Miss Me? - Listen Bitch! Freedom is the Absence of Want

Episode Date: October 20, 2025

Jordan Stephens and Miquita Oliver answer your questions about addiction.If you’re affected by addiction, eating disorders or mental health issues, visit bbc.co.uk/actionline for support.This episode contains strong language and discussion around addiction, body dysmorphia and adult themes. Next week, we want to hear your questions about BOREDOM. Please send us a voice note on WhatsApp: [phone]. Or, if you like, send us an email: [e-mail]: Producer: Natalie Jamieson Technical Producer: Will Gibson Smith Assistant Producer: Caillin McDaid Production Coordinator: Rose Wilcox Executive Producer: Dino Sofos Assistant Commissioner for BBC: Lorraine Okuefuna Commissioning Editor for BBC: Dylan HaskinsMiss Me? is a Persephonica production for BBC Sounds

This episode contains strong language and discussion around addiction, body dysmorphia, and adult themes. Okay, welcome to this week's edition of Listen, B, you're going to have to face it, you're addicted to love. I wish I was only addicted to love. You don't. You don't. Yeah, it's an easy addiction. Love, whatever. You're winding me up, in it?

Yes, I am taking the piss. There's literally a sex and love addiction is anonymous. It's a serious issue. I think it'd be better than smoking. I don't know, man. I think it can really destroy people's lives. And welcome to this week's theme. The theme is addiction.

Addiction. Oh, addiction. That nought. little bastard. So, yeah, we're going to talk about dirty, dirty addiction and dirty, dirty secrets today. But, you know, not all addiction is. That's actually the point. We don't, addiction isn't dirty and it shouldn't be a secret.

It's something that plagues so many of us and has definitely lived in my life in a myriad of ways. And I can't wait to hear how it's affected all of your lives too. Let's have our first question for this thing. Listen, Mitch. The theme is addiction. Hey, Makita and Jordan. My question is about whether there is any addictions that are good. Is there ever an addiction that's okay? Because asking for a friend, I've realized recently that I may be addicted to charity shopping. I think I just love the validation of buying something,

it being a bargain. And I don't feel as bad when I'm, getting that validation from a charity shop. I don't feel the same way as if it was from a normal shop. And I realised I've even started lying about being at the charity shop to my partner. And that's when I really thought, maybe I'm addicted. So we'd love to hear your thoughts on whether there is ever an addiction that's okay to have. It's for charity. Is that all right? Or are all addictions, bad addictions. Please help me. Lots of love from Eve from Sheffield. I, as the secondhand clothes ambassador for Oxfam, it was quite deep in my charity shop love from a very young age to about a year ago when my cousin came around and looked at my wardrobe

and was like, your wardrobe is full of shit you don't need. And I was like, how dare you? 90% of these clothes are second hand, everything here I love. And then when I moved into this place, I threw away 10 to 12 bags of complete shit. I had like the same holy Navy jumper times 10. The same short little mini skirt that I'd got tailored to this. And I was like, this is actually hoarding with a nicer jacket on. This is still hoarding. As you can see, look at my wardrobe, Jordan.

It's like curated, simplified, diversified. I threw out so much shit. and there's something so good about making space for the new not just new clothes but just make space in your life for anything new so I would say kind of be careful with your charity shopping because it's for good

and because it's cheap it can be very easy to over indulge and overdo it not the most serious addiction but I have been there it's not but look I think it's easy I mean part of me wanted to be like you're being ridiculous

I highly doubt that if you were to be told that you can no longer charity shop that it would have like a particularly detrimental effect to your livelihood but i then caught myself because actually anything can be an addiction genuinely and and then there might be something tied into whatever the feeling is that is elicited from going into those stores i would say though as far as addictions go it's probably all right as far as they go and to answer her question i wouldn't go as far as say a good i'm not sure you can say good addiction i'm not sure well when a What about when we got addicted to exercise when we were training with McKenzie?

