Book Club Meets: “I’m a love and sex addict!” Elizabeth Gilbert copes with co-dependency and grief

0:00On the morning of my 54th birthday, I woke up at dawn and instantly realised that my partner, Raya, was in the bedroom with me. Welcome to the Happy Place Book Club with me, Fern Cotton. Because at that point she had been dead for more than five years. Today, all the way to the river by Elizabeth Gilbert. A churning energetic current of pure ray-iness roiling through my tiny New York City apartment in wave after unmistakable wave of her. I was neither alarmed nor frightened. I would know her anywhere. I would love her anywhere. but I was surprised for it had been a while since she'd made such an appearance and oh how I had missed her she used to visit me like this all the time in the raw and bewildering months immediately following her death back then she'd been so incredibly present so consistently accessible so funny and loving and demanding that I used to joke Raya is more vivid in death than most people are in life it wasn't that I could see her in those long-ago visitations.

1:09She was not some spectral Victorian ghost bride, but I could feel her unmistakable presence, and I could distinctly hear her voice speaking straight into my consciousness. The clarity of communication between us had been extraordinary back then, right after she died. It was as though she'd rigged up a strikingly effective supernatural Dixie Cup telephone system through which she could chat with me across the cosmos using a long, long strand of yarn. The effect had been so intimate as to be sensual. Sometimes it was even fun. I would be out there in public smiling and nodding and trying to act like a normal person, but Raya and I would be having private conversations inside my head the entire time.

2:00now the book I chose for us to read in October was All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert oh my god I love her she is the author of Eat Pray Love obviously so you definitely know who she is but this new book if you've already been following book club you'll know I've been wanging on about it but basically this book All the Way to the River has totally changed my life and I'm not saying that as a sort of throwaway comment it has changed my life it has changed how I viewed lots of relationships in my past it's changed my self-awareness of how much I still seek whether it's validation or comfort from other humans it's made me so aware of it it's actually informing my behavior and I'm I'm changing certain parts of my behavior for the better this book is so powerful so powerful this one really struck a chord with you lot too this is Megan who's been reading in Florida all the way to the river is so monumental for me for Elizabeth to put feelings and events I have personally experienced and lived through gave me a great sense of comfort and being seen without actually being seen I have known for decades that I'm codependent and a people pleaser and I would ask myself routinely why am I doing this as I'm crying on the floor I am just so grateful for her artistry with words I have read it in the first three days of its release and listened to it the week before I saw her on tour in Tampa I get more and more out of it each time I listen to it or read it I am just so eternally grateful that she put this out into the world.

3:42Thank you so very much. Yeah, Megan, me too. I feel so seen by Elizabeth's storytelling. You know when you assume that you're the only one that's felt a certain way, which is obviously quite narcissistic, but I think a lot of us do that. Like, God, there's something wrong with me. Only I do this or think this. And she's just been so eloquent with her descriptions of like the minutiae of feelings that you go, oh my God, I've so felt that. I've so been there. Megan, thank you so much for sharing yourself with us. Alex got in touch on Instagram to say this book couldn't speak more directly to my soul.

4:16I cried. Me too. I cried twice reading this. Beautiful, articulate honesty, so bravely told. This book has helped me in ways I couldn't possibly have imagined. Me too, me too. What a gift to have put into words such deeply emotional stuff. Just wow. And Faye says All the Way to the River is an incredibly powerful read. It addresses some really important human behaviours to be aware of and relatable life experiences with so much honesty. I agree it's a life changing, self awakening read. Real, raw, heartbreaking and funny altogether. Isn't that how life is? Yes. Faye, you've absolutely nailed it.

4:54Oh, God, Elizabeth. Elizabeth and I got into so many deep chats when we chatted online. I wish that I'd had hours, maybe like a whole day with her selfishly. We talked about what people pleasing actually is, which is people manipulating. That was a confronting bit for me. We talked about how she knows she's a love and sex addict. Some incredibly impressive self-awareness around that topic. And also defining it with its true meaning because I was unclear about what a love and sex addict really was. I think we can all jump to conclusions and they're sort of not always right. So that's worth listening to.

5:34And Elizabeth also shared how to be boundaried enough to know you need to block someone's number for your emotional safety. I think you're going to learn so much from Elizabeth and I really hope you love this episode. All right, here we go. This is the show.

6:11Elizabeth Gilbert. Hi, friend. Oh, God, I was so excited to talk to you. Thank you. I'm so happy to be here. Well, I am more than happy, but I am. It's sort of overwhelming in terms of this book because I could probably talk to you about it for like a week and it wouldn't be enough. I would still have more questions. So I'm just going to squish it in and see what happens. Let's see what we can cram in. Thank you. And also, it's so nice to see you. I haven't seen you in a while. I haven't seen you in so long. And I wish it was in real life. But you're coming to the UK, aren't you, next year? Yeah.

