Erica C. Barnett, QUITTER: A Memoir of Drinking, Relapse, and Recovery
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[2:03]Erica C. Barnett is the author of Twitter, a memoir of drinking relapse and recovery.
[2:08]And I definitely talked a bit too much about myself in this episode, so forgive me.
[2:12]Erica C. Barnett is an award-winning political reporter.
[2:15]She started her career at the Texas Observer and went on to work as a reporter and news editor for the Austin Chronicle Seattle Weekly and the Stranger.
[2:23]She now covers addiction, housing, poverty and drug policy at her blog, The C is for Crank.
[2:29]She has written for a variety of local and national publications, including the Huffington Post, Seattle Magazine and Grist.
[2:35]Welcome, Erica. I thank so much for coming on momstone of time to read books.
[2:39]Thanks for having me. My pleasure. Okay, you're memoir. Let's discuss, Twitter.
[2:45]Okay, first of all, tell listeners what your memoir is about the full subtitle because I'm afraid I'm going to get wrong because I don't have an infront of me.
[2:53]Now that I've been displaced into the center of you.
[2:56]So yeah, tell us everything. Sure. Yeah, it's something called Twitter.
[3:00]And then more of drinking relapse and recovery. And it's sort of in the tradition of quitlet, which is, you know, the genre of books that are about quitting, in my case alcohol, I quit drinking a little under seven years ago as we're recording this.
[3:14]But the book is is really primarily about my experience of relapse in the process of recovery and the process of trying to quit drinking.
[3:22]I wrote it, you know, because as I was trying to get sober and as I was, you know, failing and failing again, again, I became really, really obsessed with reading quitlet books.
[3:33]There's tons of great books out there, a friend of mine, Sarah Heppola wrote a book called Blackout. There's just, you know, any number of books by women, Carolyn Knapp, drinking a love story is a classic.
[3:45]Like one of my favorite books of all time. Yeah. And so I read those obsessively over and over and over again and and just thinking like, why can't I get it?
[3:53]Why can't I get it? These women got it. And I read a lot of men's books too and sort of related to those stories a little more because they were a little more in line with the way that I drank, which is
[4:02]constantly from like from the second I woke up to the second I passed out at night and but the thing that I sort of noticed in the vast majority of those books is they didn't talk about relapse.
[4:12]They talked about sort of getting worse and drinking more and hitting rock bottom and something really, you know, usually pretty dramatic happening not in all cases.
[4:21]But something happened where they just said I'm done and then they were done and I didn't understand why that didn't happen for me since that's the story and that's what's supposed to happen.
[4:32]And then, you know, I started trying to get sober. I started getting a little more serious about it and going to a meetings to other types of, you know, group meetings to therapy, you know, all these different things that I described in the book.
[4:43]And I realized that actually, you know, just anecdotally and as it turns out, you know, in reality most people actually do relapse at least once and often quite a number of times before they finally are able to quit or reduce their drinking or whatever, you know, sort of recovery looks like for them.
[5:01]But, you know, that gave me a lot of hope because it made me realize that I wasn't failing every single time that I, you know, quote unquote failed to stop drinking and picked up again.
[5:11]And I really wanted to, so getting back to the memoir, I really wanted to tell that story because for me, you know, if I had if I had known that it was actually normal and then I wasn't insane and that I wasn't just an utter failure.
[5:26]I think it might have been a little easier for me and it wouldn't have taken as many years because it took about six years of pretty solidly trying before I finally was able to quit in February of 2015.
[5:39]Well, the way you write about it is so really just you're in it with you right you're in the moment you're in the liquor store you're in your office like packing up I mean that's seen that you when you, the people try your coworkers tried to get you into treatment.
[5:54]And then you went, but it was not successful and you should back up to get your belongings and, you know, the people who you thought your allies were not, which often happens in all these types of stories right people have a limit that they're willing to like sort of go to.
[6:09]But I have to say like as you're going home and waking up and bleeding and you know all this stuff like I was in it every second like you just take the reader right in you're really great writer I guess I should have just said that you're great writer.
[6:22]Thank you.
[6:23]Well, I mean, and I think like you know one response that I've gotten which has been you know to me it's actually a great compliment even if people don't always mean it this way is that I come across is really unlikable in the book.
