine dealing with addiction. And that was actually you guys kind of half answered another one of my question where I was just gonna ⁓ ask you, how parents continue believing things can get better while also facing the reality of addiction? And you kind of touched on that, but if you have anything else to add to that. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: think something that is important to know is that we don't really have the answer yet, right? Like I think in society, what we're doing is we're saying, you know, if you're addicted, you've got to, you know, pull yourself out of it. You've got to hit your bottom and you got to get better. And that's not really dealing with the issue, right? Because, I mean, I think at the end, Nicholas was doing benzodiazepines and opioids and he couldn't just come off of it. And when he did, He ended up having bleeding on the brain and his brain just was like not doing well. He also had rhabdomyolysis, which is where your body starts absorbing its own muscles. And after that, like he ended up going to rehab, but you know, rehabs are not a hundred percent. In fact, for opioids, I think the statistic is they're 70 to 90 % effective. So if you're spending, let's say $60,000. Ineffective, sorry. It's a low percentage. So if you're $60,000 to $90,000 and you're probably not going to get sober or clean, I don't know. It's like, we're setting kids up for not to be successful and to be filled with shame and isolation. We're searching, we're still searching for a better, I mean, the probably what the only benefit in thinking about what happened and what could have been done differently is to think about how we or the system was not set up to help Nicholas. Cause there were moments, you know, there's a phrase inches in seconds and it could have gone either way. And we could think of a few where, you know, he ended up in the ER, he ended up in the hospital. The doctors had very little clue about addiction and, you know, it was very much like, Hey, he's breathing. His vitals are stable. Get him out of here. And we're like, he doesn't know where he is. He doesn't know our names. How can you discharge them from the ER? Like those kinds of incidents. So the overall health system isn't well set up. Kate alluded to the recovery centers. You know, the, joke there is, you know, when people say, ⁓ you're, you're in rehab. It's like, which time, how many times? And usually they assume it takes three to five times before, you know, they might fully recover, but they don't tell you that when they check you in. So that's something that we learned the hard way was don't expect, there's no magic bullet. And everybody, I'm sure has a really strong opinion on how they could solve the problem when it's not in their own family. And once it's in your own family, and in our case went horribly wrong, you know, have a lot more sympathy and maybe empathy for, for not just families that have had this happen, but also the drug user. Like Kate and I think about quite a bit how awful it must've been when Nicholas, his brain changed significantly. Like he was not the same kid when he was under near the end when he was using a lot of drugs. you know, lot of stuff he said, anger, just general behavior. And no one would think that you're of your right mind when you're under the influence like that. And now we're asking them, hey, snap yourself out of it. And their brain isn't working right. You know, it's like, okay, well, you wouldn't ask someone who's high or drunk to like do a logic test, but that's kind of like what we felt like we were asking them to do. And when he was in the last rehab, they were allowing them to go to the local pot shop and they said, it's fine. The owner of the pot shop ⁓ understands they can't smoke pot, but they can have nicotine. And I think at that time they were giving, he was allowed to take kratom. And the reason I think that is afterwards they were saying, ⁓ he's disassociating. He's not really himself. And I was like, Nicholas has never disassociated. it ended up getting him kicked out because they said they were uncomfortable with him driving. said that although he was testing negative for any drugs, he seemed like he wasn't in his right mind and they didn't feel comfortable with him driving there. So he got kicked out. It's like, I don't know. just, the system is not set up for anyone to win except for rehab companies and pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. So my my co-host Marc and actually the reason he isn't here is because they had so many intakes that he just couldn't get out at his normally scheduled time, which is supposed to be four o'clock, and we're we're at six thirty right now. So and that happens to him quite often. he often talks about the fact that When families, and this is kind of gonna get into my next question around the idea of of shame, ⁓ and you know, families ⁓ when ⁓ a cancer diagnosis ⁓ and whole family finds out, you know, your your sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, whatever, you know, they find out it's like they rally around a person. When it comes to finding out that someone has a drug addiction, it's almost like they scatter. Number one, because of the shame of it, and number two Because no one knows what to do. Cancer, there are drugs that are either gonna work or they're not gonna work. It kind of depends on what stage you're at. Everyone who struggles with addiction, and this is just what I've learned, and mostly through Marc, is they're just so different. I mean, Marc has been six years sober, actually next month, ⁓ ⁓ but he went through rehab, I believe, I it was somewhere in that five to seven range before it finally took. And part of why he does what he does now is because the only thing that finally got him to see reason was a gentleman that was a peer coach that had gone through a heroin addiction himself ⁓ got the other side. Marc didn't want to listen to a therapist tell him a bunch of book jargon that was way over his head that they And I'm not to say anything negative about therapy, it's just some people. