Memoir Archives - Award-Winning Writer and Graphic Designer

Charles Manson is Dead But There is Still More to Learn in a Riveting New Memoir: Member of the Family

dorriolds — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 16:29:13 +0000

Charles Manson Is Dead But…

Charles Manson is dead at age 83. The news release issued by the California Department of Corrections said he died of natural causes in a hospital.

Eerie Timing to Meet a Manson Family Member

The timing is eerie. Manson died and right after that I came face-to-face with a Manson Family member. Her name is Dianne Lake. She was in attendance at one of my Manhattan speaking events for writers. It was October 28 when we met near Penn Stations. The venue was inside the Hotel Pennsylvania.

After giving my talk on journalism in today’s media, and a Q&A afterwards, I headed for the elevator. After pressing the down arrow, I noticed two women beside me, also waiting. One had a hardcover book tucked under her arm. The cover photo of Charles Manson captured my gaze, as did the title, Member of the Family. I’ve been obsessed with true crime books since seventh grade when I discovered Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood and devoured it in two days.

Member of the Family by Dianne Lake, the youngest member of the Charles Manson Family

Helter Skelter & New Manson Book

Curious, I struck up a conversation. “I’ve read Helter Skelter three times,” I said with a smile. The woman who was holding the book turned out to be Lake’s co-author Deborah Herman. After introducing herself, Herman said, “Guess who this is.” She pointed to Lake and said “This is Dianne, the youngest member of the Manson family.”

I must’ve looked startled because Herman explained, “This is her story.” Then handed me the book.

Intrigued, I immediately read the subtitle: My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties.

Meeting Manson Family Member

Although eager to read the jacket, I didn’t want to be rude so I looked up and extended my free hand to Lake. Hesitatingly, as if in slo-motion, Lake took my hand and we shook. She offered a polite hello in almost a whisper. Her cautious manner and the way she looked me in the eyes for only a moment before her gaze darted away, gave me the impression she was either shy, tired, or at the very least, uncomfortable in the moment. A feeling came over me that she too was a rape survivor.

The cliche, “It takes one to know one,” proved true as I read her heart-wrenching account.

I don’t want to give any spoilers because I highly recommend this book.

Member of the Family

My Story of Charles Manson, Life Inside His Cult, and the Darkness That Ended the Sixties

by Dianne Lake and Deborah Herman

At age 14, I became one of Charles Manson’s Girls. At 17 I helped put him in prison. This is my story.

— Diane Lake

At fourteen Dianne Lake—with little more than a note in her pocket from her hippie parents granting her permission to leave them—became one of “Charlie’s girls,” a devoted acolyte of cult leader Charles Manson. In this poignant and disturbing memoir of lost innocence, coercion, survival, and healing, Dianne Lake chronicles her years with Charles Manson, revealing for the first time how she became the youngest member of his Family and offering new insights into one of the twentieth century’s most notorious criminals and life as one of his “girls.”

Being Charlie’s Girl

Over the course of two years, the impressionable teenager endured manipulation, psychological control, and physical abuse as the harsh realities and looming darkness of Charles Manson’s true nature revealed itself. From Spahn ranch and the group acid trips, to the Beatles’ White Album and Manson’s dangerous messiah-complex, Dianne tells the riveting story of the group’s descent into madness as she lived it.

The Gruesome Crimes

Dianne Lake never participated in the group’s gruesome crimes. She was purposely insulated from them. However, Dianne was arrested with the rest of the Manson Family. When Diane learned more about the heinous Manson Family Murders, she joined the prosecution’s case against Manson.

She received help from the cop who arrested her and took her into his home. She met other good Samaritans along her journey. And that’s how the courageous young woman eventually found redemption and grew up to lead an ordinary life.

While much has been written about Charles Manson, this riveting account from an actual Manson Family cult member is a chilling portrait that recreates in vivid detail one of the most horrifying and fascinating chapters in modern American history.

Member of the Family includes 16 pages of photographs.

