We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - Liz Gilbert Shares the Whole Story for the First Time

Episode Date: May 10, 2022

Part One of our intimate conversation with Elizabeth Gilbert: 1. When Glennon called Liz about Abby–and Liz then told Glennon about Rayya. 2. The moment Liz imploded her life as she knew it. 3. How, after a decade of friendship, Liz finally told Rayya that she was in love with her. 4. The brutal chaos of Rayya’s addiction at the end of her life–and what Liz had to do and say to protect herself. About Liz:  Elizabeth Gilbert is author of the international bestseller, EAT PRAY LOVE, which has been translated into over thirty languages, and sold over 12 million copies worldwide. The book became so popular that Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to EAT PRAY LOVE called COMMITTED—an instant a #1 New York Times Bestseller, as well as BIG MAGIC: CREATIVE LIVING BEYOND FEAR. She is author of two novels: THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS, and CITY OF GIRLS. And she is the creator of the Onward Book Club, which takes place on her Instagram via a live chat, as a way of spotlighting, studying, and celebrating the work of Black women authors.  Elizabeth divides her time between New York City, rural New Jersey, and everywhere else. TW: @GilbertLiz IG: @elizabeth_gilbert_writer 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

Whether you're doing a dance to your favorite artist in the office parking lot, or being guided into Warrior I in the break room before your shift, whether you're running on your Peloton tread at your mom's house while she watches the baby, or counting your breaths on the subway. Peloton is for all of us, wherever we are whenever we need it, download the free Peloton app today. Peloton app available through free tier, or pay subscription starting at 12.99 my God. Ha ha ha ha. Hi. This is so funny.

All of my favorite people in one place, how did this happen? Hi Amanda. Wait a minute. Has sister and Liz ever talked to each other's faces in real life? Yeah. Like in Naples, Florida, during one of, do you remember? Twice, yes, during our love flash mob.

Oh. We all sat around that table and God bless, Liz Gilbert, she contacted every single person to her phone. Yes, Amanda and I met because I drove to Naples and we did the little most home spun fundraiser. We sat at the kitchen table, your kitchen table, and Amanda fed me nonstop Reese's peanut better cops.

That's right. So we can do hard things, loves. Welcome to the most exciting day. It's the most wonderful day of the world because we are celebrating our first birthday. Today we'll make a year if we can do hard things. We're one year old, I feel like developmentally, we're a head schedule. Yeah, we're at least two, developmentally. And for a birthday gift to all of you people who have just helped us create this really amazing community, we have a gift for you. And so the gift for you that we're giving you.

Actually, she's giving us. You know what? Is the person who has been one of the greatest gifts of my entire life? True. And that person is Elizabeth Gilbert. Yes, Elizabeth Gilbert is a gift to the world. She is the author of the International Best Seller, Eat, Pray Love, which has been translated into over 30 languages and sold over 12 million copies worldwide.

The book became so popular at Time Magazine named Elizabeth as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. In 2010, Elizabeth published a follow-up to eat prey love called committed, an instant number one New York Times bestseller, as well as big magic, creative living beyond fear. She is author of two novels, The Signature of All Things, and City of Girls. And she's the creator of the onward book club, which takes place on her Instagram via live chat, as a way of spotlighting, studying, and celebrating the work of black women authors.

Elizabeth divides her time between New York City, rural New Jersey, and everywhere else. Okay, now we can just get into the talking. Hi, Liz, welcome to a new type of thing. Hi, guys, I love you all so very much and congratulations on being a year old. Thank you. How does it feel? It feels exciting. I have to tell you, I did not expect for this project to become so incredibly important to me. I have found a way of being through this podcast. I feel like as a writer, I was constantly just trying to dredge up stuff from inside

of me. And now I'm like every week, every day, I'm taking in things like beautiful ideas from people and books and interviews and thinking about them and then doing this thing that I think I love to do, which is like, what is this person here to teach us? And how can I get that to the pod squad in an hour? It's really a very cool way of life for me. I know, and Liz, people recognize me more from the podcast than my soccer days, which is so amazing.

People are like, oh my gosh, I love your podcast. I was so nervous about the rest of my life. Like, what would I be? What would I be? What would my identity be? And now I'm a freaking podcast host. Second acts, third acts, fourth acts in our lives. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, it's wonderful. It's so good to see all your faces. And we wanted to have you on for so long. We are very, very dear and good friends. And so I never, ever want to ask you to do anything. Like, that's a hard line for me. And so when we were talking the other day

and then we decided to just get on today. And then I sent you a lot of emails and texts about notes and outlines. And welcome to my world, Liz. Until you stopped me and said, Glennon, we know how to talk to each other. We are, Glennon, we're friends. If I was at your house,

I would walk into your house for the next 72 hours, we wouldn't stop talking. I'm not concerned that we're gonna run out of material. Oh, it's wild. My obsession with over planning. So how did you guys meet? Okay, you tell your version first. Okay, so I first met Glennon online

because back in the, when we were all on Facebook, somebody was forwarding along something that you had written on Mom and Stary that was about having gratitude for your kitchen the way that it was. Because apparently you'd show some images of your kitchen and people had been like, you know, you can renovate that and you can fix that.

