We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough

Episode Date: December 19, 2024

372. The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough Glennon, Abby, and Amanda sit down with Riley Keough to explore her journey through love, loss, and healing within her family. Riley talks about co-authoring her mother Lisa Marie Presley's memoir, From Here to the Great Unknown: A Memoir, which recounts Lisa Marie’s life as the daughter of Elvis Presley, her career, her own family, and everything in between. Riley also shares how she is finding purpose and strength amidst profound loss. Discover: -The unfinished family work Riley is closing for her mother and grandfather -The way Riley’s experience loving people with addictions and grief shaped her understanding of love and resilience -How Riley names the profound sadness and generational trauma within her family -The inherent conflict between Lisa Marie and her mom, and how Riley finds compassion for them both. On Riley: Riley Keough is an Emmy, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit Award–nominated actress. She is known for her work in Daisy Jones & the Six, Zola, and more. She also co-directed War Pony (2022), and cofounded the production company Felix Culpa with Gina Gammell. She is the eldest daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and sole trustee of Graceland. Her new book - From Here to the Great Unknown—written in both Lisa Marie’s and Riley’s voices, a mother and daughter communicating—from this world to the one beyond—as they try to heal each other – is available now. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi everybody. Oh my goodness. The conversation today. Just, I don't know, wherever you are, just like take a deep breath. And if you don't have a hot cup of tea, just you're about to feel like you do. We are sharing with you a conversation that we had with Riley Keough. And if you don't know who Riley Keough is, she is, well, she's an actor. She is a deeply feeling, thinking, spiritual person who is so lovely to listen to and learn from.

She is also the granddaughter of Elvis Presley. She's the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley. And she released a book called From Here to the Great Unknown. And Padswad, what I need you to know about this book before we get into the interview is that her mother, Lisa Marie, before she died, she was preparing to write a book, a memoir. And the way she was doing that was she was recording herself. Like imagine long voice memos where she's just telling her own story to herself, okay? She felt like she couldn't pull the memoir together, so

she asked her daughter Riley to help her with it. Riley said, yes, I'll help you with this. And then Lisa Marie died. So I want you to imagine Riley then recommitting after her mother's death to finishing her mother's story and listening, sitting and listening to her mother's voice memos and listening to her mom tell her own story. All the pain, all the loss, all the trauma, all the beauty. So that's what Riley did. She sat and listened to these voice memos from her mother and then she filled in the blanks, literally, she wrote, the book is made up of Lisa Marie's words and then Riley's words.

It is the most beautiful illustration of the way that every single last one of us is trying to finish unfinished work of our parents and grandparents. In this interview, Riley talks about the beauty and pain of her mother, of her grandmother, of her grandfather, of her brother Ben and losing Ben to suicide, losing her mother and all that she's learned along the way.

As I was reading the book, talking to her, I think the most profound realization of listening to Riley is like she might be the granddaughter of Elvis, but this is just a family story. This is a family story of beauty and survival. So we give you Riley Keough, who is an Emmy, Golden Globe and Independent Spirit Award nominated actress. She is known for her work in Daisy Jones and the Six, which our family loved, Zola and

more. She also co-directed War Pony and co-founded the production company Felix Culpe with Gina Gammel. She is the eldest daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and sole trustee of Graceland. Her new book, From Here to the Great Unknown, written in both Lisa Marie Presley and sole trustee of Graceland. Her new book, From Here to the Great Unknown, written in both Lisa Marie's and Riley's voices, a mother and daughter communicating from this world to the one beyond as they try to heal each other, is available now. Riley, I just want to tell you a couple things before we start. So number one is our team told us that your team had reached out because you had felt

like there was more to talk about in your story than had been covered. At first I was like, oh, we don't often have celebrities on the podcast. And so I was like, oh, we don't often have celebrities on the podcast. Right. And so I was like, huh. But I felt so intrigued by you because, first of all, our family watched Daisy Jones. Thank you. And we. So fucking good.

And I loved you. Yeah. And I don't mean like I loved you like, oh, you or what. I just, I felt like you were special. Thank you. I just thought, Daisy Jones, I just like that girl. Okay. Then, because of that outreach, I read your book.

