Today, Libby Cataldi, the author of Stay Close, returns and shares more about her journey with her son and his disease of addiction. She also offers a unique window into the role of Jeff’s younger brother Jeremy in this family disease. Libby not only writes magnificently, but she also speaks Italian!
Today you will learn the beautiful story of how her book got its title.
For more information about Libby Cataldi and to subscribe to receive her Thursday Meditations on her website: https://libbycataldi.com/blog/
See Full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now, here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret 00:27
Welcome back, we are here today again with Libby Cataldi, the author of ‘Stay Close’ a book about her journey with her son, through his active addiction and into recovery. Today, Libby will talk more about the challenges of loving her son, and finding the healthiest ways to do that, to protect him and herself from this complex disease. Let’s get back to Libby.
00:58
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:10
It’s so challenging as a recovering addict to learn to separate myself from my disease. That was the hardest part, because it was all my voice, my behavior, “my badness”. It also was really hard to separate my partner from his disease when they are the same person which makes that target different.
Libby 01:30
Exactly. And I had to remember that Jeff was alive under the drugs. Like one time, I’ll give you an example. When we wrote the book, he read every word. He read every word before it everyone to publication. So, he was reading one of the drafts and he looks at me and he said, you stripped me naked in this book. And I said, angel, this book never has to, without his approval it never would have gone anywhere. And I said, but I do have a question for you. I mean, I asked that this is such a mother question. Such a sad question to ask. I said, why didn’t you ever stop? Look at all the damage. I mean it was in black and white, look at all the damage, you caused the family? Why didn’t you ever stop. And he looked at me with tears in his eyes. And he said, you wrote an entire book about addiction and you still don’t get it. He says mom, I’m an addict. I never wanted to hurt you. I tried to keep you out of it. All this time, I tried to keep you to the side. Mom I am an addict. So, he says society hates addicts, loaths addicts and addicts loaths themselves. I never got that I never got that he was suffering. And caught and caught in that conundrum. Caught in that web, he was caught chasing the next drug. So it wasn’t like he wanted to hurt me. But damn, the pain was incredible for all of us.
Margaret 03:06
And I think to help heal, that the journey of separating him from his disease has to happen. And in that moment, when he shared that truth with you, was another awareness that he is him. The disease was taking over him at that time, and he could do no different. It’s a hard thing to do.
Libby 03:25
It is, it’s a hard thing to do. And as a parent, when you’re in pain, and you see the whole family spiraling out of control, it’s really hard to hold on to that.
Margaret 03:36
Of course. And I think that then goes to blaming oneself trying to find somewhere to place that blame because God forbid, I hurt my child by blaming them.
Libby 03:43
Exactly. In fact, I blamed my ex-husband for years it was his fault. And it took me years to come to the realization and to admit that no it wasn’t his fault. I mean, we both make mistakes. Maybe the addiction was there all the time. Maybe if I hadn’t been head of school and I had been at home, you know, he still would have suffered. Where’d my cancer come from I don’t know. These things come to us.
Margaret: No great. Why?
Libby: Yeah, no, and trying to blame and trying to find all that, which I did. I did all that stuff, I ran on that treadmill was a useless waste of energy.
Margaret 04:23
So, you’ve talked about writing your book, you’ve talked about speaking with your son, one of the things that I loved, loved, loved, loved about your book, was both of your words in the book, and Jeremy’s. Like you really included the three main players not that your ex-husband wasn’t a main player, but in this book, the content and the way you beautifully weaved your experience, Jeff’s experience, Jeremy’s experience was magnificent. I loved that. I think the lost child the other child is often left out of the story. And you did a nice job of giving his voice a place and being able to hear it.
Libby 05:09
Interestingly, though, for Jeremy, he’s this kind of kid who shoves everything into his belly. And so, he would not talk about the addiction. He adores his brother; they were only 20 months apart. And he would not talk. And I’ll tell you what I did. I made a huge mistake. One time when Jeff was still in high school, this was early on, Jeremy came to me, and he said, I’m really worried about Jeff, he’s smoking a lot of marijuana with his friends. And so, what did I do? I went to Jeff and said, Jeremy told me. So, what did Jeff. Jeff cut Jeremy out? Jeff wouldn’t let Jeremy around, it killed Jeremy to the point where Jeremy never, ever, ever told me anything else, again, about Jeff’s drug use. So, what I’ve learned from that is never give up your source. I don’t care who tells me what. I never give up my source because that person then gets crucified. So, Jeremy wouldn’t talk to me at all. It wasn’t until Jeff had already read the book. He wrote parts of it, which are very valuable to me. I said to Jeremy, listen, will you please talk to me? And he said this, I’ll talk to you if you don’t say a word. And I said, okay, we sat down and for three hours that child spewed out his heart. And I just wrote in my journal wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote everything that he said, but he kept it bottled up inside of him for all those years.