[6:35]And I think you know and people tell me that and I get you know people saying you know you're really I really can't sympathize with this person because of course like I read the Amazon reviews because I.
[6:45]And you know an online person and I just can't I'm on Twitter all the time I can't help but see you know what how people are reacting and when people say that I mean that's that that was my intent I was really unlikable and most people didn't like me.
[6:59]And I mean even my best friend couldn't stand me and so if my parents couldn't stand me and nobody could stand me because I was like I was becoming an unlikable person or I wasn't unlikable person.
[7:09]And you know when I when I read back and sort of even think about it now first of all it's a long time ago at this point and it feels like a different person living a different life quite frankly like when I when I read about that I'm like who the hell is this girl.
[7:25]And and second you know I don't like that person and I'm frustrated with her and I'm like well girl why can't you get it because you know when you're sort of on the outside looking in at addiction or just any sort of compulsive behavior that someone is engaging that's maladaptive you're like why don't you just stop doing that thing that's maladaptive and do the thing that is you know better for you.
[7:49]And and that that is the nature of addiction I mean it's you know or any you know sort of mental illness it's not entirely within your control I mean ultimately you are the only person who can sort of take the steps that are necessary to pull yourself out of that but it's just it's not as simple as.
[8:06]Stop doing the bad thing and do the good thing.
[8:09]I mean I feel like I have not to compare with it like I have the same thing with eating and so she's your people saying I have a drinking problem.
[8:17]I like I feel like I have an eating from like I'm just you know something I struggled with my entire life and I just like can't get a handle on it.
[8:25]And I keep trying new things like what you're saying like you try to quit and try to like no sugar and know this you know it's a whole like diet culture really but it's.
[8:34]It then it haunts you because I'm like look at everybody else they don't have a problem look at them they're like obviously not struggling with their eating and why am I struggling and how old do I have to get before this frickin ends do I mean I'm already 45 years old so anyway I understand sort of just having this issue that like.
[8:52]again not to compare your alcoholism and whatever but just know I think they are very comfortable I mean I did the reason I say like addiction or a compulsion or like mental disorder or a.
[9:04]You know maladaptive behavior I do think they're all the same and I think there's addictions I mean there are all different kinds of addictions and there's behavioral addictions too that aren't like you know chemical necessarily to the extent that alcoholism is or you know or.
[9:18]heroin addiction is but man I mean I talk in the book about like from the time I was I don't know I don't think I I spell this out this explicitly but I think I was like eight when I started exercising with my mom.
[9:30]And you know and like paying attention to what I ate and you know and even now like if you if you look I mean I've tried to sort of.
[9:37]channel that behavior into more productive areas of my life but like you know I own a business my new year's resolution is to not work on Saturdays this year.
[9:47]Not not Sundays because I'm going to keep working on Sundays I'm going to keep working six days a week you know but like I have like you know to do lists every day and I'm just like meticulous about that stuff and like.
[10:00]All the same behavior, you know, I think like sort of being a quote unquote control freak can play into being an alcoholic can play into having an eating disorder, you know, it can play into like wanting to work a minimum of 60, 70 hours a week.
[10:14]I think they're all the same kind of behavioral compulsions. And I'm saying this, this is just based on my own experience and observation. I'm not a scientist, but this is this is just, you know, what I've observed my own behavior.
[10:25]And then the many, many, many, many people have met in recovery who, you know, have to kind of fight against other kind of addictions, I mean gambling addiction, again, anecdotally seems really common as a secondary addiction among people who quit drinking or doing drugs.
[10:39]You know, look at people who smoke compulsively, you know, a lot of people start smoking in rehab.
[10:44]So it's I think it's all kind of kind of comes from the same impulse toward control, although, of course, like paradoxically with addiction, you lose all control, ultimately.
[10:55]Totally. Wow. I feel like now I'm going to have a little bit of therapy here.
[11:01]Intersection to anybody who struggles with stuff. Yeah. I know. I think that's the hardest part too for people who like control. And by the way, like my new year's resolution was not to work before nine.
[11:13]Wow. See, exactly.
