Author Lara Love Hardin’s Story of Addiction, Jail, and Redemption

Speaker A: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Heart of the Matter. I'm your host, Elizabeth Vargas. We have a fantastic guest today. Laura Love Hardin wrote a book, came out a couple years ago. It's called the Many Lives of Mama Love, A memoir of lying, stealing, writing and healing. Um, and it is a fantastic book. Laura was a self described soccer mom living in a beautiful neighborhood, a million dollar two story home on, as she calls it, the perfect cult cul de sac, when guess what? Police swoop in and arrest her because Laura had been stealing money and credit cards from her neighbors in this fantastic neighborhood in which she lived, uh, secretly funding her addiction to heroin. It is an unbelievable story and she has an incredible tale of not just sinking to the very depths of addiction and crime to support that addiction, but of healing and recovery and paying it forward. Laura Love Hardin has an incredible story. You are going to be amazed when you hear it. Without further ado, here's Laura Love Hardin. Laura Loveheart. And welcome to Heart of the Matter. Thank you so much for joining us. It's great to see you and meet you over this podcast. Your story is so incredible. I just want to read one part of the blurb that Oprah Winfrey wrote when she picked your book to be part of her book club. No one expects the police to knock on the door of the million dollar two story home of the perfect cul de sac housewife. But soccer mom Laura Love Hardin had been hiding a shady secret. She is funding her heroin addiction by stealing her neighbor's credit cards. You have written an extraordinary memoir in the story of your life. How did you get to that place where you were that quote, unquote, perfect housewife who had this terrible secret?

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's something. I spent a long time lying awake at night thinking, how did I get here when I was at my rock bottom, um, you know, trying to rewrite the past and why didn't I go left? Why didn't I go right? I think if I were to give a short, pithy answer to that. I mean, I'll give the details, but the short, pithy answer is I got to that place because I had no ability to ask for help and admit that I wasn't that perfect suburban cul de sac housewife role that I was playing.

Speaker A: So you write about your childhood, how you grew up. You write about the fact that you felt unseen and lonely. You came from a family with a history of addiction. We know that that increases the chances that somebody may turn to substances. Tell me about it.

Speaker B: It's interesting because I did, you know, I did my whole childhood in about three paragraphs. And I did that on purpose because I really one wanted to make sure I was the only villain in my story, right. And because, you know, people want the formula A plus B plus C is going to equal this addiction or alcoholism or incarceration or whatever, or blowing up your life, whatever it is. But I grew up in a family with a lot of addiction and alcoholism and no language for it. No one talked about it. And it was all about, um, what looked good on the outside, you know, and, and I grew up very profoundly alone. And you know, books were my escape. You know, the first line of my book is reading was my first addiction. And I really turned to, to books and writing when I was a child to sort of process my emotions, my experiences. And yeah, no one, there was no, I don't remember a single time where anyone in my family said like, how was your day? Or how are you feeling? There was just no language for that. And you know, I thought I could out run the affliction of my family. I thought I could out educate it. You know, I thought I, I moved 3,000. I, um, grew up in the east coast and when I went to college, I went 3,000 miles away. Went from the east coast to the west coast. And I thought I could just, you know, I was too smart to have that happen to me and. But I had no real coping skills, honestly.

Speaker A: It's funny that you write about reading being your first escape or maybe even your first addiction. I felt the exact same way. I think I wrote the exact same thing in my memoir. That that was my first, uh, you know, eject button, you know, to escape into these worlds. I was a voracious reader as a kid. I grew up without television actually, so that even, you know, all I had were books. And I rem growing up in an army base and there would be like one movie theater on the base and you know, my brother and I taking our, uh, quarter allowance every weekend to go see whatever movie that was because that was also an escape. But looking back, it's interesting that when you talk about that, because what that's saying is that now where I am right now needs, I have, I need relief from this. So I'm going to go to this other make believe world.

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, and in the make believe world of books, there's logic to why people do what they do. And so to me, the world was, you know, there's a lot of cognitive dissonance. Right. Like I didn't understand why people. You know, I didn't understand why my. Not even people. My family did what they did and acted the way they acted. And there was sort of this, you know, constant chaos and, and, and so. But books, there was, you know, there's a plot, there's character motivation, and there's a lot of happy endings. And, you know, I grew up really believing, and I really believed this for a long time, that everybody else was normal. Like, everybody else had this perfect family and their mom was waiting with cookies after school. And I was a voyeur in books and in life. And I remember it's always at dusk. You know, at dusk, if you're walking and it's just getting dark and you see lights on in houses and you can see. This is going to sound creepy, but I don't mean a creepy way, but you can see into people's homes and you see them sitting around their table. And I just have this visual and this, you know, this sort of looking into other people's lives and thinking, you know, they're happy somehow, and I don't know how to be that way. Um, I did that well into adulthood, honestly.

