>> what i kept thinking as i prepared was we are in a conversation with history. we are talking to or past to framers who sought to offer these protections in a constitution so widely. but we're also talking about our children. his children, my grandchildren, and our future. and what we do matters. it will matter to the future. and so that's what i thought we were in a continuum with history. we suffered the gravest attack upon our congress, our constitution and attack spirited by a president, america is attacking americans, using the american flag to batter people. it max me very emotional. >> understandably so. understandably so. but that banging that visceral memory of the banging -- >> i'll never forget. that's certainly revealing. the book is a very open -- and messy tour through what have like to start with harmless and opioid addict and what's interesting about it is because -- the first experiences that you fob are ones that probably a lot of people can relate to getting drunk in high school. i'm not advocating for that. to be clear, but you know getting drunk in high school that leads to marijuana, that leads to other things. and there are different friends that you leave along the way for some leave you. one friend like brought line at drinking won't smoke pot, et cetera. i'm wondering if you can explain to us why did you think that you ended up, you kept going? is it because addiction is a disease and a disease you didn't know you suffered from, and that was the natural force. or is it at one point you relate to discuss -- an unhappiness that you had. is it that? tell us, i guess, i mean, it is kind of a simple but also a maybe l naively complicated question but why. >> it is definitely a great question not as schism as i would like it to be. i think there's a lot of factors. i think in terms of the way my brain was wired, it sort of made it easier to continue on down that path that being said i wanted to highlight in the book, really the progression. because you know a lot of time when is we look at someone ho is suffering with a substance abuse disorder you see what's almost the end result you see the opioids or heroin, or whatever that may be. but you don't get there overnight and i never thought that i would get there. i talk about that in the book as i was progressing. i had a one eye of my where i would never go and originally it was who will and then pot and then pills then coke, then -- but as you keep going a little bit it is just you chip away at it and you're able to go deeper and deeper down. you know, but i think the scary part is, and mention i'm not you know kids in high school shouldn't be drinking and not con doing that but seems in our cultural relatively normal not crazy for someone in high school to be drinking, it's, you know, it is even less crazy for somebody to smoke pot but it just shows how close and sort of slippery that slope is -- to start on that process. >> and congressman you start off so people haven't read it yet again go to the chat and you can buy it and i do recommend it. but people who don't know like you are a professor when this book begins. well i guess before it is when you pete pj and your husband when harry is there. you're a professor, and your political course is diaried in this as well. the book is i don't know how many people out there read anderson cooper with his book vanderbilt but two officers, and it's here's madeleine, here's eric, here's madeleine eric back and forth, sometimes writing about the same thing sometimes writing about dirchghts things. but this is all going on. and you're suspicious of his behavior and he won't, he won't confide in you and he shuts you off. and that goes on for years. ing for years and years. and you try and you try and she huts you off. what goes through your mind when you went and sat down and tried to recreate all of this knowing when retrospect where it was going to end what goes through your mind? >> just in terms of the process, when somebody suggested we write a book, we both immediately thought, well, we should write it separately so you see that literally i have a different thought from harry to show a different voice we purposefully did not compare notes. we soit an outline together, and we wrote separately. we got about halfway through the man ewe script when we started to see if we could put needs events together. and then editor i thought tailed them very, very nicely. what was going through my mind was initially the reaction of a mother that think o.c. he's going to go through adolescents experimentation and then we got into more serious battling. me knowing he was slipping away his beautiful personality, warmth and surroundedness by friends. biggest heart of anybody you ever met was just straining away from him day by day. and battle non stop. i used to say there's a fire in our house but nobody seems to know it but me. but he was masterful at manipulating, telling a great story. and i guess there's a part of me that is revealed in this book that as much as i thought i knew what was going on, i didn't have a clue i was really in denial. >> the, i mean, that very -- not the spoiler but, i mean -- harry is going through situations the book starts with very violent situation in was it west philadelphia? north philadelphiaing and at one point, one of the guys, goes to jail for manslaughter because he was the same drugs he was doing with barry he did with somebody else not the person o.d.. and just the difference between your moms figures about what might be happening but she doesn't know and what you're actually living through hearing, it is so powerful, in it you know, diaries from people on two different planets. >> that's the way that it felt and you at the tile that's how wanted it because i was terrified if anybody saw what was truly going on regardless of how strong a mother's love she was going to want no part of that. nobody wanted any part of what i was doing. i mean the violence, the drugs, steal welcome lying everything that went along with my substance abuse disorder the way i fell into it, and watching my mom, dad, family be productive, members of society rising as i'm just -- just plummeting. with something that i tried to desperately to hold on to cover up, hide, you know, and with something that kept me for a long time from asking for help for reaching out. because of that shame. that stigma of no matter how much, somebody cares for me, this is too much. you know, this is too much to take. >> yeah there's a passage when i think your smom driving you to a rehab facility where she says something along, she says