A12| Monday, February 24, 2020 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Top left, Gray Malin and husband, Jeff Richardson, keep each other motivated
at the gym. Above, Mr. Malin works the battle ropes between weight sets.LIFE & ARTS
After Clare Ansberry interviewed
Steve Grant, the author of a book
on losing his sons to drug addiction,
Wall Street Journal readers sent in
their own stories. Many described
their personal experiences loving—
and trying to help—a relative ad-
dicted to opioids. Here is a sam-
pling of the responses.MY SON was a heroin addict for at
least five years. I was in complete
denial. I know my husband knew,
but he was also in denial. What
people must know is that this
problem is not one that is re-
stricted to the lower income de-
mographic. This crosses to all sec-
tors of society. [People struggling
with addiction] live under our
roof, eat dinner at our tables, join
us in family and social gatherings
and more. We give them money
and cars. When our money and
jewelry and other things are miss-
ing, we actually believe them when
they say they didn’t take it. We
know, but we don’t want to face it.
We watch while they get thinner,
their hygiene practically nonexis-
tent. So we make it easy for them
to continue their drug life when
we should throw them out to see
how the real world of drug addic-
tion is. But we don’t because we’re
afraid they’ll die out there. We
blame ourselves even when they
tell us it’s not our fault. [My son]
always said he loved heroin and
would never give it up. Well, by
some miracle, he did give it up.
That was five years ago. No
matter what happens to me per-
sonally in my life, I will always feel
like the luckiest person alive, but I
know this could change in a heart-
beat. I told my son that he gave
himself a life sentence but also
gave my husband, daughter and
myself one as well. This shadow
never leaves. I pray every day that
he will not start that life again. We
lost our nephew two years ago to
heroin. His family is destroyed, so
my heart breaks for the author. No
one should experience such heart-THANK YOU for publishing this in-
terview, and thank you to the au-
thor. I immediately ordered this
book [“Don’t Forget Me: A Lifeline
of Hope for Those Touched by
Substance Abuse and Addiction”].
In 2010, when I was expecting our
second child, my husband was pre-
scribed two types of antidepres-
sants for anxiety. Once he took the
pills, he was never the same per-
son again. Previously he was loved
by everyone. He was a graduate of
a prestigious university. Soon after
taking this medication, he began
to drink heavily and started a
downward spiral from which he
never returned. Like the author, I
naïvely thought 72-hour and multi-
ple 30-day rehabs would help. In
2015, he died of a drug overdose.
Today my daughters (ages 10 and
11) and I carry those same feelings
of shame and isolation that are in-
describable due to losing someone
to an overdose. I cry at their school
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP: STEVE GRANT PERSONAL COLLECTION; ROSECRANCE HEALTH NETWORK; CHRISTINE EMMERT and sporting events, sitting alone,
DAVID WALTER BANKS FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (2)If you’re going to work out,
you should make it count. Inten-
sity, volume and frequency are
three key variables that often get
overlooked, says Matthew J.
Smith, co-founder of Revo Phys-
iotherapy and Sports Perfor-
mance in Boulder, Colo.
“Many people show up at the
gym after an exhausting day and
psychologically check off the box
that he or she did something,” he
says. “Oftentimes they don’t lift
heavy enough or get their heart
rate up enough.”
He says workout classes or
partners can help us push our-
selves. Setting a goal and know-
ing how to accomplish it is cru-
cial. “If I want to put on muscle,
two days a week in the gym will
not be adequate,” he says. “You
most likely need 45 minutes to
one hour of training three to four
days a week. And you should be
doing four to six sets.”
For efficiency, he suggests
choosing multi-joint exercises,
such as squats, that use both
large and small muscle groups.
“It’s easy to get motivated in
short bits and fall off the rails
whenwegetbusyorifwe’renot
seeing instant results,” Mr. Smith
says. “Creating unmitigated disci-
pline around your health is the
only way to cement it for the
long term. Set a goal every time
you work out.”
