Episode Details

What if grief isn't something you get over, but something you carry to term?

Katie Rizzo is a scientist, longtime high school biology teacher, and mother of three who lost her oldest son Nicholas to an opioid overdose in 2024. Instead of looking away, she studied it — turning her research and her grief into her book, The Trimesters of Grief.

In this conversation we explore emotional healing after losing a child to addiction, why grief moves in trimesters — invisible, then undeniable, then impossible to hide — the trauma and shame that keep families of addicts silent, what opioids actually do to the brain and body, and why naming the disease out loud might be the thing that saves the next kid.

This is a conversation about carrying grief instead of curing it — and why the sunlight, not the silence, is what finally lets a family breathe.

If this conversation moved something in you, a rating or review helps more people find this work. Martin's book, The Weary Traveller's Guide to a Life Worth Living, is available now on Amazon