Okay. I did not expect it to be what it was, which to me was the most beautiful experience of multi-generational love and pain. I just fell in love with your family and your mom. I mean, your mom's honesty, like, holy shit, I felt so inspired by it, honestly. And then you're the project of listening to her tapes and then you filling in all of the blanks felt like what we're doing with our lives. Like it was like this meta experience.

I know. It really is. It is. Well, I really appreciate you having me. I mean, I listen to your podcast, so that's very cool. I do a lot of podcasts and I don't listen to all of them. So I don't know what I'm doing and I really love your podcast. So I'm really happy to be here. So thank you for having me. Oh my gosh. It's such an honor. And I also want you to know that I didn't know

that you were Daisy Jones until like months after I finished the book. So imagine my excitement. I feel like I have like two lives kind of. Yeah, at least Riley. Exactly. Tell me, what do you want to talk about? Oh, that's a good question.

I don't know. I don't have anything particular that I wanna talk about? Oh, that's a good question. I don't know. I don't have anything particular that I wanna talk about, but I'm happy to talk about anything, literally. So whatever you feel is appropriate. Well, imagine that you're on a podcast with a lot of people listening who don't know your family's story. Yeah.

That's funny. A few people do know your family's story. Yeah. That's funny. A few people do know your family's story. First, I think it would be wise for you to tell us your quick version of what you want people to know about your family. Okay. Before we get into feelings and the stuff that I always want to talk about. Right. So set the stage for us, Riley.

Who are you? Who is your family? and why the book? Well my name is Riley Keough and I am the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keough and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley. That's the sort of the easy... The cliff nose. The cliff notes. Tell us about your mama. My mother was Lisa Marie Presley

and she was a wonderfully unique and fierce and incredibly strong woman and mother who, you know, had a really unique life, obviously. And, you know, I think a lot of human experiences within this unique setting, but she kind of, you know, obviously lost her father and grew up in a very intense situation of being Elvis Presley's only child. Tell us about, what is the trauma in your family? Like when you think about what has happened, the sadness in her losing her father, what is the pain?

What was the pain in her? Well, it's something I think about a lot. I'm kind of somebody who's obsessed with like where I came from and what happened to my parents and their parents. And so I know everything, you know, and I always have. And that kind of had nothing to do with Elvis. It was more just like on both sides of my family, I was always very curious. And I think I always had an instinct of like about sort of carrying that because when I would find these things out about my family members I'd never met,

there was an emotional connection to them, you know? And so on that side of the family, there's a long history of poverty for one. My family came from many generations of really kind of extreme poverty and addiction, alcohol, abuse, drug abuse. And she, my mother, you know, also suffered from addiction and lost her father at nine. And so I think the grief of that really dictated a lot of her life and the way that she wasn't really able to process it, I think because of the nature of the grief and how it was a sort of shared grief and it was a global grief. And so I don't think there was particularly a lot of room for her to have her own grief. So that was really unique.

But outside of the Elvis stuff, there is a lot of generational trauma, you know? Yeah. Mm-hmm. From the poverty? Like, what do you think? Because it's very easy to just say, well, it's Elvis. Yeah. But in the book, it's very clear.

This is a family. Yeah. His mother was an alcoholic and it was the South and in the times where, you know, the way he sort of grew up, like they didn't really have money. And that was kind of a huge, if I could imagine coming from that kind of a lifestyle of scarcity in that way and then turning into sort of like the most famous person in the world and the sort of the money and the stuff and all of that, I would imagine that that would be also kind of hard to process, which I think you see all the time. But I think that his particular situation was really polarizing because of sort of where

he and his family had come from. And it's so interesting because I'm sure when a lot of people talk to you, it's like, well, your story starts with Elvis, but that's not true of anyone, right? It's like the generations and generations before we carry all of those with Elvis. But that's not true of anyone, right? It's like the generations and generations before we carry all of those with us. And in fact, the house, they were all, you say that's part of the culture of him at the time. It's like if you come from poverty, you bring

everybody with you. And so your mom actively grew up around everybody. Yeah. Literally in the house or on the property. Yes, totally. The whole like hillbilly family. So your mom is little and she loses her dad, which I think in the book she said I was only sure of one thing ever and that was that I was loved by my dad. And that it really struck me like to only have one thing you're sure of