Margaret 06:53
He was very integral. In parts of the story that you were probably not privy to until he shared them with you at that point.
Libby 07:02
100% when somebody had read the book, somebody said to me, I think Jeremy’s the hero in this book. And so, I said to Jeremy, I said, so and so thinks you’re the hero. And he looked at me and he said, hero, he said, I want it to be the hero. He said, Mama, I wasn’t the hero. Jeff was like Superman with Kryptonite around his neck. The hero is Jeff. Jeff had to take the kryptonite off his neck. We couldn’t do it for him.
Margaret 07:36
Where did he get that? Where did he get that awareness without ever talking about it and seeking help? How did he get that? How did he figure that out?
Libby 07:45
He’s a really perceptive kid. And I think he really suffered. I think it was through suffering, through suffering and watching his brother just become somebody he didn’t even know. Being powerless is the worst thing. You know, I was powerless. Jeremy was powerless. And I think for many parents, when we love somebody, we want to fix things. Right? You love your husband, you want to fix it, you love your mother, my mother has, you know, Alzheimer’s, I’m gonna fix it. I’m going to find some drug. I’m gonna talk to some physician. I’m gonna, I’m gonna fix this. Like I’m a real fix it person. And I (laughter) couldn’t fix it.
Margaret 08:27
Take it back a step, though. Even before fixing if it’s anything like my experience it was, I don’t want to see people I love have pain. So, what can I do to remove that pain? And then to watch someone we love to climb down this path where their behavior, their disease, their use, is inflicting more and more pain on them and everyone else? And there’s no stop button that you can find that works?
Libby 08:51
No, exactly.
Margaret 08:53
So, one of the visuals because I went on your website, and you put out a blog. Let’s talk about some of the great resources you offer parents, because I think it’s beautiful Libby, what you do. So, your website is called?
Libby: Stay close,
Margaret: which is the name of your book. And I would love you to talk about why that name in one minute. But you also do a blog, which is called
Libby 09:15
There are Thursday Meditations. But it’s the Stay Close Blog, but they’re called Thursday Meditations.
Margaret 09:25
Right, which I love. So, on Thursdays you put out something where you’ve heard or read or seen something and then you reflect on it. And is Jeff a part of the blog?
Libby 09:35
100% He reads everyone before I publish it because as Dr. McAfee once told me, he said, Libby, you talk about addiction. Jeff talks from addiction. And there’s a big difference in that. And so, Jeff reads every word he edits them with great liberty, but he brings the voice of the suffering person into it. You know, and so yes, he reads, every one. Helps me with everyone. He chooses the pictures, I send him 10 or 12 pictures, and he’ll choose the picture. But for him, he says it’s service.
Margaret 10:11
It’s your service to!
10:13
Libby: yes.
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Call to Action / Margaret 10:19
I am so grateful for everyone’s involvement in this podcast, I am grateful to my generous guests who share so freely of their story, which isn’t easy. To my editors for making a sound so wonderful. I’m grateful for the growth. And the fact that more people are hearing this podcast.
When I started my business, I knew this podcast was going to be a passion project, that whether someone saw me in my business and worked with me in my business, there would be something out there that could be a resource for anybody to access at any time. At no cost.
It appears it’s needed as it’s growing. And people out there are looking for experienced strength, and most importantly, hope from this family disease of addiction.
Please go to my website,
embracefamilyrecovery.com.
And if you are struggling with someone who has this disease and would like help enroll for a complimentary discovery call, and let’s see if we couldn’t be a good fit for moving forward together. Thank you for your support and keep sharing the podcast for people who could use the message.
11:30
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Margaret 11:43
So, there’s the blog, and then there’s your book, which is ‘Stay Close’. So, are you willing to share how you came to that title?
Libby 11:50
Oh sure. Sure. In 2004, it was a terrible year I had breast cancer, bilateral mastectomy. My dad died, who is a real strength for me. I left my school after 17 years as head, 21 years being there. So, I lost my community. I left my community. And Jeff was just coming out of Fairfax Hospital detox after five days, they gave him back to me, he was a mess. And I didn’t know what to do. And so, I decided I have family in Florence, Italy. And so, I was going to take a three-month sabbatical, I was going to go to Florence and tried to heal. By that time, I was dying, Jeff was dying. We were all dying is the truth.