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Mm. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: just relate better to people who have gone through a similar struggle to what they have, rather than people who've read a lot of books, have a lot of knowledge on it, but not a lot of experience with it themselves. And so I just think that people go through the struggle so differently, one person versus another. you they told you, what is it, know, the three to five times on average. All they can do is take an average. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Because everyone's different. it's just unfortunate that your son was using something that coming off of it had a very bad adverse reaction because we don't know how long it would have taken. It's it's extremely unfortunate. ⁓ But ⁓ was privileged to have gotten a bit of a an advanced ⁓ transcript copy of Katie's book. And so I looked that over ⁓ and It it's interesting how it's Katie's book, but there's obviously, you know, interactions between Katie and Nick as a couple, dealing with this. ⁓ And so you guys kind of speak about shame in in different ways. ⁓ how much of the battle becomes not just the addiction itself, but the shame surrounding it? So for the person struggling or the family that loves them, what what would you say to someone ⁓ that's dealing with that shame factor. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: ⁓ After Nicholas left, it was really important to us, especially to me, but I think to you too, that ⁓ we put in his obituary what he passed away from because I feel like our family spent so much time trying to hide it or to not acknowledge it or to let people know like, we've got this, like we're handling it and wanting to put on a good face for everybody. That it was really important to me that people would see it and know like, hey, You know, we, we failed at this. Kate tells everybody. She tells our exercise instructor. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And part of it is because she, yeah, she wants to fight that. It's time that we, it's time that we changed. Like when Nicholas died, I was so embarrassed. was like, everybody's going to know I'm a terrible mom. I didn't do a good job of raising him. I left a pill sized hole in him. ⁓ And we had spent so much of our energy hiding it. Addiction is a disease of isolation and Nick and I definitely tried not to let people know. Christmas and Thanksgiving and stuff, we'd try to manage Nicholas and be like, you gotta get clean, you can't come to Christmas ⁓ with the other family members because when he did, it was just complete chaos. Well, part of that was also just the boundary of saying, you're not, if you can't stay sober, you can't participate. And he still, it would hurt him to say it, but we would say you're choosing drugs over coming to family. And he would say, I'm not, family's important. And he believed that, but he, you know, that part of his brain that couldn't stop using those drugs. It's just. But I think, I think I was this high school teacher. had. high school where Nicholas went and our other two boys went and it was really important to me kind of to see myself as you know we have the perfect great life you know we've got three great kids they're all kind of sporty and we've got a great marriage everything's fine and when things started to collapse underneath Nicholas I took it really personally and I didn't want people to know there's a time where Nicholas crashed his truck into a pole And ⁓ Nick and I just, you know, was a DUI to be clear. Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: So one one thing I do want to point out is you're you're pretending that you had three great kids and and a great marriage. That wasn't pretend. You had three great kids. Okay. You you had you had two two kids that didn't have an illness and one that did. But that but you you had three great kids. So don't don't don't lose don't lose that. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: I even know. Yeah. It's more when you hear people, they'll say, oh, they'll talk about your other kids or hear people talk about their kids or they ask about other people's kids and they'll say, oh, you did such a great job raising them. They're such a great kid. And it's like, what, so we fucked up as parents? Like, I thought we did job. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: No, I mean no, it's funny though. It's funny though, 'cause you should you should have said to them, You're like you're like, Yeah, we really only tried with the two 'cause obviously they turned out fine and the other one I mean, right? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah, I mean, people will think that, you know, they'll probably whisper it. Yeah, there's some time for that. It's like, well, yeah, it's not because we abused him. mean, well, you know, that's not the origin. so I think there's shame as part of that is because there is a stigma attached to when someone dies of a drug addiction. They don't think, ⁓ well, they had mental issues or you know, why didn't their parents do something? They just don't know until you get into it. And we didn't know either. You know, we had to go to Al-Anon before we were like, you know, you can't control the behavior ⁓ of your son or daughter who's dealing with drug addiction. And we were definitely trying to do that. Our youngest son is in Columbia. And when I took him to his first weeks of school, they had ⁓ a ceremony and they're like, congratulations, parents, you did it. And I wanted to say, well, if we did it for Joey, what happened with Nicholas, right? Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean it's so what what Marc often says, and I find it to to be true even with the the the coaching background that I have. So with him, I mean most of his coaching experience ⁓ along with sobriety. ⁓ for me, ⁓ as a coach, I've got thirty years as a fitness coach. And so most of the people that I've I've worked with have had eating addictions. And they come came to me because they wanted to lose weight. And as Marc and I both say, an addiction is addiction. And you could have a shopping addiction, you could have a gambling addiction, you could have a drug addiction, you could have an eating addiction, know, you could have a sex addiction. I mean, so the addiction's an addiction, but behind just about every addiction is some underlying mental health issue. And it starts with that. So that's further to the point that your son had an illness. And He he just couldn't get the right tri treatment that could work for him either in time or that didn't end up killing him. But it's it was an illness. It wasn't it wasn't bad parenting. Like like we said, if it was bad parenting, you would have had three kids that went down that path, not just one. So so I I do want to talk about the way that your book starts. So your your book begins with what became your final conversation with Nicholas. So looking back now, what stands out the most to you about that day? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: ⁓ I think what stands out the most to me is just my inability to see what was going on. As a parent, you just want your kid to be okay. And when they're giving tiny glimpses of I'm okay, but then they're doing crazy, I just kept honing in on the okayness. So yeah, Nicholas was ⁓ calling and asking for money. ostensibly for one thing, and I should have known that I was being fooled. And I think that that's what ended up hurting him in the end. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Nick, what do you remember most about those final hours before your whole world changed? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Okay. ⁓ yeah, I have to be careful talking about it. Otherwise I'll get upset. But he Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: There's there's no such thing as a question that you're required to answer. We can we can move on if you want. It's totally up to you. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: I'll just talk a little bit about it. I'll stay away from the day out. he texted us. We were in Aspen where Kate's sister and dad live. And he texted us on a Friday and said, I can't talk about Friday either, but basically he said, ⁓ don't call. Like on Wednesday, he said, call the rehab place for some reason. And we were like, okay, whatever. You're an adult. He's 25. And the rehab place is like, why are you calling? Don't call. know, we wanted to know is Nicholas kicked out. I think he was worried he was going to get kicked out. And somehow they tried to tell me that he was very close to getting kicked out, but they didn't say definitely. But on the other hand, with like HIPAA BS, they didn't want to go into it. So fine. I was like, well, I mean, they didn't want to talk to me, Nicholas. So he texted me Friday and was like, do not call them again. And everything's great. ⁓ And, you know, sorry. I think I'm sure I still have the text in my phone. ⁓ I was like, okay, well, I this is good, a little strange. And then we get back. And that Sunday morning I go, I'm at a Sunday morning meditation with a guy who was a former addict who got himself sober and Nicholas calls at seven in the morning. And I'm like, okay, this is weird. And you know, that's the other thing. When you have a child who's an addict, anytime you get a phone call, it's like, you're listening, like, are they high? Why is he really calling? Well, great, you called, I love you. that's when you said, what should you say to them? That was one thing that I wish I would have said more of when he said, what should I do? know, Kate would say it a lot and I said it a lot less was just, love you and we want you to get better. We did say things like that. Anyhow, he called and I said, I'm busy. Can I call you back? And that was the last I heard from him. And then he was found the following. When he'd been kicked out. And so he was like, great. I have a free pass to go use drugs again. And that's apparently often, I just wanted people to know, apparently that's a common way of overdoses when they haven't used, cause he was being drug tested in rehab when they haven't used for an extended period of time. And then they go back to it with the same dose. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, they don't ⁓ they don't have the tolerance anymore. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. I mean, he, he had other health issues at that point anyways. He had been really using hard. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: If you if you would have talked to him longer, would it really have made a difference? know, there's no way there's no way of knowing. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: He was calling to talk his way out of getting in trouble for getting kicked out because we didn't know yet and that's the hindsight. They'll say, well, if you had something else you could say to him, I would just say that I loved him. I would want to tell him that. Rather than getting so angry, which I would get pissed because I'm like, why can't you stop using drugs? And of course I know the reason. I've grown up with addiction. I've experienced it myself. And I know how your brain can get. Anyhow, puts her emotions into her poetry and it's helped her a lot, but I haven't talked about it as much. So. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. But I but the thing is, even the kids that are angry at you because you're not giving them what they want they know that that anger that you have and that frustration you have comes from a place of love. Otherwise they couldn't upset you that way. So they're actually in most cases using that love against you because ⁓ if they get you, so where then you're like, ⁓ and by not giving them what they want, am I does Is that making me a bad parent? They're using that love against you. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: One thing I didn't want to say about the shame aspect and Kate saying how we got it out there. He had a lot of people come to his funeral and maybe in part because we made it known that he died of a drug overdose. But you he had a lot of friends. He was a pretty popular kid. But Max and Joey, his brothers got to speak at the end of mass. It was a Catholic funeral. And I still remember Max. I think one of the first things he said when he got up to speak, said, Nick was a drug addict. during the service and everybody there, if they didn't know it, they knew it then. But it was good for people to know that as a family, we're not hiding that and we're not ashamed of it. And he struggled with addiction and it's not something that you need to hide. fact, people came up afterwards and then one of his soccer friends who he idolized was like, I'm a recovering addict too, if only I would have known. Anyhow, that was what I was thinking of, would just support Kate's comment about how we definitely made it very well known, the problem that he had. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: That's actually what made Marc come forward like in a big way for the first time he already in recovery. I think he was maybe two into his recovery, ⁓ and ⁓ visited cousin that was on her deathbed from addiction and overdose, and she had just whittled her body away and her liver was failing, and they're like, you want to say goodbye, you better get here. ⁓ And he went there. And they had a conversation and she said, I had no idea you were struggling. And he said, I didn't know you were struggling. And that's when he decided if he was having conversations with his family about his addiction and conversations and they were open about her addiction that maybe he could have helped her. And that's the next day he got on Facebook and he started making posts about his sobriety and That's actually what sparked Suffer To Tougher. He came up with the name before him and I started working together, but that's what sparked the whole thing was saying, you know what? If as a family we were talking about this instead of being ashamed of it, then we possibly could have prevented someone in our family from dying. that's kind of what you guys are doing now to say we're we're not ashamed of it. And we're going to talk about it because it's going to help some other people. And that's That's what guys are doing. And I think it's it's a beautiful thing and it's it's not easy to have these conversations, obviously, but you can rest assured it's gonna be helping a lot of people. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Hope so. Let's hope so. Something we heard at a grief group. So we've joined a bunch of grief groups, but at one of them, there was a mom there who said that addicts come from families that love them. And I had never heard that before. And I was just floored. It just felt like, it just felt really good to hear. was like, yeah, they do. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah. So speaking of kind of weird things to hear that you're like, yeah, that makes sense. Let let's talk about your book title. So the trimesters of grief ⁓ is the title of your book. And I read a little bit about where that title comes from, but I'm sure people would love to hear a little bit about that. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. ⁓ Okay, so ⁓ I don't want me to talk about trimesters because I have a lot of experience. No, that's that's Kate's thing. So I it felt like kind of a cruel irony that I felt the same feelings that I did when I was pregnant in each trimester. And ⁓ when after he passed immediately, I just started a journal, which I had never done before. And some of it was because I was floored at the things people were saying. They'd say, ⁓ his obituary is going live, or the mortuary called and was like, you can come and pick him up. And I would be like, I've got to write this down because it's just not making any sense to me. But I started writing things down. was like, this first period, I was nauseous. ⁓ My head felt like it was going to explode. I couldn't think. no words could come into my mouth. Like I'd be like, what word is that? ⁓ floor. That's the word for that. I just, it was exactly like my first trimester. And then the second trimester ⁓ was when everybody kind of was going on with their lives. Nick went back to work. No offense. I forgive you because you brought home lots of money, but, but everybody moved on and I was. growing this thing and I think of grief as something I grew. It's part Nicholas and part me, kind of like you make a placenta. so during that second trimester, I spent a lot of time in bed, wrapped up in his dirty laundry and just smelling him. And it felt very reminiscent of when I had the second trimester with each of my kids. And then the third trimester is when you're showing and obviously you're not gonna be showing with grief. But I started telling everyone, as Nick said, I told everybody that we worked out with. And if I went to the grocery store and they'd say, how are you doing? And I could tell like maybe they're open. Let's say, I'm not great. My son passed away from his addiction. People on the phone, like if you have to have a telemarket or something, they ⁓ end up hearing a little bit of Nicholas's story. It was just. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: They deserve to hear it. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. We call that dropping the bomb. That's where like, Kate, drop the bomb on them. Then they don't know what to say. Well, I try to be like, hey, if this feels like something that is space where if you're asking, how am I doing? And you've asked it a few times, like, ⁓ really? Like, how are your kids or whatever? I'm like, ⁓ well, you know, we just lost one. ⁓ And so then that grief was like right in front of me and. I was like exploding with it. And right about then I read Nick Cave, who's a father who lost two boys. He's also a musician. And he talked about asking grief to leave his body and sit next to him. And I thought that was crazy. And I did that and I figured that was my delivery of my grief. And so now a lot of times I picture my grief as being kind of a baby gorilla or baby orangutan and it can... sit on my back and hold on to me or some days it just tears up the house. It doesn't really like when we're in the car going places. It's the worst. I don't know, it gave me a framework to kind of understand what was going on. A lot of people say that grief is love with nowhere to go, but I feel like grief is. lot of anger and a lot of expectations. It's not love. I know what love is and my love for Nicholas doesn't feel like this emotionally terrible tangle of grief. And so a lot of times I really kind of need to nurture it. Yesterday, we found out something about one of Nicholas's friends, which was good news, but it just hit that that thing wasn't going to be happening for Nicholas. And I canceled everything and I went upstairs and went to bed and I was like, Grafe and I are going to have some alone time because I just needed, I just, you got to kind of absorb it and yeah. But that kind of brings me to some things that Nick and I have found that have helped. one thing, and I know you would agree with this is exercise. And ⁓ we've really tried to exercise at least. every day because if you just sit in our own anger and it kind of like it weighs you down like ⁓ yeah yeah I was just gonna say we definitely we definitely upped the the exercise rate after after it happened and just because like it's good to get out and be around other people as well but That's secondary now. The first thing was just to get like endorphins going and you know, cause we were obviously pretty upset and depressed and ⁓ that we've always, you know, tried to exercise, but it became more of a, like we're going whether we like it or not type thing. So we kind of stuck with that. And ⁓ so that's, that's helped, you know, an activity to ⁓ focus on so that Kate mentioned the car ride. Those are so awful because like you're alone with your thoughts. And so there have been multiple times where we've both been driving somewhere, sometimes alone, sometimes together. And it's just really easy to get upset driving because you're sitting there thinking. Sometimes your brain has a thought that's very upsetting. I'll just put it that way. you want to times, especially right after it happens, but in general, you want to avoid too much rumination because it's not a worthy exercise. It's not a worthy thought. you mentioned honor, and I feel like... One of the things that I've heard multiple times in recovery is how do we honor our loved one? And that helps me move forward with positive thoughts and not focusing on when Nicholas was in the throes of addiction and everything was going horribly wrong. That's not constructive and it doesn't help me help others. So both Kate and I try to like do things that are going to honor Nicholas. And I think she wrote her book and her poems, in part that's her way of honoring him and we're doing other stuff as well. But ⁓ when I focus on that, I feel a lot more positive, not about what happened, but just like going forward. It helps me to kind of try and reach out to others and, you know, live a good life to honor Nicholas and his memory. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Even I don't even know if I have enough superlatives for the two of you. Like just how brave you guys are, how amazing you guys are to stand by one another, especially when you're both struggling, because that's gotta be really tough too. ⁓ Is you're trying to feel your own grief while trying to comfort someone else, ⁓ you and that's that's gotta be so hard. And I just for you guys supporting each other and Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Okay. ⁓ Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: exercising together and talking together and going to groups together, you know, Al Anon and ⁓ the what was it, the Switzerland? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: ⁓ yeah. We went to Sweden. Yeah, we went to a grief group in Sweden. And yeah, yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Sweden, Sweden, sorry. Awesome. So I just think it's incredible what you're doing. And if you want to call it honoring Nicholas, Nick, in order to ⁓ feel that's ⁓ part what's compelling you to do it, I mean, ⁓ that's when I was talking to Katie the other day, ⁓ and I said you in that's ⁓ saying ⁓ almost like, come us, Come experience this with us. We're gonna we're gonna live the life you didn't get to live. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: In honor of you and to take you along for the ride and to sh and to show you, you know, what you missed out on, but you're gonna be with us the whole way. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: And also I feel like there's all these statistics, they're like, ⁓ people who lose a kid, their marriage is usually end or something, but I guess that's not true. So that's good. But I feel like with Nick, like he's, he was there at Nicholas's beginning and he was there at the end. And he is like, besides Nicholas's brothers, he's the closest I'm ever going to get to Nicholas. And I know how much pain I've been through. And I know how much that he's, it's been equally as painful for him. So I think we're gentler with each other. I would agree. Yeah. More patient. Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, and and I'm glad that you're you're not saying, you know, because you you learned that from the lack of patience you might have felt like you didn't have with him. And and and honest, I'm I'm glad that that wasn't part of the way that you framed it because it's more so just like having grace with each other, not because of some kind of like higher learned like, man, if we would have just been this way more with him. We'll never know any of that. But just showing each other grace and giving you guys each the the space to to grieve in in your own way and in your own time and allowing Katie to to go up and you know throw herself, you know, into bed because she just couldn't handle it anymore and you know not trying to Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: She doesn't do that ⁓ Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Okay, but you know, but we tell people like when you're talking to somebody, you're trying to be there for somebody, don't try to fix them. First of all, don't try to fix them. Just listen to them and if they want something from you, wait for them to ask for it. You know, and just just be be this, you know, the give them the space and be what they want you to be, not what you think that they need you to be. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Right. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: So, your writing, your poetry, exercise, nature, community, new traditions, you both found some really awesome ways to move forward. ⁓ were their things that surprised you by how much they helped you? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: or you're gonna, I mean, think you're gonna take that one. When Nicholas first passed, I got a ton of grief books, because I was like, well, I can't do this. I honestly thought that ⁓ when we called grief groups that they might come over and put us inpatient, because I ⁓ like, is impossible. ⁓ But one of the grief books is, ⁓ Colin Campbell's finding the words and he lost two of his kids. And he said, you need to say yes, as long as it's safe. Like don't say yes to something not safe. And Nick and I started trying that. And when people would come over and wanna spend some time, my first instinct was to isolate and I'd be like, okay, I'm saying yes. Or a good friend of ours. came over and she would take me and the dogs for a walk and I would say yes, or she would take me for a pedicure. But I think community became extremely important and I am a person who is very independent and I don't like to rely on other people. But the grief groups and the community aspect, I didn't realize how much I needed people. What do you think? Oh, I would agree. We call ourselves extroverted introverts. Like, yeah, we'll socialize, but we don't really like to go out all that much or interact. So we kind of force ourselves to go on social occasions where we might not ⁓ normally have been. For example, continuing to go to Al-Anon meetings and LIT meetings and other times where there's a social occasion, we'll be like, no, we really should go. because it was suggested. heard at many places that don't isolate yourself. ⁓ And now along the lines of telling everyone, feel like interacting with others can't, you know, can't help. ⁓ Plant, kind of plant the seed. There's no, one thing we realized is there's no one thing that would have saved Nicholas. Like, we don't know the, we don't, there's There's no magic fix like, ⁓ you need to do this or you need to do rehab or whatever. All the addicts that I've talked to that have recovered, it's just like something happens in their brain. That's our automated