Speaker A: I still like to do that, actually.

Speaker B: Yeah. Okay, good.

Speaker A: Wonder about people's lives. Like, not in a creepy way or even an unhealthy way, but just, I think in a. More. I. I, um, see you. Like, I wonder what that's like. So did you ever turn to anything other than books to escape yourself as a kid or growing up? Or was it not until you were adult that you started dabbling with substances?

Speaker B: I mean, I really turned to school and I turned to. To, uh, cope. I turned to pretending is really what it was. It was, you know, I was very good at. At assimilating into other people's families and going on vacations with them and having dinner with them and being, you know, I lear on to be who someone thought I was. Right. But, you know, I went straight to college and graduate school and, you know, I was kind of. I like to say I was a late bloomer to my addiction and an overachiever at the same time. And it was really only. I was, uh, married, I had children. I had three boys in four and a half years. Right after graduate school. I was married and. And my husband was. You know, I had such dreams of this perfect family that I'm going to create this. I'm going to do this. I'm be the perf mom. I'm going to have the perfect husband. And my first husband was cheating on me and, And I was miserable. And I was really facing this sort of reality that, like, I'm not going to have that happy family. Like, I'm not. Like, I'm not going to stay in this marriage. And I remember the first time I took. And this is before the opiate crisis was a crisis. And pain medication, Vicodin specifically, was handed out in sample packs. This is like mid-90s. It was handed out in sample packs everywhere I went or every childbirth. Here you go. Or you have an earache, or here, try these. And so I remember so vividly the first time I took one pill. Not for physical pain, for emotional pain. And the way that it lit up my brain, it was like, oh, I'm better, I'm smarter, I'm funnier. Um, I'm. I'm happier. I'm able to pretend everything's okay, better. I can, you know, like, fool myself. And. And that's how it started. And then it took two to feel that way, and then it took three. And by the time I switched from and I was on and off, you know, I knew no one grows up saying, you know, dear diary, I hope someday I'm going to be addicted to opiates or I'm going to, you know, have all these things happen. But eventually it became not a choice. And, you know, the way, the way opiate addiction works or, uh, worked for me was, you know, that feeling I got from one turned into. the end, before I switched to smoking heroin. 60 pills a day, 20 for breakfast, 20 for lunch, 20, 20 at a time. And to get that, that rush of well being. And I was highly functioning. It sounded like it didn't make me. I wasn't asleep. I was like, yeah, let me volunteer at the private school. Let me, you know, like, it was really, I was really highly functioning. And I, and I, I remember the first time I took like maybe four in a day. And I thought, oh my gosh, I have a problem. I need help. I can't do this, you know, And I went to my husband, my husband at the time, and I said, look, I've taken. I think it's really the only time I admitted it out loud. And I said, look, I took, I don't know, was three, four or five of these pills every day. And I gave them to him. And I was like, you, you know, like, throw them away. Like, this is not what I want to do. And I remember he, he didn't throw them away. He put them in the top of the linen closet. He was a tall man or he is A tall man. And, and I clocked where he put them and I was like, okay, great. And then, you know, I don't know, a week later I brought it, dragged a chair over and climbed up and got them down and. And I never said anything to anyone again or admitted it really for a very long time. I tried to stop. I had six years sober right before I tried. I tried smoking heroin. And how did that happen?

Speaker A: I mean, that's such a big leap.

Speaker B: So what happened? How, how it came into even in my radar. And look, I had a brother who died of a heroin overdose, sister who died, who was an alcoholic as a teenager, who died. And you know, it was something I would never, ever do that, you know, and I had no intellectual understanding that opiates. About opiates that, like, you know, my prescription pain medication that they gave me after childbirth was, Was just, you know, the same as. As heroin. Like, I didn't understand that at the time, but I was in my second marriage and, And I'd met someone in recovery, my second husband, and he had relapsed and I didn't know it and was smoking heroin. And I found this sort of brown, sticky stuff in my house. And I remember, uh, calling someone I knew from a 12 step program saying, what is this thing? And she said, oh, that is, that is heroin. And, and it was in that moment, I think, you know, it hadn't been in my proximity. It was never something I would have gone out, like, looked for. I wouldn't know where to look for it. Uh, and I remember going, my kids were all in Montessori school, private school. And I remember going, I was going to do this, like, you know, it was my volunteer day and I was going to do this arts and crafts project. And I remember so clearly being at a, a stoplight and Googling how to smoke heroin. So I had planned it, you know, and, and googled that and, and then tried it and I thought, wow, this is, this is easier. This is more efficient, you know, and it took 11 months from that moment that I googled how to smoke heroin to completely implode my life, my children's life, lose everything until I was arrested.