and then to lose that thing. What happened next after she lost her dad? Her dad died and then literally what happened was she had to live full time with her mom in California. And I think that she had lived at Graceland in the house with Elvis and also with her mother. But for her, Graceland and the time with her father really represented a freedom and also unconditional love. And the connection that she had with him was, I think, one of the most important connections of her life. And I think that the loss of him, it's not to say that other people didn't love her, but she always would say, I don't remember anybody else other than my dad, you know, until he died. So she was grieving, but she was grieving with like the country and the world. And I think, you know, she says in the book that she was sitting on the stairs and watching

people come in and fainting and being carried away by ambulances. And so I think she was very protective of her grief because it felt like something she could have ownership or like it was, I think people would ask her about him a lot. And as she grew older, she didn't really ever talk about his death and she didn't talk about it publicly, surely. I think there were two sides of it. I think that on one side, she didn't properly go through the process of grief as a normal person might because it felt like this thing she was holding onto for herself. And on the other side, I think that there was comfort in the sort of like collective grief she felt for her father, which lasted her whole life. And when she would go home to Graceland or, you know, there's something called Elvis week, which is like an event where fans come to the

house. I would see that she would be really comforted by the fans who would hug her and hold her and the sadness that they had, that they shared over the loss of her father. So I think that it was sort of a two-fold thing. It must have been so confusing. I recently lost my brother and... I'm sorry. Thank you. And I remember feeling like in the church at his funeral, I remember feeling like these people have no idea how I feel. And also, over time, I have to recognize that they also had a relationship with my brother. Though it was vastly different and much different than mine, it still mattered. So I could understand probably your mom's confusion

at how to properly grieve because you have like the most famous person in the world. And then this person just happened to be her father. Like those are very confusing messages, not only to a human being, but a nine-year-old trying to figure out how to like work this through. And you know, let's remember 20 years ago, we weren't saying the word trauma, right?

You know, we weren't talking about she says that in the book. Yeah, like your mom didn't even learn the word trauma. It wasn't talked about. Twenty twenty one or something or twenty twenty when she started saying like trauma. I have trauma, you know, which was amazing. But like so late in her life. Yeah. What's interesting is that I definitely as a child could perceive her grief, like I could feel her sadness, but it's such a, like you're saying, such a unique experience

grief that I didn't truly understand her grief until I lost my brother as well. And then imagining, you know, a child, like a nine-year-old sort of having that experience and with a parent. So it's a, I mean, very normal human things, but, but a unique circumstance. Sorry for your loss. Thank you. Tis the season for shopping. And whether that is really exciting news for you or really tragic news for you, I have something to make it a little brighter. Rakuten is the way that you are going to stack up the savings while you shop. Use Rakuten

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Hey everyone, it's Elisa Kelly, astrologer and host of the Open Mind original podcast Horoscope Weekly. Every Monday I decode the universe to help navigate your life. Plus, I give detailed forecasts tailored to your unique zodiac sign. Follow and listen to Horoscope Weekly, an Odyssey podcast in partnership with Open Mind Studios, available now on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts. It's interesting because you say that there was an experience of unconditional love with like a lot of craziness around, right?

Like at Graceland growing up, that it was maybe low structure, high, unconditional love. And the reading experience of then seeing or watching or reading your mom then move to her mother. Somehow, I was reading it as the opposite. I don't know if that's true, but it felt like suddenly there's a lot of rigidity and not a lot of love. What was that experience? How do you understand that now? Your mom going to her mom. I've thought about this a lot when writing the book. And before my mom passed away, I didn't think about their relationship a lot.

They've had a complicated relationship through my life, but we've all been fairly close. There was never a moment where anyone was estranged. Their dynamic was, there was always something my mom was wanting that she wasn't being given. But we still spent holidays together and weekends. So I didn't totally consider the relationship until after she passed and I was writing the book. And I think that my relationship with my grandmother, which I think is really common, is very different to hers with her mother. And I think that fundamentally, they were very different people. My grandmother really cared about appearance and manners and kind of old school kind of, you know,