And don’t forget to recover as
hard as you train. “We get strong
when we get sleep,” he says.Keeping Up the
Intensity at the Gym
ache. One last thing: I disagree
with the author regarding parent-
ing. You can be the worst parent in
the world and your children can be
successful. I have seen this many
times. The reverse is true as well.
Being consistent means nothing.
—Susan MooreChristine Emmert and her daughterspainfully aware that
he is missing every-
thing. At the holi-
days, my family is a
wonderful support,
but I feel isolated
watching everyone
seated next to their
spouses and won-
dering what life
would have been like
under different cir-
cumstances.
Hopefully my
daughters and I can
serve as an example
that addiction does
not discriminate.
Through the support
of family, friends,
neighbors, and co-
workers, I was able
to carry on and
maintain a success-
ful career. My
daughters get good grades and are
so active in many activities that it’s
sometimes easy to forget how much
we have overcome.
—Christine EmmertUNFORTUNATELY, I
lost my son Daniel,
my stepson, my
brother, a cousin and
a nephew to this epi-
demic. I spent two
years inside the
[Ohio] state capitol
fighting for prescrip-
tion opioid reform
and walked out with
Daniel’s Law. I spent
18 months in a medi-
cal malpractice suit
and walked away
with a settlement on
behalf of my son and sworn deposi-
tions in hand. I then purged Daniel’s
story onto paper with my younger
son, Wes, a medical professional.
I had come out of this worm-battle ropes between sets. He fin-
ishes with 10 minutes of core
work, including lower-back
extensions, sit-ups and leg raises.
He and Mr. Richardson also
incorporate partner exercises
like medicine ball tosses into their
workouts.
The jump rope is his secret
weapon on the road. “When I was
shooting my latest photo project,
“Gray Malin in Aspen,” I worked
out each morning in the gym at
the Little Nell with my jump rope
in tow,” he says. “It works your
legs, arms and core and allows me
to get in the cardio without com-
mitting to 30 minutes on the
treadmill.”The Diet
Four years ago, Mr. Malin lost 16
pounds in two weeks following
the Scarsdale Diet, which pre-
scribes just 700 to 1,000 calories
a day. He was skinny but he
wasn’t toned.
“At first, it was really hard for
me to understand that to gain and
maintain muscle I had to eatI could afford a trainer if I dropped
all of my classes.” He pays $100 a
month in gym fees and $2,500 for
25 private training sessions.
Mr. Malin says his lightweight
Nike Epic React Flyknit 2 sneakers
($150) are great for jumping rope.
He spent $10 on his Homello
Featherlight Speed Bounce Rope.
He wears Trovis Gym wrist wrap
gloves ($10) when weightlifting.
He wears apparel from Nike,
ISAORA and Outdoor Voices, but
says he’s disappointed there aren’t
more options for stylish men’s fit-
ness apparel. “Someone could
make a really attractive racerback
for men,” he says.The Playlist
“AirPods have been a game
changer,” he says. “I find music to
be a huge part of working out. Mu-
sic keeps me Zen amidst all of the
grunting in the gym.” His top four
workout songs are “Gloria” by
Laura Branigan, “Vogue” by Ma-
donna, “I Feel Love” by Sam Smith
and “Higher Love” by Kygo and
Whitney Houston.more, not less,” he says. “Weight-
lifting freed me from dieting.”
He got in the habit of eating
breakfast, typically a smoothie of
spinach, protein, collagen powder,
almond milk, blueberries and co-
conut oil. He doesn’t do work
lunches. He usually grabs a salad
from a cafe near his office.
“I’m ravenous when I get home,
so I stock my fridge with baby
carrots and root hummus.”
Dinner might be chicken with
broccoli or sushi or pizza. “I try
not to stress about dinner and
embrace moderation,” he says.
“Before I started lifting, if I had
pizza I would feel like I had
to be a slave to boot camp the
next day.”