[11:16]I'm not going to work before I drop the kids in school. Like, I'm not. I'm not going to post. I'm not going to check email, except for like the school, you know, and even that's been hard.
[11:27]And sometimes those things work like I just last last year, my new year's resolution was I'm not going to look at Twitter for more than five minutes a day.
[11:34]And I actually stuck to that, which was really hard for me because I was I was getting a little compulsive about it. And I just realized like this is just feeding like negative energy into my brain first thing in the morning every single day.
[11:45]So, you know, it's I think it's achievable before no work before nine is achievable and me not working on Saturday is achievable. We can do it.
[11:53]Yeah, Saturday. I don't know that I don't know. I know.
[11:57]Have you read Tiffany Schlaine's book called 24 six. It's all about taking a tech Shabbat. So her whole family, they apply sort of the wisdom of the Jewish tradition of Shabbat to technology. And so every Saturday starting Friday night till Saturday, send down nobody in the families is technology at all. So, which obviously cuts out.
[12:19]And she says she's been doing it for, I don't know, 10 years now, something crazy. And it's like the best part of their week and everything. And I've talked to her many times about this at this point.
[12:30]And I'm every time we talk to her. I'm like, I'm going to try it. I'm going to do it.
[12:34]It's really hard. I don't know who's worth this point. The kids are me. It's hard. Well, where do you think that it all do you think anxiety plays role with do you think that there's like some comorbidity in that.
[12:47]Yeah. I mean, I talk in the book about, you know, sort of having this incredibly anxious personality from the time I was very, very young. I had insomnia from the time I was about, you know, seven or eight years old.
[12:59]I mean, only child. And I think that, you know, my family really piled onto me this notion that, and I think, you know, mostly to the good.
[13:08]But this idea that like I was going to be a super achiever, you know, my grandparents and my granddad was the first in my family to go to college. My grandmother did not go to college and both my parents did, but like the expectation was like you're going to go to medical school, you know, or you're going to do something amazing with your life, whatever it is.
[13:26]And you're going to get straight A's and, you know, on and on and on. And so I was sort of primed to be a super achiever.
[13:33]And that causes a lot of anxiety. And I started drinking, I think, you know, to sort of deal with social anxiety, which I think is really common just among people in general.
[13:45]But, you know, it just became sort of a tool for, you know, I don't even want to say a crutch, because it was a tool for dealing with anxiety of every kind.
[13:54]of alcohol is it a precedent to kind of shuts down some of your higher cognitive functions, including the sort of hamster wheel in your brain, or at least there's a hamster wheel in my brain that I'm just constantly reminding me of like everything not doing.
[14:07]Like every moment, you know, and like you're not doing this. You're not doing this. You're not doing enough. You're disappointing this person. You didn't respond to this email.
[14:16]And so it's, you know, it's a, it's a tool, or it was a tool for me to kind of shut that up for a little while.
[14:25]Ultimately, as I said, it's a very maladaptive tool for me personally. And there are lots of better ways, you know, I got really into cognitive behavioral therapy, which I think is just an amazing tool for people with anxiety,
[14:37]especially those who also like to write. But yeah, it's, you know, anxiety and addiction, I think, go hand in hand, just as much as like depression and addiction do.
[14:48]I want to do a survey of authors to find out what percent have anxiety issues, because I really feel like it's like 90%. I feel like there's also something with writing through it too, which helps the anxiety or sort of setting it to paper or I don't know.
[15:05]Yeah, I just keep finding this over and over again, the same sort of themes and struggles and all of that.
[15:11]Yeah, I would say I don't, I'm not one of those writers who loves to write. I love having written, you know, and it's kind of like I discovered this when I started during the pandemic.
[15:21]I started running in part to, you know, deal with stress and in part because I couldn't go to the gym and it was kind of the same thing like I hate running.
[15:29]And I kind of hate writing and I just in my professional life, I'm a, I'm a political writer and I, you know, I'm a reporter and cover local news and politics and, and I'm always, I love the feeling of being done with something.
[15:42]It's just, it's the greatest feeling in the world, but the process of writing it. I mean, you know, 80% of the time kind of sucks.
[15:49]So it's, it's just the, but it's the feeling of like, oh my gosh, I did that and it's done.