And all of a sudden you had gone into some spasm of terror that your kitchen wasn't good enough for the world in some way and then you went around and it was such an incredible piece of writing. It wasn't just what I loved about it was not only that it was such a great piece of thinking because you were sharing about how, you know, here's what I have gratitude for my kitchen. And one thing I remembered was that you opened up a shelf full of vitamins and you're like, this is full of vitamins, not medication for sick children, none of my children are sick. It was this depth of gratitude for everything that you had

and everything that was not going wrong in your life. And, but it was also really funny and it was really smart. And there is a first time I ever saw you. There's a picture of you and your family. And I started following you and I forwarded it around. And I, I'm just gonna go ahead. I take a lot of credit because there was this little moment between when I discovered you and the world discovered you

and I was selling you hard. I remember being at a meeting at Oprah Magazine and I was like, do you all know who Glen and Doyle Nilton is? And just looking at these blank faces and I was like, this person needs to be on your radar. She should be writing for, oh, I know it wasn't true because you already had a huge following. But I was unhappy with the level of awareness that the world had about you. And I felt that it needed to be considerably more.

I knew who you were forever. I feel like, ever, isn't everyone just born knowing who was Gilbert is? Yep. Yeah. I remember hiding out at bookstores because that was one of my places to hide when I was a mom of the little ones. I remember walking into Barnes and Noble

and they're just being just the whole Barnes and Noble was just covered with ePray love. And then I read ePray love 12 times. And there was this one line. It was about your divorce. And it said, you were trying to be all Nelson Mandela about this, you were trying to be all Martin Luther King about this, you were trying not to get a lawyer.

You're trying to be peaceful. And you were like, until I learned that all of those people actually are were lawyers. And I just sat and just left. And then, then we met in the airport at the luggage claim. And I just sat and just laughed. And then, then we met in the airport at the luggage claim in a large Western state. Idaho.

Yeah, I know where it was. And Idaho. We were both speaking at the same event. And I think we jumped into each other's arms. I think I came up to you and said, are you Clinton? And then we got into the van to go to the hotel and you climbed over six people and three bench seats to climb to the back seat with me, which I thought was very adorable. You were like, I'm sitting here. We're going to be friends.

Well, I felt like I had to protect you because everyone in the van was being very, was everyone else in the van was acting on the outside, how I was feeling on the inside. First of all, I I was the reason why you turned and talked to me is because I was standing next to you very very close And because I was freaking out because I was standing at an airport luggage thing and Liz Gilbert was standing there And I just I don't know I felt like doesn't Liz Gilbert like take a rocket ship like why is Liz Gilbert at a airport? It didn't seem right. And then I said, hi, I'm Glennon or something, which is unusual. And then you said, I'm Liz, and then you,

we recognized each other. And then you asked me where I lived, and I told you Florida, and you said why, which was the correct question. And I said, well, I always wanted to live by the beach, but I got Lyme disease. And that just made me just decide to go live by the beach. And I said, you know, it's funny how a woman has to almost die to live how she wants. And I saw your eyes go. And that was the moment where I was like, we're going to be friends now. I nailed it.

I nailed it. I made a Facebook post about it the next day. I made a Facebook post about you saying that and said, something to consider, why does a woman have to almost die before she will allow herself to live the way she wants to live? Real quick sister. A new friend, Glennon Doyle Van Melton. And now sister, you will remember me calling you after that post went up from Idaho, right?

In full on like, oh my god, oh my god, this is the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. So that was our first meeting. Can I tell you guys how I met Abby? Yes. Okay, so I was texting with Glennon one day on a random spring day and she said, I've made this decision that there's only a few people in the world who I care about and I am just going to focus all my care on them and I don't give a shit with anybody else. Things of me, I'm not going to try to get validation from anybody else

and the only people I care about are you and sister and Craig and the kids and Abby. And I was like, that's great. I'm not happy to be on this list. But quick question. Friends. Who's Abby? Like, this is a name I had never heard before in all of our conversations. And all of a sudden, she's made the greatest hits of all time. These are the only people in the entire world that I care about list. And I said, who's, wow, that's lovely, but who's Abby? And you said, oh, you know, Abby, want back the captain of the women's Olympic national soccer team?