6:48Yeah. I'm coming in February or March. Maybe we'll see each other then. I would love that. I would love to do this in real life. But I'm going to do my best in terms of just getting all the points out that I feel deeply passionate about. Because as I said when I announced that this is our Happy Place Book Club pick, it's a book that has changed so much for me. And I think, you know, we get we get like fatigued hearing stuff like that. Like this book is life changing, man. But this is seriously changing the way I think about so much. It was brutal to read and beautiful and life affirming and just all the things, all the things.

7:30It's just fucking mind-blooding. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was beautiful and brutal to live it. I bet. And it was beautiful and brutal to write it. And it's been more beautiful than brutal out here talking about it. But yeah, it's a lot. it's a lot yeah because when I interviewed you last for the podcast it was in July 2019 yep and so not long after Raya died and you were very honest and frank about your feelings of grief and loss and the process of it but this book feels like like another realm of honesty like it's a whole other we're hearing every single thought and feeling that you've got around your relationship your associations with love and relationships was there say like back in 2019 was there a censorship or a discomfort in talking about certain things you know I don't here's what I think I think as much as we can know ourselves, this is what I think about me.

8:45I think that I will share whatever I know. And if I don't share it, it's because I don't know it yet. Or I don't understand it yet. And part of the reason that I did not write this book immediately after my partner Rhea died was because there was so much that I did not understand about what had just occurred or my role in it. And I'm really afraid that if I had written the book directly after she died, it would be a book about what a terribly nice person I am and how this horrible thing happened to me. And that's never the fucking truth. You know what I mean? That's never the truth. There's always so much more going on than that.

9:33And so for me, I think it took, I mean, it's now been, you know, seven years since like more than seven years since Rhea died. And it's taken that amount of time, that amount of healing, again, a word that we get weary of, but unfortunately, it's what we're here to do. Healing and also sobriety, emotional sobriety and sobriety from substances to have the clarity to as competently as I'm able to right at this moment to be like, this is the forensic exploration of what I think actually happened. I can't say that it's the capital T truth, but it's the closest I can get to it. And when I spoke to you before, that was the closest I could get.

10:19You know, that's all I had. That's all the information I had at that time. But I find that exciting that there's constantly more for us to learn about ourselves. And, you know, we think we've got a pretty good idea of it, a grasp of who we are and how we fit into the world. And then you go through something or you have a newfound clarity for whatever reason, you're like, oh, my God, okay, I'm now seeing everything with a slightly different set of glasses on. You know, that's how I feel even just from reading your book. And I think like many people that I've talked to who have also read it, for many people you know I'm reading about your admission of being a love and sex addict and how the 12-step program has has ultimately changed how you view relationships and human interaction and I'm really going am I am I that like I this is murky waters for me because a lot of your backstory and this is you know the case for so many people I've spoken to chimes so heavily you know like behavior traits patterns that I've been in relationships that I've been in you and I guess it's so murky because love is chaotic love and sex they're chaotic they're messy they're not linear they're it's just pure chaos a lot of the time so I would love to know what your distinction or whether it's one that you know you've learned through 12 steps what that distinction is between okay this is love and yeah it's a bit of a fucking mess and actually I am a love and sex addict?

11:53Well yeah that's a great question and and I can only speak from my own experience because it's a gray area program right if you're an alcoholic it's pretty easy to tell when you've slipped you had a drink you know like when you're in these relationship addictions it's a lot it's a lot trickier sometimes to see where that line is and also by the way as we saw in my book even for a substance addict, slips can become very murky, right? Like my partner, Rhea, was a heroin and cocaine addict in recovery who decided somewhere along the line that it was cool for her to drink alcohol and did it very secretly and a very, you know what I mean?

12:33Like addicts are always doing sneaky, slippery shit, you know? Like, and the first person who we lie to is ourselves. I am the best at convincing myself that I'm not doing what I am clearly doing, right? So that's part of the sort of addictive mindset. So for me, I can backwards engineer it. So first of all, the only person in the world who I absolutely know without a doubt is a sex and love addict is me. Like I don't, I can't diagnose that for, for anybody else. I can't even diagnose that for my sponsees, you know, who I work with. I'm like, look, you came to this program because you thought you had this problem.

13:07You know, I know I have this problem. I don't know if you have this problem, but I absolutely know for a fact that I have this problem. And I also know that despite all my best efforts and all my intelligence and all my years of therapy and all my eat, pray loving, like I'm still doing it. You know, I'm still doing it again and again and again and convincing myself each time that it's different and it never is. One of the things they say in the rooms of recovery that I go to is it's never about a person. It's always about a pattern. And so identifying what my pattern is and being like, no matter what story I'm telling myself about why it's different because this person is different or because I'm a different person.