I was just going to say that, actually, and that was very damaging to me in the long term. When we started training with McKenzie? Yeah, I developed body dysmorphia. Really? Yeah. I can understand why someone would be like, I think this is a gym? Great, fantastic. But actually, what the issue is, what did I say about things being promised in life?

Change. Things change all the time. And it can't always be guaranteed that you can go to the gym or go to the gym at the same time. Or maybe an opportunity comes up in life where it's hard. to get to the gym or whatever else. What happened to me was I transformed my body in about four months, which was wild to me. And I was on the set meals and I was eating four meals a day

and I was playing football and I was cycling and I was going to the gym and I felt, I mean, for anybody who does do gym a lot, the endorphins are crazy. It feels amazing. I felt incredible. I was cycling through London in like 40 minutes, 45 minutes from east to west.

It was west to east rather. Finding that strength in your own body, it's beautiful. Yeah. loving it, loving it. But what happened was I rolled on my ankle in a football match and I did something to a ligament in my wrist or tendon in my wrist while training, which meant I couldn't do anything.

And suddenly I had this massive appetite being that I'd been eating four meals a day, but I had no chance to offset that. And I had no way of adapting. So what happened in place was I started to panic that I would reverse all the good work I'd just done on the basis that I couldn't really exercise much. And what happened is,

is now I think I have quite a healthy relationship with the gym because I know why I'm going and I've got muscle maturity and I've been going consistently rather than just intensely right because like you can burn yourself out it's really dangerous going too much but what happened was in that time I developed a like a tick almost where I would maybe tick's the wrong word but I would check my muscles and I would pinch my belly I'd hold my belly fat this happens a lot with with everybody, but I know that with men it maybe isn't spoken about as much within the male community we are

we are probably more obsessed with being trim than it surpasses the desire, the perceived desire of women. It's really like a self-contained obsession. Yeah. So I was like pulling at my stomach and just to say what I mean is even once I'd

pass that it would flare up whenever I got anxious. So now one of the times I know if I'm really anxious is if I start grabbing my body. Because it's just a lingering memory of that first feeling of a loss of control. So if I feel like there's another loss of control, I touch, I grab myself. And in those days when you're grabbing yourself,

it's like just to check, just to check. Like nothing's changed. It's still, yeah. Yeah, just to see, have I put on any weight? Have I, have I, you know, have I lost that muscle? Have I? And then there's another thing, which is orthorexia, which are people who become incredibly,

incredibly specific about what they eat and what goes in their body, which again in balance is good 80% of the time being conscious of what you're eating is a brilliant idea but if it affects your ability to socialise to relax to you know enjoy certain things like then you've got to start asking yourself can you adapt can you change and that's really that's really that's really the harmony yeah listen it's hard I still I still have these issues now especially when you've been addicted to something that's like what you just said that being addicted to something you know is good for you and trying to turn it into something that doesn't become unhealthy that's a

fucking head fuck. Yeah. Me and McKenzie talk about this all the time. There's a real presence in gym culture of people not knowing how to put things into a balance, just to balance things a little more rather than becoming a crutch. When I finally did lose all the weight that I wanted to lose, which I guess was the journey I started then with me, you and Mac and Grimmie training, that was like, what, 10 years ago, yeah.

No, I was like 28. Yeah, 12, 13 years ago. Like 12 years ago, yeah. And that was because I had a job. coming up. I had got the job to do V-Festle of Channel 4. And it was the first job I got since bankruptcy. So I was like, I have to be, I have to show them that, and not just like, do my job well, because I could always do that. But I had been messy and overweight for a long time on screen. I was sick of it. And do you know what, though? The production company asked to see

pictures of me. They were like, we want to see how she's looking at the moment. Wow. And that was really hard. I was like, fuck, I have, I've got this. It wasn't even like a photo shoot. came around to take a few shots of me, but I had three weeks till she was doing that, so I went to see McKenzie, like, sometimes twice a day. Because I was like, if I don't look slim enough, they're not going to give me the job, or they're going to say they're going to revoke the job. Oh, babe, I didn't realize that was