wanting everything, the house to be perfect and her priorities were sort of wanting things to present as perfect or, you know, and I think that a lot of that was from the pressure she probably experienced being 14 years old and having to be, you know, the partner soon, partner of Elvis and this like sort of perfect woman in the 1960s, you know, which is really intense for her. So I think that she felt a lot of pressure to be this, the most beautiful woman in the world, the most perfect woman in the world and wanted to keep her role as Elvis's partner essentially

from 14. So I take that into consideration a lot. I don't know if my mom did, you know? I think to her, it was just her mom. Like I don't know if she thought about that much. And there's a sense of feeling in her that's sort of like, I don't want the plates to fall in my grandmother. And I can see where that comes from. And I think when it's so close that it's your mom, you don't always give the grace there. But my mom was such a sort of like radical woman in the time she was born. And I think that she didn't care about the things you're supposed to care about as a female at the time and really was so unapologetically herself and, you know, not crass or anything, but just real, just

authentically her, which to me is such a, like, in hindsight, when I look back on the time period she grew up in, the way she was raised didn't feel like that would be, you know, the sort of outcome of her personality. So I think that she just was a, I don't know, the Elvis part of her maybe. Like she was kind of a big force for better or worse. And my grandmother is very sort of soft and I think they definitely had a difficult time. And I think that when I watched it as an outsider, it always felt to me that my mom was looking for something that her mom wasn't able to be or to give her. It's just so easy to see other people's generational trauma

from the outside. It's interesting to be the daughter of someone who had to by circumstance be and look perfect and keep all of the plates in the air and then be a human being who literally is wearing the truth on her face all the time. When she says over and over again in the air and then be a human being who literally is wearing the truth on her face all the time. When she says over and over again in the book, why does everyone tell me I look sad? She just is like a living embodiment of the truth.

I'm sure it scared the shit out of Priscilla. I think it did. And I think honestly, it scared the shit out of most people. And I think that she was so honest, like existed in so much honesty that it was hard for people to sit with a lot of the time. Like I remember being a kid and friends would come in and she wouldn't even do anything and they'd be like, oh, your mom is scary.

And I'm like, why? Like she's this tiny little lady and she didn't even say it, you know? And I think it's just, there was no filter or kind of social pretense or anything. And I think that that presence would often frighten people, but there was no meanness. You know, it was just, I don't know.

What was it? It was special. How? How did she keep that? I don't know, what was that? How? How did she keep that? I don't know. I feel like we're born with like a life force. And most of us very quickly are like, I'm going to tamp that down about seven notches. But how did she keep her life force like that?

That's what's so incredible to me about her is that it was never nurtured. It wasn't something that people praised. It was always the she was always a problem. Any school, any situation she was being, you know, she was difficult. Um, and she never. Ever dimmed that part of her, which I always found to be so inspiring about her. I'm not like that. I'm very... I'm like a dimmable chandelier. Yeah, I'm like, oh, me too.

You want that down? Okay, all the way down. Me too. If I walk in a room, I'm like, oh, you know, shouldn't do that. It shouldn't be here. But she just, you know, it was a really incredible quality that I definitely think it's actually quite profound. It's interesting that you said that you're not like that because as I was reading your book I was thinking about all the people that I talked to who are trying to figure out like how I'm the black sheep in my family. And it feels like you're the opposite. I wonder what it is like to be in a family where they think of themselves as pirates

over and over again in your book. They're a group of pirates. First of all, I want to know what does it mean to be a pirate? And then what is it like to be the only un-pirate in a family of pirates? Well, I think that I just sort of perceived them that way. And I think that there was just this environment that was like, especially in the 90s, it was very like, my mom was, they were very like anti-establishment kind of like,

very not wanting to follow the rules. Told me like, I didn't have to go to school, you know, it was very like, kind of anarchy, you know, it was like, was the vibe in my house. And both my parents were kind of, though my dad is actually very sensitive and quite soft. And so was my mom was extremely sensitive. She just, you know, was very at a strength to her

that was sort of unshakeable. My dad was more of a softer, though he was very sort of wild and charismatic and all of these things, he was quite like sensitive and fragile. And I think that I got, and my brother as well, got more of that than my mom sort of. That's not true.