13:45Am I in fact doing the same pattern that I always do and pretending that I'm not? So there's radical honesty that's required in that. But for me, the main thing is what I consider sobriety, I think is a little bit more easy for me to define than what I consider acting out. So for me, sobriety, emotional sobriety, which is what I'm so keen to achieve in my life, especially in the program of sex and love addiction, is any day where I'm not using another human being, right? because I use other human beings the way substance abusers use substances. So there were people in my life who I used as sedatives.

14:22And it's like, this is not a pretty thing to admit about myself, but let's just say it. Like there are people, there were relationships that I had in my life that I chose because they were sedating. And I felt very safe in them. And I felt very reassured in them. And I'm like, they're not going anywhere. You know, I'm anchored in this, and this is my Xanax and I'm going to use this person as a Xanax or a Valium because I can't regulate my own nervous system and I can't feel okay. But as long as this very sedating person is in the room, then I'm going to feel a little bit better. And then there were people who sometimes simultaneously I used as crack cocaine, people that I used to get high on because I couldn't handle my boredom and I couldn't handle my restlessness.

15:05And so this person is extremely exciting, meaning very dangerous, and I'm going to get high on that person. And I'm using them. I'm using them as a drug to change, to alter my mind or mood, right? So that's sobriety for me is any day where I'm not using somebody. And that's now extended across the board sort of to everybody. Like I can be in relationships where we're here to support each other and we're here to encourage each other's growth but if i'm using somebody for anything because i can't resource it in myself that's acting out for me and that's where i have to be like keep my head on a swivel because i will do i will do it very very subtly and and also like there are certain behaviors that i can't do as a person who has identified as a sex and love addict and when i say sex i want to talk about the sex addict part because i could have like protected myself a little bit going out in public and just said love addict because it sounds better.

16:04But I have traditionally used sex as a way of controlling and manipulating people in order to get from them the emotional nourishment that again, I could not provide within myself. And that's why that it doesn't mean that I'm, I was like out here turning tricks. It means that I was out here using my body as a way to generate love approval, validation, and acceptance, what we call lava, like to generate lava out of somebody, then that was my drug. And I'll use whatever I can. I'll use sex. I'll use money. I'll use charm. I'll use manipulation. Like whatever I have to use to get you to give me love approval, validation, and acceptance is what I was up to.

16:48And, you know, I'm innocent in it. I recognize the factors in my life that caused me to become so out of control in that way. But it still means that I'm using other human beings, which is completely at odds with my actual integrity. Because my actual true nature is one of somebody who wants to be like of loving service to the world, not somebody who wants to drain people so that I can feel okay. You know what I mean? Like that's what it is. But anyway, there are certain behaviors that I can't do that other people can do. Just like an alcoholic, the example I always give, the comparison is I have a friend who's like a real low bottom alcoholic.

17:26And when she goes to a wedding and there's a champagne toast and they put a champagne flute in her hand for the photo, she actually can't take that champagne flute and put it in her hand. She can't. Other people can. And even some other alcoholics can just for the picture. she knows herself well enough to know like I'm sorry I can't actually even have that in my hand so for me the equivalent of that is like flirtation and intriguing with people who are not available which is a drug that I have used my entire life so there's no such thing as harmless flirting for me with somebody else's husband wife girlfriend boyfriend like that's nothing I can't I just can't.

18:07My interactions with people have to be really straightforward and sincere. And I can't play those kind of games because I don't have any breaks. So that's going to lead me and other people potentially into a lot of danger. So there's a lot of monitoring of like, what am I actually doing here? Do I belong in this conversation? And that's what emotional sobriety requires for me. I don't know. I don't know what anyone else needs. I just know that that's what I need. And it's, you know, it's going to be different for everybody, isn't it? But I guess it's such a it's such a interesting flavour of abstinence when it comes to human interaction, because we know it's vital.

18:50And, you know, you talk about those initial moments in recovery where you know you've got to have some really strict boundaries in place. You need to let certain people go. You need to cold turkey. You need to cut their phone numbers off. You need to not speak to them if they reach out to you. What's the difference between having that level of vigilance and protection for yourself because you want to make these positive changes and actually retreating from the world? And I wonder if you've gone out of balance with it at any point. You know, that's another question that gets talked about in the rooms of recovery a lot.

19:28Like, what's the difference between binge and anorexia, right? And that's, again, something that these gray areas for me, and I can only answer this question by bringing in sort of spiritual concepts, because 12-step is a spiritual recovery program. It's not a self-help program. It's a program of, in all the 12-step world, it's a program of surrender to a higher power, right? Because my best thinking has done nothing but get me in trouble, right? So like I need to tune into some source that's wiser than me. And that can be the collective group or that can be, you know, whatever one's definition of God is.