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Exclusive Interview with Cannibal Cop About His ‘Raw Deal’

dorriolds — Mon, 06 Mar 2017 01:27:40 +0000

By Dorri Olds
The infamous case of Cannibal Cop Gilberto Valle illustrates the blurred facts and fantasy in a digital world. Valle was a New York City police officer arrested in 2012 for conspiracy to kidnap. He was convicted a year later and faced life in prison plus five years for another charge: accessing the federal National Crime Information Center database without authorization. After Valle served 21 months in prison, the judge, Paul Gardephe, shocked everyone by overturning the verdict. Now Valle has written a memoir, Raw Deal: The Untold Story of NYPD’s Cannibal Cop.
In 2012, Valle’s suspicious wife Kathleen installed spyware on their home computer and her snooping revealed gruesome chats on sexual fetish sites. In elaborate detail, Valle typed about rape, torture, murder, and eating women—including Kathleen.
In his defense, Valle swore it was all just pretend—innocuous role-playing like gamers do in World of Warcraft. But, although the intricate details sounded real, the ex-cop insists he never acted on his depraved sexual fantasies. No woman in the 3D world was ever abducted or violated. According to Valle, it was all talk merely to enhance pleasuring himself.
His arrest, trial, and conviction are reminiscent of the “Thought Police” in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. Eerily, Valle was born in 1984. Oh, the irony in this creepy case. The New York Post had a ball with punny headlines. Examples include “Cannibal Cop dishes on how his twisted role plays came to a boil” and “Cannibal Cop says he’s a hot dish on the dating scene.”
SEE ALSO: PULP, CRIME AND THE HEADLINES OF THE NEW YORK POST
Honeysuckle’s Dorri Olds landed an exclusive interview with the Cannibal Cop.
Dorri Olds: When you spent seven months in solitary confinement did you fantasize about hogtied women to satisfy yourself sexually?
No, it wasn’t an environment conducive to pleasuring myself. It was depressing and thoughts raced through my head—the court case, my ex-wife, my daughter, my family. As it got closer to the trial, I was mostly thinking about the case. My lawyer sent paperwork. The government was turning over discovery and I was reading all that stuff and thinking about how to fight the case. The prosecutors made a lot of false allegations. I have a very good memory so I was able to [reconstruct] things to help my case.
Prosecutors accused me of being in lower Manhattan on a Saturday to [find] a woman but I took a friend to see Ground Zero and showed him around the city. That’s what I was really doing. I had to find proof of the truth. I spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like that.
Are you accusing the prosecuting attorneys of lying?
Yes, they lied about a lot of things. I was a cop for almost seven years so I had the mindset that cops and prosecutors were doing the right thing. Defense attorneys were looking for a technicality to put criminals back on the streets. But it turned out to be the complete opposite. What an eye-opener.
Now I’m on board with defense lawyers and automatically tuned to look for prosecutorial misconduct. I’m not saying that every prosecutor is like that—most are fair and just. The dishonesty in my case was frustrating. Those untruths stuck to me even though it’s been proven the prosecutors blatantly misrepresented facts and lied, yet nothing was done to them. It’s like, ‘So what they lied?’”
Sounds like what’s going on in the White House—Trump and his cabinet lie frequently but fans believe them, despite evidence. Trump is a misogynist—is that why your violent sexual fantasies excite you? Do you hate women?
I understand that women read about my fantasies and don’t want to be associated with me. They may hate or even fear me. But human sexuality is complicated. You don’t choose the things you’re aroused by. But I took no actions. This was all fictional, fantasy, role-play over the internet. It never affected my real life. I was a good husband, a good father. The fantasies were just something that existed inside me and I was able to live with that.
Obviously, I wish I wasn’t aroused by this stuff but it’s just there. The main question with this case, and my book, is that I’m not looking for people to be comfortable around me. I’m looking for people to look at everything and conclude that I should not have been in prison. No matter how horrible a person’s thoughts are, without action, that isn’t a crime. That’s freedom of speech, the First Amendment. Again, I’m not looking for friends or people to like me. I’m looking for those most disgusted and revolted to still conclude that I did nothing illegal.

