We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 272. Why Sober Life is the Luckiest Life with Laura McKowen

Episode Date: January 16, 2024

Author Laura McKowen shares her incredible hard-earned wisdom about how to get sober and how to live with dignity, power, and peace.  Laura shares: Her gut-wrenching rock bottom moment that eventually led her to sobriety.  How healing often begins when we are forced to confront our deepest traumas.  The "Bigger Yes" – and why it's not about achieving grand aspirations, but discovering the beauty in simply being who you are.  Simple acts of self-care and the importance of stillness for self-discovery.  The two fundamental questions everyone needs to ask themselves: "How do I feel?" and "What do I want?" The special vitriol for mothers who struggle with addiction in a culture that tells mothers to drink in countless ways. About Laura:  Laura is the author of the bestselling memoir, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off From Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Life (and Everything Else). She has written for The New York Times and has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Atlantic, the TODAY show, and more. In 2020, she founded The Luckiest Club, a global sobriety support community. Laura lives with her daughter and partner on the North Shore of Boston. IG: @laura_mckowen To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Tell your friends, maybe send them a link to your favorite episode or to the show. We love you. We appreciate you so much, Paz. We really you. We appreciate you so much. Thanks for coming. Thank you, Pod Squad. Unpods. Unpods us. I hit rock bottom. It felt like a brand new star.

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. Today we have Laura McCowen. Laura McCowen is the author of the best-selling memoir We Are the Luckiest, the surprising magic of a sober life, and push off from here nine essential truths to get you through life and everything else. She has written for The New York Times and has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, The Atlantic, The Today Show, and more. In 2020 she founded the luckiest club, a global sobriety support community. Laura lives with her daughter and partner on the North Shore of Boston. So I was trying to remember this in the shower this morning. I think the first podcast I ever did

was your podcast, right? Yes. Am I correct? No, we did record. Shut up. We talked for one hour, at least. And then we finished. And then two days later, I got this very upset apologetic panic stricken email from you

saying how excited you were to have me on and that you didn't really have me on. Yeah, it was a psych. Yeah, so there was no record. But it was it was Holly and I and it was the most devastating conversation. She called me. I thought someone died like she's, I have to tell you something. It didn't hit record. Well, you were so nice because you made sure someone on your team got

in touch with us and said, Glennon wants you to know she's not mad and she will record again. That is so sweet. So was this pre-me? That was pre-me. This is like a long time. This is like a 2011. We've got a real Glenan. 17. Yes. B-A. I like the technology person, so that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. I recorded.

You did? Yeah, they didn't record, babe. Oh my God. You could have just recorded your part. These were different days. First of all, 2017. Right. It was amazing who I even had a podcast. I of all, 2017. Right.

It was amazing who I even had a podcast. I felt like it was so early. It was. It was 2015. We started. And there were no podcasts. We were like the first people talking, first women talking about some, right?

We're like, what are we doing? I don't know. What do you want to talk about? Let's just go. Okay. So pod squad, this is why you can trust this woman, not with technology, with your spiritual growth. Okay. Because what you need to know about Laura is, I feel like she understands and talks about recovery and sobriety in life in the same way that I've always understood it,

Recovery and sobriety in life in the same way that I've always understood it, which is that recovery is like a spiritual path for everyone. Kind of that it's not just about not drinking. So for all the pod squatters that are listening right now, I want you to suspend the idea that this next hour is going to be just about drinking or not drinking. I think it's really about a way of life that can help people live with more peace and more truth and more integrity and Laura For many reasons which we're gonna explore came up with nine truths That are like stepping stones that are ideas about life That if walked and if accepted and if integrated into your life,

do bring some peace and power. They're going to read them right now. Number one, it is not your fault. Number two, it is your responsibility. Yep. Number two, it is your responsibility. Yep. Number three, it is unfair that this is your thing. God. Number four, this is your thing. Ha, ha, ha. Sorry.

Number five, this will never stop being your thing until you face it. Yeah. Number six, you can't do it alone. That's a good one. Number seven, only you can do it. That one pisses me off. Number eight, I love you.

Number nine, I will never stop reminding you of these things. All right, Laura. What I believe you because I've read the book probably several times. And the reason I can say I believe you is because at first I tried not to believe you because I think that we're both skeptical non-joiners of things, right? But I think that you're right.

