Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Stephanie Wilder Taylor. Welcome to Drunkish, my
podcast about sobriety. I love to hear other people's stories
and share experiences, and today is no exception. I have
an amazing guest. Her name is Anna David. She's a
New York Times best selling author of eight books. She's
the founder of Legacy Launchpad, which writes and publishes books
for entrepreneurs. She also hosts Behind the Book Cover podcast,
and she's the co host of Sober Living podcast. She's
just a sober rock star. You guys, what can I say?
Here she is and here we are with Anna David.
I'm really excited to talk to you.
Speaker 2: I'm super excited to talk to you always.
Speaker 1: Can I remind you of I feel like this came
up when we first met, and it's all going to
come back around when we talk about your story. But
many years ago, you were an editor. You know where
I'm going with this.
Speaker 3: I know where you're going, Like, yes, I don't even
know if you know the full story, but you tell
from your POV.
Speaker 1: Well you eventually told me the full story. But what
happened is I wrote an article for a website called
The Fix I don't see. I didn't know you or
the person who owned the website at the time. I
was just tasked with writing, like my story. I wrote
an article, it got rewritten, It got very rewritten in
a way that was not even my I've never had
something so changed out of my voice. Wasn't run by me,
it was just changed. It was given a very salacious title.
It made me sound like a mom that should get arrested.
And then it was published that way, and I was
really upset.
Speaker 2: With also a photo of you and your adorable children,
like it didn't go but I wouldn't as a mother,
I would not want that. Remember, it was just they
were so cute, and it was like against the headline,
so here totally on your side, keep going Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was something like wasted, like something about being
like a wasted mom or something, and I was like,
I had just recently, I believe, talked about the fact
that I'd driven drunk with my kids, and it was
very new and kind of raw to be saying that,
not out loud, but in print, and I just felt
like I was very exploited, and I asked for it
to be changed, and I found myself in a back
and forth with you, and I believe you were apologizing
and you were like, oh my god, I totally get it.
It's not I didn't do it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the backstory was the person who owned the
website was not sober and in fact, was intoxicated all
the time and had access to the website, and every
night we go in and drunkenly rewrite these stories about
sobriety and me and the other editors and I but
I was the top editor, which is tried to wake
up earlier to change it back before anybody saw it. However,
this drunk person was also a very angry, controlling person,
and if he discovered that we did that, the tirade
never ended. And so that was one where he was
I think I changed it, and then you're mad, as
you should be, and he's enraged at me for changing it,
and it was like, it's just when I think back
on those days when I worked for people like that,
I can't quite believe it.
Speaker 2: But yes, it was awful.
Speaker 3: It was awful, and it was you were not the
only person that I had to do that with.
Speaker 1: You know, working for other people sucks.
Speaker 2: It sure does. I was just talking to somebody about this.
I only have had one non abusive boss, and it
was my first boss. So I was twenty one to
twenty four, so I had no idea that, like that
was not normal to have someone who really nurtures you
and cares about you. I mean I had phones thrown
at me, I had all the me too stuff. I'm like,
that's nothing compared to what I experienced. Tough enough kids, Seriously, so.
Speaker 1: Listen, you are one of the most accomplished sober people.
You've been sober a long time. Now how many years exactly?
Speaker 3: Guess what in from the day of recording. I can't
do math in like thirteen days, it'll be twenty five years.
Speaker 1: That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sixteen years sober so and you're way
younger than I am. So you got you got sober young?
I mean no, I was thirty, okay, so I'm holding you.
I believe I'm older than No, you're definitely you're still
younger than me.
Speaker 2: I were very much contemporaries. Let's just say, well, you
look amazing, so do you.
Speaker 3: I got scared for the not aging club, right, So yeah,
I got sober at thirty, which feels like a good
age to do it, and I'm fifty five, and so yeah,
twenty five years and back when I got sober, you know,
when I was poking around in the late nineties, there
was nothing online you couldn't find, I.
Speaker 2: Mean, sober influencers, you know, sober websites. None of this existed.
What existed was Charlie Sheen went to promises. That's like
all you could find.
Speaker 3: And then now and again you could find like a
meeting address, and so oh I just killed a mosquito,
and so no, I didn't, and.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I very distracted by.
Speaker 3: Don't squito that I'm not killing. I, of course, with
all my wonderful values, said well, I want to go
where Charlie Sheen went, because obviously there's pools, there's messusus,
there's probably someone famous who I could date. And so
back writing Horsepi, I was like whatever on the horseback,
writing weirdly, I went back writing last week. By the way, Yeah,
the equine therapy, probably acupuncture, but mostly I was interested
in the celebrity boyfriend.
Speaker 2: You know that you could come out of rehab with one.
Speaker 3: And I so I google promises, and I find prom
and I call Promises and I actually had a job
at the time, which was totally insane.
Speaker 2: I was running a website because this.