Speaker A: What happened?

Speaker B: Stealing from my. Well, I started. Wait, go back.

Speaker A: Did your husband know that after you googled how. Obviously he knew how to smoke heroin.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, he knew how. You know, I kept it, I kept it secret from him for a while until, you know, and I had this elaborate. I had this elab. You know, you know, like I told these crazy lies that seem so Believable to me. I remember because I started to lose a lot of weight and you know, I had a, I had one friend who came over and said look, I'm worried about you. I don't know what's going on. And I, and, and my answer, which I thought was brilliant at the time was, you know what? I read the book the Secret and I m manifested myself thin. You know, like I just these kind of crazy. I thought it was a brilliant lie,

Speaker A: but I manifested myself then. Yeah.

Speaker B: Ah, I was like, it was the secret.

Speaker A: If only it were that easy.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, I know. If only. But so you know, he was suspicious. You know, it was like we were both secretly using and trying to catch each other and denying that were in the beginning of that, that 11 month period. And I remember one time I came home and he said he had a drug test and you know, and I was, you know, outraged. Like what? Like I'm the poster girl for recovery. Like you can't. You think I'm m. You know, just lying and, and defending this secret like my life depended on it because it felt like it did, you know, and, and, and he wanted me to take a drug test. And I was outraged and, and indignant and I was like, well I, I don't have to go to the bathroom right now. I'm going to go walk the dog. And I was out in my cul de sac walking the dog and in my brilliant again mine to just protect the secret no matter what. Um, I'm not proud of this story but I, I brought some Tupperware with me and I was like, okay, the dog pees like every five seconds. I'm going to collect the dog pee. But it took forever because that's, you know, so I'm out, you know, walking around my neighborhood collecting every time my dog lift his leg, collecting it. And then I came back and you know, bulb syringe and you know, tested the dog's pee. And I was really in that moment, believed it. I was like, see, you know, I was so self righteous about it, which is just crazy behavior. But I finally, you know, it. We both admitted it and then we started using together. And that was up until the point we were both arrested. And so, you know, you go from husband, wife to co defendant. It's not, it's, it's not good, it's not a good relationship. But I, you know, as I started to not go to work and my world got small and I started, you know, again not showing up, uh, I was so invested in keeping the secret and my, you know, I was not leaving my room and not going to my business. And what were you doing?

Speaker A: What was your business?

Speaker B: I owned a pet cemetery at the time, believe it or not. Yeah, I had done real estate, and then I owned a pet cemetery. And, and again, I had an MFA in writing, you know, in creative writing. And that was really my love. And I, I. It's only when I'm not writing that I started do like that I didn't. That was really how I process my internal world. And, uh, those two things can't coexist for me. Like, you know, doing drugs and writing don't exist at the same time for me. So, you know, books and writing kind of saved me again, which is jumping ahead in the story. But, um, but the money started, I'd start not going to work. We weren't running the business, and my husband was a mortgage broker. And then I started stealing from my friends in private school parking lots who would bring their kids into school, and we all leave our purses in the private school, and I would just reach in and grab a credit card or some cash. And I knew right from wrong. I knew it was wrong. I knew it was against my own moral compass and who I am when I'm not in that state, in active addiction. Uh, and I had all these ways to justify it. Well, I'm actually not stealing from Deborah. I'm stealing from the credit card company. And she can write it off like I had these sort of moral justifications. I don't have them now, but at the time, that's how I kind of like, reconciled the fact. Because I knew this is not who I was and who I wanted to be. And I just could not stop. And I could not admit it, and I could never ask for help. And I remember thinking. I remember thinking, there's no way on earth I could spend 30 days away from my children. You know, this was my, my, my meaning.

Speaker A: Go to rehab.

Speaker B: Go to rehab to get help. You know, I wanted to stop. And it's so hard, I think, for people who have never been in it to, um, to reconcile, like, you know, right from wrong. Why are you doing this? You know, you love your children. Why can't you stop? And it's really hard for people to reconcile, you know, Yes, I love my children. I would have thrown myself in front of a train to save any one of them or anybody's child at any moment. I. But I couldn't stop using drugs for them. And it was really, you know, thankfully I was stopped you know, and some of us are people who have to learn things the hard way. And that was what I needed and a great gift. Looking back, it didn't feel like it at the time, but, yeah, I just couldn't. You know, it's like your very survival, my very survival depended on it. Like, I felt like I would die if I did not use. And so I kept saying, I'll fix it tomorrow. I'll figure it out tomorrow. I just have to get through today. And then I'll get my life together and I'll stop and I'll go back to the. You know, rebuild everything and fix everything. And then I just ran out of tomorrow's.

