Author: Brian O’Keefe
-
The Heroin Kids: Learning, Living, and Surviving
Got an email from prison the other day. It was one of the heroin kids. Who knew they had email in prison? And who knew there was an app for that! Called JPAY. With that…you know some Stanford kid’s summer house and retirement fund has been cemented in stone. Also—when in my life did I…
-
A Winter Journey to Recovery 101: Strength, Hope, and Peanut Butter and Jelly
“Seriously?!”….blurted the wide eyed newbie listening to the older man talk about the old days. “You had Peanut Butter and Jelly Uncrustables?!”, was the hyper-excited question from this young man in his very early 20’s sitting next to me. He was one of the heroin kids…for sure…or maybe Oxys. Didn’t ask…Doesn’t matter….Not the point. Me,…
-
“The Dime Story”
THIS WEEK CELEBRATING GMA’s 40th ANNIVERSARY WE REVISITED A BEAUTIFUL STORY FROM 2004. THAT BROADCAST EVENT ON ABC WAS A PERSONAL AND PROFESSIONAL CATHARTIC MOMENT. HERE I GO BACK IN TIME TO THAT FRIDAY BEFORE MOTHERS DAY. I was shaking like a leaf. Because of the voice on the phone. It was MY voice on…
-
The Battle of the Bumper: Food Addiction, Courage, and an Angel from Brooklyn
“You need to get rid of that,” said the skinny bespectacled..almost – but not quite – scrawny doctor seated before me. “Get rid of what?”, I half asked, only realizing what he was referring to that very instant. “Its like a Buick bumper,” he proclaimed as he sneered at my belly. “You’re too young to…
-
Play Ball: The Mickey Mantle of Our Time, Getting Hit by the Ball, and Finally Becoming One of the Boys
“BRIAN O’KEEEEEEEEFE….THERE HE IS………”…..like an electric bolt across a hushed gymnasium sized newsroom. “MY HERO…..”, the anchorman boomed which caused every single person to stop what they were doing….and look at me. Oh…how I haaaaaate being the center of attention. There I was blushing in Nagano. Japan. 1998. You remember. The Winter Olympics. For me:…
-
“Sup Girrrl?!”: The Shame Game, A Boy Named Zach, Uncle Jimmy Who Paved the Way, and My Hot Pink Road to Recovery
The car was still running and for some reason we didn’t get out of the car. I was scared. I felt something big and serious was about to happen. I remember my heart thumping through my chest the moment he asked me. I couldn’t breathe air into my lungs…yet my heart beat like an orchestra’s…
-
My Best Friend Ever—Little Liz: Forty-five and a Half Inches of Love, Passion, Reason, Humor, and … Hiccups!
“Brian O’Keefe. Floral Park. Pleased to meet you!” somehow rolled out between my lips into the air in front of me. Say what?! Yes, I did. To a girl. In college. On my very first day. While weirdly endlessly shaking her hand. It was my spontaneous nervous Tourettes-ish and peculiarly formal reaction to seeing the…
-
The Miracle on Boxing Day: My Roomie
“None of these people are your friends,” whispered young Alex my first and only roommate at Seabrook House. “They’re low lifes: drug addicts, alcoholics, liars and cheaters….you’re not gonna be friends with any of these people, Brian.” A boy of 20 not even old enough to drink, who had been in rehab and various institutions…
-
R.I.P. Sweet Adam: Just One Drink, a Candle Burning Out, and the Boy He Left Behind
My good friend Adam died this week. He was 38. Cancer? No. Car accident? No. Heart attack? No. Murder? Nope. No, Adam drank himself to death. He died from his alcoholism. Yep. But first he dove into a coma and an unresponsive state on a bus stop bench on a busy Los Angeles boulevard. He…
-
The Power of One Pill: Mindful Medication, Cutting Back Impulse, and the End of Being an Interrupter?!
“You, my friend, definitely have ADHD…you might want to get checked, seriously, I’m not kidding, ” said Jimmy the counselor in my group therapy, in front of the entire group which at that moment felt like the whole world…like on CNN or Buzzfeed or something. But it didn’t feel as bad like the time when…
BOKBLOG 