Eilene Zimmerman on Losing Her Ex-Husband to a Secret Drug Addiction

Grow Through It: Family Secrets and Loss & Grief

Eilene Zimmerman, author of the memoir Smacked: A Story of White-Collar Ambition, Addiction, and Tragedy tells the story of losing her ex-husband to complications of a secret IV drug addiction. Peter hadn’t seemed right for some time before he died — he behaved oddly, lost weight and hair, looked unhealthy, and kept losing and forgetting things. Since he was a hard working partner in a prestigious law firm, the last thing Eilene suspected was drugs. (more…)

Kevin Barhydt on Growing Through Adoption

Grow Through It: Adoption, Child Abuse, Substance Abuse, Opiod

Kevin Barhydt, author of Dear Stephen Michael’s Mother, describes the primal wound he experienced being adopted when he was born. He recounts being molested as a child, raped as a teen, and becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol as a young person. It was not until years later that he came to terms with feeling abandoned, not wanted, and understood the effect the adoption had on his self-worth. “An adoptee alone is in bad company,” he says, and attributes turning his life around to therapy, 12-step programs, and a community of adoptees, birth mothers, and adoptive families. His advice: “Do not do this alone.”