[15:54]And now I can put it out in the world and I don't have to, you know, it's not in a burden me anymore.
[15:59]I think that's how I write through anxiety.
[16:02]You put things on a to do list that you've done just so you can cross them out.
[16:06]Yes.
[16:07]And you know, it's funny when I was, when I was first getting sober, I mean, I don't know, maybe this is not funny, but sad.
[16:13]I kind of can't tell a difference anymore.
[16:15]But like, when I was, when I was first just kind of coming out of the, the last place that I went, which was a detox facility and like, and just trying to even sort of deal with thinking about the records of my life.
[16:28]I had, I had tens of thousands of dollars in debt. I had tons of people who I needed to, you know, apologize to and make amends to.
[16:35]Nobody trusted me, you know, and I didn't have a job. I didn't know how to get a job, you know, my rent wasn't paid.
[16:42]I would do to do lists that were like, brush teeth, you know, take a shower, go outside and get the mail, you know, and it like it really started from there.
[16:52]And just kind of feeling like, okay, I'm doing the basics of my life. And now, of course, like it's spun out into just like, I, you know, today I wrote down prep for this podcast and I was like, yep, I already did that yesterday.
[17:06]I do that too. That's why I asked.
[17:10]So I can see that list getting smaller and it really, it gives me like that little deaf women rush of like, I'm actually doing things. I mean, yeah, it's definitely, I think it's a, it's a pretty healthy coping mechanism for anxiety, but you know, I don't know what my therapist would say about that.
[17:26]Sounds like you have a pretty good therapist. I do actually.
[17:30]You should get her on.
[17:32]I should do it like a side show of like all the writers and other therapists.
[17:36]They're therapists. Oh my gosh. I mean, they probably they wouldn't be able to say anything, but it would be so funny.
[17:41]Maybe one special episode or so. Yeah.
[17:45]Oh my gosh. So what was it like then sort of reliving these moments, especially the unsavory ones that like, you know, you didn't feel as proud of.
[17:54]And when you felt your most unlikable and sort of vulnerable that what was the likes of writing through it and then now that it's out, like, do any regrets or do you feel exposed?
[18:04]I know you're talking about people who don't like it, which, you know, you can't please everybody and you know, yeah, I don't buy into that like forget it that's your people that's okay, you know, losing game.
[18:16]I don't have any regrets. I mean, the thing about the thing about writing through it is, you know, I don't think I could have written it right after I, you know, right as I was coming out of the whole story and I mean, not that the story's over, but right as I was sort of coming out of the part that I write about in the book.
[18:33]I just, I wasn't ready and I had to process it and I had to do all that, you know, all those amends to people and sort of like paying back my debts and just just taking care of life, you know, getting a job, getting a new apartment.
[18:47]All those things that that were really hard in the moment. And once I had done that and once I kind of processed it and you know, I went to a lot of AA meetings, which is like nothing but I mean, it's, it's basically cognitive behavioral therapy by non professionals over a very long period of time where you repeat the same stories over and over again.
[19:06]Like once just sort of sort of telling your story and that that context it loses its power to hurt you, I think.
[19:12]And so by the time I wrote the book, I felt pretty comfortable talking about it and I was sort of not dissociated from it, but I was distant enough that I could be a little dispassionate.
[19:20]And then the, you know, I don't have any regrets about the way that I wrote about it. I guess my only, the only thing about writing a memoir about kind of what I've learned from my experience is that, you know, once you've written it, it's done.
[19:33]And I've continued to learn and I've actually continued to sort of change my thinking about addiction and about, you know, my own experience and the people in my life and how they reacted.
[19:44]And, you know, so life goes on and you evolve and you have different perspectives on things based on your experience. And yet, you know, it's all just kind of set in stone in this one moment when you, you know, sent the book off to your publisher.
[19:57]So that's just sort of the nature of the memoir.
[20:00]Maybe I should write another one, but I'm proud of the way
[20:04]that I set out the story.
[20:06]There was, you mentioned the people at my work
[20:09]who I thought were my allies.