I think we both have had her strength as well, but I think that he was, I definitely can see more of my demeanor in my father. But we always felt very close, the four of us. Like I didn't feel like I was different or anything. I actually felt really quite similar to my brother and to my parents. But I think that as I got older and into my 20s, like when I was younger, we would all hang out or party together in my early 20s or do these things, get very drunk on the holidays. That was very normal. But then later in my 20s, it became my brother's drinking was... There was just something about it that just

felt darker, I would say, in sort of my mid-twenties and where it was like not like just a fun party night, you know? And I think in those moments I sort of became more of like took the role of like this sort of narc, I guess. Like I was, you know? And then as their addictions progressed, I very much was like the one who people didn't tell things to, you know? Which I was kind of okay with because in the moment, I felt like I'm doing the right thing. I'm being responsible, but I would always get the feedback of like, you're not an addict. You don't understand. Which I tried to take on a lot, but I think the way I felt was,

if I don't do everything in my power to drag you out of there and do all these things and put you here, then I'm not gonna be able to live with myself, so I have to. And so I think a lot of my life and my 20s were spent like resisting what was and enforcing things. And I kind of didn't understand the point of it. I was like, why am I in this life where everyone around me is just like trying to take themselves out essentially?

And there's nothing I can do. Like what is the lesson in that for me? Which I still haven't figured out, but- Damn it. Thought you were about to tell us. But what I do know is that I was forced to surrender because they died. And I felt like I was holding on for dear life or waiting to get punched in the face and doing everything I could to not have this thing happen and then it happened twice. And so the only thing I know is that by the time my mom was about to pass away in the I was really surrendered in that moment in a way that felt really liberating. And I truly

felt like I was, you know, there's a moment where she was in the hospital and I didn't know if she was going to make it and I was on an airplane. And I kind of in my mind was saying like, you know, do whatever you want to do. You can go if you need to go kind of in my mind was saying like, you know, do whatever you want to do. You can go if you need to go kind of a thing. And there was no part of me that was like, come on, you know, hold on, just hold on till I land, you know. And that was a big deal for me for how resistant I had been for so much of my life with these things. But it could be that, that I was, I don't know, had so much of that sort of lesson that I did get to a place where I did feel surrender in a pretty sort of intense

and I guess like critical moment. That's all I've got. That's good stuff. Did you get there through the experience of losing your brother? Because to me, I read your mom say the only thing I ever knew is that I was loved by my father. And it definitely felt to me like the other thing she knew for sure was that she loved you guys. Yes, definitely. That there were two knowings. And loved you well, like people I'm not perfectly know, but you know, people are often asking

me like, can I give what I haven't gotten? Is it possible? Like people freaking out about becoming mothers because I didn't get it from my mom, Is it possible? It feels like she pulled that miracle off in a beautiful way. She really did. And that's another thing I really saw clearly when writing the book and also having my own child. She totally, and my father too, my father, his dad left when he was two and he kind of left the house early and didn't have a really nurturing home. They both shared that experience and both of them were incredibly loving to the point

where my brother and I would often talk about how lucky we were as adults. And so I don't know where that came from. I don't know if she was born with that instinct, but it was so strong that I find myself going, I hope that I can make my child feel half as loved as my mother made us feel. Which considering her sort of story, it is pretty incredible.

Talk to us about the loss of Ben and what that did for you and her. And before we talk about the loss of Ben, can we just talk about Ben? Because Ben is so beautiful. I could just, every page of him, just what a beautiful soul. So I think the hardest thing about writing a book about real people is that you can't describe a full human on the page. And I would spend just hours going back and talking to my husband and my dad going like,

how do I describe Ben? How do I describe my mom? And to me, and this is probably a very human experience, like they felt so unique and so special. So I think there's like words that I use to describe him. You know, like he was so kind and sweet and sensitive and funny and hilarious and all of these things, but he, to me, just felt like,

just like an angel, kind of, you know, and so special. You know, one of the things that I really felt, and this could also be a shared experience with many people, is I really felt this feeling of like there was a mistake made. He shouldn't be gone. And I think that that just speaks to the closeness probably and the relationship and the uniqueness of like all individuals. But it's hard to describe him. He was incredible. Like a really, you know how a lot of boys are very sort of like wild and rambunctious when they're young. He was very soft and like sensitive and sweet and had this beautiful curly blonde hair and was kind of wild and loved to be in the garden and plant and very thoughtful. And that sort of

was his essence, I think. When I think of him and when I went to speak at his service, or I didn't speak, I wrote something, he really kept the essence of him as a child through his life, which was also a really beautiful thing. Like your mom. Yeah, I think- Kept that fire. Totally.