Speaker 3: Was this was early two thousand, so it was pre
Nazac crash, when everybody was just like throwing so much
money at websites that you could hire a completely drug
addicted girl to run your website and pay her and
nobody would even notice that.
Speaker 2: It was all chaos.
Speaker 3: And so I call and I say I'd like to
do outpatient rehab here, and they're like, we know, do that.
Speaker 2: And I don't know what I said to them.
Speaker 3: I think I said something like, look, I don't think
i'll stay sober if I don't have my job, because.
Speaker 2: It's the only thing that gives me any esteem. So
if you let me show up every day after work,
I promise I will stick with this. And I don't know.
Speaker 3: They said yes, and they were like it's only you know,
it was like one thousand dollars a month, and I'm like, ooh,
this promise. This is a really good deal. So I
show up the following week, which was May second of
two thousand. I'm looking around, I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, where are the where the movie started? Like where's cool?
Speaker 3: Like why is there just a broken basketball, and now
where's the tennis courts? And someone goes, oh, you realize
there are two promises, right, There's the fancy one in
Malibu and there's this one. And then later that one
got much nicer, and I actually think it's now gone.
But it was not nice in two thousand.
Speaker 1: So did you change your mind right away or were you.
Speaker 2: Like, oh no.
Speaker 3: I was like, you know, I'd surrendered. So I was
just like, okay, show me where to go, show me
what to do.
Speaker 2: And I went and sat in the in the group
therapy room, and it was really dingy and gross, and
everybody seemed way too happy, and there were people joking
about their suicide attempts, and I went up and explained
to them that that was not at all funny and
that they should stop joking about very unfunny things. They
just looked at me and they were like, oh okay.
And then and then, the way I remember it, it
was a very long time ago, but the way I
remember it now, that first group I was like fuck this,
and by the second one and I was just like,
oh my god, this is medicine for my soul. I
kind of would hear.
Speaker 3: People talking about these solutions to problems I didn't know
I had.
Speaker 2: I thought I just was really fun, and then I'm hearing, oh,
you're not not comfortable in my own skin, and I
live with a hundred forms of fear and all of
these things, and I just like saved my life and
the simple Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's really revelatory to find out that all these thoughts
you have and all this shame you have is shared
by tons of other people, right from all walks of life.
There's something I've written about this many many times, but
that feeling of me too is like its own drug.
I don't know if I could have gotten sober another way.
I know a lot of people do. A lot of
people get sober a lot of different ways. Now that's respect,
but you know, and there were a lot of reasons
I didn't want to go to a twelve step meeting.
I just thought it was really cheesy. I didn't want
anything to do with any of the slogans. I'm not
religious still am not religious, and not even really that spiritual,
to be totally honest, I don't know. I'm agnostic. So
there were a lot of things I felt working against
that kind of recovery. For me, my thing was I
just didn't have a better idea. I couldn't afford to
go to rehab. I had three young kids, so I
was like, well, this is what's available to me. And
I know for sure I've made a million promises that
I'm not going to drink anymore, and I always break it.
So I got to try something. But it was definitely
as they refer to it, last house on the block,
oh last stop. You know, had to be a little desperate,
and from day one of me actually being there for me,
I was like, oh, I can't believe. Yeah, I mean yeah,
sometimes because early on, right, you're still sad and you
still feel a lot of shame, So you are going
to be a little bit annoyed at people laughing. Yeah
it's not funny guys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean it is true that the laughter
is just basically saying I relate and yeah, that shared experience.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have done it any other way.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will say the other ways, which I'm
speaking about mostly with ignorance, because I didn't do them
as long as there's a community, because that's you know,
alcoholism and addiction is such a disease of isolation, So
to just be among your fellows, whether they're in a
twelve step.
Speaker 2: Room or a yoga a sober yoga retreat, or whatever
it is. For me, I find that I don't think
my brain works the same way that other peoples. My
boyfriend is enore me. I see, we have different ways
of responding to things. My responses are massive, my feelings
are I don't think alcoholics feelings are any more extreme
than a normal person's feelings, but I think we prioritize them.
Speaker 3: We think I think, oh my god, you know. And
that's and it was the feelings that caused the addiction.
Speaker 2: For me. It was I can't handle this feeling. It
might kill me.
Speaker 3: I think my feelings will kill me, and so I'll
do anything to escape it. Even if I could die.
It's okay, better than having this feeling. And all I
have now is a great awareness that my feelings won't
kill me, that they'll pass.
Speaker 2: That you know, the pause, and I.
Speaker 3: Will say sobriety for me, no recovery for me got
so much easier around here. Seventeen I know that's a long.
Speaker 2: Time, but like it was a lot of chaos, and
then seventeen to twenty five has been very smooth in
here and externally.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me a little bit about like the
old before the before, at least what led up to
needing to get sober because you were a party girl.
I was part of your first book.