[20:11]It's one of those people, I actually do think
[20:14]that the people who were at my work and who I talk about,
[20:17]I think in the very first scene of the first chapter,
[20:20]taking me to rehab and then when I got back firing
[20:24]or sort of orchestrating my firing,
[20:27]I think they actually were my allies,
[20:28]just not in the way that I wanted them to be at the moment.
[20:32]And I was contacted by one of the two women,
[20:35]publisher of the magazine where I worked
[20:37]that I got fired from, and she was really mad at me.
[20:41]And she was like, you really make me look horrible
[20:44]and it's like I was trying to help you.
[20:46]And so I do sort of regret that if anybody read it that way
[20:51]because I was sort of trying to paint myself as the villain
[20:54]in that scenario and in a lot of the scenarios in the book
[20:56]because my behavior, I want people to come away thinking
[21:00]that I was a hard person to like.
[21:03]And so to the extent that people would read it
[21:06]and sympathize with my point of view
[21:08]when it's a distorted sort of addiction-oriented point
[21:12]of view, I don't want people to come away with that impression
[21:16]but I can't really control that either.
[21:17]What I say to my kids is it's not that people don't like you
[21:21]or it's not that I don't like you, it's your behavior.
[21:24]So your behavior may have been unlikable
[21:27]but that doesn't mean people totally gave up on you.
[21:31]I mean, did I?
[21:33]No, I mean that's kind of the amazing thing.
[21:37]I mean one of the things they say in AA all the time
[21:39]that I don't think is a very good bit of blanket advice is
[21:43]you need you're gonna have to get all new friends
[21:45]and get rid of everybody from your old life
[21:47]and in certain circumstances and maybe when AA was
[21:52]being founded in the 1930s around men
[21:55]who would go out and drink with each other
[21:57]like maybe that was true but one of the amazing things
[22:01]about my story is that every single person
[22:03]who is there with me at the beginning of it
[22:05]when I sort of first started going down
[22:08]that path of addiction, they all came back
[22:11]and they're all still here.
[22:12]I mean a lot of them didn't go away.
[22:13]My best friend Josh who was kind of,
[22:16]I was telling him the other day.
[22:17]He said, oh, I just read this section about me again
[22:20]and I was like, what are you talking about?
[22:21]The whole book is about you.
[22:23]He never left.
[22:23]I mean, he got very, very frustrated with me
[22:26]but I mean, he's still my best friend.
[22:29]And so I was very, very lucky
[22:31]and I also was very determined
[22:33]to sort of mend those relationships.
[22:35]I mean, it takes a lot of work.
[22:36]But yeah, I mean despite having kind of a dramatic story
[22:40]I was really lucky at the end of the book
[22:44]and still have all my great friends.
[22:46]And we're much stronger relationships too
[22:48]because they're based in a foundation
[22:50]of a lot more honesty.
[22:52]Are you afraid now that you have this whole book
[22:55]that came out and sort of said
[22:58]that you're in a good place?
[23:00]Like are you afraid secretly
[23:01]that maybe you're gonna relapse again
[23:03]and what would happen then?
[23:05]Like do you fear that?
[23:06]I mean, you know, I think I did it first
[23:09]because I thought, oh my gosh,
[23:11]like I'm jinxing, I'm jinxing things
[23:13]by putting this out in the world.
[23:15]But I think, you know, I mean, first of all,
[23:18]if I relapse, it's not gonna be
[23:19]because I said that I am a person who relapses,
[23:23]you know, I'm just sort of thinking,
[23:24]I'm talking back to my own like sort of self-talk
[23:26]which is like, oh no, you said things are good
[23:28]so things are gonna be bad
[23:29]because that's how my self-talk works.
[23:32]But I think, you know, I think if I relapse,
[23:34]which at this point, you know,
[23:36]I'm seven years in,
[23:38]you're considered to be in remission
[23:40]after about five years.
[23:41]So the odds of drinking now are about the same
[23:45]as somebody who has never taken a drink before.
[23:47]And now I'm not saying that that is,
[23:48]those are just statistics that has, you know,
[23:50]nothing to do with me in particular.
[23:52]But I think I have tools.
[23:54]And I think like I know what to do.
[23:56]And I think I know what steps I would need to take
[23:58]at that point.