20:08So with these gray areas, I don't know the answer to that. I can't know. But I can get really quiet and I can connect to a higher wisdom in the universe that I do want to be in alignment with. And I can say, just for today, what's your will for me? Like, how can I be of service today? How can I not be in chaos today? Where would you like me? Who do you want me interacting with? What is the healthiest and most nourishing way that I can be? And for now, and I can only live my recovery one day at a time, but for now, for me, that answer has come back like, I don't want you engaging in sex and romance at this moment.

20:56And in a lot of ways for me, that's a living amends that I'm also making to myself and to younger versions of myself for everything I made her do. For everything that I made this body do, it breaks my heart, everything that I put this being through. and so part of that is just kind of a restoration of this this being like we're not going to do that right now like we're not even going to risk doing that right now and it is really protective because this this soul deserves to be protected if that answer changes and one of these days what i call god or my higher power says to me it's actually going to be beneficial to the world for you to partner up, then like I've got a really structured thing called a dating plan that I worked out with my sponsor that is basically Liz's best practices.

21:51Of course, I can't control the world, but like from 35 uninterrupted years of acting out in really hellish ways, these are the things that we know that I cannot do, you know? Like, so one of the things on there will be like no week-long first dates. Yeah, that's not a great idea. No, not for me. Other people can do it. You know, other people can do it and it can turn into a really romantic and amazing story. I've done it and it's turned into me crying on the bathroom floor in a pile of despair, right? So like, we're going to go on a date. The date's going to be for two hours. We're not going to anybody's home.

22:26Like, you know, I have to be so careful of what I can slip into so quickly. And then we're going to make a decision whether we're going to see each other again. And that will be in a week. And in the meantime, there will be no texting or communicating. Because I, this is for me, I have to remember that I have a life. Because the minute I get interested in somebody, I will throw away my entire life. So that week pause between date one and date two is a place for me to remember that I love my dog, that I love my friends, that I love my career, that I take care of my health, that I act like, you know what I mean?

23:03So it's like all, so the whole dating plan is like this structure. Um, and if somebody doesn't want to participate in that with me, that's fantastic. Cause then I know that they're not somebody who I'm going to be able to be with. That's gotta be somebody who's going to have to be able to respect that this is what I have to do to keep myself safe. And actually you too, you know, whoever I'm in a relationship with. Um, but that's not, that's not come up yet for me. Um, for me, I'm still in the restoration process and far from retreating from the world actually when I act out with someone that's when I retreat from the world you know what I mean like my dream as a sex and love addict is like we're gonna go into a hotel room turn off like all the phones just do a bunch of mushrooms and drink and like disappear into each other for like forever yeah I mean you and Raya did that when you first got together you just went bye world bye world it's like I have no I have no connection to the world I don't want any connection to the world because like all addicts what I'm doing when I'm acting out is I don't want to be in the world I don't want to be in my body I don't want to be in the world I don't want to exist so for me sobriety and the retreating from that has actually brought me into the world in a more full way than I've ever been where it's like oh and all this stuff sounds like pretty vanilla compared to what my addiction wants to do right but it's all of a sudden like oh wait you know like the world like I want to interact with people I want to I want to be engaged with my neighbors I want to have deeper relationships with my female friends who are among the list of things I throw away the minute that I'm obsessed with somebody it's like oh did we have a plan you know did we have a plan that we're gonna do something never mind there's a new person in my life like who's way more important than any of you yeah um my my work i can't tell you how many projects creative projects i have completely thrown away like and i'm and writing is really important to me and my writing is one of the ways that i stay engaged with the world but like the minute ray and i got together i was working on a novel and it's like done forget it never mind not interested nothing matters except me getting from this person who I've decided to become obsessed with what I think is the fuel for my life I mean you're in a really interesting sort of unique but I'm sure there are other people out there who have experienced it situation where you know you don't want to put an alcoholic in a bar that's never a great idea but here you are as a love sex addict in the world of fame you know you've got access to unlimited adoration if you want it so how how do you reconcile with that how do you deal with that how do you view your position and people being obsessed with you you know knowing that you can get that high off of strangers whenever you want essentially yeah that's such a smart question Fern.

26:08So you've met my friend, Margaret, who I do letters from love with my sub stack. She's my best friend from college. We've been friends since we were 19. And a couple of years ago, I went to her, I went off social media completely when I was newly sober, because of the, I was like, it's not a safe place for a love addict. It's not a safe place for somebody who's who's spent her entire life looking into the eyes of other people to see if she's okay and approved of and one of the things I noticed that I was doing was that I was posting things and I wasn't just looking to see how many likes the post got I was looking to see who liked it because there were certain people who I had decided and it's not this isn't even about sex this is about like a kind of prestige that I was looking for it's like do these people who I admire see me and and do they see me and do they approve of me i've done that oh yeah i i was doing that every single day i was doing that every single day since the invention of social media right and the recognition and awareness that i was doing that was so harrowing i was like holy moly this isn't just about me getting love approval validation and acceptance from my romantic partners like i'm doing this with the whole entire world like if cheryl strayed it doesn't like my post, it means I'm not in the league of writers that I want to be in, right?