Speaker 2: The name of my first book. The book paints it
as far more glamorous than it actually was. Basically, I
graduated in college. I loved drinking in college, I loved
doing drugs. And then you know, I ended up a
few years out of college living in LA and I
moved here in nineteen ninety six and I went to
rehab in two thousands. So those three or four years,
it was just a lot of like really dark depressing,
doing drugs by myself, cats for company, lots of cigarettes,
drinking vodka to try to come down, wanting to die.
And I too thought this, you know, I'm not going
to go to AA. God, you know those people they're creepy.
Speaker 3: Even though I knew sober people in AA who I loved,
but I was just so terrified. And then at a
certain point it was just I kept saying that I
was going to stop, and I would stop, and then
I would stop.
Speaker 2: Drugs, but I would keep drinking.
Speaker 3: And then I stopped drinking for twelve days and never
stop talking about it, like twelve days of like, Hi,
like I buy a pack of cigarettes.
Speaker 2: How are you? I'm good day three without drinking, you know,
and the guy's like okay. And then at a certain point,
I don't know what was different about that day, the
day that I woke up and you know, I called
my family and I told them I was an alcoholic
and could I get their help paying for rehab? And
the following Monday, I was in rehab, my O patient rehab.
Speaker 1: Did your family feel like you had a problem.
Speaker 2: Well, my family is an unusual thing, I would say,
they don't. Really. Everybody's very self concerned, So yeah, I guess,
but it wasn't a focus, right. But they had always
told me I was crazy, which is why there, you know,
the step about being restored to sanity. Didn't I hear
people say, oh, I was so offended, And I was like, no,
I've been told I was crazy since birth. I want
to be restored to sanity.
Speaker 3: So so I was very isolated and any people around
me were also very addicty. So I didn't have that
intervention type of experience or people noticing.
Speaker 1: Really, I mean I didn't either. My husband didn't think
I had a problem he I think my husband thought
I was a problem drinker a little bit, but he
didn't think I had alcoholism.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: He just thought, like, you just have to try harder,
Like just when you're at a party and people keep
refilling your glass, you just got to be aware, Like
I can help you with that, Like I could let
you know, and you know, you can imagine how well
that worked out. Like I'd be like, I'm fine, don't
tell me what to do, and you know, and it
would always lead to the same place. But uh, but no,
I wasn't, maybe because I was by the time I
got sober, I was married and had kids. You're not
gonna be like out partying as much some are.
Speaker 2: I mean, your story is so fascinating to me because
there's really no one else like that. You become very
well known for. So sippy cups are for shardenay? Was
that the first cups are not for chardonnay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're they're for you know, put the milk in
the sippy cup, and you deserve a nice wine glass
for your chardonay.
Speaker 2: But treat yourself, mamma, really ballsy and like kind of crass.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's no one else that's done that right,
that's come out as like pro drinking or whatever you
want to.
Speaker 2: Call and then said, actually, you know what, stop. I mean,
no one else has had that right.
Speaker 1: It was not on purpose, although some people did accuse
me of just trying to get publicity from my book,
and I was like, this is horrible publicity.
Speaker 2: I mean it's crazy.
Speaker 3: I remember hearing about that and just I just think
it's really brave. I mean it's funny though, because people
will say it's really brave to go and talk about
addictionary alcoholism, and then I've heard Lena Dunham say it's
not brave if it doesn't scare you. So I always
find very like I'm like, god, it's that brave, like whatever.
So did that feel brave to you at the time?
Speaker 1: It well, here's what happened. In a nutshell, I got outed.
I wouldn't have done it. I don't think I wouldn't
have been public about it. I was not looking for
a publicity. But I wrote on my blog, which only
had like five hundred readers at the time. It was
just a little blog, and then the New York Times
parenting blogger. Parenting writer named Lisa Belkin picked up the
story somebody told her and then she reprinted my blog
as her column and it was kind of judgy, I
don't mind saying. And all of a sudden I was
getting I was just minding my own business. I was
ten days sober, and all of a sudden, I started
getting inundated with calls for a quote like I was famous,
which I really wasn't. I was just like a writer
who'd had this book, And all of a sudden, shit
hit the fan, and I was getting Doctor Phil was
on the phone, and this person was on this person
was calling me, and I was horrified. My publishing company
was like, I feel like you have to do something.
And the New York Times wants to write a story
and you would be writing it with them, like they
would interview you. And this woman named Jan Hoffman wrote story.
Now at this point, I'm like four months sober, so
I'm I agree to do an interview. She talks to me,
she talks to my husband, she talked to my brother, like,
you know, got the whole story, and she wrote a
really nice, fair article. But it was on the front
page of the Style section. Of the Sunday Times New
York Times, right and it and I ended the She
ended it with a joke by me because I was like, yeah,
so I don't drink anymore now. Vicotin on the other hand,
I was totally making a joke, but people kind of
lost their minds. People commented like, she shouldn't have children,
somebody should take her kids away. It was pretty awful,
so I think that's hence being sensitive about it years later,
about being seen the wrong way, but that by then
the cat was out of the bag. So I was like,
you know what, fuck it. I'm just going to like,
if people ask me for my story, I'm going to
try to help people. Now.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that that is so fascinating because it's.