Mr. Malin grew up in Texas,
and says his weakness is a good
queso dip.The Gear and Cost
At the end of 2017, Mr. Malin did a
financial review and realized he was
spending a fortune on cardio
classes and gym fees. “I was aston-
ished,” he says. “It made me realizeGRAY MALIN thought he was do-
ing everything right. He dieted
and worked out at least five days
a week. But he still wasn’t seeing
results. “I was skinny fat. I had no
tone,” says the 33-year-old Los
Angeles-based fine art photogra-
pher.
As a teen, Mr. Malin spent his
time developing film in the dark
room, as far away from the sports
fields as possible. “I’ve always
been fearful of the weight room,”
he says. “Funny enough, I married
someone who only lifts weights.”
When his husband, Jeff Richard-
son, would hit the
gym, Mr. Malin
would go to
Barry’s Bootcamp,
SoulCycle, yoga
and Pilates. “I
thought if I could
complete a 60-
minute boot
camp, I would
be extremely fit,”
he says.
But being on the road nearly
two weeks each month made it
tough to rely on classes. Two
years ago, he approached Harry
Rosedale, one of his Barry’s Boot-
camp instructors, about private
training sessions. “I told him I
wanted to gain muscle and he told
me to quit cardio, start eating
more and start lifting weights,”
he says. “It was a crazy shift.”It took nearly nine months of
six-day a week training for Mr.
Malin, the father of twin 14-month
olds, to see results. “My body has
transformed,” he says. “I can navi-
gate a weight room. I feel so confi-
dent.” He’s also found a new gym
partner in his husband. “Watching
Gray progress, adding more weight
weekly, really drives me to push
myself further,” Mr. Richardson
says. “When things get really busy
for us, we rely on each other to
get our workouts in.”
“Now when I see someone on
the street with a toned physique I
applaud them and
think, ‘They’ve ded-
icated years to that
body,’ ” he says.The Workout
Mr. Malin works out
at 5:50 a.m. three
daysaweekata
private gym with
his trainer and two
to three days at a public gym with
his husband. “I love not having to
go to the same place every day,”
he says. Sessions last 80 minutes.
One day he’ll do chest and legs,
another back and biceps, a third
shoulders and triceps. A sample
back-and-biceps workout might in-
clude four sets each of eight exer-
cises, such as lat pulldowns and
standing biceps cable curls. He
does one minute of jump rope orWHAT’S YOUR WORKOUT?| JEN MURPHY
Lifting Weights
To Battle Against
‘Skinny Fat’
80
Minutes in a typical
workout sessionhole a very different person. It
was a journey I never intended to
venture through, yet I found my-
self time and time again living in a
hell that I would not wish on my
worst enemy. I didn’t want the les-
sons I had learned, the mistakes I
had made, or the discrimination I
had discovered to drift away into
the cosmos without ever resulting
in some type of meaning. So I be-
gan journaling and documenting
the events of my life and the
events of Daniel’s life, in attempts
to raise awareness, educate the
masses, and encourage others to
stand with me as we fight an epi-
demic that is ripping children from
their parents on a daily basis.
Knowledge is power, but it is
nothing without action.
—Scott WeidleI’VE WORKED with addicts since
1966 and presently work part-time
with them for an agency I have
been associated with for 22 years. I
don’t claim to be an expert, just an
old guy who functions as a chaplain
and walks alongside “recovering”
addicts. Drugs are as cunning, baf-
fling, and powerful as they have al-
ways been. Those of us who involve
ourselves in the life of a young per-
son rarely realize and hardly accept
we are as power-
less over drugs and
alcohol as the kid
who uses every-
thing from weed to
heroin to anything
between. Four
weeks, eight weeks,
18 months in treat-
ment. Whatever. No
matter. There is no
magic bullet in re-
covery. Steve Grant
was not “chosen”
to be a voice for
parents and others
who care about this
terrible burden. He
made the decision to face the prob-
lem head-on. Good for him. Kudos
for his courage to keep on keepin’
on despite his tragic losses.
—Bill LentersBYBRANDONSANCHEZ‘No One Should Experience Such Heartache’: Readers’ Stories
Steve Grant with his
sons when they were
in their teens. Both
died of overdoses in
their early 20s.Bill Lenters