27:31And so I went off social media for almost a year during lockdown, and it was really healthy. But then that was like a complete abstinence. And then when I was like, well, I am in partnership with my publishers, and I do need to sell books. And there is a sort of public presence that I need to have to do that. And I don't know how to do this. I don't know how to do this soberly. And I really like looked inward for what would be a way to be sober on social media. And the way I found was that I reached out to Margaret and I was like, can I hire you to be me on social media? And I will make the, I'll make the video, but I won't watch the video and I won't watch the response to the video.

28:13And if there's anything I need to know, you tell me. And then she'll tell me like, like just last week, she was like, you got a direct message from Fern Cotton, you know like she's like and she's like it's really sweet go look at it right so i'll go into my dms and i'll look at it but otherwise i'm not looking yeah and when this book came out i sent a message to my publishers and my agents and like everybody and i said listen i can't i can't be tracking what people are saying about this book so don't send me any of the reviews whether they're good or bad because the good as you were indicating the praise is just as disorienting as the shaming.

28:53The I love you from someone you don't know is just as disorienting as I hate you from somebody you don't know. And so I've been pretty good at sort of keeping that barrier up and staying in like, thankfully, I have this, I'm really anchored in my recovery community. So I'm really anchored in daily meetings with people who, like me, have made a commitment to living lives of all kinds of sobriety and are each other's mirrors. So if I'm like, who am I? I can go to one of my recovery sisters and be like, am I good here? And there's somebody who has the same values as I do. And ultimately, and I always qualify this, what I call God, which is not an instruction for anybody else about God.

29:42But what I call God said to me in meditation the week this book was published was, if you need to know who you are, you come and ask me. And ultimately, that's really what it comes down to. Like, you come and ask me and I'll tell you who you are. Like, we don't need you asking other people or Googling your name. Can you imagine seeing what the world thinks of you? No, horrendous. Horrendous. I can assume without looking that some people are saying that I'm great and some people are saying that I'm awful because that's typically what's going on. But that doesn't actually help me know what I am.

30:19No. And I think you can so easily, especially with writing, get distracted by what will people say? What will people think? And then all that does is it negates you from writing anything remotely honest. And, you know, I'm in the middle of writing a book at the moment and reading this has made me go, fuck, you know, I need to say the stuff, like say the stuff, stop thinking, well, this will some people not agree with this. Will they be offended by this? You can only write your truth and your story and it's not going to please everybody and it's not going to be for everybody. And I think not only did I get the sense of that just from your incredibly from the open heart honesty of like your innards.

31:02That was so demonstrative of how you want to work and how you want to move through the world. But also talking about how you were a people pleaser back in the day. You know, I think that is going to resonate with so many people. It's kind of what I'm writing about in this new book. And, you know, you partner up with Raya, who's potentially the antithesis of that. You know, she's bold and is herself and she doesn't care so much seemingly what people think of her. And you have slowly managed to unravel yourself from that conditioning of being a people pleaser and being the good girl, the good person, which, you know, I think most of us feel like we still have to do.

31:47We're so conditioned and chained to these rules and the ways that we need to move through the world. And it's so debilitating. And it's also fucking boring. I mean, what has been the biggest game changer in terms of you losing that tag and going, I'm not going to be the good girl anymore. I need to just be me. I mean, that's a day. That's daily work because that's my that's my screensaver setting. You know, I think we all have like a screensaver default setting that if I'm not really operating above the line of consciousness, I'm going to I'm going to do it. And I, handing this book to my parents, who are still alive and who I love and whose opinion and regard I want, like whose love and regard and approval I still, at the age of 56, want the same way I wanted it when I was four.

32:45And who I have spent a lot of my life trying to keep pleased. you know and then from that extrapolating out to every single everybody like every single everybody that there is um was this probably the scariest part of writing this book oh and also handing it to rea's family um and and and both of those things i did long before the book was published because the opposite for me of people pleasing, which can also be like, well, what's so bad about that? Like we're nice people. We're trying to, you know, and, and I think a friend of mine gave me a clue, which was if you, if you call it by its real name, with like many things, if you call it by its real name, it doesn't look so cute.

33:33And if you call people pleasing by its real name, it's actually people manipulating. It's like, I'm, I'm manipulating your impression of me. and I'm controlling my image of me in your eyes, right? And so the opposite for me of people manipulating is this deep fundamental courage to be honest and also to be open to being disapproved of. And so handing that manuscript to a number of people a long time ago and saying, you know, in the case of Ray's Friends and Family, here's this book that I've written. If there's anything in here that you feel is unfair or untrue, let me know and we can talk about it.