Speaker 3: Like it's it's a you know, a nightmare for a
newly sober person to have to make sense of this.
Speaker 2: You know. I was just thinking that back, did you
read the Elizabeth Gilbert book.
Speaker 1: I didn't.
Speaker 3: It's great, but pee, I loved it, and I didn't
even think that I was an Elizabeth Gilbert fan. But
people are like, yeah, shouldn't write a book about sobriety
till you're you know, at least five years sober because
she's just such a zellot for it, which is like whatever,
but to be thrust into that position at the same time,
it's what every writer dreams of.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, the New York Times wants to write
about me. So what a what a you know, conflicting, bizarre,
stressful situation, That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 1: And looking back, it is kind of crazy because I'm
sixteen years sober now, at nine months sober. I did
an interview for twenty twenty yeah wow with Elizabeth Vargas, right,
but interviewed by her mouth not yet no, but it
was it was close. Yeah, And Mary Carr, who wrote
Lit had like twenty years sobriety at that time, was
also being interviewed. We were the two right celebrity ish
like interviews, and I'm talking about being sober for nine
months and I'm probably like that person going like, yeah,
I'm totally into it, like you know, and Mary Carr
was horrified by me. She was just like, how long
have you been sober? I'm like nine months. She's like, yeah,
that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I mean you were just showing up where
you were asked to show up exactly.
Speaker 1: I didn't know better. Yeah, I mean, but this was
why I didn't write a book about I did not
write a book about it until I was fourteen years sober.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I mean I know that about what was
it about ten fifteen years ago?
Speaker 2: All these people suddenly.
Speaker 3: You know it with Instagram, I would say, like Instagram starts,
which was right after our thing, because I remember the
Fix was still in business and I was still there.
Instagram starts and people who are six seconds sober start
posting about like doing yoga to get sober, and they
become these huge, like sober influencers, and it really became
a part of the conversation, which has been very interesting
to watch.
Speaker 1: I think it's been helpful because I feel like sobriety's
been mainstreamed, and that's only helpful to people that want
to get sober. Because when I got sober, and I
want to know your experience too, it was not cool.
That's for sure. It was a pretty ugly word alcoholism.
I mean, to this date, nobody wants to refer to
themselves that way, and I understand why. For me, I
felt like I had to because it was very black
and white. For me, I was like I'm either an
alcoholic or I'm not, and if I'm not, I'm probably
going to because I'll rationalize it. So I'd rather just go,
like accept the idea that I just I'm not a
person who can drink, and whatever you want to call that,
you call it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't think I ever thought about
whether it was cool or accepted or again. I mean,
I was called crazy by my family since birth, so
I don't think calling myself an alcoholic seemed as bad,
and so I didn't really think about it. I don't think,
I mean, And honestly, when I got suber, I did
think it was super cool. I thought it was super
cool and so and so I didn't ever feel shame
about it.
Speaker 1: But I was.
Speaker 3: Surprised when people who didn't have a ton of experience
with it were suddenly leading revolutions about how to get sober,
you know, and I think that can be dangerous.
Speaker 1: But you've always been very public too. So your first
book was a novel. It wasn't like a memoir, no,
but obviously you used your experience. Yes, but when at
what point did you throw yourself into like I'm going
to be I'm not gonna be ashamed about this. I'm
going to talk about it. I'm gonna you know, when
I met you, you were doing storytelling shows with people
talking about sobriety.
Speaker 2: That was so fun. Yeah. I never I never made
a conscious decision.
Speaker 3: I didn't do it till I was I didn't write
my book till I was five years sober.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if that was a conscious thing.
Speaker 3: I just, you know, my thing about writing a book
was I knew a girl who I'd worked at magazines.
So a woman i'd worked with published a book and
I saw it on someone's shelf and I said, if
she can do this, I can because I think I'm
smarter than she is. And that was my motivation to
write a book.
Speaker 2: And I had a.
Speaker 3: Friend who lived in England, and she was like, I
want to write a book. And so we made this
deal that we would send each other five hundred words
ever Sunday as sort of accountability partners. And you know,
she lived in England. I live in LA. Your word
means nothing. So I thought that was that. I fly
home and she sends me her five hundred words, and
I realized, oh my gosh, she was serious. I got
to do this and I wrote five hundred words and
sent it off to her and that became Party Girl.
And I thought about, you know, at that point in
my life I had when I got sober, I was
hired by Premier magazine at Rest in Peace to be
their party girl columns. And I was hired to write
a column that was me going out to all these
parties and offscars and events and interviewing celebrities. And so
I thought it was really funny in real life that
I had been hired to represent this party girl right
when I got sober, And I thought that would be
a really funny premise for a book, but especially if
instead of it being a column about interviewing celebrities, it
being a column about being a party girl and somebody
having to pretend to be a drunk when they were sober.