You just said you wish you didn’t have these fantasies. But you’ve also said that when you were younger, you didn’t see anything wrong with your fantasy life. Has your view changed simply because of the trial, jail, and public humiliation?
Yeah, that’s really it. My plan was to go through life without ever telling anyone about this stuff. I never thought there was anything wrong with me because it never affected my real life. Growing up, I was a great student, had lots of friends. I was a good baseball player and a typical American kid. Then [became] a cop. I was a good cop, a good husband and a good father.
Your wife stated that you didn’t have much of a sex life. She wanted both of you to see a sex counselor, right?
There was no talk about a sex counselor until after she found everything and left. She suggested that we maybe go to a couple’s therapist. That was her initial reaction upon finding everything.
Did you and Kathleen have a happy sex life?
Our sex life diminished a bit after the baby was born. I don’t think there’s anything unusual about that. We weren’t sleeping much and it was complicated because I worked nights.
Before the baby and working nights, were you able to have sex without fantasy?
Yeah, absolutely. Our sex life was fine. I was happy with it. She was happy with it. That’s as much as I want to say, because I don’t want to invade her space too much, but from our perspective, things were good. We were happy. Everything was going very well.
When did you last see your daughter?
She was one when I was arrested. She’s five years old now and has no idea who her dad is. That’s being worked out in family court. I petitioned for visitation rights. That’s as much as I can say, because it’s being done under seal. I’m the subject of a lot of jokes and I’m fine with that. I’d rather people laugh and make fun of me than be afraid of me. But the thing people are missing is that my family’s gone, my career is gone.
What does she know about her father?
I have no idea because I haven’t spoken to Kathleen or her family, not one word. Our communication is through lawyers. That’s unfortunate. I’m very optimistic that the judge is going to rule in my favor, that I’ll be able to reunite with my daughter. I’m also hopeful that as adults, Kathleen and I can find a way to be cordial for the sake of our daughter. I’m not sure if we’re going to get there. I hope we can.
How would you feel if a man fantasized about your daughter—tying her up, putting fruit in her mouth, cutting her up, cooking and eating her?
That’s a very tough question. No one has ever asked me that. Obviously, as a father, I want my daughter to be completely safe. That’s my number one concern. I would be uncomfortable with people thinking about her like that. On the other hand, if something’s going to happen to that person with those fantasies, then something would have had to happen to me too. It’s two sides of a coin. When it’s your own daughter, I guess I think about it differently. I wasn’t always circumspect when I was online. I think this experience has made me a little more careful and considerate about what other people would think. At the same time, if someone wants to think about stuff, they can’t be sent to prison. That doesn’t mean I’d be okay with it. I wouldn’t want my daughter anywhere near that person, but the issue is does a person belong in prison for thinking that? The answer would have to be no.
Is your father-in-law still in the picture? Is he alive?
I believe so. I’m not sure.
Did you ever have to look him in the eye during the court case?
No. The courtroom was completely packed. I didn’t notice him there.
Were your parents in the courtroom every day?
Yes, and at all the pretrial hearings. It was uncomfortable for them but it was good they came. They never believed the allegations.
What was their reaction to your sexual fantasies?
It was shocking to them. I never told anyone about this stuff. My brother is the person I’m closest to on this planet and I never told him. They knew me for 28 years, and knew I wasn’t capable of violence like this.
If you didn’t see anything wrong with your fantasies, why didn’t you tell anyone?
It wasn’t anything I spent a lot of time thinking about. When I say there was nothing wrong with my fantasies, I knew it was a little different, a little abnormal. That’s why I didn’t want to share it with anybody, because they would think I was some kind of freak. They would outcast me. I didn’t think there was anything wrong with me because my life was so perfect. Other than my parents separating when I was five, I had as good a life as a person could possibly have.
When your parents divorced, did your mother get full custody?
No. My mother was the one who left, and she wasn’t working, so my father had custody, and we would be at my mom’s every other weekend. Then school vacations we’d have a week with mom.
I could see how that would make a little boy very angry at his mother.
I was so young, I didn’t think about it that much. That environment was normal. My parents separating was normal for me and my brother. Both my parents were very involved in our upbringing. My mom was always close. It’s not like she went to another state. She was always very much a part of our lives. She came to our baseball games and everything.
Did you talk to her every day?
Not every day. Every couple days, she’d call.
Did your father have time to spend with you, or you were raised by a nanny?
We had a nanny. My father worked. He was a Wall Street broker. The nanny would come early in the morning. She’d walk us to school. She’d cook dinner. We had a comfortable middle-class upbringing. We never had a ton of money but we lived within our means.
Were your parents surprised that you wanted to be a cop?
Yeah, but they were supportive of me. I explained to them my goal was not to be in a patrol car my whole life. I have a college education, and have the brains to work my way up the ranks at a police department. I had actually passed a sergeant’s exam on my first attempt. I was about a month away from being promoted before I was arrested.