one of the motivators. I thought you just stopped drinking wine. No, no, but I couldn't stop drinking wine. But you did. A bit. You did stop drinking wine, and you went, yeah, and then I went, but that was, that was this, yeah, God, addiction. I've got plenty of more to talk about,

but we've got lots to get through. Can we another question please. Hi, Makita and Jordan. I'm not going to tell you my name just because of the nature of my question. Why do you think, like, alcohol in British culture has been put on such a pedestal? It's so, like, agreed that it's okay that we can go out, we can get slaughtered, you know, you can go to the shop, you can buy as much alcohol as you want, and the cashier would probably say, or you'll look like you're going to have a fun weekend instead of somebody saying, why have you got five litres of vodka in your basket? In the work environment, you get women that says, oh, I'm going to go home and sink a bottle

of wine. But if I turn around and said, oh, I'm going to go home and smoke a spliff later, I would be frowned upon, lose my job, be viewed as like some kind of down and out degenerate of society. But I can go home and get myself absolutely pissed up paralytic. And that would be celebrated. I don't know. I find it a bit bizarre. What are your thoughts? Thank you. Listen.

Unknown caller. I'm going to jump straight in here, Keats, as a sober man of eight years. I agree wholeheartedly with what this woman is saying. And I think the short answer is because the government makes money of it. It's massively taxable. I'm probably sure these alcohol companies lobby for certain allowances. I mean, the fact that alcohol is even in any sort of relationship with sport, It blows my mind.

Like, blows my mind that beer is allowed to be marketed via football as if there's any relationship between beer and, like, other than people going to watch it, getting too drunk and probably, I don't even know what. But there's 0% stuff now, which I actually love. Yeah, but there's like what's happened with weed in America. Now that they've found a way for it to make money for the government, it's marketed.

It's, you know, it's within the higher echelons of society. I had a fling once With this Maybe I shouldn't be specific about it Anyway I knew someone who lived somewhere And her dad She said to me As a judge

Like she was very much It seems like she was okay for money But she said My dad is the biggest drug dealer In Colorado That's what she would say to me Right Eventually I visited her mansion

Somewhere in America and I realized that the second that they legalized marijuana in Colorado, he already had a functional and hugely spanning marijuana farm. Look, to answer the question before we move on, I agree that alcohol is over-glamarized. I believe I will fall down the rabbit hole. I think it's done because it keeps a certain element of the population subordinate. It takes the body days to completely recover from alcohol abuse.

And so for some people, they've literally not been in a state of recovery, you know, obviously unless they've been pregnant or something like that. For decades. For a long, long time of their life. Yeah. And then they know all this. They have all the statistics, the data, drunk driving, domestic abuse. All of this is exacerbated by a binge drinking culture.

And they still are allowed to market and have all of this market share. I'm very positive about 0% alcohol. I love that as an alternative. Yeah. You said something to me once. that really stayed in me, which was like, alcohol is such a lie. Was it alcohol such a lie? Yeah, it's a scam.

It's a scam. This idea that it's like us at our happiest and most joyful and having the most fun. It's a fucking scam. And I think for me, the times when I've stopped drinking or again, I'm looking at stopping drinking again at the moment, you have to tie yourself, you have to drag yourself away from an idea of yourself. And I think that drinking culture is just something that happened. because of what we were told about what alcohol could mean to our lives.

But it's not just about the addiction to the alcohol. It's like, but this is how you have a good time. This is how you socialise. This is how you chat more shit. All right, let's fucking have another question. Jordan, why don't you ask for it in this beautiful safe space? Can I have another question, please? Hi, guys.

It's Becca from Oxford here. Loving the podcast. My question is around vaping. So, as a mother of a 12-year-old, vaping is one thing which concerns me the most. I think young people today are well aware of the dangers of smoking and I think smoking has become less fashionable in a sense, but it's just been replaced by vaping. And actually in many respects, I think that vaping can be more dangerous than smoking in terms of how much more socially acceptable it seems to be, how much more appealing it is to children in terms of the various that produce of all the colours and fruity flavours and the fact that, people seem to do it anywhere and everywhere all the time.