something along lines of why didn't you ask for help, and you say something along the lines there it is. did you ever think of that -- asking for help this is your mom's recollection. did you ever think asking for help i did explain but it never seemed like a good time. you know with larry sick, with the -- but then there was christmas easter mothers day elections, thanksgiving, after long pause added maybe there's no such thing as a good time. is that your recollection as well that conversation? >> for sure harry. >> yeah. it was a long, you know, quiet car ride from pennsylvania out to warinersville p.a. to care and treatment centers and it was just, you know, at that moment, i had sort of seen because i said yes. to going to treatment, then maybe it wasn't as hard as i thought it was going to be to accept. the help -- you know, when i said yes i wasn't disowned i wasn't abandoned my parents, my family stood by me. before i was ready to, you know, do anything for myself. ing but i think it is important for anybody who is struggling with substance abuse disorder, to realize that there's no perfect time there's always a circumstance, something that use as a justification and i think at the end of the day that's what it was grasping at anything i could to justify why i shouldn't go. and avoiding the key reason of i'm killing myself as the reason that i should and i should now. tnches there's so many moments in the book congresswoman where, as reader i'm just sitting there thinking this is going to be -- this will be the moment where you know -- the reality is everybody is confronted with the reality and there's so many times when that doesn't happen that when he's having a negative reaction to the pills that he's popping, and the hospital has no idea what's going on. why he's having this reaction you're kind of like anything you want to tell me like no, and just walk out. ultimately, though, i want people to understand that it is an important part of the book, it is ultimately a book about hope. it is ultimately a book about you can get through this. so often these stories are, you know, they don't end well. it's a -- it's a mother who has lost her son. writing about that. but this is a completely different message. this is yeah we were screwed up for a while and didn't know how to deal with it and ultimately we got on right paths and got out of it. were you at all congresswoman -- worried about airing your dirty laundry you're in public life. somebody might use this against you. >> i think i thought of that early on in harry's recovery as much for me to come to terms with what we were tealing with and what we had discovered and what he was trying to accomplish and also i was worried for him and his precarious recovery but i have to say i remember asking you a couple of years back would it be all right if my work within pennsylvania house said if i told my story and you gave me permission, and that was all right. but i had to grow to that, and i wanted to be sure he was valid in his recovery. but of to say people have said to me it takes courage to reveal so honestly what mistakes you made along the way. i think it is empowering to just be honest about myself and all, if i can't own this, at this age in my life and stage of my life, what's the point? you know, why are we on this path? why are we on this journey if we can't say here's what i did here's what i learned here's how i hope things can be better in the future. and you're right this is a book about hope. we have a lot of friends who have lost. we have a lot of friends who have family members in recovery so it is -- it is a love story i hope you'll see that. but it is a book about hope. >> i just want to add quickly there -- you know, and you mentioned it. so much of what gets talked about are the horror stories on your shows on tuesday, you look at the numbers from may to may -- of this year and it is 81,000 people have died. that is significantly up. that's only touching beginning parts of covid you know everything sort of points that it grew the entirety -- opioid overdoses ept i want for people watching. you know but it looks like it is continuing to rise, and when we were approached with an idea toy this book i had, you know, knowing a little bit about what was out there so much of it leak you said, and it is the horror story. but even the stories that are told where there's a positive outcome so often the book or the movie ends at recovery. and that's what something we didn't want to do so our book, you know, the first half is active addiction and second half is the recovery process, so if i wanted to highlight, you know, again this is a disease but a treat public disease, and what is possible through recovery. it is so much more than what you get and see normally on media of, you know, oh they stopped usings that's great look at the blessings and joys that come and the opportunities that arise through recovery so that's something epted to really focus on in the writing. and in telling our story of both sides. >> you're great writers. congresswoman you're a writing professor so that's not a surprise. but harry, obviously, very talented writer, the way that you wrote about the sensation of cocaine. it was a very -- i thought just very resonant description, it just -- not, i mean, you're just very you're both very talented at conjuring forth experiences. congresswoman, i mean this really is you talked about work and all -- you're very honest about you didn't know, you know, you didn't know what was going on. your husband thought that maybe you were pushing too much. i mean, it -- there were probably a lot people watching who will read this book who will identify with being the parent that is pushing but can't get through. and yet also as a reader, you want to be like go in there. you know, haul them off to rehab because you know where it is going to go. and i was wondering if you can just talk about that because i wongd where you sat back, sat down and wrote about it if you -- what you felt because -- it's so honest and so open but at the same time like -- we know what he's doing, you don't you know what i mean? [laughter] >> well we did tell the story correctly, and jake i want to give a shoutout to my husband. through this process of writing, we learned i learned a lot. i learned a tremendous amount really his chapters things that i didn't know the dangerous stuff you're talking about. but we didn't do this alone. as we finished the book, i want to just tell a funny story my husband tj who was the glue of this whole thing, offered to write his own chapter. and his chapter