[24:00]Sort of learning that relapses
[24:02]in the end of most people's story
[24:03]and that, you know, you can actually recover after relapse
[24:07]make, I think gives me a lot more confidence
[24:09]in the fact that if I do relapse,
[24:11]that isn't necessarily, you know,
[24:14]the end of the story,
[24:14]the worst thing that's ever happened to anybody,
[24:16]which is definitely what I thought
[24:18]when I was trying to quit and relapsing, you know,
[24:20]I just, I felt like a failure.
[24:22]And in fact, I was just, I was typical.
[24:24]Well, I think, you know, the journey,
[24:27]so to speak, is never over for really anybody.
[24:30]And if it's not that, you know,
[24:32]it's, I think you're so right.
[24:33]It's just sort of managing the impetus
[24:36]for all of that behavior, right?
[24:38]Managing what comes underneath or managing the temptation
[24:41]or managing, I don't know, something deeper
[24:44]than just the behavioral part of it.
[24:46]Yeah, I mean, it's, and it's like anything.
[24:47]I mean, like we're talking about, you know,
[24:49]eating disorders or compulsions
[24:51]or, you know, gambling addiction or anything.
[24:53]I mean, you just have to, you just have to keep trying
[24:57]because I mean, it's not like,
[24:58]it's not like if I work on a Saturday
[25:01]or if I do something that I said
[25:02]that I was not gonna do at like, I'm just like,
[25:05]okay, well, I guess I just work on Saturdays now.
[25:08]I mean, you know, of course not.
[25:09]I sort of say, okay, that was a setback.
[25:12]And I tried to respond to it in, you know,
[25:14]in the way that I know how.
[25:16]And, you know, at this point, I mean,
[25:18]I talk in the book about all the many, many things
[25:21]that I tried.
[25:22]And I think that all of them were effective
[25:24]in some way I think AA was probably the most helpful for me
[25:27]just because I'm a person who really kind of needed
[25:30]that structure and needed to be able to talk to people
[25:32]because I was really isolated.
[25:34]So I think that like, you know, once you know the tools,
[25:38]you can go back to the tools.
[25:40]And that's kind of, that's a true prediction.
[25:42]It's true for, you know, any number of behaviors.
[25:44]And so that's what I would hope that I would do.
[25:47]I mean, and that's what I encourage people to do
[25:49]when, you know, I get contacted by people
[25:51]from all over the world and certainly all over the country,
[25:54]you know, saying, hey, you know, I read your book
[25:57]and I'm struggling and I keep relapsing.
[25:59]And it's like, you know, the only advice I can give
[26:02]is like, you're not a failure,
[26:03]just keep going back to the tools that you know
[26:06]and keep going back to the tools
[26:07]that worked for you the first time.
[26:08]And they will work again.
[26:09]You just have to keep trying.
[26:12]Yeah, it's that black and white thinking, right?
[26:16]Like even I've been trying to go on this new health kick
[26:19]or whatever to be healthy.
[26:20]And anyway, I was with my mother who, well,
[26:23]we won't give, that's like a whole nother podcast.
[26:25]But anyway, we were together over New Year's
[26:27]and I started eating this piece of cake.
[26:29]And I was like, it's okay.
[26:30]I'm going to allow myself like two treats a week or whatever.
[26:32]And I started eating the cake and then of course I couldn't stop
[26:34]because the sugar was like, you know,
[26:36]so then I started eating and eating and then next thing,
[26:38]you know, I'm like eating off someone else's plate
[26:40]and next thing, you know, I'm like, don't,
[26:41]that's like halfway in the garbage, you know,
[26:42]and I'm like, well, I'll just finish that scrap
[26:44]in the garbage.
[26:45]You know, and then I said to my own, I was like,
[26:46]I've ruined it.
[26:47]Like it's over again.
[26:48]I thought this time it would work.
[26:49]And she's like, it's never gonna be over or not over.
[26:52]This is your life.
[26:53]Like it's just a day, it's just a meal.
[26:55]Like you pick up it tomorrow is another day.
[26:58]Like don't worry about it.
[26:59]And I feel like that voice, like it would be nice
[27:02]if we all could have that voice in our own heads.
[27:05]Right.
[27:06]Yeah.
[27:06]We're also harsh on ourselves for the tiniest missteps.