And I was like, well, that's also really great. What does she have to do with any of this? Like, what does she have to do with any of this? Like what does she have to do with literally anything in this conversation? And you're like, oh, I just met her like two nights ago. And I was like, oh great. And she's now on the list of people, the only people in the world who matter. That was the first time that I met you, Abby. That's good. Oh my God. You came in strong. You came in strong, right to the top.

Yeah, it was amazing. I'm Jonathan M. Hevar. I'm a podcast producer and someone who likes fancy things. But I grew up working class. My parents were immigrants with factory jobs. And because of that, I think about class a lot. And I want to talk about it. That's what we're doing on my new podcast, Classy. And what did you all eat? You know, trailer food. I was like, girl, we're not doing that anymore. You'll hear from people who told me awkward, embarrassing, and strangely intimate things

about what class means to them. She said, you know, for the house cleaner, I hide the tag on the $6 bread. And I just thought, don't you think she knows that you're wealthy? You're hiding the tags from yourself. Classy. A new podcast from Pineapple Street Studios. Available now, wherever you get your podcasts.

My sister and you are the only two people that I told about Abby in the very beginning. The not just about the list. Not about the list. That was how I broke the news. That was my like very creative way of slipping Abby in. And then I called you from your basement sister. I was in your basement. I had just talked to you, just told you,

and then I called Liz and told her. And I was at the point where I thought everybody would say this is crazy. Like you can't do this. This is some kind of distraction from your life, you know, whatever. Do you remember that phone call? Mm-hmm.

Do you remember what we talked about? Do you remember what you said, what I said? Yeah, I can't remember your exact words, but it was something along the lines of like, but this can't possibly be like the love of my life, who I just, like, this can't be what it feels like it is. That doesn't make any sense. And I said, it might be. Yes.

What if it is, though? Says Liz Gilbert, who wrote the book that launched a million divorces. Yes. Yes. I'm really bad for the institution of marriage. Like, I don't know. I probably shouldn't have said that,

except for that, I don't know. It felt like, well, maybe it is. Yeah. It seems like something really important is happening to you right now. Yeah, that felt like- And by the way, I think I'm in love with my best friend, Reya,

which was the second half of that conversation. Yeah. So that might also be why I was more open to it. Because you had altering, but I know the feelings. Yeah. Yeah. Same thing. I'll tell you what, talk about a plot twist. I knew she was going in there to call you.

She comes back out and she's like, well, and also, like, what? I also remember one more thing that you said, because I remember the what if she is, what if it is. That was to me like a thousand bells ringing, like angels singing, heart, whatever heart means it was that. And you said something else that was really interesting. And you said something else that was really interesting. I think I know that you knew that my marriage was not good enough for, Craig, it was not good enough for me. It just wasn't enough. It wasn't right. And you said, she could be the love of your life, or she could just be an abby sized hole that you can crawl through and get the hell out of your marriage.

An abby sized hole. Either way. Thank God sometimes people show up as that. I remember a friend of mine saying that a guy she had an affair with. She said really he was just a big door with the word exit on top of it. She said I didn't have the skill to figure out how to get out of that marriage any other way. Then through that big door that had a big exit sign over it. And she's like, was it, is that an illegitimate way to do things? Maybe, maybe the not the most elegant way, but it did the job, which needed to be done, which was to end something that needed to end. But no, Abby's not an Abby-sized hole. No.

There's nothing about Abby as a vacancy. Trish. Talk to us about Raya and because it was happening to both of us at the exact same time. And we've never talked about this publicly. So we got to kind of walk through a lot of this together. So can you talk to us about Reya and what you would have told me that day? Well, Reya, my story's similar in some ways to yours

and then very different in others, primarily because Reya and I had been friends for 13 years. And we had been best friends for eight years. And then for the previous three years, we had been something that I simply could not find a word for other than to say that this is my person because I wasn't able to say because of how much I loved my husband. My husband was so very good to me. You guys knew him and you knew what a good man he was. And I didn't want to be a disruptor of a really serene marriage. You know, it was a marriage with a lot of mutual tenderness and a lot of care and a lot of serenity.

The three of us were best friends. We were all each other's best friends. We were a little family, the three of us. And he loved her and I loved her. And the thing that I find so remarkable about it is that we were all so careful and respectful of our positions that I you know, I was the married straight woman. He was the older, loving, paternal figure sort of to both of us. She was the single gay woman not really looking for anybody, but looking after herself at that point in her life. But

later, when we were together, she said to me that part of the reason that she hadn't dated for five years was because she was getting everything that she needed emotionally for me. And I was getting everything I needed emotionally from her, which was also why my marriage was so serene. You know, we were like, we were really looking after each other at the deepest, deepest level. And, but she every once in a while, somebody would set her up and she'd go on a date and she'd come out to dinner with me and my husband afterwards and she just said I mean it was all out there. I don't know why none of us could. None of us could. None of us wanted to disturb this beautiful thing that we had.