And so, I said to Jeff, when he got out of the hospital, I said, I’m not going to go to Italy. I’m going to stay here, and he says why are you going to stay here? I said to take care of you. I was still taking care. And he said, I’m going to do what I’m going to do whether you’re in Italy or the United States. Famous words because it’s true. It is true. They’re going to do what they’re going to do. So, I left. I went to Italy I stayed after the three months(laughter). I didn’t come back. I decided to live there, I’ve cousins there. So, while I was there, I cried. The whole time I cried. I just had four surgeries on my breast with the removal of the tissue and then reconstruction. My dad was gone. I wrote, wrote, wrote so and I think you know people get tired of hearing you cry and complain and lying. You know, especially people who don’t understand addiction.
While I was there, one of my cousin’s Ombretta said to me, Listen, you need to figure out how we deal with addiction in Italy. It’s not the same as in the States. And at that time, tough love was the big deal. Tough Love was like throw them out.
Once somebody from tough love had called me and said, you have to say Jeff died. I said Jeff died and he says yeah, he says and when Jeff calls you have to say Jeff, Jeff died. Yeah, so I didn’t do that. But I did. I threw him out of the house. I wouldn’t give money, then I would give him money and then I would let him back in the house, and it was a disaster.
Bottom line is so Ombretta said you have to learn how we deal with addiction here in Italy. So, she took me to an office site of this place called San Patrignano which is in Rimini. And San Patrignano is a community, They do not call them recovering centers or treatment centers or hospitals in Italy, they call them communities, which I think is really a beautiful thing. They are recovering community in this place. 1800 clients, patients on campus at the same time. 83% recovery rate. So, she’s telling me about San Patrignano so we go to this site, she’s on the phone with a director of San Patrignano. This guy named Andrea Muccioli to say how do we get an American kid to Italy with a visa long enough to stay because the required stay there is three to five years. So, while she’s on the phone, I’m just in tears weeping, weeping, weeping, weeping. I was just in such bad shape. And the guy who was in charge of the office who was a recovering alcoholic, and he turns to me my Signora, non piangere. Don’t cry. Everything’s not lost. And I look at him and I’m thinking everything’s not lost. Are you crazy? My kids dying we’re in? And he says no no stagli vicino, stagli vicino, which means in English, stay close to him. And I’m thinking I’ve been close. That’s the problem. I’ve lost myself and I’ve lost everything. And he said, No, no, no stagli vicino, ma senza soldi without money. Don’t give him money. Don’t give him a new cell phone, don’t fix his car. Stay close, but out of the chaos. And I thought, I have no idea what you’re talking about Mr. And so, we left. I went back to my apartment and I’m thinking stay close, stay close. I would this guy’s telling me is don’t abandon your son. Stay close. But don’t fix everything. Don’t give him money. So, I thought okay, that’s a street you know, when people would say detach with love. I don’t know what that means, detach with love. I still don’t know what that means, detach with love. But this stay close, but out of chaos stay close. But don’t give him money. Bingo, I could do that. So, I go back to the apartment. By this time. Jeff is really sick. It’s been 14 years, he had left another recovering center. This is probably 12th recovering center for $30,000. He had left another one. He’s now in California. Living with a girl he met at one of the recovering centers who’s also an alcoholic addict. And she gets a $10,000 a month Trust Fund settlement every month. So, she gets $10,000 a month. So, he chooses well, right. So, he’s living in an apartment on the Pacific coast driving a white Mercedes, and with this girl. And he calls me in Italy and says Mama Mama, I found another Recovery Center. I’m really sick. Give me your credit card number so that I can get in. Now when I tell his story at AA meetings recovering people, they laugh. Me I saw Jeff, Jeff, I love you, but I’m not going to give you my credit card number because I’m thinking stay close. But don’t give him money. I finally had a street. I had a lane. And two days later he calls me in he says Mama Mama, I found another Recovery Center, this is a great one. He said write the check out to the recovering center. But mail the check to me. Again, recovering people think this is a hoot, me I was sucked in Jeff Jeff and I’m thinking I’m hanging on to these words stagli vicino. So, Jeff, I love you. I love you. But I’m not going to send a check. Three days later, he calls me he says Mama Mama, I’m so sick. Then he screams at me. Send me anything negotiable. I said, Jeff, I said you’re going to die. You’re going to die. I said when I had breast cancer, I could have died. Nobody can make you cut two breasts off your body. I said but I had to fight. I said Jeff, fight, son fight. And the next day, he was in jail, and the hospital that same day. And the day after that he put himself into recovery center. So, stay close was my road. If I hadn’t gone to Italy and learned stay close, I don’t know what would have happened to Jeff.