Do you think vaping is more or less addictive than smoking? Just to be, my short answer, I don't know if you, how much of smoke are you are, but I've done both vaping and smoking and me, I would say vaping's harder to give up. Jesus! You are joking. Oh my God. No, I'm being serious. I just asked Kelly, because you know, Kelly doesn't drink anymore and never smoked, really.

Wow. And then she just stopped. drank for years, but she vapes and drinks coffee. She basically said coffee and vaping have taken over those parts of her addictive personality. So maybe, do you think that maybe the addiction lives in us? Like, and it just

needs to, like a fucking monster, it just has to clutch onto something. Like, it's like almost like it needs a space to exist in and just gets transferred. One of the craziest aspects of my recovery is that I've never been to a meeting. I've never been to

AA or NA. Mainly because in the initial parts of my recovery, I was still smoking weed. For me, I found it helpful to experiment with things like mushrooms. So I couldn't have gone to AA because they're very strict about not engaging with psychoactive substances. I actually don't agree with that part of recovery. Prescription drugs seem to be okay. Even though, you know, I get prescribed speed basically for ADHD. It's methylphenidate, which is literally meth without supposedly the addiction.

the component but I would argue that too. So what I'm saying this is I have friends in recovery and they've told me and this is brilliant and this has stayed with me and I'm glad he told me this, that what they describe as, you are, one of the things is we acknowledge that we are addict. So I am an addict. I'm an addict as like that's part of my existence and it's manageable, right? That's not something you're accepting, you know, not being in denial about that is really important for a lot of people, myself included.

Yeah. As part of being an addict, one of the. analogies they use is it's being like six bins with five lids so it's what you're saying so like in the space of being able to curb one you're obviously leaving one another bin open to to another so really our responsibility is finding the forms of addiction that best complement our life and keep us in the state of health you can't ever just throw all the bins out my grasp on addiction is so much healthier than it used to be like like it genuinely and I'm far from perfect but it's it I keep saying that but I really mean it no but I like being near you especially on holiday you seem free the giving

up the smoking of vapes was by force by accident I've stayed in me and jay went away on holiday into the jungle in Mexico and it was a smoke free didn't have your vape charger it was a smoke free hotel and I didn't have a vape with me and I did my cigarettes you know you're not allowed to because you might fucking burn the whole thing down. And then every night we went out, the tobacco shops were shut. I bought a cigar, but didn't realize you had to buy like a cigar cutter and a fucking all this shit. That's addiction trying to find a way.

Then I bought a cigar. Yeah, trying to find an equivalent. But what happened was I ended up going into some form of rehab. I was in his hotel for 10 days, came out having not had one puff of anything. And I was like, well, fuck me. I better stick to this. And I've not smoked ever since. But I do have a lot of willpower.

That's something that I find different to other people. Because if I think something isn't working for me and it keeps harming. me, I have to change it. I have to. See, that's what I don't have. That's what I don't have. I need that. I'm very determined. And if I could focus on letting things go in the same way that I focus on acquiring things, I'd be very free and powerful. The reason I started smoking weed again five years ago at that period of time was because I was suffering from this condition that I have trip phobia which is a really weird thing to describe and it affects me so much that I don't even really want to talk about it. It flares up basically and it was flared up to a point where

I couldn't leave the house. Yeah. A friend came to see me and I was like maybe I just need some alcohol and it just wasn't working. Alcohol wasn't working and she gave me a spliff instead and it just went away and I can't tell you the piece that I found. And so for the next few years I did spoke weed to support the fact that I had stopped drinking and that I was training every day and that I wanted my career back but I still wonder now

how much I really needed the weed or did I just use it as a replacement because I was giving up something which is such a big thing in my life which is drinking alcohol. I was just going to say true freedom is to not need anything to not need it.