[27:09]I mean, I'm massively extrapolating here,
[27:12]which I probably shouldn't, but you know,
[27:14]it seems very black or white.
[27:15]I'm, I've relapsed, I haven't.
[27:17]And maybe in alcoholism, it is more black and white,
[27:20]but maybe one drink instead, you know,
[27:22]maybe I'll be okay with just this or maybe I don't know.
[27:25]Yeah. I mean, and like for me, you know,
[27:28]I'm a person that I, the way that I historically drink
[27:32]and I think would continue to drink is like,
[27:34]I can't have just one drink.
[27:36]But I probably, you know, I probably could tell myself that.
[27:40]And you know, and then I think I would,
[27:42]I would sort of be on the spiral,
[27:43]but I also think that like, there is a spectrum of relapse
[27:47]and you know, some people refer to it as a slip.
[27:50]Like when you just have one drink
[27:51]and then you are like, whoa, I can't, you know,
[27:54]I can't be doing that.
[27:55]And tomorrow is another day and you start over.
[27:57]I think that there's like, there is sort of all or nothing
[28:00]thinking among some circles in the recovery world
[28:04]where like you go back to day zero
[28:06]and you start all over and that's, you know,
[28:08]like you've, you've done it now.
[28:10]Like you have to, you may have had 10 and a half years
[28:12]but now you're back at day zero
[28:14]and you're crawling back.
[28:15]And I think that's really, really not helpful
[28:17]and counterproductive and it keeps people away.
[28:21]So I kind of prefer to, to encourage people
[28:25]and to encourage myself to be, you know, gentle on myself
[28:29]because like I wouldn't talk the way that I talked
[28:31]to myself, you know, to a friend.
[28:33]I mean, ever.
[28:34]Yeah, I wouldn't have any friends.
[28:38]So I think that's, I think that's just,
[28:39]that's a really important thing that, you know,
[28:41]I try to kind of, you know,
[28:43]when people ask me and they do ask me a fair amount,
[28:46]you know, it's just to be gentle on yourself
[28:48]with whatever it is that you're trying to change
[28:51]in your life because, you know, it's not, you know,
[28:54]it's not a, it's not a sprint.
[28:56]Very true.
[28:57]And I don't know if this applies or not.
[28:59]For me, when I'm trying to like,
[29:02]you just be more mindful of food
[29:05]and not when I need dessert, like every second.
[29:07]You know, I'm like, okay, this is a craving.
[29:08]This is a feeling like this is a feeling
[29:11]that is going to pass and I'm going to ride
[29:13]at this feeling and I'm going to walk in the other room
[29:16]and like slowly it's going to go away
[29:17]and it's not going to be as hard.
[29:19]Yeah, you know, and it's like acknowledging
[29:22]and it's like, yeah, feelings are one thing.
[29:24]There's like one piece of your brain.
[29:26]Anyway, I'm sorry, I'm talking about myself so much.
[29:28]I really apologize.
[29:30]I mean, it's, you know, it's all,
[29:32]I think it's all related and like, and I think,
[29:35]I mean, this is, it's funny.
[29:36]Like I actually, you know, sometimes I mentioned
[29:40]that AA is a lot like cognitive behavioral therapy
[29:44]and like, I, you know, you learn the 12 steps in AA
[29:48]and you sort of do what's called working a program,
[29:51]which is, you know, you sort of try to apply tools
[29:55]that you've learned to like every part of your life.
[29:57]And I often sort of,
[30:00]They have friends who are not in recovery
[30:02]and who don't necessarily have addictive type issues.
[30:06]I feel bad for you that you don't have a program
[30:10]because having those tools is so useful.
[30:13]And whether it comes from therapy or a recovery group
[30:16]or whatever, it is so useful to be able to just kind of
[30:19]talk back to your thoughts in that way.
[30:21]And that's one of the things that we learn
[30:23]in recovery circles is like, this is like you said,
[30:27]this is just a feeling, this will pass, live for today,
[30:31]one day at a time, et cetera, et cetera.
[30:33]All those cliches and I talk in the book
[30:34]about how they are really annoying at first
[30:36]and then something changes and they start to seem like wisdom.