Speaker 2: And so that was the premise for the book. I
love that, Yeah, I mean it was.
Speaker 3: It's my favorite thing I've ever written. I'm working on
the script now. It's been optioned over and over again,
and the people who have the option now they attached
a producer who gave me notes. I'm and I know,
you know this world like it's like I'm always like,
I'm happy to do notes if I think it will
make it better and if I think it's fun otherwise,
give me notes for notes sakes.
Speaker 2: And we're done. And her notes are really good. So
I'm in the process of rewriting it now.
Speaker 1: So can you tell me, like, when you got sober,
you do the outpatient Did you do it for thirty
days longer?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I did it for longer.
Speaker 3: They like kind of it was like I said, it
was sort of like I made up their outpatient program.
They kind of let me stick around and do whatever,
and you know, you just kind of go over for
alumni meetings and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: So there was no hard stop actually.
Speaker 1: Because I think one of the things that's the most
difficult for people who are trying to get sober is
is staying sober. You know that that shame and that
surrender only takes you so far. In my opinion, you
have to kind of keep surrendering. What would what do
you think is the thing that made it stick for you?
Speaker 2: Well, I will say I remember sitting in that room
and our counselor saying, there, you know, look to your right,
look to your left. Only one in thirty stay sober
and I you know, I've always kind of had this.
Speaker 3: The rules don't apply to me. I was just like, cool,
that's going to be me. And whether that means anything
or not, that I remember thinking that my life had
been so sad and so small that the difference between
that and just being around people and having friends and
being employable was so radical that that it I don't
think it ever occurred to me that it might be better.
I mean, it's different when it's like you had a
whole life.
Speaker 2: I don't know why.
Speaker 3: I'm from Usen, but you know, I had no ability
to have a relationship, or have children or do any
of these things. And so for me, I was out
of options and pretty much without exception. I mean, yeah,
it's never It's never occurred to me to go back
because my life was just so much better.
Speaker 1: Did you continue using twelve steps? Did you stick with that? Oh?
Speaker 2: Very much, very much.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I have a meeting at my house in
this room that we're in.
Speaker 2: I was listening to a four step yesterday. It is
almost more important today than than than I mean, no,
it's as important because I mean a lot of it
is just remembering, you know, I am spiritual, you know,
I guess I can't describe God, but I know that
I have experienced the craving, disappearing and experienced multiple miracles.
I mean, I had a baby at fifty three. Granted
it was through a surrogate.
Speaker 3: But I have the experienced so many miracles the family.
I come from the fact that I survived, let alone
get to thrive. I mean that is and so you know,
for me, most of my happiness or peace or serenity
is based on remembering I'm not in charge, knowing that
even when I don't get something, it's for my greater good,
and just kind of trying to find the joy in
all of it, which I need a spiritual connection for that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that makes sense. I think, you know,
it's everybody comes upon it a different way, right, And
I do think that a lot of people are scared
to try that way, the twelve step way, because they're like, oh,
it's just going to be a bunch of like Jesus freaks.
And you know, there were times there are times when
I go to a meeting and I'm like, oh, my God,
like I don't want to hear like it's all religious.
One of the reasons I wanted to start this podcast
was I was like, the thing I like the most
about meetings is the truth is the truth and the
real stories from people, and those moments where I can go,
oh my god. I felt like that, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I I mean, I don't know.
I go to very specific meetings that I mean actually
at this point, I only go to two meetings and
they're both meetings. I started, perhaps that it's a limited experience.
I mean, I can get annoyed by things and meetings,
but it's usually not the God talk. But yeah, I mean,
what people should know is that every single one of
us said, God, no, I don't want to be around
those Jesus freaks who are creepy and hold hands and
say prayers, and only did it because we had no
other option. So it's a perfectly not just acceptable way
to feel, put an normal way to feel, and just
it's nothing like what you think it is.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to figure out how to help people try
sobriety that aren't desperate, because in my experience, we always
say we wish you desperation, because there's just no way
I would have stayed sober if I hadn't felt so
bad the day that I was like, I can never
drink again. If I hadn't felt that low, I don't
know that I would have just been like for me,
it was always like I want to be sober a
little bit more than I want to drink, and I
still wanted to drink. It was not any kind of
immediate like, oh it's completely lifted. I was like this,
it was a way to release the pressure for me.
I mean, drinking, taking xanax, you know, zoning out on
my phone a thing I still do, like I would have.
I wanted that. I wanted to be checked out and
so like for people that are like I really like
checking out, but you know, I'd like to try sobriety,
Like how do they do it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I mean I've always been so grateful that my end
was me with cocaine alone for days at a time,
because there's no way I can say to myself, oh,
it's just casual, Like there was nothing casual about it.
And I'm quite impressed with the people.
Speaker 3: I know with high bottoms who stick with it, because
I still cannot forget how bad it was for me.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I don't know how you stop.