34:25And having to be, oh, that's, it still makes my bowels like turn to ice, the thought of that, but I have to do that. I can't call myself sober or in my integrity unless I do that. And that requires this enormous wave of courage to be disapproved of and to have to have really difficult conversations and disagree, you know, and be in disagreement rather than constantly trying to make myself be in accordance with everybody. And with my parents, it was like, okay so here's a book about me being a sex and love addict and I'd had that conversation with them a couple years earlier because I can't live my life in secrecy I can't I just can't and be well I just can't and and I just had to sit them down and be like listen I'm in this 12-step program and I could have let myself off the hook and said I'm in Al-Anon I'm in the Al-Anon program for people who fall in love with addicts because we have a lot of addiction in my family and they would have gotten that.

35:29And I am an Al-Anon. Or I could have said I'm in Codependence Anonymous because I have this history of codependent relationships. And that's also true. I'm in that program as well. But my foundational like home program, like the place where I bleed out and ruin my life is in the realm of sex and romantic love. And I was like, here's who I am. Here's who your daughter actually is. You know, like here is who your daughter actually is. And And I got to give them so much credit. Those like boomers who have no therapy and live by a very different code and that code is just not what we're doing. They were like, thank you for letting us know this.

36:13My mom especially was really, she had some questions. And then when I gave them the book, I was like, here's this book that I've written and you're going to find out some things that are really probably going to be very disturbing for you. And I want to tell you two things. One is you do not have to read this. It will not hurt my feelings if you don't read it. And I don't want you to be triggered. So if this just feels like a bridge too far, I totally get it. And two, I don't expose anybody in this book except me and Rhea, which was really important to me in the writing of the book. Like the only people who I'm showing are darkness is I don't expose anyone in our family.

36:55So you're not exposed in here. You know, like nobody's being blamed for the way I am. This is a book about me taking complete and full accountability for my own life. This isn't a book about what anyone did to me. This is a book about what I do to me. You know, that's kind of breaking what we, in one of the other programs in ACA, Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families, they always talk about like having the courage to break the don't talk, don't feel, don't share rule. and growing up in a like white anglo-saxon protestant family don't talk don't share don't feel is we could have had that embroidered as like a the rules of the house yeah you know like family coat of arms family coat of arms like you know we don't we don't talk we don't share we don't feel and so any day where i break that rule is a day where i am risking not being pleasing when you're disapproved of which we've all experienced on some level um I certainly have probably am being by certain people in my life right now it's never comfortable it feels horrendous and I think the only way you can be robust enough to deal with it is to like yourself enough because I've found personally when it gets dangerous the sort of disapproval game is when you turn the gun on yourself.

38:23So other people are disapproving and you go, they're right. They're right. I'm a piece of shit. And then you spiral. So you have to be robust enough via the means of self-compassion and liking yourself. Would you say that still for you is a daily discipline that you have to look at? Yeah. And that, you know what I've realized recently, and the publication of this book has helped with that a lot, is that's good, but it's not quite enough. There's another level that I have to go to because I think the layers of healing from like approval seeking for me have been like, first of all, what do I have to do to earn your approval?

39:00I'll do anything. I'll do anything. I'll do anything. And if I can't, I'll die of shame. And then next level is, you know what? Fuck you. You know what? Fuck all of you. I don't fucking need any of you fucking people anyway, which was Raya's MO, you know, and which looked to me very heroic. because it was but actually all that is is like another version of insecurity like that's not actually real I don't think that's actually real moral courage I think that's I think that's the teenager in you protecting the child and you yeah you know um and then you've got a teenager driving which is kind of better than a four-year-old driving but it's still you know what I mean it's still like not quite it and then I think the next level of maturity for me was like well listen you can think whatever you want about me kind of fuck you also this really hurts so admitting the hurt and then being like I'm going to love myself through this which is I think what you're referring to which is beautiful and but I've also found recently this next layer which is the only thing that actually quiets my nervous system and takes the tremor of terror and rage out of me, and defensiveness.

40:14Defensiveness and rage are kind of the same thing, the way that it feels in my body, is when I sit down and I do what's called in Buddhism the metta loving kindness prayer meditation cycle, which starts with myself, where I say, may I be safe, may I be happy, may I be free from suffering, may I know peace. And then it's like these concentric circles, you go out from there, and the next one you do is you choose somebody who's really easy for you to love. So I would say, may Margaret, my beloved friend Margaret, may she be safe, may she be happy, may she be free from suffering and the causes of suffering, may she know peace.

40:56And then you go to somebody who you who you don't really know at all like the the post office employee who you saw yesterday whose name you don't even know like may they be safe may they be happy may they be free from suffering may they know peace and then you go to the person you're having the issue with and may they be because that's all they want to yeah i mean like all any of us want is to be safe happy and free from suffering and so i've been working this a lot in the last few weeks Because even with the boundaries that I've set up, people have reached me with their displeasure with me and with this book and sometimes in ways that feel really emotionally violent.