Margaret 18:53
And I love that our Higher Power sends messengers that we never know who or where they’re going to show up from. And that’s what I feel when I hear that. I hear from so many families. What is this detach with love? What is this? It’s so baffling. In my terminology is it’s caring without fixing. Which is exactly what you beautifully described and stay close. I love what he said to you stay close, and it’s even better in Italian. Stay close. But stay out of the chaos. That’s so powerful and yet so hard to do.
Libby 19:29
Exactly. In fact, Jeff at the end, when he got well said my mother at the end. These words are great, became suspiciously quiet, suspiciously peaceful because I quit fixing things. So, I was there when he called. I listen. I told him to fight, but I didn’t fix things. In fact, I interviewed a 40 Almost 45/41people from all over The United States and the world from Ukraine, Canada, Denmark, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, I interviewed all these people. And I asked them two questions, what brought you to addiction? What brought you to being sick and what brought you to recovery. And 35 out of the 41, people said, the consequences of my addiction brought me to recovery.
So when I quit fixing everything for him, and he had to face the consequences of his addiction, and that’s what he says in the video that’s on the website, my mother quit fixing things, my mother quit giving me money. But she was still there for me.
Margaret 20:44
Couldn’t say that better, myself, Libby, that’s perfect for families to hear. There was an image that struck me on the video that I mean, there was many, but the one that just hits me, is the power of your journaling to navigate the insanity, your outlet. That picture of you with all of your journals, open on the table with all the little sticky notes. And it was amazing how much you wrote. Was that your outlet when you didn’t have an alternative? Or even when you did,
Libby 21:20
It was the place where I can be honest, I didn’t have anybody I felt like I could trust. And so, in the journal, I just vomited. Every time I needed an outlet, every time that the emotions were stuck in my craw stuck in me, I’d open up and just write, and write, and write, and write sometimes three in the morning, four in the morning, I would wake up, you know. But I had to do something with my emotions. I couldn’t continue to carry them. And there was the place where I found some sense of peace.
Margaret 21:54
Did you go back and read them? Or were you truly just vomiting and left them shut for a long time?
Libby 21:58
Yes, left them shut for a long time. It was only until when Jeff was in jail. And I started this the writing of the book that I never thought would end up as a book. I just started to write, I was in Italy, I sat at my computer and just cried and wrote, and a friend of mine, former teacher had been an editor before he came to our school to teach. Brilliant guy and I sent him some pages and I said, this is how I feel. And he wrote back, and he said, listen, when you decide to be honest, send them back to me. And I thought, honest, what do you mean, I am honest. My kids in jail! How much more honest can I get? And then I thought so when I went back to the States, I was in Italy, I went back to the States to visit Jeff, I thought you want honest. And I picked up all my journals. And I asked Jeff, I said I’m going to write this may I, and he said, Yeah, he said this is service. I asked Jeremy. Jeremy said, Sure. I brought back all my journals in my arms practically because I didn’t want to put them in a suitcase, I took them back to Italy. And that’s when I started to really scratch through the journals to find out where I was. And that’s how those journal entries made their way into print. But it wasn’t until then. And that documented the journey without those journal entries. You know, you lose dates, lose times, you lose, you lose things.
Margaret 23:25
Yeah. And I wrote, when the commotion came to my reality of my partner at the time, I wrote, that was my only outlet. And I find it very difficult to go back and look at that. Gut level honest. Vomiting because I kept it the same. Ironically, I would literally, I had no other outlet so I would pick it up and just vomit on the paper.
Outro: The parallels of the journey for Jeff and Libby are undeniable. In hearing Libby share the turmoil of deciding how to support her son in healthy ways is clear, as is the lane she found through her sabbatical in Italy. Come back next week where we will hear more of Libby’s stories.
Learn more about SanPatrignano at their website: https://www.sanpatrignano.org/en/
Find more about Libby Catalpa’s book, Stay Close on her website: https://libbycataldi.com/books/
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website.
embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you.