Freedom is the absence of want. This is what I mean and that's what we'll call the episode. Freedom is the absence of want hapso fucking lootly I just want this I need it but it's like what do you need very often we just fancy things

and oh I could do it a bit of but what do you actually need I certainly haven't moved I'm an addict that's you know my dad's an addict I'm not sure about my mum probably yeah but the biggest issues I've had from that

has been emotional addiction which is something that doesn't get spoken about a lot I get completely hyper-focused on thoughts it will almost I mean sometimes I described actually it to Harley who struggles with OCD and it actually reminded, I definitely don't have OCD but it reminded him when I was explaining

my thought pattern of what he genuinely struggles with and I only have it in small doses but I think it must be some kind of flare-up of that like I say that's the bin without the lid it latches onto thoughts about sleep or thoughts about a person I spoke to last week or you know a lot

of people live with that but that is still if I'm unable to pull myself away from it's quite handy for a podcast though it's great for a podcast yeah this is my new drug that's right arrest me Miss me could be your new drugs

I like that let's go to a break okay I would love to break I would love to break my addictive habits to get it let's break

anyway welcome back let's have another question then hi makita and jordan my name's sarah and i'm coming to you from a town called cayama on the southeast coast of australia on the topic of addiction i understand how deeply complex it is i know it comes from a place of illness coping impulsivity but recently i've gone through my own personal experience with someone very very close to me struggling with addiction and it's been incredibly challenging trying to reconcile that understanding with the emotional reality of losing trust and feeling deep pain myself. Have either of you been on the receiving end of someone you love struggling with addiction? And if so, how did you navigate

supporting and understanding them while also protecting your own well-being and processing your own pain? Thank you. I love the podcast and value both of your perspectives every week. I look forward to hearing from you. Thank you for asking that question because when you said that your parents were addicts, or that your dad's an addict and you, you know, didn't quite know about Emma. Yeah, that's, we come from addicts too, me, Phoebe, Namer. There's a lot of drug addiction throughout our family historically. And that shit's very real.

Strangely, my mum's not really an addict. She likes to rave and she likes a party But she's not she's never Where my mum's addiction has always been is food Yeah I was about to say that But that's a very common addiction And she said something to me so deep once When I was like fuck

She said food addiction is one of the worst Because it's something that you have to have Like you were talking about earlier You can't just go well I just won't eat food anymore You have to learn how to balance it in your life I think I would argue This is what I'm saying about spiraling And I would argue this is the biggest issue

of our times because not only do we need it, the worst forms of it are actively pushed to us every day of our lives on every corner, on every advert, not every advert, but you know what I mean? Yeah. And I think it also comes down to scarcity and I used to get it with alcohol and my mum used to get it with food. I mean, we've both done a lot of great work with our addictions, you know, separately and together, I suppose. Yeah, when I was really bad, you know, when we went to, I was saying on last week's episode that I went to our Uncle Stuart's funeral and it was in Richmond and it was really strange to go back to Richmond because I hadn't been back there. I realized in six years and six years ago was when I was going out with someone

and I was in a really bad relationship and I spent a year and a half to two years wandering around those streets of Richmond high, drunk, out of my head, falling asleep on street corners, falling asleep on bus stops. I mean, it was really, really bad. And I never told anyone. I didn't tell my mom. I didn't tell my friends how bad it had got. And this abusive, verbally abusive, emotionally abusive relationship,

I was just hiding in it. So to go back to those streets and actually walk the streets of my past addiction was quite interesting. It showed me how far I've come and showed me to stop being so hard on myself because I have actually changed a lot. And I can find it really easy to go back into, I haven't changed. I still am a victim to all my addictions

and I'm really not. It took a fucking hell of a lot to get out of that spiral. I was drinking wine for breakfast. Like that was a really, really bad time. Really bad. And you never know how you get there. You don't even recognise yourself.