vacuum started. Something happens in their brain based on all of their experiences where they're like, okay, yeah, now I'm going to try and get sober. And we don't know exactly what went into it. So we're here and to just kind of provide that. ⁓ material for other people, maybe addicts, maybe through Kate's books and through her podcasts, it'll take root in somebody and that'll be the thing that might tip them over to sobriety. Just something that they hear, like you mentioned, the peer coach. And there are other people, know, the friend of mine who, he was in prison and he started meditating and he just decided he wanted to get sober and he'd been in rehab a bunch of times. Why did it take that? Because you can get drugs in prison, you know, who knows? Like people, we don't know exactly what gets people. And, you know, that's one of those like, man, if only we could have gotten enough material to Nicholas through us and others that he could have gotten to that point, but it would have had to come from him. It can't come from, you know, there's nothing that you're, no amount of begging from your parents is going to get you sober. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I mean it sounded like he was in denial that he even had a problem. And it's almost impossible to help somebody who hasn't even come to terms themselves with things yet. So obviously keep that in mind. So one of the themes that I I kept coming back to from from what I read from that first chapter is ⁓ the idea ⁓ you know doesn't end when life ends. So that concept. So ⁓ How would each one of you describe your relationship with Nicholas today? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Okay, for me, I definitely spend a lot of time writing poems to him or with him and posting them like a crazy person. ⁓ find that, I don't know, I feel like that's a, I'm not gonna say that he's not there for it, yeah. Yeah, and I feel like Nick, he just how to play the guitar. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: His connection. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: and he'll play the guitar and he plays very sad songs. And I know, feel like, I'm not gonna say that Nicholas is not in the room when Nick is playing the guitar and that's a very good feeling for me. Yeah, I think all of Kate's poetry and all the things that she's doing are just, you know, out of her love for Nicholas and that's how she remembers him. For myself, ⁓ there are moments in my day I'll ⁓ say a prayer him or have a memory that is really really fond memory. And ⁓ it's a little hard because you don't want to focus too much on it because it can be really disruptive to your day. ⁓ But there are you know, either in the morning or night when I'm praying. And of course, we pray for Nicholas. ⁓ And sometimes when I'm kind of moping, I'll imagine that he will talk to me and say, come on, dad, suck it up. You know, he was a sports guy. We would tell him that sometimes like, hey man, you got to try harder, you know? And he was very into one of my favorite memories of him. And this is the soccer dad coming out, but there's this stupid fitness test that they do called the beep test, where there's two cones, you know about it. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, I'm familiar. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: You know, the beat gradually gets faster and faster and you got to make it back between the cones. And Nicholas was really good at it. He was had amazing endurance. If he. I don't remember a time that he didn't win on a soccer team. Basically people drop out the longer you go. And Nicholas was always going, I think he probably would have fallen over dead if he, if, if they wouldn't, if he wouldn't have been the last one, he would have gone until he, he had that kind of determination when it was focused on something good. And so, ⁓ I kind of remind myself of that and like say, okay, I got to be determined, you know, like he was in the beep test. One time we were hiking up from the bottom of the Grand Canyon and ⁓ Kate was behind me, but I kind of ditched her and basically started hiking at a pretty good pace. And I imagined that I was, you know, that I was like, you know what, I'm going to do this for Nicholas. It was after he had passed, obviously. And I was kind of. racing up there and imagining him kind of watching me and pushing my heart rate up to be really high. And it was kind of a sweet moment. know, times like that ⁓ in a positive way where we can imagine him there or just remember something that he did. Okay, he's only 10 minutes away from me. It wasn't like a four hour thing. It was like just a few minutes. ⁓ Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: No, I I didn't take it as that. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: She was like, why did you leave me? She had a friend with her. It wasn't like I left her alone. It was just, you know, I was doing a little faster pace and then I was like, oh yeah. Anyhow. So yeah, I think we, in different ways, we kind of still keep him present in our lives. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: So actually that segues right into another question that I have as an optional question, but I think it's gonna be great. ⁓ And that's simply ⁓ if Nicholas were sitting right here with us today, what do you he'd be most proud each one of you for? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: That's a hard question. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Because I know he w I I I know he is. I know he is. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: ⁓ I think that it was really important to him. His brothers didn't go to Nicholas's graduation, and it really hurt his feelings. And they didn't because of the drugs, and they were doing their own version of tough love. So it was really important to Nicholas that he was like, I'm going to go to Max and Joey's graduation. I'm going to show them how important it is, blah, blah. So I think, honestly, there are so many little times within our family where I feel like if Nicholas were alive, he would be proud of us, because I feel like the four of us have kind of recommitted to one another a little bit stronger than usual. And I don't know, I feel like little echoes of him. I... Family was really important to him. And I think the more we support one another, more I kind of feel like he's cheering me on or on us on. What about you? Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: I mean, one one thought I have about that, it's almost like you guys are allowing him to be the glue. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: That is really nice. Yeah, it's unfortunate that it had to happen to him for that to occur. that's always a tricky thing because you don't want to hear people say, well, I've grown a lot since my son died. And it's not because of that, but we've tried to... ⁓ be kind of strong and, ⁓ I don't know, just live our lives like we were saying to honor him in a positive way. I think he would be happy about that, that we didn't just get angry at the world and isolate ourselves and that we have stayed as positive as can be ⁓ expected. When you said, ⁓ if Nicholas for sitting here, I immediately thought I would go hug him. I wouldn't ask him a question. would. Yeah, that's the thing. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: Yeah, d depending upon which side of the camera he was on, I'd hug him. Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Yeah. Yeah. Anyhow. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: So I I hear ya. So I mean obviously a lot of what you guys are doing is to is to kind of help other people. So obviously I'm gonna I'm gonna kinda leave it with this with this question. So for somebody listening right now who feels overwhelmed by grief, addiction, loss, or simply life itself, what would you want them to know about surviving that feels impossible? Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: Well, I would tell that person that grief groups have really helped us. Nick and I are a part of a few different grief groups where people ⁓ haven't told anyone that their kid died or they haven't told anyone what their kid died of. And I think if you think about the year Nicholas died two years ago, 80,000 other people died as well. And this year, It's quite a lot too. So there are a lot of people out there and I feel like everybody's living in this kind of like isolated. terrible space and I want them to know that they're not alone and that, and if there's somebody out there who's struggling with addiction and they're feeling ashamed, I wish, I think Nick and I told our son a few times, if not a lot, that we weren't ashamed of him, that it was the drugs talking and not him. But I just hope that people who are struggling with addiction realize that I would rather have my kid alive and I'm not ashamed of him. And I really do believe that his addiction was a disease and it wasn't him. Yeah, I mean, you said it, it's the community. I can't imagine anyone getting better by either parents of addicted loved ones or the addict themselves getting better by people telling them, go isolate yourself and don't talk to anyone. I think it's the community. And once you interact with enough people and hear the right things, then you've got a chance. But you won't get there. without getting out there and interacting with people. ⁓ We've definitely benefited from it, from all the groups that we've gone to. It's not really logical. It's ⁓ almost kind of You go and you hear other people in similar situations and you don't feel better because it's like, ⁓ They had a, they had a bad thing happen too. I feel better now. It's, it's just like sharing in the community and knowing everybody is kind of experiencing it together, take some of the weight off of your shoulders. And I think it's also true that I mean, we didn't invent that, you know, that's why AA exists. ⁓ you know, all these support groups exist because it, does work and it helps. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: before we let you go, I I definitely want you to be able to tell us ⁓ where and when we can find your book, The Trimesters of Grief, also your upcoming poetry collection, none of them are you, ⁓ and then how they can connect with you and the work you're doing with Love in the Katie Rizzo and Nick Rizzo: You're so sweet. So my book, think, is out for pre-order as of today. And you can buy it anywhere books are sold. And you can find me at katyrizo.com. none of them are you. The poetry book is coming out in November. So. Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: All right, well, Katie, Nick, thank you so much for sharing your story, your honesty, and your son Nicholas with us today. ⁓ your willingness to have this conversation will help more people than you'll ever know. And everyone listening, healing doesn't always mean moving on. Sometimes it means learning how to carry love differently. So we will see you next time on Rebuild and Fulfill. Take care.