So first of things, right? But I think that you're right. So first of all, can you begin by telling the pod squad this story about the hotel room in Alma? Am I saying her name right? Because I've only ever read it all night. It's a beautiful name. And how you got to the point where you decided something had to change in your life. Just take us back. Yes, so 2013, my brother's wedding in Colorado. Alma and I fly out, she is four. We fly out from Boston. I'm in the wedding as a maid of honor. Alma is the flower girl.

And the wheels had really come off for me in my drinking at that point. I was a year after being separated from my husband. So like no one was watching me anymore. And it was getting really dangerous. I had got a DUI a couple of months before that. But still very in denial, very like this isn't the thing that's wrong. It's that my life has exploded. But I would approach these types of weekends and I would have this fear because I knew how much I needed to drink in order to survive it kind of.

And my anxiety was always so high, but I didn't know what was gonna happen. The night of the wedding, I had hired a babysitter for when I'm gonna need to go to sleep. She's forced, she goes to sleep kind of early. So we started drinking at, I don't know, 11 that morning in the bridal party, sweets. And I remember my mom at like two or three in

the afternoon, seeing that I was kind of tipsy and saying, honey, just slow down a little bit. And I couldn't. We get through the wedding, the dinner, and all of that. And the reception, I take Alma upstairs to be with the babysitter. And a few hours later, I come back to the hotel room to relieve the babysitter center home. And I barely remember that. I woke up the next morning in someone's hotel room, that was not mine. Next to someone I did not know. And it was seven o'clock in the morning

and my phone is exploding with text and it's dinging and that's what woke me up and I have texts from my mom. Where are you? I have Alma. What are you doing? What has happened? You know, just the amount of horror in... I'm still in this bright-day dress. I have no recollection of really leaving her, but I left her. I left her for the entire night. And she, by a miracle, made it to my mother. She wandered out of the hotel room in the morning,

looking for somebody, looking for me, and the hotel staff found her. She made it to my mom somehow because I'll remember that she was there for a wedding and they put together the wedding situation. And yeah, that was what happened. And that morning, I mean, it is the worst night of my life, the worst morning of my life. It was the one thing I thought I wouldn't do was put her in danger like that. And it happened.

And it was public to my family. My brother, my sister-in-law, my mom, everybody. And so my back was up against the wall. And my mom, who doesn't get mad at me, she couldn't even talk to me that day. I was so physically ill that I couldn't even speak. You know, it was just, I was traumatized. I can feel it in my body right now.

It was just like ice cold in my bones all day. And the really crazy thing that I have to mention here is that on the drive home from the wedding, that next morning, I'm riding in the back of the car, like a child with my mom and my grandma in the front, and Alma's with me, and I was just holding onto Alma's body, like just clutching her the whole way home, and we're like going to a restaurant or something, and we sit down to have lunch,

and all I can think is like, I'm so mortified that this happened, but I'm so mad that I got caught. And that thought that I was more upset about being caught and that I had to actually do something now was terrifying. Because it was like this thing has you. Yeah. Yeah. But you said such an important word. You said when your mom said Slow down. You didn't say I didn't you said I couldn't And that is so important. Yeah, everybody who has this important. Yeah, everybody who has this problem to hear. Laura say she couldn't. It's not that she didn't know. And keeping in mind, I mean, Laura's life on the outside besides the chaos that

I'm sure was happening looked good. Oh, yeah, you had a good job. You had you were functioning. Very, it was scary how much I was functioning. When I look back on pictures and I look, like together, I was a master performer. Yeah. Yeah. Can I just say thank you for sharing that. Every time I read that story from you and hearing it now, it's just so profoundly important that I feel like

so many of us in all aspects of our lives, but even those of us who struggle with addiction, like it's like you can say all the things up to a point. But that last one, I'm not going to share that. And it perpetuates this idea that like a mother's love covers all things. That you can protect yourself from yourself by that love and it will never cross its threshold. But that's just not real. And I think it keeps people in such shame because they're like, what's wrong with me is I'm a terrible person and a terrible mother because only I could do that,

which just leads you to be drinking more because you've written yourself off. And I'm just really think that's such a gift to share that. Mm-hmm. Thank you. So it's gotta be really hard. I started my book that way,

my first book because, and I say this anytime I do an event or teach anything or, and anywhere when I'm talking to a mother, because you can see their shame is different. It is worse. Yes. And there is a special vitriol that we have for mothers who drink and fall into addiction of any kind, but especially substance use addiction. And I always say, I wrote this book for anyone who needs to hear it, but I really wrote it for you because this was a thing that would have killed me