Speaker 3: Anything if you're not desperate, because what do they say,
It's there's only one thing more painful.
Speaker 2: I'm screwing it up.
Speaker 3: Change is one of the more painful things, and you'll
only do it if not changing is more painful.
Speaker 2: Yes, So so how do you do that? I will power?
I guess I don't have any of that.
Speaker 1: I don't either, Yeah. None. I love a shortcut. I
like to I like immediate. I like to feel better
right away.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the zoning out I mean, and of course,
you know, zoning out on the phone. I have a
timer on my Instagram. I'm allowed on for five minutes
at a time. Unfortunately, I just just discovered threads. I
think you're big over there, right, No, no, but I
do like it.
Speaker 3: RANDS is interesting because in your brain it's very hard
to justify Instagram. It's just very hard to say this
is good for me. The RADS has all these like
use chat GBT to optimize your life. These are one
hundred prompts and they're really helping me. And so it
doesn't feel like I'm doing anything wrong. And it may
not be TBD, but but yeah, I mean whatever, zoning
out feels good. And in some ways there's nothing wrong
with it, but this reminds me of something. See, what
you don't know is how often I thought of you
in my child's first year. And I bet so many
moms with this baby on board. I kept thinking that
because I don't know how this connects to wind his
own out, but I think it really does.
Speaker 1: Oh, motherhood is the first year is impossible.
Speaker 2: And people don't tell you. And I was like, you know,
Stephanie told us. She told us.
Speaker 1: I tried to warn you.
Speaker 3: That's not super super brave too, because even however, many
years later, when I became a mom, it was not
appropriate to say you were bored.
Speaker 2: It was just not And when you are fifty three
and you have a child, you have thirty years of
your judgments about other mothers that you then watch yourself do.
I mean it is it is.
Speaker 3: Crazy and oh, I was so bored, and you don't
know that it's going to change, so then you're depressed.
He's I mean, and it's terrible toos and it's a
trillion times better because he's so entertaining.
Speaker 2: But I didn't want to say out loud how bored
I was.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of things you don't want to say.
Out loud when you're a new mom, because just similar
to struggling with addiction, it feels like nobody will understand,
and it feels like if you said the dark thoughts
that are in your head, people would just go oh
backway slowly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is very similar. And honestly, I felt like
I was back to being a newcomer when my son
was born because I didn't understand. I didn't understand that
motherhood was nobody really talked about with. The painful part
is you're giving birth to a new you. Whether that
means you're not like the sexy young thing anymore, whether
that means you have to accept the fact that you
know how your mother treated you anyway, Sorry, this is
not for this podcast, but you can see how it is.
Speaker 1: Yes and no, it's all relevant.
Speaker 2: But it brought me back to feeling like an comer again,
and it was really painful.
Speaker 1: Because you're you're, you have a lot of feelings and
there's nowhere for them really to go.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, and I'm assuming that a lot of your
friends were past the new baby stage.
Speaker 2: This crazy thing is that I had a bunch of
friends who older moms, like a bunch meaning three, which
is crazy because it thank God for them. They really
did get me through the first year.
Speaker 1: Were you so grateful that you had been sober for
a long time before having a kid?
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I still am. I am.
Speaker 3: I mean it's funny though, because I would think of
you and a couple other you know, and other people
now who have talked about drinking in early and I
was like, you know, in the early motherhood, and I'm like, whoa,
I get it.
Speaker 2: I didn't want a drink, but I got it because
it was so boring.
Speaker 4: But but I mostly it's you know, I come from
such intergenerational rama that was like inflicted on this and
then the next generation in the next generation, and I
don't think it could have.
Speaker 2: Ever stopped had I not you know, waited.
Speaker 3: You know, I think every day of meditation over the
past twenty five years, mostly the trauma therapy I did
AMTR those thousands of twelve step meetings, Like that's what
makes me able to not do to my kid what
was done to me.
Speaker 1: Do you think did you start doing the AMDR at
the beginning of sobriety or way later?
Speaker 2: That was what I did in twenty seventeen, And so
when I say, like life got a lot easier than
Everything changed radically after I did AMTR radically. Have you
ever done it?
Speaker 1: I did it like one one session years ago, and
it didn't do that much for me, But I didn't
stick with it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I probably I have no idea.
Speaker 3: I've done it hundreds of times. Yeah, it's not like
a one session situation. But yeah, there was something about
doing that, and you know it basically I don't understand
it in the same way I don't. I can't explain God.
Somehow AMDR takes these like brain synapses, disconnect the way
it was connected, plugs it in somewhere else, and suddenly
you see yourself in a new way. That's that's how
I experienced it. And the difference between how I saw
myself before AMDR and after was just radical. And as
a result of seeing myself differently, I made different choices.
I surrounded myself with different people. I went from really
being you know, I had a good life, but I
was single, dating the wrong guys, broke.