41:36And so I can say, fuck you, but that doesn't calm my nervous system. And I can say, I love myself. I don't care. I actually do care. And I love myself. But that still doesn't calm my nervous system. But when I sit in, you know what? You're my fellow human. you are another sick and suffering child of the universe nobody who is not suffering would have sent a text that violent you know what I mean like you're not well either and that doesn't mean we have to talk it means I'm going to block your phone number but I'm also going to spend the next few days sitting in our shared humanity and I'm going to sit there until I genuinely feel that I want for you what I want for me, which is for both of us to be okay.

42:28And truly, that's the only thing, Fern, that when I get there, and it might take me a while sitting there to just repeat it until I mean it. I don't want to do it at first. I'm like, fuck that guy. But I'm like, but you know what? That's the person who's not okay. And I know what it feels like to not be okay. I know what it feels like to be out of control. I know what it feels like to be enraged. I know what it feels like to be living in righteousness. I know what it feels like to lash out and blame. I know what it feels like to not be able to handle my own feelings. I know all those feelings.

43:03I have those too. too um the writer george saunders says whenever he sees somebody acting out he always thinks that's just me on a different day yeah that's great and is so compassionate so it's like boundaried compassion i'm not going to do that with the person because that's not safe for them or me but like i'm going to do it about them and then i soften and my heart softens and my body softens and suddenly i'm back in what i what i really want which is loving connection yeah You know, whether that's someone I'm ever going to talk to again, it's like, God, I hope you're okay, you know, and I hope I'm okay.

43:42Because not one person ever in the history of humanity got to the end of their life and was like, well, that was easy. No. you know like every it's this hard everybody's having a hard time yeah you know yeah and and I don't mean that in a patronizing way I mean it me too you know um so that's that's the next level that I've only gotten to with this book with the publication of this book and the amount of fire that I'm getting from it is hey I just want all of us to be all right yeah yeah god I'm gonna use that I really love that that is more food for thought certainly with this book I'm writing as well that is that is something else I wonder as you are sat here today Elizabeth how would you do eat pray love now how would that look different to you what would it be well I wouldn't change a thing about it because that was such a great idea that I had you know and um I've joked recently that if I were to give Eat, Pray, Love a new subtitle, it would be Good Guess.

44:51Good Guess for a 33-year-old. I love that. Right? To come up with that as a plan for how she was going to save her own life. Yeah. Such a good guess. Like, sure. Like, go to Italy. You know, go to India. Learn how to meditate. Fall in love all over again. Find somebody who adores you. Yeah, that's great. You fixed it. And it fixed some of it. And I love what the book has become in culture. I love the permission that that book has given to so many people, especially women all over the world, to believe that they can try things, that they can do things, that they can try things, that they can leave circumstances.

45:42Because so I wouldn't like that just belongs encased in amber and its own. Like that was just perfect for when it was, for what it was, and for the impact that it continues to have on people. It didn't cure my sex and love addiction. It didn't. You know, even finding somebody who absolutely adored me, it didn't fix it. It didn't change it. It didn't take it away. I did what I always do. I ran off with someone else. You know, like I did what I always do. I was like, there's got to be something more, you know, because my favorite flavor is more. Yep. It's a good flavor. It's a great flavor. It's just never sated.

46:25No. You know what I mean? Never enough. It's just never enough. How much it's like J.P. Morgan, the billionaire industrialist in the 19th century was like brought before Congress, U.S. Congress one time. and for like whatever he was doing, Monopoly and breaking tariffs and whatever. And somebody said to him like, how much money is enough? And he said a little bit more. And you know, that's somebody who knew himself. And I have that with a lot of things, like just a little bit more, just a little bit more, you know. So that didn't fix it. Yeah. I mean, you say in the book, the pray part, the India trip, you got close.

47:06Like you, you, what you were doing out there worked, but it just, you just couldn't sustain it. It wasn't sustainable without a plan. Yeah. I traded it once again for the things of the world, you know? And I remember when I left India, Richard from Texas, the, the, the kind of amazing, I didn't now think of him as my first sponsor. I just saw his son last week when he was in Austin. I love that. But I was, I was saying to him, I'm like, Rafferty, your dad was sponsoring me. Like I thought he was just being kind and helping me, but he, you know, he wasn't, he was an old AA old timer. Like he knew, he knew an addict when he saw an addict and he was giving me like good recovery.