(l to r) Edward Zas, Julia Gatto, Gil Valle, Robert Baum (photo: Reuters).

You seem like a regular guy—sweet, caring, kind, moral—yet you have these dark fantasies.
Yeah, that was the reaction of a lot of people when I was arrested. I couldn’t read anything in solitary confinement but I caught up on reading since I got out of prison. Many people said, “I could never even imagine. He seemed like such a nice guy.” Those people were right, because I would never hurt anyone in real life.
There was a crime committed in this case. It was the FBI. Those people committed perjury. I’m hoping that someone reads my book and looks into this, because I’m not okay with these agents and these prosecutors continuing to practice. The way they behaved, they don’t belong within a hundred miles of a courthouse.
The judge acquitting me, that is so incredibly rare. That should show people what a travesty this prosecution was. His ruling was based on the lack of evidence. The jury’s verdict cannot stand because there’s no evidence to support it. He could have left it at that, but he even felt compelled to mention some of the misconduct that they engaged in, so I was happy to see that.
What about your charge for accessing the crime database without authorization?
They charged me with violating a hacking statute, for using the patrol car computer at work to run one woman’s name. It wasn’t 100 women. There was no hacking into a database. That was the complete misrepresentation. They charged me with hacking, which I didn’t hack into anything. At trial, the woman whose name I ran, she testified that she had asked me to look into something for her. What I did was a violation of NYPD policy, but it wasn’t a federal crime. I shouldn’t have been fired for that.
With your sexual fetishes out in public, do you meet women that are attracted to that?
Yeah, I have opportunities with women but I really can’t commit right now because I don’t know where I’m gonna be a year from now. I might be in Nevada. If the judge out there rules that I can reunite with my daughter, I’m probably gonna move out to Nevada, so I’m not in a position to settle down right now but eventually, yes, I would like to start over and meet the right woman and get married again and no secrets this time. Hopefully I can do it right. It’ll be a completely open and honest relationship.
That is one regret. Maybe if I hadn’t kept all this stuff from Kathleen, maybe if I was a little more open, who knows? But we’ll never know, so it’s unfortunate. I wish I was still married to her. I wish that none of this happened. I wish I was known for something else, but that being said, I have to continue to rebuild my life. I can’t let this hold me back. I’m doing my best to do everything a 32-year-old does. If I don’t rebuild my life, I feel like the prosecutors and the FBI, still win. The final piece of the puzzle is reuniting with my daughter. That’s the emptiness I feel every day.

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Cat Marnell Gives the Addiction Memoir a Makeover

dorriolds — Mon, 16 Jan 2017 11:40:11 +0000

Written for The Fix. Cat Marnell gives the addiction memoir a makeover. The book is action-packed, shocking, darkly humorous and gut-wrenching. Embedded in every funny line is the heartbreaking tale of Adderall addiction and a world that enabled it for a “lucky” white girl of privilege. It’s a brave and courageous account of drug hell on earth.