is this shame that I felt. And it's what I hear people echo back all the time, like I can forgive myself for all these things, but I cannot forgive What I did as a mother I just can't and that's because it's impossible to be a mother anyway But hard stop hard stop. Yes, there's no winning, but hard stops. Yes, there's no winning, but especially with this, you're not supposed to do it. It's not supposed to happen to mothers. And it wasn't until other women in recovery told me no, like addiction is stronger than love. Even the mother's love until it is. It is. That I was able to slowly like let that go. Well, that's why I trust you because you tell that story. Yep. By the way, that's like the sign to me of a free person. Somebody who actually has chosen

recovery over reputation, shame, whatever. That's the mark of freedom to me as somebody who can say that shit for themselves and for other people. And isn't it so important to remember that we are all capable of everything? Oh my God. Yes. It's just amazing. Oh my God. Yeah, we are all capable of everything. And even sometimes in my sobriety now, I can find myself getting like, in my thoughts,

judgy about people who I see who are in their active addiction. And I have to remember, oh no, no, no, no, you are them. They are you. You are capable of everything. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep.

Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. New year, new year, they say. That's because the new year feels so fresh with possibilities, a chance to choose habits that can really shift your life for the better.

If you're wanting more calm and clarity this year, meditation is key. The Meditation for Women podcast provides free daily guided meditations covering just about every topic, so it's easy for you to just press play as you ease into your own meditation practice. So listen and follow meditation for women on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't you think it's interesting what you just said about it's impossible to be a mother but it's also it's it's amazing how we have this special vitriol for mothers who drink. But then again, our entire culture tells mothers they should drink. Oh my God.

The mommy drinking complex. Like we love me, Cippie Cup. We have more droves made of that mommy should drink, but not that much. It's like everything else for women. It's like, we're makeup, but not that much. Talk, speak up, but not that much. Ask for, be ambitious, but not that much. Like, what is the right amount? What is the amount that we can all agree is correct

of everything? The answer is zero. There is no amount. Yeah. No, that was one of the things that I got so angry about when I got sober was the culture that we were living in, especially was the culture that we were living in, especially all the moms I knew. I mean, that's what we did. And that's what we felt like we deserved. It was a one thing that was ours. I get to have this glass of wine, this bottle of wine, or we get to do this.

And all the while, we're completely subjugating ourselves because it's a drug that pulls us out of consciousness, but yeah, it's a wild phenomenon. Yes. It's the shitty consolation price for women. Like, sister talks about it. It's like the idea of like religion is the opiate of people like wine is the opiate of women. When we say this is the one thing we can have, it's because why? Because we don't have childcare, because we don't have equality,

because we don't have enough power. It's like we can't have power. This is the only thing we get, which, hey, I get it. I did it for a very long time. But then that numbs us from the rage we should have that would actually get us the real thing Exactly or the agency or yes exactly what you said. It's a complete gaslighting

Because it's like this is great. This is fine. There's nothing wrong with it. Look. It's everywhere How can it be bad? It's literally everywhere Yeah, but What we're not going to tell you is that it will kill you and it's an addictive substance, like one of the most addictive substances. We are so culturally like duped about that. Mm-hmm. Yeah, because then it's made to be addictive, but then when we get addicted, we have a problem. We are made wrong. We are shamed for drinking the thing that you gave me that you made addicted.

That they sold us, yeah. Well, and it's also, for me, drinking, it got to be later about numbing pain and just coping. But at first, it's just connecting. I thought that's how all adults connected because that's what I saw. And that's what love looks like and fun and intimacy and friendship and bonding. That's what it looks like. And it actually works pretty well because it lowers your inhibitions and it is a good social lubricant. That's why people use it. It actually works

very well. So we yoke all this stuff to alcohol that is like intrinsically it's connected to our most primal need to belong and to connect and to be loved and it works and you get then you're like, oh, God, I found the thing. I found I found the like magic bullet. And then you can't have it. No, you can't have it. And not only can you not have it, how did that even happen to you? Yeah. Yeah. And so you have to figure out how to do that all that other stuff again. Or for the first time. But I don't think I really put that together until I read your work that the threat of losing alcohol is actually the threat of not belonging anymore. One hundred percent. Because I didn't get that. Like a lot of people's families and friend groups and everything.