I had no idea how it got that bad. All I knew was that I was there and I had no idea how to get out. But I knew it was bad. And I couldn't remember how it got there. It was just suddenly I was an alcoholic. Was that a moment where you, thought I've got to change was there a conversation you had with a person or was there an

experience where you thought I know you I guess you've not I guess you still do drink yeah but not like that but was a point where you had to think yeah I moved out of where I was living and I broke up with that person and I moved into a new flat and I was on the river and on the marshes and I was high up again and I was like this is your chance you're 35 this is your last chance to clean up your life and I did yeah start drinking for like eight months. That ties into what I was going to say because, you know, to answer the person's question, the idea of helping someone through recovery is incredibly difficult because it can be very disappointing to begin with because like, like, as you say, watching somebody fall foul

to what appears to be like just logic, plain logic, well-being, incapable of taking advice. You know, I find that the most difficult actually with love, a lot of people end up in clearly unhealthy relationships and will not listen to a single person as its own addiction. This is something that I'm not sure someone will talk about, but I see people end up in relationships because they are addicted to that immediate feeling, the honeymoon face, which is a chemical high, like your brain elicits whatever that chemical is. A lot of the time I struggle to pull people away from that, but actually it's kind of not my role. So I think the hardest thing to do with an addict is accept the reality that ultimately they're going to have to come to that decision by

themselves. And it's our responsibility to create a compassionate boundary and a compassionate boundary in what I believe to be, which would be very painful to receive, but I would be thankful in the long run, is knowing what I need as a person who's not going through it. Making that clear. And if that boundary is crossed, then the consequence occurs. My friend right now is doing that. She's continuously to this terrible nasty piece of shit I have stopped saying anything because it's going to make it worse and it's going to make her

what's it called like stick her heels in more and be more defiant about it yeah that tends to happen and they'll distance themselves and isolate themselves yeah well she's already doing that you've just got to be there I've found it quite helpful to not talk about it but that's very different to someone

being in like a drug and alcohol addiction I suppose when you're trying to help them well no because this person is if they're in a close relationship with them, the only difference is that there might not be a choice to not engage about a certain thing. It's like everybody is entitled to make clear to those they care about what they require

in order to feel loved. Everyone's entitled to that. Right. You know, we're talking within reason here. So if a requirement of that is a certain level of presence, a certain level of conversation, a certain level of curiosity, humor, like all of these aspects of all types of relationships,

It's not just romantic. If a person is unable to, then you are not, I don't believe that you're acquired as a person to continually give a side of yourself with just being met with pain and difficulty. I always go back to, I mean, this is a massive issue in the world, I guess,

but we just have to find a space where we can support them without that being at too much of expense of ourselves. Yes. When it was me, my mum, even if she had got on a fucking train and come to Richmond and pick me up off the street, I wouldn't have stopped drinking for her.

I had to want, to do it myself and in turn when I started this new like regime like me and my friends said we're like we're not going to drink we're going to train every day and we really did yeah I didn't talk about it with loads of people and I think that changed it as well I didn't make it this thing that I was doing to impress everyone and really hope I could get really hope I could pass with flying colours I was just fucking fed up and done I was boring myself and that's also sometimes when you just go enough another thing so the compassionate boundaries that's more of an immediate thing but one thing I don't think we speak about enough is every single person can show up for

another person struggling in a sense of community and this is something that doesn't happen a lot especially with something like food addiction right we don't have to tell another person what they should and shouldn't do with their lives but we can model that change ourselves and do it near the person we can show them without any pressure or any judgment what that means and if we care we'd be prepared to. So for example, if I knew someone close to me was wanting to feel healthier, would I turn up to their house with unhealthy food? No, I would make it a joy to turn up with something that I enjoy that would support what they're trying to do rather than push them into a place where they're struggling to fight against the change they want to make. If someone

wants to quit alcohol, find fun ways to exist in an alcohol-free space. If somebody wants, if somebody wants to get out of a relationship we can ensure that our desire to have a good relationship can reflect back onto them we can model that change that's something I think doesn't happen enough people will not feel as if they should have to change anything about people they care about

that baffles me like you would never turn up to somebody who is addicted to heroin you wouldn't just invite a smack someone doing heroin to the house and go yeah well they're doing it you don't have to you'd never do that so why don't we think the same about like our phones or food or exercise.