But she would say she would look at him and she go. Why can't there be another Liz? Like this person was perfectly nice, but it's not Liz. Like, and he would say, darling, I know it's terrible, but there's only one of them. And she's like, could we just share her? Which actually I thought would be a great idea. I was like, I don't see any problem with that. Like that would be a made,

but like she just couldn't, she would always say to me, like nobody is you, you know? And I would say, yeah, but that's a little unfair because you can't compare a person that you just met for dinner over somebody who's been your friend for 13 years. We earned this level of intimacy very slowly. So you've gotta give people a chance.

I was always coaching her to like give people a chance. She was the love of my life. And there came a point probably two years before she got cancer where I came to know that at some part in myself. And I had to accept that there was absolutely nothing that I was ever going to do about that because of my care and respect for all three of us. But and I remember feeling what I would call a higher power saying, yeah, just love her. But there's a line here that can never be crossed. So there wasn't a terrible strain in it.

It was like this deep surrender. I don't think any of us were, all of us knew it, but none of us were suffering because the love was so big. And then she was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic and liver cancer and given six months to live. And my world blew up. My heart blew up, my head blew up. The bottom fell out of my earth. And there was no more possibility.

I could not let her go to her death. I knew that I would be with her at the moment of her death and I was. I knew that I would be her caretaker all through death and I was. And the image I had in my head of holding her hand while she died without her, without ever having told her what she was to me, was so violently offensive to my soul.

It felt like a crime against humanity. Like I could, I simply could not, I could not allow that. I saw that in my head and I could not allow that to occur. And I knew that I would never be okay if I did. And that a great wrong would have happened, you know, that a great wrong would have happened. And I also for saw, you know, Ray was the person I needed the most in the entire world and didn't I didn't know how I was at a point where I didn't know how to do life without without. And I didn't know how I was at a point where I didn't know how to do life without her. I couldn't imagine how I was possibly going to live. But I knew that

if I let her go without telling her that and without telling my husband that my marriage would be over anyway. Nothing was ever going to work again unless that truth was spoken. And you know, because I've told you, Glenn, and this idea that a great truth liberates everyone involved, the truth sets everybody free, that there was a freedom that she found when I spoke that truth, and I do believe he did as well, because he knew at a certain level that this was the case and there was a freedom in that being spoken instead of just felt. So that was, oh my gosh, almost five years ago. Wow.

Yeah, one more than five years ago, yeah. You said to me, when I was starting to tell people the hard thing, you'd said, don't forget, every truth you tell is a kindness, even if it makes people uncomfortable. And every truth you don't tell is an unkindness, even if it makes people comfortable. So good. Yes. And I remember you also telling me that you had this vision of yourself when you were deciding what to do, which actually doesn't even feel like

it was a process of deciding, right? It was just a knowing of you at Reyes funeral. And no one understanding what your grief would be because no one understanding what Raya was to you. And that was another violation of truth for you that you would not be able to. It was that you needed to reveal, you needed to be with Raya and you needed the whole world of Rhea's life to understand what you were to each other also. Yeah. Yeah. I had this vision of people coming up to me and saying, we're so sorry that your friend

died. And not knowing that this was my partner, you know, this was the partner of my life. This was my, that she was my everything person. And that the level of grief that I would be allowed to express publicly would have to be so tampered by holding that down, that I knew that that would make me very sick also. In addition to not receiving the care that I would need from an understanding world about what I had just lost.

How did it happen then? How did it happen that you knew you got the news about Rea's health. And then what? I asked her. I asked her if she liked me. You didn't know it. You said, do you like like me? I haven't heard that since I was a kid, but that is what we used to say. Do you like like me?

Do you like like me? Do you like like me? Yeah. Yeah. And I haven't talked too much about that interval because it so it involves a lot of very painful conversations with my then husband that I'm very protective of. And so there's not a lot that I would share with you publicly about that. But before I blew up my whole life, I needed to know. And you know, you knew Reya. She was so honest and blunt and direct,

and that was what was so incredible about her, was how the truth lived in her and spoke through her and how fearless she could be in the face of the truth. And I really didn't know the answer to that. And I was like, do you like be that way? And I would not have been surprised. Like I really didn't know And I would not have been surprised. Like I really didn't know. I would not have been surprised if she had been like, ew, you're my best friend, gross.

Like because I'd seen her answer people's, everyone had a crush on Raya. She was so hot. I'd seen her directly say things like that to people. You know, like, ew, no, I love you, but gross. Get away. Like, no interest whatsoever. Maybe there is a part of me that sort of hoped that she would say that because it would in a way make it easier. There would be a lot less of like a pebble that would have to happen. And she closed, just closed her eyes and just put her head back and then put her head down and started crying. And she said later, she felt like in that question.