And so he was just the funny, like very funny and quick, smart, intelligent, kind of one of those people who would retain all information if you were like, what intelligent, kind of one of those people who would retain all information if you were like, what is that kind of tree? He'd be like, oh, that's a, you know, this thing or, or, you know, where does this come from? I don't know. Like he was just new, you know, he had my dad sort of mind in that way, just really intellectual kind of brain. And he was really special and we were really close. You know, he felt to me like he was like my twin or something. Like we felt very connected spiritually. And there was nobody

in the world who would have been like, oh, Ben, he's kind of a bad guy. Like he was just like everybody had a good experience with him. And one of the most important things that I like to say with regards to suicide is not somebody that you would ever imagine in terms of stigma would take their life or would die by suicide. Even for me, which was probably the hardest thing, experience was the shock of it, you know? Probably the hardest thing, experience was the shock of it. You know? Yeah. Soon after that loss, how do you describe what happened to your mom with addiction and

her grief with them? Her addiction was actually before my brother died. Okay. Yeah, with the girls, right? Yeah. So her addiction was when my sisters were younger and she went to rehab. Her addiction got very out of control. Riley, can you describe how it happened?

Because I think this is important. This is something that a lot of people share. And in fact, your grandfather, Abby, developed the same way. And Abby too. So she was 40. Prior to this, she drank alcohol. She probably would get too drunk sometimes, but she would have never considered herself

an addict. And I don't think anyone around would have been like, oh, she's got a drinking problem. There was just like the environment was very party. And I don't think she would have ever said, I need to stop drinking or anything. But she certainly drank. She barely took medication, wouldn't really take Advil, Tylenol, tried to be very healthy. But what she did always say, which is interesting in hindsight is she would always say, like, oh, if I was ever to try heroin or if I was to do drugs, like,

they would kill me because I'm like all or nothing type of a person. And she made these comments and probably because there was a part of her that was considering her fate and her dad's fate and wondering about, you know, I don't think she had like the language for it, but I think she was probably had something in her that felt connected to him and his addiction. And so she had my sisters and she was 40 years old and she had a C-section and they gave her opiates. And she took the opiates for pain. And then when they were about two, she came to me and I had no idea and said, you know,

I've been taking painkillers and I think I need to go to rehab. And I was like, what? Like I had no idea. And she said, you know, it was to sleep. Like I couldn't sleep. Like after the babies were born, I tried to take Benadryl and that wasn't working. And then I would take the opiates. And so I was just taking them at night. And that was, I think that was like a year where she would just take it at night to get sleep. And she was very open. And I think probably only told me

once she like realized it herself, like I don't think she would have hid it from us cause she was always telling us everything. So she said, you know, I'm taking these pills and I need to go to rehab and I found a place in Mexico and they do like a holistic thing and I just need to get off them. Like my body's addicted, but that's it. And I was like, okay, that makes sense. I had experience with my dad and opiates. And so yeah, she goes to this place

and then halfway through the treatment, she's like, you know, I gotta get back because the kids are starting school. And I think this was actually a really bad time to come here. And I'm like, wait, what? Like, you're here. What are you talking about?

Like, you're not just gonna leave because they're starting school. Like you knew they were starting school. And I think that overall it's more of a priority that you finish your treatment. And she was like, it's fine. It's really important. They need like stability and they need to get back in school. And we got in a big, it was a big fight actually. And so she left and then she went home and I went, oh, she doesn't want to stop taking them. And that's when progressively things got much worse and she decided she was going to move to Nashville

and that she was going to find time to go back to the rehab. She was taking more and more pills. She ended up getting up to 80 pills a day. And then she went back to the rehab. she went home, she had like a week and then I called her and I could just tell. It was just felt like this thing that was started a spiral. And I was like, have you taken anything? And she was like, no. And then she like went to a dentist office or something and had like a dental work done and then needed to take some, she's like, I have to take painkillers. And I was like, okay. I was like, okay, I see what's happening here. And then it just

