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A family's legacy crumbles in the face of addiction in Paul V. O'Leary's emotional new memoir, Intoxicated by Life.
Jack O'Leary, a first-generation Irish American born to a mother who worked cleaning the houses of the rich, is determined to make it to the top.
A talented and ambitious man, Jack met his match in Mary, a stunning, younger woman who wants nothing more than to escape her working-class origins.
Together, the two begin a life that is quickly marred by tragedy-the loss of three parents and one child in the first four years of their marriage.
The seed of estrangement planted, the couple puts on a brave face-with decades of material success and good times coming their way.
Jack climbs the ladder of the business world and becomes president of a bank. Propelled into the social and financial elite, Jack and Mary embrace their new life of business travel, parties, new cars, country clubs, and Ivy League educations for their children.
But a secret addiction slowly eats away at the O'Leary family-one that will ultimately destroy everything, and everyone, they hold dear.
Paul V O'Leary
Paul V. O'Leary was a real estate appraiser and attorney who specialized in forensic appraisals and the appraisal of conservation properties. He wrote, taught, and lectured extensively on real estate economics and appraisal for The Appraisal Institute, The Massachusetts Board of Real Estate Appraisers, the American Society of Appraisers, and the Massachusetts and United States Bar Associations. He was also a special faculty member of the Lincoln Institute for Land Policy in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a think tank associated with Harvard University, with an international portfolio, researching, publishing, and teaching on real estate planning and taxation issues.
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