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This episode touches on addiction and on the loss of a child to a fatal overdose. It's a tender one, so please take care whilst listening. And if that's not something you have capacity for today, it's completely okay to come back another time.
What if the person you love is slipping away beneath the weight of addiction, and you’re left battling shame, silence, and a culture that blames individuals while ignoring the deeper crisis? In this profoundly moving episode, Anna Donaghey speaks to Katie Rizzo, a mother who lost her son Nicholas to a fatal overdose after years of struggling with alcohol and substance dependence.
This is a story shaped by grief, but also by everything that comes after. Katie bravely challenges the stigma and secrecy that surround addiction within families and in society at large. She shares Nicholas’s sensitive nature, the anxiety that haunted him, and the relentless pressure to appear happy and successful. Anna and Katie discuss how addiction is viewed as a personal failing, why shame forces families into silence, and what it means to support a loved one with compassion rather than judgement.
You’ll hear firsthand about the ways social comparison, anxiety, and unrealistic ideals fuel substance misuse in young people and why the myth of individual willpower is so dangerous. Anna and Katie invite listeners to rethink not only how we talk about drinking, but how vulnerability, honesty, and community are the real routes to healing.
Highlights:
00:00 Trigger warning: addiction and the loss of a child
01:13 Who Nicholas was, behind the statistics and labels
03:46 How social pressure and anxiety feed substance use
07:13 Why “this isn’t the real me”: inside the mind of addiction
12:52 The myth of willpower, the reality of relapse
18:20 Family stigma and shame: breaking the silence
28:22 Why addiction is a human issue not a moral failing
35:51 Loving a person, not the addiction
41:30 “I’m not the mother who failed her son”, the truth about blame
44:42 Why compassion, vulnerability, and honesty combat shame.
Anna’s book "What Are You Thirsty For? Rethinking Alcohol and The Life You Want", is now out in the world for you to buy!
Order your copy, access her free tools and explore her coaching programmes at: https://thebigdrinkrethink.com/
The Thirsty For More Mindset Lab is Anna’s ‘inner circle’ - a calm, thoughtful space where conversations continue, patterns are explored, and things begin to make sense. Find out more at: https://thirstyformore.substack.com/
If you appreciate the podcast and would like to show a bit of love, you can donate the cost of a coffee here. It helps support the time and care that goes into making the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/bigdrinkrethink
About the host Anna:
Anna is a certified Alcohol Mindset Coach, trained by Annie Grace of This Naked Mind. Drawing on her own journey out of alcohol addiction, she now helps others explore and control their drinking. With a career spanning 25 years as a Strategist in the Advertising industry, she combines her own lived experiences, with great insight into what makes us tick and what influences us to behave the way we do.
Connect with Anna:
Website: thebigdrinkrethink.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/annadonaghey
Instagram: instagram.com/bigdrinkrethink
Produced by winteraudio.co.uk
About Katie Rizzo:
Katie Rizzo is a mother, former high school science teacher, and writer based in Arizona.
Her oldest son, Nicholas, died from an accidental overdose after a long struggle with anxiety and addiction - first to alcohol, then to benzodiazepines and prescription opioids.
Since his passing, Katie has found her way through grief with the support of Al-Anon and grief communities, and has turned to writing as a way of processing what she's lived through. She is the author of two forthcoming books: Trimesters of Grief (October 1st) and a poetry collection, None of Them Are You (November 1st).
Connect with Katie:
Website: https://katierizzo.com/