spiraled. It was like the opiates were, you know, so high up the amount. And then she like went out one night in Nashville and somebody gave her cocaine. And then it became cocaine, opiates, alcohol, and got so bad to the point where she ended up in heart failure in Cedar Sinai in LA. So she basically was just going hard and me and my brother got her to, which is in the book, like get on a bus to come to LA because she wouldn't fly because she couldn't do cocaine on the airplane. So we, my brother took her on a bus and brought

her to Cedars. And then she was in the ICU for about a week. And then the amazing thing is, and it was a slow sort of like, because she ended up in Cedars, she was so honest that she told the people working there, I have a drug problem and she not realizing that they would call a social worker. And she was kind of saying, I need to get help, but I, you know, but she just told them and they took my sisters away from her. And they were like three then, how old were they?

Gosh, they would have been five or six, maybe. Five or six. Okay. And then you became their legal guardian, right? Like you had to supervise the visits and stuff? So actually the courts just gave them to my grandmother. Wow. Yeah. Okay. And then once she completed rehab and did, she had to send her urine tests and then whatever,

the social workers basically said, well, you need a court appointed monitor with you if you're gonna have the kids back in the house. So I was the court appointed monitor. Oh, Riley. And so I kind of had to live with them until she finished. It was like a year or something, year or two that she had to have that. And that was hard.

That was really hard because she also didn't want to be sober, like still. But she did, you know, for her kids and she didn't relapse at all. She never relapsed. And this was like 2017, I think. And there were other issues like when she would go to the doctors who were giving her the post-rehab drugs, she would convince them to give her like way too many. But other than that, she never took narcotics again until, which is actually interesting. So when my brother died, my first thought was like, she's going to relapse. She's going to obviously like, how could she not and like OD or something. So she didn't do that. And that was actually something I was like so to the day she died, proud of her for. And I thought it was really important

because she'd always be like two years sober, three years sober. And I think she always felt like I wasn't proud of her or like I wasn't giving her enough praise for her sobriety. But really I was just frightened. Like I was scared to say, like, yay, you know, you're whatever. And I feel like I should have. I think I withheld the excitement because I was nervous that she'd relapse. Of course you were. Yeah.

And so I think that the fact that my brother died and she never relapsed was actually so incredible. And before she died, coincidentally, she had had like an infection, she'd had a surgery, and she had to take Oxy, I think. And I was like, Oh God, like, here we go. This is going to be a whole thing. I didn't think she was going to like go full crazy, but I thought she was going to definitely drag it out. But I kind of was like, I'm not going to ask because I guess I'd learned my lesson. I'm just going to let her do what she's gonna do.

And this was probably in like November and she died in January. And I knew she was taking them, or maybe it was sort of December time. I knew she was taking them and whatever, she had to take them. Like I talked to the doctor. But when she died, my first thought was she's OD'd. And my housekeeper was like, you know, I don't know what's happened. There's her pills here and or something. I can't remember the exact conversation. And I was like, oh, she's mixed something. She's OD'd on accident. You know, some things had a reaction. And she had told me a few weeks earlier, like, I'm taking it, but I'm being responsible. And I was like, okay, like, I'm just going to not get involved here. And when she died and the autopsy report came back, it said,

like, therapeutic amounts of whatever was in her blood. And I just felt so proud of her because she was just taking exactly what was prescribed for the time it was prescribed. And so I think it's really important to share that because I don't think she was going to relapse, you know, had she stayed alive. And I think that actually a part of her when my brother died made her want to stay sober because he would have wanted that. Yeah. Did it feel like she was on the precipice of something?

Like when you talk about she had found the words for trauma and then she wanted to start grief groups. I think it did in a way. And that kind of can feel heartbreaking. But also there's a part of me that's like, who's to say that it's a precipice of something that's here on this planet? That's right. You know? So I kind of choose to feel more hopeful about that, I guess. Because I think that like something I've really haven't liked in my grief experience

is the sort of feeling around death that it's like a failure. Which is so weird because we all die. And it's like at all ages at any time. It's just part of life. And there's this feeling around it that's like, oh no, I'm so this horrible thing happened to you. But it's kind of ridiculous, you know? Yeah, who's to say that on the other side of it is not 20 million times better than this? Exactly. So I think that like the sort of view around death