So it's not just that you're physically addicted to it, you're spiritually addicted to it because it's attachment. It's belonging. Yep, it's attachment. Yes. Yeah. It's attachment. Yes. It is friends. I had no idea how to go on a date, connect with men, have sex. That entire world. And that's a whole other book that I'm writing was, I didn't know how to do that without the help of alcohol. I literally didn't know how to go on a date and not drink. I didn't know how to be. It is very primal. It's not just about the alcohol. If it was, it wouldn't be that big of a deal

to let it go. And I think that you're framing of a sobriety of recovery, not as much about being a no, but about being a bigger yes is so powerful. But it's intractable until you can smell the yes, right? Because if all of your relationships, if all of your experiences, if all of your connections, are based on this portal of drinking that lets you access them. Then the only thing you can see and feel in touch is everything you'll have to say no to. Right. And so, really, I think that the scale's tip when you can actually smell the bigger yes, and you have something to go toward that isn't

just away from everything that you know. It's like a monstera plant. It's like a monstera plant, okay? I don't know what that is. Yeah, this is going to be fun. Chase told me. Our son is like a botanist, okay, we have grand plants at one point he had 50 plants in his room. And he taught me that the magic of a monstera plant is that it lives in the rainforests.

Yeah. And so it will grow through the darkness. All other plants grow towards the light. But a monster knows how to grow through the darkness, because it believes the fucking plant believes, although maybe there's another word for believes in science, but it believes that there is light somewhere else. It's gonna get there. But it grows through the darkness first, because it believes that there's light, better light, bigger light, eventually. Wow.

I didn't know that. I mean, it's probably not true. We'll have to fact check it. It's a good story, though. I like that plan a lot. Thank you. Yes, I love how you said you have to be able to smell a whiff of the bigger yes because to tell someone who's Giving up the thing that they think helps them survive and connect and live in all of those things that there's something good coming

You know is is Disingenuous and it's not gonna work either But if you can hold out long enough to like thought out and To start to get your feelings back, which will feel terrible, but there's energy in them. And there's truth in them. You have to get rid of the physical addiction. And that takes time.

I mean, I wouldn't be sober. I certainly wouldn't be happy and at peace. of the time if I wasn't going towards something. And that's another thing that I got so frustrated with at the beginning was I looked around and I thought this is not a promising enterprise. I love AA and I got sober in AA, but a lot of the conversations that I had there felt very like fearful and closed. Like they weren't expansive. Like this is all you can hope for, but this is a really good life. And I don't know if that's just what I heard or what was actually being said.

But for me, I had a woman tell me, you know, I have a nice little life. And I thought, I don't want a nice little life. This is not what I want. Because I had all this stuff in me that I couldn't name. I didn't know what it was, but it was in there. And you call it big energy, right? Big energy. What is that? Even as a kid, I had, and definitely as a young adult, like I just had big energy. I didn't know what to do with it. I felt like I needed to create something. There was so much in me and it almost felt and feels sometimes like a kind of mania feeling.

There's this overwhelming urge to express. I think that's what it was, but I didn't know how to do that. It wasn't safe to do that in my family. And I found other ways to cope. I played sports, which saved me. I had an eating disorder which saved me at the time. Then I found alcohol. It was like, oh, that's where I can burn all that energy down with alcohol. Yeah. It's not that it went away, but I could temper it. And when I got sober, I could not anymore that it just, it had to find a place to go.

So Laura, I just want to talk through how it feels so much like this is for everyone, because the name of your first book is We Are the Luckiest. And it's, it's true. Like it's, it's true. I have always felt like I was extremely lucky to have discovered in high school this world of recovery. Our pod squad knows I went to mental hospital in high school because of just what was sort of the equivalent of an overspray down tied to addiction and food bulimia. But I was exposed at that point to this other way of life where you like learned stuff about how to human. Okay, so I was in high

school learning about hieroglyphics. Okay, dying inside. And then because I was like, I can't take this anymore, there has to be something better. I went to the mental hospital, which was better. And they taught us a lot of recovery things and about how to human. And then throughout my life, I experienced more and more. I was lucky enough to have so many nervous breakdowns that I ended up experiencing a lot of recovery, the recovery world, which taught me things that other people don't know. Yes.

And has resulted in a deep piece and understanding that I feel like a lot of people don't get who can cope better with the world, right? So is that what you mean by we are lucky? That like we had a thing that was so disruptive to culture that was so unacceptable that we had to deal with it, whereas everybody has a thing. But if your thing is like overwork and it's celebrated by culture, or your thing is just like rudeness and stoicism and your invulnerability and you're excused by the culture, you never are forced to address the pain that that behavior is covering. And you never get to experience the world of recovery, which is sort of like a spiritual path. Yes, yes, yes, yes, 100%.