Speaker 2: My friends were all in the same situation too. You know.
I do AMDR for a couple of years and I
start this really successful business. I buy a house, I
need a guy. We have a kid, and and I know,
oh it's because of that.
Speaker 3: You know, it really had to do with taking what
I had always been told I was and rewriting that
and kind of and I don't mean this in a
self aggrandizing way, like seeing myself is like the magnificent
creature I am, and making choices from that point of
view rather than the point of view of whom my
parents had told me I was.
Speaker 1: And to ask you this and you can you can
not talk about it if you don't want. But did
it change? Do you have a relationship with your parents?
Speaker 2: Yeah? My mom was visited, which was fun. They meanwhile,
they're both alive. They meanwhile, they are the product of
their environments.
Speaker 3: And I do the best I can and what I've learned,
and especially after my mom's recent visit, you know, I
just learned that if I just don't react, they're going
to do what they do and they don't have that
power over me anymore. So I can just kind of
look at them as just like like troubled people.
Speaker 1: You know, are you a proponent of mel Robbins let them?
Speaker 2: I guess I'm not a proponent of self help, So
I think she seems super cool.
Speaker 1: But well the glasses alone, right, those those black cool
glasses are cool. She's taking those cool.
Speaker 2: Nice person.
Speaker 3: I know that people get very you know all of
those say. Look, I haven't read it, but I just
feel like all of these things like are kind of obvious.
But then somebody says it and they got great marketing,
and good, let's let people get this message.
Speaker 2: But so, yeah, just let them. Sure isn't that the
same thing as just sort of surrendering.
Speaker 1: Yeah, working on your codependence? Sure, yeah, not trying to
micromanage people. Yeah, I guess so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it sure seems good. I find in
this same way that I don't think you can go
to a retreat and do ayahuasca and come back with
your trauma healed.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's like you just make a decision
to let people do things.
Speaker 2: Everything. For me, everything has required so much work, so
many meetings, so much meditation, so many trauma therapists.
Speaker 1: Because if it was.
Speaker 3: That easy, we would just all decide to be sober,
and we would all just decide to you know, that's
not my experience. Nothing I've ever had came easily, and
it requires day and day out commitment to work.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you ever find yourself ever tempted to drink
or do drugs? Or do you ever have those moments?
Speaker 2: I have, It's been a long time.
Speaker 3: The two times that I remember early on were when
I was traveling and I was around people who were
not alcoholics, but heavy drinkers or users, and I was
very bored. And once I was in New Zealand and
once I was in Indonesia, and both times I felt
very isolated and very bored, and I was like, wow,
I want to drink. When I was in Indonesia, I
had already become this person who talks publicly about sobriety.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 3: I think I was working at a fix actually, and
so I very consciously said, whoa, if you do this,
you're going to lose your livelihood. So I think that's
what stopped me. Since then, you know, it's I guess
fifteen years.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. I don't think so. I mean,
like I said, when I was in early sobriety, I
would think of you. I mean, when I was in
early motherhood, I would think of you. And I didn't
want to drink, but I understood why people did a
lot of the time. I don't even understand why people
do it. It just doesn't look good.
Speaker 1: Right, It really doesn't. Early sobriety though, I did feel
like I was missing out a lot, you know, and
I had a lot of anger about like why, like
why can't I drink like other people? It's at the
beginning it felt like, Wow, everybody else can make this work,
but something is defective in me that when I drink,
I just don't have an off switch. And I was
so mad about that all I was really mad. I
was like, I, of all people I really need to drink,
Like this is so unfair. They don't even seem to
like it as much as I do, and I'm the
one who can't seem to make it. Why And I
was like I would get these little thoughts of like
maybe like with a little more practice or what. But
it's funny that you just brought up what you brought up,
because since I was public pretty much right away, I
was like, somebody's gonna even if I don't get caught
all no, and then all feel like a huge fraud.
It gave me some accountability.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I remember remember obviously intervention when I was
in early Sobriety. That was my favorite show. And I
remember them talking.
Speaker 3: About how people they'd walk through airports and somebody would
be like, are you still sober?
Speaker 2: So the show helped them have accountability. But yeah, I.
Speaker 3: You know, I have not It's not been about wanting
to drink. But I have had very challenging points. Like
I said, my last one was when Benny was born.
I'd never been so depressed. During the pandemic early pandemic,
I was really really depressed and and you know, and
I had super dark times. You know, I moved to
New York in two thousand and seven and was there
and you know, I just was looking back, I have
so much compassion for just this this just wounded person
who was just like kind of flinging herself around the
world trying to trying to find peace.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as corny as it sounds, were kind
of miracle, you know, totally a lot of people try
this thing and it doesn't stick, and you know what,
God bless them. But I will say that after all
these years, when I see somebody like at the grocery
store first thing in the morning, buying a bottle of vodka,
I just like my heart hurts, and I just think
there's so many people that are suffering with this and
can't get it, you know. And then I just feel
profoundly grateful that, which is the opposite of how I
first felt, you know, which was like why can't I?
