"He was a drug addict… I just thought he was insane."
April 23, 2020
How do you forgive your father for institutionalizing you as a child when he’s the one who might have been crazy? Or for sending you to a therapist who tried to cure you of being gay by prescribing a sex worker?
On episode six of Tell Me About Your Father, Paper Magazine’s Editorial Director, Mickey Boardman, talks openly and compassionately about growing up with a pharmacist father who was secretly addicted to drugs.
Boardman, now 20 years sober, describes his own struggles with addiction, and growing up gay, closeted, and severely depressed in '70s suburban Chicago. He also talks about how he and his father have learned to connect in his adulthood.
Somehow, it's our funniest episode of the season and we hope you enjoy it.
Thanks and take care,
Erin, Elizabeth and Matthew
What People Are Saying:
“...a fascinating, meditative listen. It’s people exploring past and present experience in a thoughtful, unsensational way.”
Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair
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Betsy Lerner, The Forest For the Trees
“Like a free therapy session, but funnier and just as deep.”
Brad Listi, host of the Other PPL Podcast