And I wish everybody had the opportunity to be in recovery. I realized pretty quickly, and when I started to say, I am the luckiest, which turned into we are the luckiest, it was because I realized that all the things I actually always wanted to like feel the full range of what I was feeling, to have actual connection with people, to be able to tell the truth. I wanted so desperately to be able to tell the truth.

I wanted so desperately to be able to tell the truth about what was going on with me and my life. I wanted it so bad and I never could. I wanted to be able to write. I wanted more than anything to be a writer and an author. I wanted to be able to actually feel the love I had for my daughter that was just like almost behind all this gauzy stuff because I was just surviving. I was constantly intoxicated or hung over. And I knew I loved her, but I couldn't feel it. And I also couldn't show up in any responsible way

for anybody. I had no dignity. And so the way we are the luckiest or I am luckiest came out was just this really boring, it was like a weeknight, like a Tuesday night. I was in pretty early sobriety. I had cried because I was always crying and the wave pass of emotion and I had survived it and I then I didn't drink and I had this overwhelming sense of gratitude, like, fall over me. I was in the bed with my daughter.

She was asleep for a little five-year-old face. I had clean sheets. There was not going to be any new destruction that night, but I would have to explain. I would remember every part of the night, I would probably sleep. I would go to my job the next day. I wasn't hiding anything. All of that hit me, and I just thought, oh my god, this is what I always wanted.

And I, of course, did an Instagram post because that's what I was doing at the time and I said, I'm lucky as this is, you know, I was like processing real time. I got out of it. If I went back to those posts, I was processing like my recovery process in real time there. But I felt that and I still feel that. I can't say it enough. How strongly I believe this that it's just another invitation.

Like, yeah, addiction isn't even that interesting. It's not unique. We're all addicted. It's just substance addiction is really gnarly and it shows up in these really unacceptable ways, like you said. And the other kinds are easier to hide and sometimes revered. This was my thing. I can't express how much I didn't want it. I mean, I told you the thought that I had after the worst night of my life with Alma where I thought I was just so mad I was caught because I didn't want to give up this thing. Yes. And it was absolutely my invitation to everything that I wanted. And we all get these invitations. They look different for everybody. Could be a divorce. Could be death. It could be something beautiful. For me, nothing, the rock bottoms,

it couldn't get bad enough. Correct. Same. Like for some people, it has to be. For me, it was a pregnancy test and I thought, why is the universe trusting me with this thing? I had to be, but I invited it in a good way. You know what I mean? Yes. That's a good point.

It can be a beautiful thing. It can be a beautiful thing too. The bigger yes that you're talking about is not something that's necessarily, like I sometimes think people, the bigger yes, seem so unattainable, especially when you look at yourself and you're like, I'm a fucking mess. Like how dare I even think that I would be a person that could embrace a bigger yes when I can't even do my daily life, right? So I think your bigger yes could be that you super know at the deepest part of

you that you're supposed to write a book. It could be that like you just want to be at fucking peace and you deserve it. Like the line that got to me is when you said the simple dignity of waking up without regret. Can I tell you one thing that is that for me that I think about every single day? Yes. When we talk about the bigger yes being a big thing, for me, I remember being in college and laying in bed, having not gone to sleep from cocaine and drinking and all the things. Not my life was such a freaking disaster. I didn't even know how to get out of bed and put one foot

in front of the other. And I remember hearing this roommate that I had. she was getting up for class, which I didn't do. And I would hear her putting on lotion on her legs every morning. And for me that listening to her put lotion on her legs, I couldn't handle it because I thought, what kind of person, like, I don't know where my car is. I don't have any relationship. I burned every bridge of my life. I don't know what I did last night. I don't know. But this girl has such dignity that she has so many things figured out that she is paying attention to the moisturizing of her skin. Like I'm finding cigarette burns on my, I'm finding, like, I can't even, and it would just make me want to die listening to her put lotion on. So for me, I think of the big yes every day when I'm putting lotion on my skin. Wow.

Every day. She does it every day. I can't believe how much lotion she puts on her body. She is a little less than shitting all the time. I never heard this story either. This is because it feels like over-lotioners anonymous here she comes. It feels like dignity to me. Yes, I feel exactly what you mean.