and my view on dying, when touring this book and people are like, oh, I'm so sorry, of course it was tragic and like extremely painful and traumatized the shit out of me. But I also don't instinctually in my heart believe that human beliefs around death and the fear are totally valid. Yeah. It also feels very like when you say that you can feel your mom mothering your daughter, you hear yourself singing songs to her that your mom sang to you and you can actually

feel her mothering her. I just think that's so beautiful for all of us to think about. And also you're doing these grief groups. her. Like, you're doing it. It's happening right now. The sort of place she was right before she died was like, she would go on hikes and it was like, I'm gonna start a grief podcast. And so she was actually trying to like, live for my sisters and my brother in honor of him.

And she was really trying, you know? Though she was totally heartbroken. I think that those things are happening, you know? And the book did come out and I think that it did have the effect that she wanted it to in terms of just reaching people and people relating to it on a human level. Cause I think a lot of her life she spent not feeling

like a human level because I think a lot of her life she spent not feeling like a human in a way. And you're doing the you said that what she was like trying to get something she just a kind of love she could never get and it just feels like that you read this book and it just bubbles over with love like the love that she has for y'all and your love for her, it feels like you completed that circle. Right. And then when you really think about like what life is about and what a successful life is, I think to me, it's ability to give and receive love. And I feel like she was exceptional at one of those things.

That's pretty good though, 50%. Okay, let's end with this. I mean, I cannot, there's no, the levels that I relate to your mom is just, it's just a lot. But at one point in the book, she said, I don't vote some sort of recovery program that she didn't believe in because she felt like it was too focused on the physical and that addiction is a spiritual problem.

What was the spiritual problem? What is it? Because as an addict, I understand no addiction bad, but huge fan of the people who get addicted. I always feel like they're the most tender, truthful people who feel more than the average bear and then, you know, here come the painkillers. Do you have any finger on what is the spiritual problem? And then what's the gift? Because we're always focused on generational trauma and then we don't think about, but

where there is, you know, shit, there's so much beauty. So what is the gift? The shit and the gift, if you will. Right, oh my gosh. Well, I think it's, I think that like the obvious things are like, well, the spiritual problem is trauma,

not enough love, whatever. But I also saw someone who really didn't understand what they were doing here. And on a more profound level, you know, didn't understand her purpose and desire to, for someone to say like, hey, this is what life is. Like, which is a funny thing that it's looked at as this like esoteric conversation, but it's like kind of nuts that were just plopped here with no context. And so I think to be confused feels like normal. Legit. Right. Seems like it should be like a baseline 101.

Right. Day one. This is what we're here to talk about. Yeah. So I think that there was just like a lack of understanding and like purpose with her and wanting definitely love. Like love was a big one for her. I don't think she could receive love very well.

Yeah. I don't know. You know, I spend like my whole, my hours of my day that are, or when I'm going to bed and I should be sleeping like wondering why did this happen and what does this mean and what is addiction? Like what is it trauma? Is it, is it genetic? I have no idea. I don't have any answers in that respect. I just saw somebody who had some kind of hole they wanted to fill. Do you think it's like when you said when she would tell you about the, I'm one year, I'm two years sobriety and you felt like I can't exactly celebrate that because I don't

trust it's going to stay? Do you think that was her same reason for not being able to receive love? Yes. She had real abandonment stuff. She would very quickly drop friends if she felt that they were going to drop her first kind of a thing. But then also you reminded me like she was in pain, you know? And she didn't want to feel pain like God forbid, you know, it's really difficult to live with that much pain, grief for a long time. And I think she just hit a point where it felt nice to escape that. Yeah, let's not forget during that time, the doctors were just giving shit out,

whacking right. And so many of us got addicted to prescription pills because of that. Yeah, for sure. Well, Riley, if I were your ancestors, I would be so fucking proud of what you've done with your legacy. In the intro, you said something about

there was a poem like Beauty Bin, was it? Yes. I can't recite it, but it basically says that wanting people know that the Beauty Bin that was my mother. Yeah, you did that. Yes. You did that. Thank you. Just beautiful. All right, Pod Squad, we love you. We'll see you next time. Thank you so much. Thank you, Riley. Bye. Thank you for having me. If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us.

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