Marnell is an American writer based in New York City. She’s a beauty who built her brand on writing about beauty for Lucky, xoJane, Vice, SELF, Nylon, and Glamour. She’s been labeled a “socialite” and “enfant terrible” based on her years of struggle with addiction. Her memoir held me rapt but made me so mad at addiction. How it robs us of dignity, common sense, self-esteem. I’m rooting for the author. She wrote an honest and deeply disturbing book about what can happen when one is lost in a world of drugs and enabled at every turn.
Her Twitter bio reads, “WRITER / EDITOR / PREDATOR / DOWNTOWN DISASTER.” And, yes, it’s in solid caps. I had been eager to hear about Marnell’s debut memoir with the inspired title, How to Murder Your Life. Marnell and I met up in Greenwich Village. When she walked in, I was surprised. She didn’t look as I’d expected. Every photo I had Googled showed her, now 34, as a Barbie-beautiful blonde in heavy make-up. The woman I met was brunette, childlike and vulnerable.

An Original Voice

“I had more issues than Vogue,” Marnell wrote in her book and described herself as “a weepy, wobbly, hallucination-prone insomniac” and a “tweaky self-mutilator.” Her brains, she wrote, were “so scrambled you could’ve ordered them for brunch at Sarabeth’s.”

Rooting for Her

Cat Marnell Memoir (Simon & Schuster)

When asked about her number one tip about turning weaknesses into strengths, she said, “I’ve got this slogan. It was on a reality show [Push Girls]. It was these girls in wheelchairs and the slogan was, ‘If you can’t stand up, stand out.’ And for me, I felt like that really, you know, this whole media career I have orchestrated from my bed. My career popped off in the press a couple years ago. I did it. While I can’t stand up, stand out… I lost my job and because of the Internet or whatever, I got the most attention so I was on disability getting contacted for, you know, by The New York Times Magazine. It was just crazy. So yeah. When you can’t stand up, stand out. Unique is always good.”
Marnell’s voice is original. She’s startlingly honest and writes things nobody should. Her career is based on a can-you-top-this approach, but as she describes horribly embarrassing details, she’s hilarious. She described the décor in one of her apartments as “midcentury meth lab.”

“It’s Like Cooking”

Her thoughts on how the book will be received were, “I’m not saying everyone gets it. I feel like with a book—I mean it’s like cooking. I don’t feel immodest saying it’s, I mean, if you taste food that you’ve cooked and you know it’s good then it’s good to you. It’s not like everyone’s taste, know what I mean? I feel like it’s good to me and I worked so hard on it.”
Selling film rights is already in the works. And you should check out the Marnell-inspired fictionalized character—fashion blogger Jade Winslow—on TV Land’s Sex and the City-ish series Younger.

Courtesy of Cat Marnell Instagram account.

Available Now

How to Murder Your Life is what every addict memoir should be: adventure-packed, shocking, darkly humorous, and gut-wrenching—the only thing missing is sobriety. The book will be published January 31. You’re likely to read it in one fast sitting.

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20/20 Anchor Elizabeth Vargas Talks About Anxiety, Alcohol and Her Moving Memoir

dorriolds — Thu, 15 Sep 2016 10:39:00 +0000

Celebrity newscaster Elizabeth Vargas told me, “I was nearly fired from my job. My husband left me while I was in rehab, I hurt my kids tremendously, and I nearly lost my life.”

Written for The Fix

“A huge part of my alcoholism was anxiety,”20/20 anchor Elizabeth Vargas told me. “I had panic attacks since kindergarten.” During our interview and in her new book, Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction, the veteran newscaster was candid about almost losing everything.

Between Breaths: A Memoir of Panic and Addiction by 20/20 Anchor Elizabeth Vargas

She went to her first rehab in 2012, but denial said she only needed two weeks of treatment. It’s no surprise that didn’t work and the disease progressed. In 2014, she went to a second rehab but left prematurely. She went home and drank again. Resigned and humiliated, she returned to that second rehab. Now sober for two years, Vargas is committed to sobriety but understands we only have a daily reprieve from alcohol.