Speaker A: Did the other moms at the school suspect you were taking, stealing, taking their credit cards? No, Nobody ever did until. So how did the.

Speaker B: How.

Speaker A: How did the arrest happen?

Speaker B: So I. So it was not just then it turned into my neighbors, and I went. My very close neighbors, right next, I sold their checkbook and wrote a check at the grocery store. And that's really how it kind of fell apart. And, yeah, I don't. You know, people. People probably knew that something was wrong more than they said. You know, I had a friend who said, yeah, I. I just thought you were really sick. I thought maybe you had cancer. You know, like people. But nobody really talked about it. And I was maintaining. I was outwardly maintaining the life. You know, even when the police came, they're like, wait, you still have all the things in your house? You haven't sold everything. Like, it didn't look like people expected in the stereotypes of what it's going to look like if someone's committing crimes and an active addiction.

Speaker A: When you arrested, you were charged with 32 felonies. Theft, drug possession, bank fraud, falsified signatures, stolen credit cards. You faced up to 27 years in prison. I can't even fathom what you. Before you actually learned what your sentence would be when confronted with the possibility of 27 years in prison. The mom who couldn't bear to be away from her kids for 30 days to go to rehab, what was that like?

Speaker B: When I was arrested, my. My three older boys for my first marriage were all in school. They were in junior high and high school. My youngest son, Kaden, it was the only one at home at the time, and he was about to. He was a couple months away from turning 4. And when the police came, I, you, uh, know, was begging them, let me call someone to come pick him up. Let me call, you know, family. Let me call a friend. And they Wouldn't. They called child protective services and they came to the house and, you know, that it's. You know, we're. You know, we're almost 16 years away from this, and it still is. Is emotional for me because I think about him running up to me because, you know, he's at that stranger danger age, and he never spent away from me. And these strangers come and they're trying to pull him out of the house, and he's running to. For me to comfort him. And my hands are handcuffed in that moment when I can't comfort my son because my hands are handcuffed behind my back. And I'm telling him, these are friends. It's okay. That was the moment where I think, uh, everything just broke open, right? That was the moment where I was like, oh, there is no getting out. There's no story I can tell. There's no the secret to get out of this. You know, there's no. There's no. Like, this is the reality. And I have done this. And the whole way to jail, I'm crying. And the back of the police car and, you know, I lived in a place where the police cars didn't fill up the cul de sac, you know, and my neighbors were out there, and. And all I could do was just cry and say, where. Where's my son? What's happening to him? Where's he going? And when I was being brought into the jail, the. The sheriff's deputy said, you'll never see your son again, and you should. You should not be anyone's mother. And that was, uh, the moment where I.1. I believed him. I 100% agreed with him. I mean, I believed him that I would never see my son again or any of my boys. When you're facing 27 years, that was more than me going to prison. It was like, wait, I might not see my sons till they're in their 40s, right? Like, wait. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't bear it. And I had, you know, a few nights later, because that's what I believed and because I didn't know where he was. And I had no. I had no will in me. I had no spark in me. I had no. I was like, I can't get through this. Like, I've gotten through a lot of stuff in life. Um, but I was like, I don't. I can't. I can't bear. This is too much. And I decided to end my life. And I. And I. I thought it was better. It Was really the darkest. It was a very quiet, dark period. Like, I was very calm. I was like, I just failed at life. Like, there's no recovering for this. There's no redemption arc. I don't deserve a redemption arc. That's for people who are good and I'm bad and everyone else has figured out this life, and I've just, like, there's no recovering from this. I really believed, and it was a very selfish moment and a very. I was so lost, and I thought might be better off my children to have a mother who was dead than in prison. I really believe that. And luckily, because I was in my failure era, I failed at that. I tried, you know, I fell asleep. It was a miracle. But thank goodness I did, you know, but it was a really, really long road, you know, to. To rebuild from that moment. And I didn't. You know, one of the hard things is being. Being locked up when not knowing your sentence. Right. Because time is weird. I didn't know, you know, I was training, like, okay, if I go to prison, I'm going to do fire camp. I should be a firefighter, you know, or. Or am I going to get out, you know, like that, Limbo. Other women in there had, you know, little homemade calendars where they could cross off each day. But when you don't know how many days to cross off, it is a certain kind of hell, if I can say, you know, not knowing how it's going to turn out.

Speaker A: Well, thank God you didn't get 27 years. You ended up only being sentenced to one year in the Santa Cruz County Jail. Served 10 months for good behavior. Because of the drug court system, I'm assuming. Here's the thing. You say jail saved your life.

Speaker B: Yeah. That was the best thing that could have happened to me.