47:45But he, um, you know, he said to me when I left India, I was like, I got it. You know, like, I'm like, I have it. I found serenity. I found peace. I found, and he said, well, just remember groceries. as it was his nickname for me he's like he's like just remember groceries all your suffering is waiting for you in a box by the door anytime you want to pick it back up again and I was like I'm not going to pick it back up again and I told 100 picked it back up again you know so because I didn't have but first of all I didn't have the anchoring identifying concept of you are an addict and of course I am everyone in my family's an addict you know what I mean like like one of my cousin said to me one time, like, how in the world did you come out of this family and not end up as an alcoholic, as like a raging alcoholic?

48:33And I was like, well, first of all, I have abused alcohol a lot. But secondly, I found other ways to medicate myself and I found other ways to escape and I found other ways to destroy myself. You know, so of course I am, you know, like, of course I am. but I didn't have that I didn't have that piece and then I of course I didn't have like a daily program of of like divinity like of higher purpose than getting my immediate needs met you know and the only thing that's ever going to stop me from like trying to get my immediate reflexive needs met in any situation is oh wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute like let's back this up and see a much broader universal perspective of what I'm here for.

49:23And that's the only thing that's going to put my ego out. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, we live in a global infrastructure where the quick fix, the instant gratification is celebrated. It's promoted. It's the norm. It's the norm. So you have to look how happy it's making everybody. Everybody's so happy and everybody's gratified. Everybody's like really relating with each other in a really healthy ways it's totally working it's so working it's so working for everyone it's working for everybody i actually can't think of a single downside it's ludicrous it is mad it's mad we're living in the maddest of times um elizabeth i would love to round this off by asking you where is your happy place i'm in it right now i so i this church um so 20 years ago i I very impulsively, because that's how I do most things, purchased this old church in the middle of New Jersey.

50:27And it's one of the things I've been able to hang on to despite all the chaos. And my exact happy place is that green chair right there. Oh, yeah. That's where I meditate. That's where every day I connect with my higher power. That's where my little dog is sitting right now. So you've got the puppy because at the end of the book, you're like, yes, of course. At the end of the book, you're like, maybe I could get a puppy and this is going to work out. You've got the dog. Yeah. Garden is like, if you write this book and you tell the truth, this is your prize. And you stay sober, I'm going to let you get a dog.

51:05Who's this? This is Pepita. Oh, Pepita. Why are you so cute? because she's because she's actually from heaven she is adorable and she's also just such a good object lesson in the miracles of recovery because somebody left her in a box outside of a shelter look at how she's looking at you into your eyes oh god and then and then we get we both are like we both got a second chance at life which The really amazing thing is that they just keep giving you chances. By they, I mean like the spirits. They're like, it's okay. We'll just try again. As do pets. Pets are the ultimate. They just forgive and forgive.

51:52They're like, yeah, yeah, whatever. Still love you. Look at her little hands. Look at her little feet like this. I know. She's a little, she's actually half sea otter. Oh, she's such an otter. I can't cope. Her favorite position is just on her back with her little belly. Oh, God. Do you know what I say time and time again, usually on this podcast, at some point I will sack all this off and just go and open a cat and dog sanctuary somewhere. I'll be perfectly happy. Why wouldn't it just be when you wind up? But Peter's like, why don't you guys just do that? Just do it. Just stop all the talk and do it.

52:26Why don't you just hang out with us all the time? We're so much better. They're so much better than humans. I love them. um look I've asked about four percent of my questions so I'm hoping that I get to do this again in real life in March because there's so much more to this book there's so much more to the subject matters that we're talking about to the discoveries that you've uncovered since we last spoke but just publicly since we've all known you there's just so much more to it so I urge anyone that has listened to this and it's chiming or you feel like you want to know more you've got to read the book it's an absolute must it is it's a must just bloody read it um and elizabeth thank you not only for your time today but also for just writing a game-changing book it's phenomenal thank you fern thanks for thanks for just being as great as you always are and i love talking to you and i hope we can do more of it in the real world and pepita says thank you oh pepita That face, Christ, I can't cope.

53:27Oh my God. I have thought about little else after that chat. Just like every answer to every question was profound. And Elizabeth doesn't say anything for the sake of it. You can tell she's really mulling over what is the absolute answer to this question and how can I be as completely honest as possible? I just found it so unbelievably brilliant every word and I need to listen back to it again by the way we've decided the little white rescue dog Pepita is probably a lovely cross between a chihuahua and a terrier of some sort just if you want to imagine how cute she is she was sort of lying in Elizabeth's arms like a baby if you're only listening to the audio of this alright so now you're a fully fledged member of the Happy Place Book Club you're so welcome you're going to want to know what we're reading this month.

54:19Our pick for November is by another Elizabeth, the great Elizabeth Day. Elizabeth Day's latest novel is One of Us. There's betrayal and there are buried scandals in this one. It's so juicy. Let me know what you make of it on Instagram at Happy Place Book Club over the next few weeks. I'm loving getting stuck into it with you lot already. Right, until next time, a massive thanks again to Elizabeth, to the producer, Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios and to you. I love you bookworms.