My heart is just, I know exactly what you mean because the bigger, yes. I talk about this all the time too, Amanda, because a lot of people think, oh my god, it has to be a career or a profession or my job. I have to have to have a purpose. And that's not at all what I mean. I actually hate that. It's just being who you are. Like the absolute honor and dignity of being who you are, who you already are, not who you want to be or who you wish you were. I don't like that you could be anything you want to be

because you can, we could talk about that forever, but just you can be who you are. You can find out who that person is. You can be curious about that person. You can figure out how to get to know that person. Maybe love that person. There's an infinite well available there. What happens when you become who you are is your whole life changes.

Because all your relationships change. You can't tolerate the things that you used to tolerate when you were like I was pretending I was so good at acting and pretending that there were like 30 versions of Laura. Which one did you know? You know? So my relationships weren't real. Most of them, they definitely weren't as deep and connected as I wanted them to be. My job was all wrong. And so it was, yes, I wanted to be an author, but I was just really paying attention to what was already there.

Yeah. You want to know what my dignity moment is? Life, every morning. Every single morning my alarm goes off. This is not a joke. This happens to me every single morning. The feeling of not being hungover. Me too, really. Me too, really.

The feeling of not being hungover. Like every morning, and it's not like I pop out of bed, it's like I have this wave of like good job. Yeah. Good job. It's an absence of shame and in that absence, there's just this piece. And I have it also sometimes when I go to sleep, I'm like, damn, you're going to be so fine waking up tomorrow morning.

Good job. I had one yesterday because my major dignity, big yes moments. OK, do you remember when we went to dinner? We actually went out to dinner on a date. And do you remember how I had on a shirt and a jacket? When I have two things on, I'm like, I cannot believe that I am the type of person who can put two layers of clothes on the dignity of that.

I used to look at people who layered clothes and would be like, holy shit, you have your shit together so much, I can't even, I know. Okay. I love that. I feel like I have those moments all over the place. I went and renewed my inspection sticker.

Oh, that's like PhD level dignity. Oh, God. But yeah, the coffee every morning, the first sip of coffee where I'm not hungover, I don't wonder what happened. I'm waking up next to a person I genuinely adore and that knows exactly who I am and vice versa. My daughter is safe. She thinks I'm boring and that's amazing. Yes. And I get to have that sip of coffee and it's like, I'm good. I think that's what that woman meant in AA. Like, that's what they mean.

When they say, I just have a good little life. Oh, yes. I actually do relate so much to that because that is what I most dignified and proud of in my entire life. It's nothing big that happens. It's like I cannot believe that I am the type of person who is running this little world with these little people in honesty and integrity every day. I cannot believe that. I know. I get it now and I talk about that in my book. I hated when when I what I heard when she said I have a nice little life because I didn't understand. Now I understand completely and I love my nice little life. The best part about my life is just

what is happening right where I'm sitting. What's right in front of my face. what is happening right where I'm sitting? Yes. What's right in front of my face? Yes. And I think all of this connects when you are an addiction and you're fucking up everything around you. There is so much pressure that you feel and that you're given to stop torturing everyone

that loves you. You can't make their life so torturous. And I think that is true. And also, we miss the big, big central piece of that is you too deserve a life that isn't torturous. It isn't just to fix what you're fucking up outside of you. It's like, you can live inside of you on torture. Yes. And that is actually the most important part. And if you get that right, out from that flows the non-torture of everyone else.

Yes, yes. That's why I had. Number three, it's unfair that this is your thing. That's why I said that. Yeah. it's unfair that this is your thing. That's why I said that. Not because nobody expects life to actually be fair, but we operate as if it should be. And when it comes to addiction specifically, we are given no allotment of grief. There's no compassion there for us. There's no one that's really looking at us unless you know you have other people in

recovery looking at you. Most of your friends or family are looking at you and saying what the fuck? Please just stop and stop now, fix it now and go do it somewhere else and you are causing us pain. And there is no one looking at us and saying, I see your sorrow and I see your pain. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no the big piece to is like you don't deserve this because you're bad. You don't deserve to atone forever about your addiction and all the things that came from it because you're bad. You have to take responsibility because those things happened. We bypass that whole step of I'm sorry, this just sucks. This sucks for you and it's not fair. It's good. That's your your quote of this, the first question is not why the addiction, it's why the pain.