Speaker A: How is that possible?

Speaker B: I mean, it's. It's. It's easy to say now in retrospect, like rearview mirror, but because it stripped away every single identity I had. I was a number in there. I was not a mom. My community hated me. I was not a wife. I was not an employee. I was not a boss. I was. I was nothing. I was a number. And there was a gift in that for me because it started me on this path to being the real me. Right? Who's not on the. Who's not about the look good. Who's not about playing roles, who's not about shape shifting to whoever I needed to be depending on who I was with. You know, jail's a great place to learn to meditate. There's easier ways. There's, you know, there's courses you can take. But for me, you know, I really had to control my, my anxiety and my worry and my constant, like, rumination about what's going to happen in the future or my rumination about why, why, how did I get here? You know, right back it's like, what? Like, why didn't I do this? And I should have done that and I could have. And I wish I'd never taken that first pill. You know, I did. It was doing that and then someone had left a book. Eckhart Tolle is the Power of Now in Jail. And I read that book over and over and over again. And there's one sentence in there that's where you say, I wonder what my next thought will be? And you stop your thoughts. And that was, that saved my life, that one sentence. At that time.

Speaker A: In this again, the Oprah description of your fantastic book, Laura finds that jail is a class system with a power structure that is somewhere between an adolescent sleepover party and Lord of the Flies. Furniture is made from tampon boxes and Snickers bars are currency.

Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I. Look, I never thought about incarcerated women until I became one, like in part of my regular life, you know, and now I have a nonprofit that's, that's helping justice impacted women. Jails are not meant for long term stays. You don't have programming, you don't have in person visits with your children. And, you know, it's a system that's built for men and run by men and when you have a lot of traumatized women. But the women in jail saved me. They were the, the community I had when everyone else in the outside world had kind of written me off. I was a cautionary tale. Right? None of my, none of my book club mom friends came to visit me. None of the PTA board friends came to visit me. I was, I was, I was shunned and I was shunning myself, you know, and, and there's a lot of creative women, you know, like artists and designers, and there's a lot of. It was like a big support. You know, detoxing in jail is not fun. And, and those women took care of me. And then we took care, I took care of the next woman that came in. And, and one of the things to, you know, the power structure is what it is. I think, you know, anyone in a community or you, you go through something together, you bond together and you form a family and, and there's, you know, I was young then compared to now, but, but my best heart in jail was 19. My oldest son was 17. You know, there was a lot of young women, so in many ways I was the elder there, but I had no, I had not been in and out of jail my whole life. This was my first time. And so I, you know, my, my ability to adapt and assimilate helped me there and but the main thing was is I, you know, I stopped using drugs in there and I became me again and I started writing because I had a master's degree in creative writing. I started writing again for the first time in over a decade and I, you know, I became a ghostwriter in jail. Basically. I would listen to the women write letters to the judge as them, to help them get, you know, long term treatment instead of prison or get a pass. And it was great to be writing again. But even more than that, I felt like I was, I was doing good. You know, I was, that was the beginning of uh, over a decade long quest to prove my goodness to the world. But I felt like I had a value again at a time when I didn't have it out in the world in all the courtrooms I was going to.

Speaker A: You have started this nonprofit to help women who are getting out of jail. What was it like for you getting out of jail? How was that? Uh, did you, you said none of the old pals of yours, the book club moms ever came to visit you in jail when you got out, was there any support system, anybody there to help you?

Speaker B: I got out. I was jobless, homeless, carless, friendless, without my children. I had this ticking clock. I had a year to get my son back from child protective services And I had 10 months, you know, I did 10 months in jail. So. And a lot of times, and it depends by state and county, women are have a year depending on the age of their child to get their child back and. But they're sentenced to 18 months and it's just impossible. So I really did as much as I could. But I, you know, when I was in there, we would have a goodbye party, right. For someone leaving.

Speaker A: Mhm.

