The Presley Family Legacy with Riley Keough

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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 Keogh.

And if you don't know who Riley Keogh 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 of Elvis Presley.

She's the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley.

And she released a book called From Here to the Great Unknown.

And Pad Swad, 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 Keogh, who is an Emmy, Golden Globe, an Independent Spirit Award-nominated actress.

She's 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 Coppel 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'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.

Okay.

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 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

and i loved you yeah and i don't mean like i loved you like oh you were 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 your, 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've, 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, 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, at least, right?

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 want to 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 who don't know your family's story.

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.

So

set the stage for us, Riley.

Who are you?

Who is your family?

And why the book?

Well, my name is Riley Keogh, and I am the daughter of Lisa Marie Presley and Danny Keogh

and the eldest grandchild of Elvis Presley.

That's the sort of

the

easy

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 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 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.

Yeah.

You know,

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 Elbis.

But that's not true of anyone, right?

It's like the generations and generations before

we carry all of those with us.

Yeah.

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 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 in at Graceland in

the house with Elvis and and also with her mother.

But for her, Graceland and the time with her father was like really represented

like a freedom and also

unconditional love.

And the connection that she had with him was,

I think,

one of the most, you know, important connections of her life.

And I think that the loss of him, it's not to say that, you know, 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 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 on to 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.

Yeah.

And also, over time, I have to recognize that they also had a relationship with my brother.

Yeah.

Though it was vastly different and much different than mine, it still mattered.

And 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 rightly says that in the the book.

Yeah.

Like your mom didn't even learn the word trauma.

It wasn't talking about it was like 2021 or something or 2020 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, I mean, very normal human things, but a unique circumstance.

Sorry for your loss.

Thank you.

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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.

Yeah.

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?

Like, 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.

You know, they've had a complicated relationship.

through my life, but we've all been fairly close.

Like there was never a moment where anyone was estranged.

Their dynamic was, you know, 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 their 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, 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 would, if she thought about that much.

And there's a sense 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.

Of course.

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 really 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 the, 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 to be or to give her.

It's just so easy to see other people's generational trauma from the outside.

You know, 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 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, and friends would come in and, and she wouldn't even do anything.

And they'd be like, oh, your mom is scary, you know?

And I'm like, why?

Like, she's just, she's, you know, this tiny little lady and she's 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 Spite was speaking about.

Oh,

how did she keep that?

I don't know.

I mean, you would think, I feel like we're born with like a life force.

Yeah.

And most of us very quickly are like, I'm going to tamp that down about seven notches.

I know.

But how did she keep her life force like that?

That's what's so incredible to me about her: it was never nurtured.

It wasn't something that people praised.

It was always the like, she was always a problem.

Any school, any situation, she was being, you know, she was difficult.

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, I'm very.

I'm like a dimmable chandelier.

Yeah, I'm like,

oh, my God.

Me too.

If I walk in a room, I'm like, oh, you know, shouldn't do that.

Shouldn't be here.

But she just, you know,

it was, 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 talk 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, that 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, my mom was extremely sensitive.

She just, you know, was very at a strength to her that was sort of unshakable.

My, 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 we, 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.

Like that was very normal.

But then into my later in my 20s, it became, you know, my brother's drinking was, it just, there was just something about it that just felt darker, I would say, you know, in sort of my mid-20s 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 like I was you know and then as their addictions progressed I 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 going to 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?

You know, which I still haven't figured out, but damn it.

You know, you're about to tell us.

But what I do know is that I was forced to surrender because they died, you know?

And I felt like I was holding on for dear life or waiting to get punched in in the face and doing everything I could to not have this thing happen.

And then it happened twice, you know.

And so

the only thing I know is that

by the time my mom

was

about to pass away in the hospital,

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 could, 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

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.

Yeah.

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 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.

You know, 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 like half as loved as my mother made us feel, you know, which considering where, you know,

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?

Yeah.

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, 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 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 incredibly 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 I didn't speak, I wrote something.

He really kept the essence of him as a child through his life, which is also, was also a really beautiful thing.

Like your mom.

Yeah, I think he 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're if you were like what is that kind of tree he'd be like oh that's the you know this thing or or you know, where does this come from?

I don't know.

Like, he was just new, you know, my, he had my dad's 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.

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Soon after that loss,

how do you describe what happened to your mom with addiction?

So

addiction was actually before my brother died.

Okay.

So with the girls, right?

Yeah.

So her addiction was was when my sisters were younger.

And

she went to rehab.

She, her addiction got like 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

developed the same way in Abby too.

Yeah.

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, 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 because 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'd 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 got to get back because the kids are starting school.

And I think this was actually a really bad time to come here.

And, and I'm like, wait, what?

Like, like, you're here.

What are you talking about?

Like, you're not just going to 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.

You know, she was taking more and more pills.

She ended up getting up to 80, 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 started to 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 i have to take painkillers and i was i know that trick i was like okay

i see what's happening here and then it just spiraled it it was like the opiates were

you know

so high up the 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,

you know, because she ended up in Cedars, she was so honest that she told

the

people working there, you know, 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.

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 in and whatever, the social workers basically said, well, you need a court-appointed monitor with you if you're going to 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, 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 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.

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 a 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 going to 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 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, something's 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.

yeah and then she wanted to start grief groups yeah 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.

Cause I think that like something I've really haven't liked in my grief grief experience is this 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 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 yeah for her like you're doing it yeah it's happening right now yeah the sort of place she was right before she died was like she would go on hikes and it was like, I'm going to 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 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.

Take it.

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, said, I don't believe 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 we're 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 desired 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 we're just plopped here with no context.

And so I like to be confused feels like normal.

Legit.

Seems like it should be like a baseline 101.

Right.

Day one.

This is what we're here to plan.

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 my whole

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 was very

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

and right.

And so many of us got addicted to prescription pills because of that.

Yeah.

For sure.

Well, Riley, you're great.

if i were your ancestors

i would be so proud of what you've done with your legacy in the intro you said something about there was a poem like beauty ben was it yes i can't recite it but it basically says that

wanting people know the the beauty bin that was my mother yeah you did that yes

you did that thank you

Just beautiful.

All right, Proud Squad.

We love you.

We'll see you next time.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Riley.

Bye.

Thank you for having me.

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