“My story is different than others I’ve heard ‘in the rooms,’” she told me. “I drank moderately for 20 years. It wasn’t until my 40s that I fell off a cliff.”

Vargas described a day in 2012 when she showed up at ABC too drunk to work. “I stepped out of the car and stumbled. That’s when I knew I was in no condition to conduct an interview. My friend took one look at me and knew.” Her first rehab was that year at Cirque Lodge in Utah. “I look back on a lot of the writing that I did,” she said. “I’m struck by the lectures and therapists there. It was a very good experience.” But after leaving the Utah rehab after only two weeks, she was not able to stay sober and her alcoholism progressed. Vargas blames a combination of factors. “Stress at work, and then being diagnosed with post-partum anxiety. My drinking was suddenly on steroids and I had huge consequences.”

“I’d had lots of brownouts,” she said, “but never a blackout.” That is until one day when she began drinking in the early afternoon after work. “The next thing I remember is waking up at four a.m. in the emergency room with zero memory of what happened. I had a blood alcohol level of .4, which is lethal. I’m told a woman saw me at Riverside Park in my work clothes and wobbling in high heels.”

Two predatory men were eyeing Vargas so the concerned passerby intervened and got the drunk newscaster home safely. But Vargas passed out in the lobby and was taken away in an ambulance. The incident scared her enough to stop drinking and she went to her second rehab.

“It was a rude awakening. I woke up in Tennessee. My husband and therapist picked that rehab. I don’t understand how anybody would’ve picked it. Even my therapist there said, ‘This is not the right place for you. I don’t know how on earth you ended up here.’ But once there, I couldn’t get out.”

In the memoir that second rehab in 2014 is referred to as The Center. But Vargas told me, “I wrote that it was in rural Tennessee so most people can figure out it’s really The Ranch. For some people I’m sure it’s a life-saving gift but it wasn’t the best place for me. Most of the patients were in their teens and twenties. We had different life experiences and different issues.”

The newscaster confided that she already suffered with guilt. “Making my shame front and center wasn’t the best way to go. I wasn’t thinking about getting better and saving my life. I was thinking, ‘How do I get home?’ I wasn’t seeing my children and was desperate to know what was going on. I feared that my husband was hiring divorce lawyers and starting to date other people.” Frantic, she left prematurely against advice and learned her suspicions were correct.

I asked if she thought drinking caused the divorce. “My husband would say it did,” she said. “It’s easy to judge him but I didn’t walk in his shoes. I don’t know what it was like to be married to an alcoholic. I’m sure it was really difficult.”

Vargas said she would die for her sons. “I love them more than anything in the world. I would do anything for my children. But I couldn’t stop drinking for them.”

I pointed out that many interviewers still don’t seem to understand alcoholism. Vargas agreed. “They don’t. Trust me. Many people have no concept that this is a disease. To tell an alcoholic to stop drinking is like telling someone born with depression to be happy….”

* * *

Vargas said, “I asked my son last night, ‘Why do you think I’m writing this book?’ He said, ‘Because you’re brave and want to help people.’ I hope people will be kind.”

She confided, “As a child, I was shy and quiet because of my tremendous anxiety.” As an “army brat,” she moved almost every year. “I was bullied mercilessly from third grade through junior high. You’d have to learn how to fit in,” she said. “A lot of times, I didn’t.”

I asked if she thinks: Yeah, well, look at me now! Vargas said, “No, you never shed those horrible feelings. My earliest memories are infused with fear.”

Interview with ‘Free Refills’ Opiate Addicted Doctor Peter Grinspoon

dorriolds — Sun, 07 Aug 2016 15:44:03 +0000

“The book was to show that opiate addiction is not necessarily a death sentence. People love and support you and there are many resources. People can be healed but it’s definitely a process and a struggle.” — Dr. Peter Grinspoon

The memoir “Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction” is the harrowing tale of Harvard-trained Dr. Peter Grinspoon, a primary care medical doctor whose life ran horribly amok through his addiction to prescription opioids. The book is also about his recovery and despite the somber topic, Grinspoon offers a lot of hilarity. Dorri Olds landed an exclusive interview with the candid doctor.