Can we talk about that? Yes. So we're gonna explain why we have a thing and then we're gonna come back and we're gonna go through the nine things and blow everyone's mind. Okay. We have a thing, Laura,

you're so brilliant at explaining this. If everyone's thinking of their thing right now all pod scotters are thinking of their thing Whether it's like drinking or gossip or Overshopping Control or betrayal or things that I'm talking you right. I'm not talking about the thing that happened to you I'm talking about the thing that happened to you. I'm talking about the thing that you do to avoid thinking about the thing that happened to you. Okay. I'm not talking about the trauma. What we are talking about is a behavior that we are all engaged in. We all have a thing that is self-sue thing. What did you say, Laura? You said that another word for addiction should be like

ritual comfort seeking. Yes, it's like a comfort seeking that you have ritualized in your life, okay? So like I sucked my thumb into like sixth grade. I had a blankie that I brought to college with me I have always been a self-sueather. So it's easy for me to see that, but everybody has a soothing mechanism. The soothing mechanism can become maladaptive, turn into addiction, right? Why do we have a thing, Laura, and why do we need to address the thing? Because it's like recovery is ripping off the bandaid under which a festering boil is in that case.

Right. Okay, so why do they need to address their thing? We have a thing because we are animals. One of our most primal needs is to be connected and to be attached to belong. Let's just call it attachment to people that love us. We also need food, shelter, water, all of those things, too. And if you are not getting those things, you are going to adapt somehow, right? If you're not getting fed as a child, you might steal from your neighbors,

or you might steal the kids' food at lunch, not because you're a terrible little shit of a kid, but because you're hungry. And it's actually very intelligent to do that. If, like for me, I have a very angry father, unpredictable dad. And it was not safe for me to just feel how I felt and to express that. So I started pretending very early that everything was fine because I figured out that's the way to get my needs met. I will survive this environment and you're not thinking that. It's totally subconscious. That's what I want people to know. This isn't a choice. It's never a

choice because it starts so young. You don't start drinking young, but you start to find ways to survive your environment, to adapt, to figure out how to keep those attachments, environment to adapt, to figure out how to keep those attachments and to not lose what you have. Sometimes it's about basic needs. Sometimes it's about status. I want to be seen in a certain way. So I'm going to do certain things to my body. And I'm going to try to look as good as I can. So I mean, that was it for me. Like, if I want the love that I want from a man, which was like the Holy Grail as far as I understood, I have to be a certain way. So you create all of these mechanisms to do that. And they're almost always subconscious. Some of them are adaptive and they don't cause that much

pain down the line. Many of them are adaptive and then they become maladaptive like lying. I have had just as much of a thing with dishonesty as I did with drinking. Yes, me too. And you view them as distinct. I would say so. I had to learn how to tell the truth. They're related. I had to get sober before I could do that. But they are different things. And that I would venture to say is a lot of people's thing

and not because they're bad people, but we don't really like to see the truth here. Most people don't want to hear it. So back to your question, why do we have a thing? We have a thing because we adapt and we grow in the ways that work. And when they outlast their use or they become more maladaptive or destructive than useful and take on a life of their own, we have to find a way to let them go. And it's like letting go of error. It's like letting go of something you don't know how to live without. You don't believe that you can. And that's where everything is, right? Because the boil is underneath, the boil is actually a funny but real example.

It's like, the alcohol is just like, no, cover it. Just cover the pain. Just cover it. Just more, more neosporant, more band-aids. Let's wrap that thing with God's. Let's put a cast on. Your legs still like, you know, got gangrene and it's about to fall off.

And you think you can't live without alcohol until you take that cast off and you're like, okay, this burns or whatever your thing is. Alcohol, lying, whatever it is. This fucking burns and I wanna die, whatever it is, this fucking burns, and I want to die. But there's possibility here. It's like pain that actually has a purpose. Yeah, because the wound is exposed. Yeah. The wound is exposed, and it can finally get air and it can breathe. There's actual healing possible and available to you when you let go of your thing.

Right. So that is the key here. Hot squatters is like when you remove the behavior which is the bandaid, there's something underneath it. That is what I have been amazed by this new recovery of mine with anorexia is like, oh, the food control stuff was self soothing. Because what I really had to get in touch with is a lot of old shit. The wound beneath was a lot of old childhood family trauma. Yeah. But you didn't know that. All you knew was how to say, Clio, subconscious, unconscious, fear, shame, whatever it is, you

can't. Your body, your mind, everything, and you just goes, nope, this is what we're doing. And it works enough. Yeah. So we're going to keep doing it. And so I guess this takes us back to like, I just love we are the luckiest, to take the positive version of like, I'm an alcoholic are the luckiest. To take the positive version of like, I'm an alcoholic, right?