And now I'm so grateful that, like, oh I don't
have to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean it feels so far away from
me now.
Speaker 2: It feels like I'm you know, talking about a different person.
It's hard to believe that's the same person. But but
and of course, once it's part of your day to
day life, it's easy to forget if all your friends
are sober and you're not hanging out with newcomers, and
you know, it's sort of is like it just doesn't
feel it doesn't even feel like it was me, which
is why it's important for me to keep working with
sponsees and doing all of that.
Speaker 1: Now, before we go, you are still in this space.
You just well you didn't start it, but you just
took over as co host for it's called Sober Living. Yes,
it used to be called Recovery Rocks, but you're rebranding yep,
so it's that's on, right. Have you recorded some episodes.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. So Lisa Smith is one of
my favorite people on Earth, and she and I had
actually talked about we had actually recorded a podcast a
few years ago. Oh my god, I just turned my
shredder on.
Speaker 1: Sorry, we have a good directional mic because I can't
hear it.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. It was the loudest thing ever.
Speaker 3: So Lisa Smith and I had recorded a podcast a
few years ago that we never released because we just
couldn't figure out what it was. And so she just
basically calls me out of the blue and says, hey,
Tawny is leaving. I don't want to stop doing this podcast.
Would you ever consider co hosting? And feel free to
say no? And I was so honored.
Speaker 2: Oh here's the crazy part about it.
Speaker 3: So I had kind of the podcast bug had been
getting me back because I had retired my recovery podcast,
retired my book publishing podcast.
Speaker 2: And I had a friend, a newly sober, got gay guy, and.
Speaker 3: We decided let's do a podcast because he and I
have really Larry Spanter, and we went and recorded fifteen episodes,
and he was very like, didn't like the episodes, didn't
like the art, didn't like the theme, song, and it
was very you know, push and Paul and I kept
having to pay for the studios and all this stuff,
and I finally had had it and I literally said
to the universe, can I just be like him? Just
be able to show up and do the podcast and
not have to pay all the money and do all
the arranging. And I am not kidding. Lisa called me
the next day and set, do you want to do
this manifest Madam?
Speaker 1: I don't know what. I don't know how. I just
do that in there? So what else? You also have
a very successful business where in case somebody has a
book idea, they have a business that they want to
have help branding, I'm speaking for you can tell us
what it is and how people can find you.
Speaker 3: Yes, it is strictly for entrepreneurs with big businesses who
want to be the authority in their field. It is
not We don't acquire books. It is not for novelists.
It is not for someone with just a great idea.
If you don't have a business that a book will
tend to one hundred times, you know ten x your business,
don't go with us because it's very expensive and I
don't like to take people that I don't think really
by becoming the expert and getting the speaking gigs and
getting the big clients like I want this book to
transform them.
Speaker 2: So it is. It is.
Speaker 3: It is more commerce than art, and it's called Legacy
Launchpad Publishing. That being said, we've probably done ten recovery memoirs. Yeah,
because when we started, we only started because Darren Prince.
I don't know if you know him, but he's amazing.
He wanted to do a recovery memoir. He came to
me to write it. I said I don't, well, I
won't write anyone's book, and then he stayed on me
so much that I hired. I said, I'll hire a
friend to write it and I can edit it. And
that became my first client. But we did Emily Lynn
Paulson's book.
Speaker 2: We did a Woman. I'm looking up at our books, Amy.
Speaker 1: I love Emily Lynn Paulson. She did this podcast.
Speaker 3: Yes, we did Highlight Reel. We did Courtney Friel's book.
We did Alexis Haynes book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've done a bunch of We have a couple
recovery books coming out right now.
Speaker 3: However, they are either people who's that recovery book will
really help their business or they knew it wouldn't you know.
Speaker 2: Darren's told me he's made several million dollars as a
result of this book. Yeah wow, in terms of spokesperson deals,
speaking arrangements and what he said is it really blew up.
He's a sports manager, he's a manager of athletes and
he said it really blew up his business because people
knew his personal story and they wanted to work with him,
and he signed David Goggins as a client. Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Well, that is fantastic. Is there? Tell us where to
find you? Go ahead and promote yourself. So Sober Living
is the podcast, and Launchpad is the company exactly.
Speaker 3: My other podcast is called Behind the Book Cover, and
that's where I interview authors about the past, present and
future or publishing.
Speaker 2: I also have a sub stack, also called Behind the
Book Cover.
Speaker 3: And on All the Socialism at Annaby David.
Speaker 1: Okay, perfect. I just want to thank you so much
for coming on here, giving me your time, happy to
come on your podcast, all the good stuff is so
good seeing you again.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy to be here again.
Speaker 3: You have no idea how many moments I thought of you.
Speaker 1: Thank you and thanks everybody for listening, and I'll see
you next week.
Speaker 2: Bye. Thanks God,