And she, remember, she had been diagnosed with terminal cancer two weeks earlier. And she said in that moment, she said, I felt like a cage opened in my heart and a thousand white birds flew out. And that was her answer. She said, I feel like a cage just opened in my heart and a thousand white birds flew out. And I said, okay, so I need to now go have some conversations. We didn't even kiss. We didn't even you know, it was like please hold The amount of respect that I have for this person means that now a bunch of other conversations must happen Which actually were were very swift because? The awareness was was there and because, you know, there's something

about telling the truth that makes things tend to go very quickly. If I had known that a lot earlier in my life, I would have had a lot less drama. But this was Rea's line, Rea always said, the truth has legs. When everything else has blown up and disintegrated and all the drama and chaos and madness

and lies and stupidity all falls away, the last thing that's going to be left standing in the room is the truth. And she used to say, since we're going to end up there, babe, we might as well start with it. Like, why go through, let's just lay it out, let's just put the truth on the table and just begin there, because that's where we're going to end up. And so that's how we got through that. And then very quickly, we were together. And then, we were together. And then, we were together.

We were together. Over the commitment ceremony, you all did a commitment ceremony in New York. It was incredible. And then very quickly her health just started to fade. What was that all like that whole? Because you I feel like in the world, in the world you are like a joy freedom creativity doula for people, right? In your personal life, you are many things, but one of the things you are is a grief doula. You are called over and over again to walk people through the hardest times.

What was that like for you? Well, the first six months, we had so much fun that because we were like, God, we've wanted to be together. Like, I just remember, it wasn't even, I mean, it was so fun to have sex for the first time with the love of your life, you know, like who you've been in love with for years and never had any intention of having that, you know, there was all of that to discover, you know. And remember how drunk they were, you guys were like drunk on love. Like you can be drunk. We came over to Reyes once, I think, or to your house once. And you guys, it was like, oh, heads up. So were you, by the way.

That's right. So not what I like. No, these four people were not even having conversation. We didn't even have none of us had our feet on the ground. We were all just insanely in love and in love with each other. So we were just like, we were so excited. And so that carried us through. And we also did a lot. Like, Raya had a lot of music that she wanted to still record. I felt like part of my loving service to

her was to encourage that. And like, let's go rent a studio space and get a let's get these songs cut, you know, like let's because she was a musician and let's take a bunch of trips to see people who we love. And I also had so much admiration for the choice that she made, which was to discontinue medical treatment. And no one was on board with that. Except me, honestly, because I knew Reha and I totally got it and she was like, look, I don't wanna be a cancer patient.

And these people are telling me that I can live for months with no treatment or that they can keep me alive for months with constant chemotherapy and radiation, where I will be at Sloan Kettering three weeks out of the month. She was like, they called that great news when they told me that. And she was like, that's the most, no, I'm not fucking doing that. She's like, I'm going to die the way I lived. I'm going to live right up until the end.

She didn't have a particular attachment to a length of time that she wanted to live. She had a very strong attachment to how she wanted to live. And one thing that I learned about that was how important agency is to people who are sick and dying. That it wouldn't matter in the least to me what choices anybody who I loved made about how long they wanted to live.

What would matter to me is that the choice was theirs and that they were being supported completely in how they wanted to go out or how they wanted to stay. So if somebody was like, I want to fight till the ends of the earth and go to every single, you know, go to Switzerland and get the newest treatments and go like, if that's what she had wanted, then that's what we would have done, but that's not what she wanted. And so it was so easy for me to be in support of that. Yeah, we kind of had a ball and we used to feel really guilty because people were full of grief about Reya dying, but she was like, how do I tell everybody that this is the happiest time I've ever had in my entire life?

You guys write karaoke every night. Well, constantly, like, we were, we had so much fun. And then there would be times where all of a sudden it would hit us. And one of us would just be faced down on the floor sobbing, like this is all going to be gone. So very soon. And that was also in a weird way, beautiful and and fully living and all of it. But then she, she made good on her promise to die the way she lived, because as everybody who knows where a story knows, she was a ferocious drug addict for most of her life, like from the age

of 13 until 33. She lived on the streets, she was a heroin addict, she was a speedball junkie, she was a full-on, like, three stays at Rikers Island, homeless in Tompkins Square Park. Lots of prison stays, mental hospitals, institutions rehabs. Like, she was a ferocious addict, and then she put it down, and she was clean for 18 years. And then she picked it up at the end, which I actually think was kind of always her plan when I think about the way she used to talk lovingly about how much she missed. She was clean and so over about how much she missed drugs. Her plan, I think her plan was always like when it comes close to the end, I'm just going to be like, fuck it. I'm doing this again. You know, like, let's go. I'm

going to go out like Keith Richards. And when the pain got bad and they put her on opioids, two things happened. One is that the opioids stimulated the addiction as she said they would because she'd been a heroin addict. And the other thing was that she went with it. And I watched it close up. I watched the decision. And the decision that she made was,

I'm gonna do this because I can. And because there's no consequences anymore because I've just been told, at this point I have two months to live. So, who cares? And she was very open about it and she kind of told everybody she was gonna do that.