literally he wrote it and offered to editor who is rejected it and it was entitled i was there too. so -- he wanted to tell his perspective because it really is a family affair. but you know what, i really value i always use to the tell my students writing that it is in writing that you learn. so that challenge of writing this book i knew i would learn about myself. i knew i would learn about my failures, and my weaknesses, and some of my mean spirited rns and fighting that we had but alsos i learned so many of more from harry. and i learned that what our family went through and i would have wished it away. if i possibly could have -- made us stronger take it from here. >> yeah. now just -- i would echo that, i mean, being in recovery when we started this i had about six years in recovery. and we had grown a lot. we have rebuilt trust, our family had mended and healed a lot of wounds that went along with my addiction and through recovery. but there's stuff in the book as i'm sure you can assume that are things that would not have ever been spoken about. there were a lot of those situations where when we started writing she still believed it to be what she was writing or maybe with a little bit skeptical but not at all in the details. as to what actually happened, and then same thing goes for me. i had originally i kind of felt i had everybody fooled until a later point in time. but you know the one part when i read about she had thought about hire a private investigator to follow me that terrified me eight years later. [laughter] so it was -- an experience to read. >> my -- my first full-time editor my first job in journalism, is guy named david karl no longer with us and david carr was he was my head tore at washington city paper he wrote a great book and a lot of it is about night of the gun. and he was addicted to crack he later wents ton become a huge star in media, he was a "new york times" media writer for years. he died unrelated to drugs. but there's a scene in his book where he is w his twin daughters and his wife were both addicts and he leaves daughters in the car and winter many minnesota to go into a crack house. and i don't to spoil anything but a scene you're getting high after your daughter is born, harry that reminded me very much about it which is just like -- it's a disease. >> has power. >> there's nothing intellectually in your life that makes you want to be other than in the hospital than with your girlfriend and your baby -- but it is a disease it is like running out to -- you know, i can't think -- of the analogy but it is just -- i think that was the moment when i was like -- wow. i mean, he's he can't control himself. he literally can't. >> and he had tried. anticipating the birth of the baby. he had tried alone to wean himself down, and got clean for a couple of weeks i guess. >> yeah. >> and then that guy. friend -- and you know just how coming this thing is. you know and glad you saw it for what it is that that action is as a result of the disease. i mean, even though at that point in time when my daughter was born, you know, i hadn't used negative in couple of weeks couple of days, whatever the case was. just that craving, that mental block that just, you know, i did it before i could even think about what was even happening, and you know, you talk about the book tonight at the gun, for me, that experience -- >> you read that. >> i have. it is fantastic. >> yeah. but that experience, i mean, just shows and that last year my youth after my daughter was born -- the hopelessness and just how horrible you feel doing those things. you know, like he talked about leaving kids in the car. i mean things that i would do around my daughter with the justification in mind if i get high, then i can take care of her. you know, right i'm not crawling then i can be the dad that i want to be. is a horrible, horrible way to live. >> yeah. i mean it is really like that possession in a movie where somebody body is taken over by a spirit or something and not in control anymore. congresswoman you write in the book -- about, i mean, first of all i want people to know it is not like you were whistling around leak you are giving harry drug tays in high school like it is not like you were -- you had no idea and was completely oblivious and you were literally giving him drugs in high school because his headmaster said we think he's highs. and et cetera you were trying i don't anyone to get the wrong impression. but at one point you talk about this how this was such an interesting moment when shawn and charlotte your neighbors within you're close basically come to you and say we think we think harry is on drugs i think he's in high school at this point. and you say, inside you're about wounded by the fact that what you thought was a private family matter is now like people outside can see it. and you say oh god they think my kid is drug addict, my worst fear is reflengted in john eyes and -- for us -- especially for harry. looking back i'm sad about that reaction. why did the truth offend you? did i think we were too good for it? damn the stigma damn my ignorance that's somethingon i know that's important. >> it's like saying we think your son has a limp that's what it needs to be. but you caught yourself i felt trapped in it and stoned by that. i thought harry had a drug problem it is also a matter of language to know that your son is an addict is a very harsh word it is one thing to say i think he has a problem i'm sure it is drugs but when i saw that reflected from their face, and they only loved harry it made me number one look at harry because if somebody flips into addiction they look worse and worse by little bits and pieces every single day. harry aspect his color, his everything -- was slipping away from him. and in that moment when shawn said that, i saw harry the way they saw harry, and i was mad at myselfing for being upset with the word, the notion that my son is a drug addict. >> but he -- >> language and it is partly i have to do whatever i can do to stop the stigma. >> talking that if you would for a second just about the facts that we need to have humanity in this while we discuss this. while policymakers and the public while we address it. this isn't just about oh we should, you know, that's their problem down the street. or you know people should be embarrassed, i mean, this is -- this is a very common issue going on in the united states right now. and we need to have the humanity be part of the discussion, the acknowledgement of problems it is not just like oh these people are causing crime or these people can't be tru