Speaker B: They always left full of, of like hope and good intentions. I'm gonna go back to school, I'm gonna break up with my drug dealer boyfriend, I'm gonna move home, I'm going to get a job, I'm never going to do drugs again. And then a week later they would be rearrested and back in jail. And I, and I remember thinking, oh my gosh, like how like how, uh, I. And I. You know, I'm not proud of this. I was like, how stupid are they? What. How could they do this? I didn't understand. I didn't understand how they came back so soon until I got out and realized how easy it is to go back to jail. How everything is set up. These sort of barriers and obstacles for reentry that. How easy it is to go back to jail, never committing a crime again and, uh, never doing a drug again. It's still. You're walking this sort of crazy tightrope. I always say it's like walking like a tightrope in high heels in a windstorm. That's what every day on, um, probation feels like. So while I was in jail, I did this program called the Gemma Program. And it was kind of a life skills, but it was like, you know, I love to learn. I love school. And so we got to leave and there were volunteers. And when I got out, I had no friends, but I would walk and I had no car. And I remember walking to the Gemma program offices. Offices, because I'd be like, oh, this is where people aren't going to judge me. You know, I dyed my hair brown when I got out. I hid. I was. It's super isolating. Even when I got my son back and he's, like, in first grade, you know, if you think about it, like, I couldn't really make friends because I didn't want to, like, reveal my past. And so. And another mom would be like, oh, you know, my. My son loves hanging out with your son Kaden. We should have him together for a play date. And it would be this panic because I would be like, oh, that would be wonderful. But if you knew me, you might not want your son in my house or me in my. You know, like, it's very isolating. Um, so full of shame. I'm so full of shame. And it's so hard to do anything when you're full of shame. And so I. The program I have now is based on that original programming. I co founded it, you know, about a year. Started working on a year before the book came out, because I knew I might have a little big microphone for a little bit. And. And it is programming while women are in custody, but it's 18 months with them after they get out because, you know, I almost went back to jail because I didn't have transportation. You know, imagine, you know, I was drug testing for three different county agencies in the same county, which means not only do you.

Speaker A: And you had to get to all those places.

Speaker B: Yeah. And I had to have a job, but so I'm going to get a job with a criminal record, but one that can let me leave spontaneously up to three times a day at a moment's notice. Like it's almost impossible. All of these sort of. It's bureaucracy, you know, I don't think, I think a lot of it's bureaucracy. I don't think it's intentional, but it's a lot of bureaucracy. And there's a lot of illogical consequences, you know, that set people up, make it easier, and then that's without the stigma and shame. I mean, there were times where I was like, I felt like I would be safer back in jail. So I understood why those women went back.

Speaker A: You actually say in your book, shame is a worse poison than heroin. Yeah, that's pretty powerful.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's just, it's so heavy and it affects everything. You know, you can't, there's no room for creativity. If you're in shame. You're not going to advocate for yourself if you're in shame. I certainly didn't. I could advocate for other people, uh, but I could not advocate for myself. And it's just, it's just isolating. It's the lonely, It's a lonely, lonely place because you aren't. You know, I wasn't. I don't know. I keep saying you, but I wasn't. I had no community because I was so afraid if they know the truth, they'll run screaming from the room. Right.

Speaker A: You say the real turning point for you was ghost writing. How did you get this job?

Speaker B: So I was about two years out of jail and in a 400 square foot apartment with my son trying to get work. I started writing for a SEO blog just to make money for food and. And I saw Craigslist ad to be a part time personal assistant at a literary agency and it said the literary agency worked with Desmond Tutu. So I was like, this is probably a scam, this is not real. And it was like 25 really elaborate deep questions for this. Five. It was $20 an hour, five hours a week. I was like, oh, this will save me. And so I answered all the questions. There are great writing prompts. And I did. I had a don't ask, don't tell. I'm going to answer everything honestly. Mhm. But I'm not going to volunteer my criminal record if I get asked. And so I went, I had an interview and I went, there's a man named Doug Abrams who used to be an editor at HarperCollins and started a literary agency. And, you know, I had my background in a master's degree in writing. I worked at a publisher before college. Small press. So I went in for the interview, and he was like, okay, you're. I was overqualified in some ways for this. But he. He took a chance. You know, he hired me, didn't ask, because it's not the first thing you think of when you. That's. You know, when you look at me and I walk in and. And luckily, I had the. I had a chance to prove my work ethic and my creativity and my intelligence. But we were working on a book with Desmond Tutu, and. And I started, right, helping an author write their book, a book proposal. And so it was a few weeks on the job before he Googled me.

Speaker A: Ah. Uh, what made him Google you?

Speaker B: Well, we were working on a. This book called what color is your parachute? It's like a job book.

Speaker A: And. And I remember that book.

Speaker B: Yeah. So the agency represents that author. And they were. Updated it. And the author said, well, now everybody Googles our employees. And I remember that moment. Cause we were sitting in the office, and I was typing away happily. You know, Doug had just told me the day before, like, I was brilliant. And I was all full of, like, oh, I'm doing good. And it was like the air changed to the room. And I look up, and his face was sheet white. Because when I was sentenced, my face was on the front page of the local newspaper calling me the neighbor from hell.

Speaker A: Calling you the what?