Yeah. Let's have the final question. What I believe to be a deeply fucking educational episode of Miss Me. I mean, listen, bitch. Addiction, I'd say, is a sweet spot for me. You really know your shit. It's done a lot of therapy. I'm well equipped on addiction.

Why don't you ask for the final question in your today's seminar? Can I have a final question about one of the biggest issues in my life, please? I'm Akita and Jordan This is Tony from Petswood here 62 years old Father of three and loving your podcast So I have a couple of addictions One is first thing in the morning

I have to have a cup of tea And then followed by about a jug of coffee I could never do coffee first That would be madness And secondly End of every meal If it's a savoury food I have to have something sweet

Like chocolate or a bit of ice cream but if I had some cheese after that then I would have to have sweet again so I always have to finish on sweet just wondering if you've got any lighthearted dish addictions thanks a lot bye well I don't but Jordan's girlfriend seems too

the sugar honestly the savoury and sweet thing is out of this world I mean the man's it like him where it's got to follow sweet's got to follow savoury yeah yeah yeah what's mad for me is if I'm being completely honest is that I remember when this was first proposed to me like in the first years of me and jade together like first year maybe

second year it was like oh no you have to eat something sweet after something savory like and i remember thinking what are you talking about like surely it's the case by case basis like depending on where you are what's it in the fridge like i was growing up with me and my mom like we'd have dessert a handful of a week it wasn't like who has pudding come on it wasn't something guaranteed every night but these guys guaranteed this shit every night whether it's even a chocolate bar or whatever but so funny it's like I found myself like maybe four months ago like eating something at late like in the evening and thinking

oh my God, how did that fucking happen? I don't even believe this shit. I can't even believe it. So I'm not even sure if I'd call that a light addiction. I think that's just a cultural norm. It's like a push. Do you know what it is? It's your mom and my mom are a bit like crazy cats

and it feels like Jade's family are quite traditional and I think it's just quite traditional. Look, I've said this before, but just put it in perspective, South Shields, a beautiful town, love spending time there, did hold the record for the most Gregs on a single high street. Wow, how many did they have?

Because there's two out here. Fuck knows. Five. I don't know, but they love pastries. Look, there's a northeasterly warmth to comfort food. It's the coldness, thank you. Yes, same in Scotland.

But the irony is, but the irony is Norma makes a banging, oh, fuck, I've forgotten what it is now. It's like a chicken vegetable soup. It's really healthy. Anyway, she makes it really well This is like one of the things she does But she doesn't make it for herself For another people that often

But I love it I absolutely love it Because there's chicken and veg And I feel amazing afterwards But the savoury and sweet thing I think it's a cultural thing I wouldn't even call that a light addiction It's just

What's so funny is Our personalities Essentially are stories That we tell ourselves Until we believe them And at any point We could just tell ourselves A different story

But we don't I lived in my story this week I was like I need comfort food I'm going to make a Sheppard's Pie from scratch Shepherds Pie makes me happy That sounds premenstrual No I'll do

Fuck it You made me Let me check my out I was like I need a shepherd's pie And the ritual Can you check your up please I need this sorry

Can you check it? No I don't need to check the app I know I'm premenstrual But it's that like 10 days before, it's that you don't understand. It's like you're pre-mensual for two days before. But you also get this weird midway thing, which is what I mean, which is like pain, pain, pain, shame, pain, shepherds fight, shalb's fine, shemps fight. No, I hear it.