And I don't think anybody really questioned it because we were all like, well, you raised a strong point, you know, to like, who could blame you? Like, you know, go ahead. And for a while, the cocaine helped her actually be awake and alert and feel more like herself until the cocaine did, as you said, Glennon, when you explained cocaine to me so kindly when I was at my rock bottom

with Raya because here's what didn't happen. She didn't die because she was made out of teflon. So she lived another almost year and she instantly became a ferocious, awful drug addict again. And it was like everything I had ever loved about her. All of her attainments for her 18 years of sobriety were gone. And she was a nightmare, like an absolute, like absolute nightmare. And I remember just emailing you and being like, this is not the story I thought I was gonna be in. I don't know what possible incentive or threat can I give to this drug addict? Don't keep doing drugs or you're gonna die.

She's a hospice patient. Like, how do you, what do you do? I can't kick her out. She's a cancer patient. Like, I can't, like, there's not, like, I was, it was the most up in it, against a corner of hopelessness I'd ever been in. And you just explained that here's a primer list. Different drugs do different things to people. Cocaine makes people into assholes. That is what it does. Alcohol makes people sloppy and sometimes violent. And this makes people, and that is what happened.

And that was the most wrenching thing, because I had been prepared emotionally to lose her to death, but I had not been prepared to lose her before she died. And that was, that has taken me years to on thread and to go through, including my rage. And we only had this tiny little window of time and you chose your old girlfriend, cocaine and heroin over me, which of course no anybody who understands addiction knows like no addict ever chose that over somebody.

It was, you know, she was in her addiction. So it was brutal. It was absolutely brutal and it was absolute chaos. And it was not the beautiful story that I had written in my head as so much of my life has not been. You know, as so much of my life has not been You know so much of my life. I scripted right down to the final scene and then my dear beloved friend life is like Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, it's not gonna be like that. It's gonna be like this now. What's your move? Mm-hmm. And

And that's where we were So what was your move? Like how did you handle? My move was that I let her go and I had just enough, I had done just enough work on myself and I loved myself just enough that I was able to find this within plus in a weird bizarre way It was almost as if she had been coaching me for this moment her whole life because I had seen her so many times counsel people who had family members and loved ones who were in active addiction and She would say to them again and again and again, there's nothing you can do. There is nothing you can do for them. And I remember asking her once,

is there anything anyone could have done or said that could have gotten you clean or sooner back when she'd back in the day. And she said the best thing that would have ever happened to me would have been for people to have cut me off sooner. Because as long as I still had even one person left in the world who I could use, I would use them, and I had no incentive to put down the drugs. And so as long as there was one person left in the world who would take my bullshit, one person left in the world who would answer the phone, let me sleep on their couch,

give me money, feel sorry for me. As long as there was anybody enabling me, I had no reason to quit. She's like, it wasn't until I burned through every single person. There was not one person left who would take me in or have any mercy on me, that she had to decide whether she wanted to live her diet. And that's when she made the decision herself to go get clean. I remember hearing her say to somebody once whose twin sister was in very serious addiction. She said to her, you don't have a sister anymore. You have a vampire. You have a vampire in your life. Your sister is already dead. The vampire took her over.

So if you think you're helping your sister, you're actually just feeding the vampire. So now you have to get rid of your vampire. She's not allowed in your house. She's not allowed near your money. She's not allowed near your stuff. The vampire might die. Your sister's already dead. The vampire might die and then your sister might come back to life or she's not allowed near your stuff. The vampire might die, your sister's already dead. The vampire might die and then your sister might come back to life or she might not. But you're just continuing this thing. Like I heard her so many times, she was such an expert on it. So I was like, oh, you know, and and also, Raya had always been my protector and my defender and my bodyguard and she became the most dangerous person in my life when she was in her addiction. She was causing huge amount of danger to my life.

And she also had this trump card, which was, I'm dying, so I get to do whatever I want. So nobody can tell me shit. And Rhea had an ego, like all addicts, and like, you know, she had an ego that she had tempered through years of recovery, but when it came back up again and she had the free pass of death, she was nothing but ego. It was the ugliest aspect of her, which was that whole rebel thing that I always loved. I'm going to do it my way. Became like, I'm going to do it my way, no matter who I take down, no matter how much destruction this causes, causes was really ugly. And so the day came where I made a decision

and I said, I need you to go do whatever amount and combination of drugs you need to do. So I can have five minutes of your actual clear mind. I just need five minutes because she was just so whacked out. And she was like, okay, hang on. She goes into the program. It's like cocaine, a little bit of, you know, like an adderol, like, you know, I don't even know.