Speaker B: The neighbor from hell. Uh, and so said, aptos, Neighbor from hell sentenced. And it was public humiliation for me, for my children. My son Ty was in junior high. And he said everywhere he went that day, that newspaper was in every classroom. And so he googled me and saw that headline, you know, and it was really this moment. He said, and he's so trusting and wonderful, and I would never. I was. So. How do I explain it? I was so thrilled that someone trusted me that I never would have violated that trust, you know, and. But I was, you know, in his home, and he had children, and his wife is a doctor, and, uh, so he would sheet white. And he said, you know, go home and, you know, come back tomorrow morning. Let me. I never checked your references. You know, all this kind of hit him. And I went home, and I said, I'm never going back there. Like, I just. That was my dream job, working with books again. And. And feeling that. Like, that I'm, um. Someone thinks I'm brilliant. Like, someone thinks I, you know, I'm so valuable. I'm doing good work in the world. And, um. And so it took everything I had. Probably the most courageous thing I've ever done is to go back that next day. And he said, look, I checked your references and, you know, I gotta walk my talk. I can't be working with Archbishop Desmond Tutu and not walk my talk. And it's like, maybe you don't handle the finances. I was like, fair enough. So we did hire someone to do that. And then I, you know, so, you know, that was in 2011 when I left to start my own agency. And 12 years later, I was CEO. Wow. And, you know, I started collaborative writing with a lot of amazing humans. I worked on the Book of Forgiving with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as his writer. I worked on Nelson Mandela's book. I worked with relationship therapists. I was neuroscientists and Stanford professors. And it was like I was building my resume of goodness because I knew someday the truth would come out for the rest of the world. None of our authors knew, Doug knew. No one else in my life knew. And I was like, someday the truth is going to come out about my past. And I had so much shame still for so long that I need my resume of goodness to defend my humanity. It was really this thing I was doing. And I was writing New York Times bestsellers, and I was part of the team to work on the Book of Joy. So I went to India to meditate with the Dalai Lama. Really afraid he's going to read my mind, right? I was like, he's going to Google you. He's going to know I'm bad. I thought it was going to look in my soul and see I was bad. I carried that with me for so many years until finally I said the thing. I was afraid. I was so ashamed of that newspaper headline and that. And the only reason I ended up even doing the book is at the end of 2019, I did a, ah, local TEDx talk. I had a friend who ran that. And she said, uh, came to the office, said, I'm not leaving until you agree to do it. And I was like, I'm never gonna do that. And she said, trust me. And so after three hours in my office, I said, fine, I'll do it. It was within two days. And so I got up and did this TEDx talk. And I said, here's the thing. I was once a neighbor from hell, and here's some other people I have been and Talked about my work and that feeling of just saying the thing out loud that I was so afraid everyone would find out. You know, I lived in so much fear of people Googling me. It was. It was the greatest. It's better than any drug I have ever taken. That feeling of lightness and just like. And, uh. And, you know, people didn't run screaming from the room, you know, so that was the reason I decided to do the book. I was like, okay, this. This can help.

Speaker A: It can help. I just want to read two passages from your memoir because you're clearly an incredible writer.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: In addition to being a woman with an incredible story and life experience. The first is about what we were talking about at the beginning of this podcast. How you and I, both as children, turn to books as an escape. Here's what you wrote. The truth is, I've only ever had one addiction. The white whale of addictions. Escape. From as far back as I can remember, there has always been a better place than wherever I am, a better me than whoever I was. Books helped me escape when I was young. Then you go on to write. My whole life, I had pretended to be a beautiful, happy, shiny person in the hopes that somehow I. That would make me a beautiful, happy, shiny person. I fit in everywhere because people love beautiful, happy, shiny people. But the problem with me trying to fit in everywhere is that I have never actually felt like I belonged anywhere or with anyone. That's the problem when we pretend to be something we're not. And even after you got out of prison and all those years you were ghost writing and praying nobody would Google you, you were pretending to be a woman who hadn't been addicted to heroin, who hadn't stolen from her neighbors, who hadn't been arrested, who hadn't been a local news celebrity in the worst way possible. And when you're pretending to be something you're not, you're never actually authentically living your own life and authentically connecting with other people. And that's not good. That's no way to live.

Speaker B: No. And that's why I say that jail was the greatest gift. Like, you know, I'm. I'm sorry for the collateral damage. You know, no one wants to be their children's college essay topic. Right? So. But. But that was.

Speaker A: I can only imagine what your boys have come up with.

Speaker B: Oh, my gosh. But the. You know, I never would have become me. I would have gone my whole life. I'm more me now than I've ever been me. And there's just so Much. There's so much freedom in that. There's so much. You know, the thing I was afraid of, that people would run away, like everyone in the world. I'm sure you get this. Who tells you their secrets now because you feel safe to tell their secrets? And, you know, one of the gifts, too, is when my boys were in junior high and high school and college, and even now, there's nothing. Because of what I went through. There's nothing they have not been able to talk to me about. And all their friends. Right. Like I was that. You know, the last thing I'm going to do is. Is judge anyone. Um, and so that's a huge gift. And, yeah, there's so much room for creativity and advocacy and everything else if you're not in shame and you're not pretending to be something you're not. So that's been a great gift, you know, and if the thing I teach my children is how to fail spectacularly and keep going, great.