I see it, I hear this stuff for Jade. But what I'd like to say is even drinking wine for breakfast and living in this fucking chaos for those years it wasn't the alcohol that was killing me it was the secret the lying to everyone around me lying to myself

lying to the world lying to my mother about just what I'd done that day over and over and over and over again that is what was killing me and I think that's when addiction becomes really dangerous is when it's mirrored

by all these secrets and I think one thing I'd want to say because I do I have recognised from talking to people in mind experience that I do I have been blessed with this bizarre willpower, it kicks in at a certain point. I mean, I'm definitely privy to self-destruction, but I do, I'm aware that it's, I'm very

lucky to have that. It's amazing. But one thing I want to tell people or remind people, no, I still struggle with a lot of shit, but I really do. In fact, new things, like insomnia and stuff, is just popped into my life. But one thing I will say is, and I think because of how life and technology and society has progressed, a lot of things are easy now. And so that initial discomfort that comes of making a change, we'd rather just not do.

Yeah, we'd rather satiate ourselves with baby food and Instagram. I fear that we're creating an allergy to that immediate discomfort. Like this is a bizarre analogy, but maybe people will get it. Similar to when people pass their driving test and they want to go on the motorway. They think, no way could I ever do that. Then you do it four times, five times. And then you do it so often, you forget that it was a fear. You forget that you were ever scared.

So, for example, with this guy, if he did for whatever reason, want to go, I don't want to eat sweet things at late a night anymore. Which he doesn't need to, by the way. He sounds very happy. But like, if he did, yes, the first week is going to be uncomfortable. You're going to go to bed thinking about what sweet things you could have. And then one day you won't. And then you're free.

One day your brain just literally a neurological pathway in your brain does this, like that. And you go, I don't need that anymore. What did we tell ourselves and when? Like, when did I tell myself? I just like red wine. I like drinking red wine at night on my own. Like, when did I tell me? that that's what I had to do when I stopped, not just stop, ask myself when I even started

this conversation with myself, oh, I'm a drinker, when? When did you tell yourself that? And that was the craziest thing about stopping drinking for that time and fucking, changing my entire life because it really did change very quickly. It wasn't that I had overcome my addiction to alcohol. It was that I wasn't who I thought I was. I wasn't who I told myself I was. And that was fucking exciting. And it was very uncomfortable in the beginning because it wasn't familiar. But everything that we want or everything that we want to become is always on the other side of everything we're most scared of. No more teachings. I'm taught out. We're so lessony right now. But we've thrown out some whoppers. No more. Let's go. Let you know what.

I'm going to go and have 17 coffees, five quassons, my newest addiction. Quassons. I'm going to go dive into our newest, latest additions to addiction. No, I think we've taught ourselves a lot. I learned a lot today. Thank you, Jordan Stevens, my greatest teacher of all time. No, not really. No, but you're up there. You're definitely in the room. Great. I love that. I'll take that. Alain de Bottin. And, you know, Stevie Wonder.

Stevie Wonder is a modern prophet. I'm the greatest musician ever lived. And guess what? He was probably bored when he wrote some of his greatest music. Like, it's okay to be bored as well, talking about addictions to phones. This is, this, that's interesting. Bordom is not something to run from

Maybe sit in it, see what happens So that will be the end of our conversation around addiction Yeah, that's that done That's that done Yeah, addiction is complete I'm done with that addiction I've completed that addiction

Completed, complete addiction Bordom is next week's subject Next week's theme Yes Please voice note your questions To 8,030404019 See you then Cowboys and Cowgirls

Why do I say that? I'll see you then, you boring bitch Thanks for listening to Miss Meep. This is a Persefonica production for BBC Sounds. If you're affected by addiction, eating disorders or mental health issues, visit BBC.com.com.ukuk forward slash action line for support. The figure's face was featureless and its entire body was jet black. I'm Danny Robbins and throughout October I will be sharing uncanny listeners,

real-life ghost stories. That's one every single day as we count down to the spookiest time of the year. Suddenly, all hell lets loose. The sound of glass smashing, heavy objects being thrown, doors being ripped off hinges.

It was coming from the cellar. I looked up and was staggered to see a humongous black triangle floating silently over the rooftop. Join me as uncanny count down to Halloween. in October on BBC Sounds.