She's like, you know, she was a chemist. So she, and she comes out, she's like, okay, what's up babe? You know, you got me for five minutes. And I said, if you were here, which you're not, you would kill somebody who was treating me the way you're treating me. And I knew that to be true, because she was so protective of me. You would literally kill them if anybody treated me the way you're treating me right now.

But you're not here to protect me. And you have now become my danger. And so I now have to be you. I now have to be the protector of me that you have always been because you are no longer here to do that job. So I'm here to tell you that this is over, this shit is over, and if you want to die with a needle in your arm behind a locked door, alone, like you almost did in your three overdoses 20 years ago, welcome to it. I will not be there. So you're on your own. However, you want to die, I'm not making any more plans for your life because every plan that I make

to try to save you, you blow up. Hospice stopped coming to our house because she was such an asshole. I was like, who gets kicked out of when you piss off? You know, like there was no care. I was like, and she's like, well, what am I going to do? And I'm like, beats me. I guess you're going to do it your way, like the way that you are now doing it. And you keep playing the death card and the card of like, no one understands what it's like to die.

And you're absolutely right about that. I have no idea what you're going to or what it feels like to die. But I have a card that you never thought I would play, which is, I'm leaving, because I have done way too much work on myself to be in this. And I'm not going to be in this. And so good luck.

I love you. I was expecting to say goodbye to you. I didn't think it would be like this. You're the love of my life. You always will be. See ya. And that was maybe the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. But I also, the truth is always a relaxing space to be in. And that was truthfully what needed to happen in that moment. And I also remember Rea saying to me before she started using drugs, she said, I will not rest until I see you standing on your own two feet in my research stance of your life, in every circumstance of your life. And I said to her, this is me standing on my own two feet, and I will not allow my life

to be taken down by anybody, not even you, and not even under these circumstances, because that's not what I'm here for, you know? And she made a call to an old friend in Detroit and said, I need help and went out there and got off the drugs. Like, while she was a hospice patient, like dying of cancer, she got clean.

And I came back and then I said, you need to make a plan for what your life is because I can't plan your life. So you tell me what your plan is and if it sounds like sanity to me, I will be part of it. But if it doesn't sound like sanity, I won't be. And so she said, I want to be out here near my family. And I came back out there. And then I stayed at her friend Stacey's house. And I helped Stacey take care of her until she died. There was a big humbling for me in that because my

grandiosity was, I'm the one who can take care of Ray, I bet, than anybody. And it turned out, I wasn't as good at it as Stacy, who was not just her friend, but her ex. You know, I was like, okay, so I guess this person's better at this than me. So I can either be really mad at that or I can be really grateful that somebody has stepped in who's actually better at managing her.

And I am here to help. And I put away like all of my big storytelling and I was like every morning I would report to Stacey and say how can I be of service to you? Well, you take care of this this person who we both love and That's how it went It's like when she relapse into her dictionless. It's like this was her way is like

her way of helping you stand on your own two feet. That is like the most beautiful thing. I can, I just, I just think you are so beautiful and your love is so beautiful because I still think it's there. I don't think it goes away in death and my gosh. Thank you for sharing that story. Thank you for saying that, Abby.

Did you have moments where you felt her back with you? Yeah, and before, like a couple weeks before she died, I mean, she was never the same, but that's also because she was so weakened by what she had just done, you know, taking that last ride, which there's a level at which I look, Raya had to do Raya the way Raya was. Like, people have to radical acceptance is letting people be who they are. And that kind of Keith Richards side of her was very much a part of her. And whatever her journey was needed to include that. And I agree, Abby, I think I think we both needed to see that not only can I live without you and you don't need to worry, I can stand on my own two feet. I can even stand up to you. The strongest person