Dorri Olds: During your opiate addiction how many pills were you taking?

Peter Grinspoon: It would always depend on what I could get my hands on. I was taking somewhere in the range of 10 to 20 a day. Depending on if I had any major obligations, which would prevent me from taking a lot and if I had a reasonable supply.

Vicodin, OxyContin or Percocet?

All of the above. It started with Vicodin, but the opiates are all similar to each other in how they affect you. It was whatever I could get my hands on.

Did you experience side effects?

Yeah, I was constipated and sort of drowsy. I mostly had side effects when it wore off. I would be jittery and shaky and jumping out of my skin.

Some men on opiates experience impotence and lack of libido. Did you?

Yes, but my marriage was so messed up at that point anyway.

Was the marriage happy before your pill addiction?

No, we were already unhappy but my addiction made it a lot worse. That was the nail in the coffin. She knew the extent of my problem. She gets angry, so I tuned her out.

Do you think anybody could’ve done or said anything that would have helped you?

Coercing people into treatment is a controversial topic. I was forced into treatment because I wanted to get my medical license back. I think the coercion is part of what helped me. I don’t think I was able. I didn’t have it under control at all. I cannot think of anything that anybody could have said or done, that they didn’t already say or do, that would have helped me.

Can you tell me about your father? He was one of the earliest people in favor of medical marijuana, correct?

Yeah, he wrote a book in 1972 called ‘Marijuana Reconsidered.” He kept intending to write a book about how dangerous it was but when he looked into the research he found out that it wasn’t dangerous at all. That coincided with the time that my brother Danny, who has passed away, had leukemia. He found it helpful back then for the nausea and the vomiting that came along with chemotherapy. My parents had a firsthand proof of how helpful medical marijuana could be. That converted my dad who at age 87 is still chugging away trying to get marijuana legalized. He’s retired as a psychiatrist and no longer sees patients but still works at advocacy of medical and recreational cannabis. My parents were too old to have been part of the hippie movement, but their hearts were definitely with the hippies.

And the beats! It’s interesting that Carl Sagan and Allen Ginsburg were houseguests.

Yes, there were many people like that who were fixtures of my childhood. Carl Sagan was there all the time, he was good friends with my dad. And I remember Allen Ginsberg croaking at me—they’d been smoking and smoking. “Boy,” he said, “get me some water.” I wasn’t thrilled with being called boy, but in all fairness, I was only nine.

Let’s talk about your patients now. How did you talk them into giving you drugs?

Oh great [said sarcastically], the part of the story I’m most proud of. [Laughs] It was my patients who were prescribed a lot of opiates and I suspected they weren’t using them entirely above board.

You mean you sensed they were addicted?

Addicted, or selling. I was a friendly doctor so I was like, “Hey, you know I get bad migraines. What if I prescribed 215 instead of 200 and you gave me back 15?” Not one of them seemed surprised or said no.

It takes an addict to spot another, eh?

Yeah, it was like we were on a subliminal addict communication channel.

How many relapses did you have after you were arrested and forced to do your rehab stint?

I had three brief ones. I was caught through drug testing and got reported to the medical board. But I quickly got my act together because I didn’t want to lose every chance of getting my medical license back.

What does being a doctor mean to you? Was it because you had a family to support? Was it because you’d done all that education towards being a doctor? Was it you wanted to please your parents?

All of the above. But mostly, being a primary care doctor is my identity. That’s what I chose. I killed myself to become a primary care doctor. We do okay but we’re among the lowest paid doctors in the country. It isn’t lucrative or glamorous. Surgeons, dermatologists, ophthalmologists make the big money. We’re like the second-class citizens of medical care. But I have connections with patients and feel like I’m helping people. I couldn’t imagine giving that up.

“Free Refills: A Doctor Confronts His Addiction” by Dr. Peter Grinspoon is available for purchase here.

Written For Honeysuckle magazine

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