Speaker A: Yeah. Well, I think you've taught more than your kids that lesson. The book is titled the Many Lives of Mama Love, which was your name in prison.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: A Memoir of Lying, Stealing, Writing and Healing. I think that's the best title of a memoir I've ever read. And your story is just incredible. And no issues like now in recovery, solid recovery. No urge to take yourself out of the moment with a drink or a substance.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's interesting because the healing part of that, you know, it's hard to measure healing until you're tested. You know, my. My memoir ended and, you know, the Oprah thing happened. And then for the paperback, I did a bonus chapter seven. Schuster asked me to do that because, you know, my 20, 24 came in hot. I went, you know, I could have titled the chapter Death, Divorce, and Oprah, because it's. It's bad things and good things that contest you, that make you uncomfortable. And. And it was this moment where I was going. I went through another divorce and betrayal. And I was like, why am I okay? And it's because I've never gone through hard things with other people as, uh, support letting other people support me and care for me. And that was the big lesson last year. You know, since the book, you know, since the From Hardback to paperback. And I was like, wow, not once did I think of doing drugs.

Speaker A: Wow.

Speaker B: Once did it even cross my mind that that's. That's a solution or a coping skill. It never even crossed my mind. So, yeah, so it's been. It was 16 years on March 18th. And. And what a gift. Like what? You know, I have community now. I. You know, I grew up in a family where no one talked about emotions. Now I have a feeling, and I have, like, 27 people. I call and be like, what is this? I'm having this feeling. You know, what is it?

Speaker A: Why do I feel this way?

Speaker B: Yeah, so get out. Yeah. Which, again, is a gift. Because I think whatever that thing that afflicted my family, I'm very proud of stopping it. I come from a long line of women who kept secrets, and I have four boys. But I like to think that that legacy changed because of what I went through. You have to make the meaning out of the messiness.

Speaker A: Well, the fact I'm the mom of two boys, and we spend a lot of time talking about our feelings. And sometimes it can be hard to hear, especially if they're feeling mad at me because I've done something really annoying or I've hurt them somehow or done something wrong. But it's really an important life skill. I think a lot of people. I don't know if it was a generational thing, but I, too. I don't remember talking about my feelings as a kid ever.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: So I think that's why I read books, to recognize, oh, that's. That's what that character's feeling. And, uh, you know, to get that. I don't know. It's a really funny thing. And maybe we're better at it now, or maybe you and I are better at it because we've been through addiction and recovery and where, you know, recovery is all about recognizing, why did I drink? What was I looking to numb? Why did you do heroin and Percocet? What were you looking to numb and not feel an escape? And you can't really recover until you can recognize that and start to talk about all those things.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing because I think, looking back now, sometimes I'm thinking about my own villain origin story, where I'm like, why did I take that pill? And I was like, I was depressed. No one talked about mental health. Maybe I had postpartum depression. I don't know. Like, I don't know what it was, but that. That. That was the only tool I had to.

Speaker A: To.

Speaker B: To cope and make myself feel better. And, you know, I have a lot, lot of tools now. And, you know, my son Caden, my youngest, who was taken by Child Protective Services. He's now at UC San Diego. And it was really that moment I moved him into college and, you know, moving him into the dorm and I went to park my car and, like, really in, you know, 12 years of shame, like, and. And, you know, even building my resume of goodness and six New York Times bestsellers. And this, this, this. It was only that moment when I moved him into the dorm where I was, like, I exhaled from the first moment of my arrest when he was taken. Cause I was like, oh, we did it. So it was like that moment where I was like, it's the first time I was like, I'm actually really proud of. I'm proud of him, but I'm really proud of me, which is like, you know, so. And I had to let my boys read my book. You know, I never knew my mom's interior world, so they know all the. They know all the stuff.

Speaker A: That's m. A gift.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And it was a gift for me to get to talk to you. Thank you so much. Laura Love Harden. You're amazing. Thank you so much.

Speaker B: Thank you so much.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for listening to Heart of the Matter. If your child is struggling, our trained helpline specialists can help you navigate the challenges and find solutions. Visit our website@drugfree.org support for more info. As a reminder, you can find Heart of the Matter on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and@, uh, drugfree.org podcast. And if you enjoy what you hear, please consider leaving us a rating on your favorite podcast platform. We'll talk to you, to you soon.