I've ever known, even when you're trying to manipulate me. And I think that she must have felt the power of that. We had a conversation that was really incredible. Like two weeks before she died, I was carrying so much anger and so much resentment. What I perceived as having been taken from me, right? I can step back from it and look at it in a grand spiritual way and see the rightness of all of it and how it had to be precisely that way, but I was really wounded at the way I had been used and lied to and all the things that addicts do to people. You know, used robbed, lied to, manipulated, betrayed. Like, you know, it just goes with the territory

of an addict in addiction. She didn't really know what she had done because she wasn't there. She was like in her own addiction story. And so I said, I need to talk to you. And Raya was always, what I loved about Raya and what I learned from Raya was that incredible fearlessness in the face of the truth. She always, she was like one of the few people

in the world I've ever met who genuinely really did wanna know what you were thinking. Like other people are like, I wanna know what you're feeling. They don't really, Raya really did. Like she didn't want your fake thing. Like she would say to me when I was trying to cover something, she'd be like,

hey, we don't zip stuff up here. You know, like, so whatever you're zipping up here, like, I don't care what it is. I don't care if it's at me. Like, can you just unzip it so that we can have it rather than I don't want this fake thing? She wouldn't tolerate it in people, even if it was coming at her. And so I knew that I could say this, even though she was like a cancer patient

on a couch on her last days, it almost seemed more important to do it because of that. And I said, I need you to know how much pain you caused to me and to other people, but this is really about me. Yes. And she just said, she went like this, she goes, what did I do? No, I didn't. All right, let's go.

You know, like that's how Ray always took it. It's like right in the teeth of the gale. Like what, you know, what did I do? And I just laid it out. I was like, you did this and you did this and you did this and you lied here and you manipulated the fact that I'm innocent about drugs to tell me that you had something under control.

And then when I left, I was like, this was the worst thing you did. You told all your friends that I dumped you because I couldn't handle your cancer. And I was like, that is so fucked up. Like I love my entire... I can handle your cancer. And by the way, like, cancer's a walk in the park

compared to addiction. Like I will completely lay that out right now. Like I could handle that. Like I was there for that. I was like, you know, I will clean up your vomit six times a night. But like happily, that is not the situation. And I was like, there's still, you still have friends out there who think I abandoned you because of your cancer.

You know, like you need to make some fun calls and set that straight. First of all, and so I just, I told her all of this. And I said, then the worst thing that you did was that you stole our time, that we had this tiny little period of time. Everyone only has a tiny little period of time to be with the people that they love, and you robbed it and pretended you weren't doing that. And she like nodded and listened. And then she said, yeah, yeah, that sounds like me.

And the love that I felt for her, I'm like, this is why I love you. She said, oh, yeah. She goes, that's why I love you. She said, oh, yeah. That's what I'm like. She goes, that's what I'm like. She literally said that tracks. She's like, yeah, that's what I'm like when I'm an addict. She's like, I'm a fucking asshole when I'm an addict. And she's like, that all sounds really true. And she said, I'm so sorry.

And then she just cut quiet for a second. And she said, you know, if this was the real world and we had time and we weren't running out of road, we would have to do so much work now to get trust back. You know, this would be a thing. We would have to take this on. Like we would and we would, we would have to go to a lot of counseling.

There would have to be a lot of processing. But we, she's like, babe, we're running out of road and I just have to ask you, will you just forgive me? Oh And I said yeah, I Will and she's like great. Thank you and I will. And she's like, great, thank you. And that was a really important conversation. And I did, you know, I still had stuff to process long after she died, but I did forgive her. And I don't think I would have if I had stayed in the dysfunction, I think I would have been so degraded by the dysfunction

that I would not have been able to find that forgiveness, but because I was taking care of myself, I was able to do that. As my sister would say, when I was in my addiction, the worst of it, she'd said that she had to withdraw. She had to put up her boundaries so that if I ever came back, there would be something to come back to. So that if I ever came back, we could love each other. And that's kind of what you were able to do because of what you did. That's beautiful Amanda. How did you know to do that? I don't really know the answer to that, but I did know what you're saying, Rea, knew about that there is someone else in my sister's body right now and it's not her. But I don't know. in my sister's body right now and it's not her.

But I don't know. With that we're going to stop right now. I don't want the Pod Squad to panic because Liz is going to be back. Just in a couple days, next episode, I'm going to start the next episode asking Liz about what she misses most about Raya and how her life has been different after Raya died. I love you, Liz. Thank you for every bit of that. I love you. Trust it. I love all of you. Thank you for giving me the chance to tell my story. We can do hard things. We'll see you back here. story. We can do hard things. We'll see you back here. I give you Tish Melton and Brandy Carlisle.

I walked through believe that I'm the one for me And because I'm mine, I want the line Cause we're adventurers in heartbreak So now a final destination And we've stopped asking directions. Some places they've never been. 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 I can't stop my heart 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 heartbreaks on matter

A final destination will end We stopped asking directions So places they've never been to be loved. We need to be known. We'll finally find a way back home and through the joy and pain that our lives bring. We can do a hard thing.

This world finished her rose and heart breaks on land. We might get lost but we're only in that. Stop asking directions. Some places may have never been. And to be loved we need to be long We'll finally find our way back home Through the joy and pain that our lives bring We can do hard things. Yeah, we can do hard things.

Yeah, we can do hard things. We can do hard things, is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts, especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine. you