Yeah. When I think about the symptoms of alcohol abuse, because that to me is what it was. I mean, I'm seven years sober, and I am now just starting to get to the under belly. Right. Like, what the symptom of alcohol addiction was for me, what it's been pointing to, I do wonder because so many of us aren't privileged enough to have the

therapy to figure out what these undercover wounds are. And also, sometimes those symptoms aren't as what they appear to be maladaptive. So whether it's like social media addiction, do you have any like ways in which somebody can uncover some of these kind of silent things that they are, because so many people who are listening right now don't have a drug or alcohol I know they know what the thing is uncover

Some of these other other maybe like silent good Symptoms, I don't know what our thing is if we're not waking up in jail all the time. Yeah Yeah, I know when you're not yeah, it would happen hotel rooms with strange men when you're Right, are you not getting to you eyes or yeah? Yeah, so that happen hotel rooms with strange men when you're right. Right. Are you not getting to you eyes or? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a great question. As you were talking, the first thing I

thought of is you just have to be still first for like a minute. So is there any other way? Let's move on to the alternative. Because that's the most horrifying thing. So you don't have like a Buzzfeed quiz here. Elistical. Oh, yeah. No, that's the only thing you make us an app. Yeah, there's no apps. It's the most boring thing in the world. You have to be with yourself for a few breaths at first. In those, you have to be with yourself enough to know

and to be able to see instead of just the doing that we do. Because we all just, we can skate across the top of life forever. Yeah. And most people do because, like Abby said, the consequences aren't that dire or they're actually applauded. Yes. I know.

The workaholicism. Like, oh, I'm a workaholic. No one feels shame when they say that. They're like, it's kind of a badge of honor. It's a humble brag. That I've used. A humble brag. Yeah, it's a humble brag. Yes.

There are so many things that just never get bad enough, but I have to think, and when I ever get to talk to people, I've never met an individual who didn't know somewhere in there. This little voice was in there, saying, small, like almost one word, things like, stop. No. Yes, do that. Those whisper, I think that is like your soul voice. Your soul speaks in very simple statements. It doesn't say a whole lot, but it's like not that. Yes, enough.

You have to be in your body and still for enough to just hear that. And that costs no money. That's right. You know, quiet, like some kind of quiet, I mean, even if it's just you're sitting on a subway and you put headphones in and you put on like a meditation which can just be a YouTube like silence for five minutes and you just think, where am I? What am I doing?

Is this what I wanna be doing? How do I feel? Okay, two basic questions. How do I feel? What do I want? Like if you could just ask yourself those two questions, really ask yourself. And let yourself hear the answer.

That would start to change your life. And that would start to wake you up to where you are, where your things are. That's great. Okay, so pod squad, go do that. If you are brave enough to come back, the next episode is going to be where Laura takes us through the nine truths that will walk us through the next steps after our soul tells us what we want and how we feel. And also when you're doing that exercise that Laura just said, you cannot do the thing where you only give

yourself reasonable answers or things that you can immediately work out. Right. You don't say, I want to not live in this state, but that's absurd because it would take x, y, and z and that will never happen. You listen to the first answer. Yes. Yes. The first answer, regardless of how ridiculous it is, because you're not trying to figure out how to do that thing right now. You're trying to figure out whether the bigger, yes, even exists in your world.

100%. Yes. And yeah, because what you will think is, oh no, if I feel that way, if I hear myself say, I'm in the wrong marriage, then everything explodes. If I hear myself say that alcohol is a problem, well, then everything, I will never have a relationship again.

I'll never have friends again. I know that's too big. But that's the small voice things. It always will tell, it'll point right to it. Yeah. OK. Good luck, Fad Squad. We love you.

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And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do a heartache I hit rock bottom, it felt like a brand new star I'm not the problem sometimes things fall apart And I continue to believe the best people are free And it took some time But I'm finally fine

Cause we're adventurers And heartbreak some math A final destination With that We stopped asking directions So places they've never been And to be loved we need to be known We'll finally find our way back home

And through the joy and pain That our lives bring We can do hard things This world finishes and heart breaks on land. We might get lost, but we're only left. Stop asking directions Some places they've never been And to be loved we need to be loved We'll finally find our way back home We can do hard things, yeah we can do hard things, yeah we can do a hard thing