[30:40]I think about that stuff all the time, you know,
[30:43]to this day.
[30:43]I mean, I think, you know, this too shall pass,
[30:46]you know, one day at a time, all that stuff
[30:49]that just seems so stupid and like a dumb little slogan
[30:53]on a wall, like it is incredibly useful in the moment.
[30:56]I agree, very true.
[30:58]Okay, well, having written a memoir,
[31:00]even though you don't like to write
[31:02]what advice would you give to aspiring authors?
[31:07]You know, I think that the reason I was able to write
[31:12]this particular memoir, you know,
[31:13]I'd never written a book before is because I had an idea
[31:17]of what it wanted, what I wanted it to be
[31:20]and what I wanted to say.
[31:21]I think that if you're going to be like, I mean,
[31:24]in very practical terms, if you're going to be pitching a book,
[31:27]I think outlining it is really an important, you know,
[31:30]an important first step and I sat down
[31:32]and I wrote an outline and I wrote a pitch
[31:34]and I did the whole thing like in a weekend
[31:36]and I'm not, you know, again, this is like my sort of
[31:39]compulsive work behavior.
[31:40]I wrote 50 pages in a weekend.
[31:41]I don't recommend doing that, but I think, you know,
[31:44]it's really important to have a theme and an idea
[31:46]of what it is that you want to say in the book
[31:49]and I'm speaking about memoir and nonfiction
[31:51]because that's kind of my area of expertise, I guess,
[31:54]but I also think, you know, I'm ordinarily a, you know,
[31:57]a magazine or a, you know, I come out of the
[31:59]alternative weekly newspaper magazine world.
[32:02]Now I write a website and the pieces I write
[32:05]are usually between, you know, 1,000 and maybe 3,000 words.
[32:09]So a book is, you know, my first draft,
[32:12]it was something like 120,000 words
[32:15]and initially like that number of words just seemed so daunting
[32:19]that I couldn't imagine putting anything on the page.
[32:22]And so again, like I use that outline
[32:24]and I broke it down and I just thought, okay, you know,
[32:26]this is not, this is not a book.
[32:28]This is a series of stories that will proceed
[32:30]in a more or less chronological order toward, you know,
[32:34]from the past toward the present.
[32:36]And I broke it down into chunks and in the book
[32:38]has a lot of chapters, you know,
[32:41]it could have had 10 chapters, but it has many more than that.
[32:44]And that in part is just because my writing practice,
[32:48]it was more effective for me to write it in small chunks
[32:50]and to think of it as small chunks rather than like
[32:52]this mountain that I had to climb.
[32:54]And then eventually, you know, I got to 120,000 words.
[32:57]My editor said this is way too long.
[33:00]And when we ended up cutting about 20, 25,000 words out of it,
[33:05]which was great.
[33:07]I love that process and I love editors
[33:09]and thank God for editors.
[33:11]I also am an editor myself, but, you know,
[33:14]I can't edit myself.
[33:15]So I was really, really grateful to have this amazing editor
[33:19]who was willing to work with me
[33:20]and just kind of cut mercilessly.
[33:23]But I think the biggest thing is just like,
[33:25]don't think of it as a mountain.
[33:26]You have to climb, think of it as like a series of, you know,
[33:29]discreet plateaus that you have to reach.
[33:31]I love that.
[33:32]I actually, I just remember it's coming out this summer
[33:35]and in July and I did this exact same thing.
[33:37]I was like, I can't do this.
[33:39]It's too long.
[33:40]What am I going to do?
[33:41]And then I was like, I'm going to write a series of scenes.
[33:43]And each scene, I'll just write a scene at a time.
[33:47]And then each scene will link them all together.
[33:50]Anyway.
[33:51]And it actually, like for me, it was weird.
[33:53]And once I started doing that, it just sort of proceeded
[33:55]like magic.
[33:56]Like me too.
[33:57]It's like some pages.
[33:58]Yeah, yeah.
[34:00]And you think it's not going to work, but then it does.
[34:02]And yeah, it was a really amazing process.
[34:05]I mean, it took way longer than anything I'd ever written
[34:09]took.
[34:10]But yeah, it was not, you know, people are often asked like,
[34:14]is, you know, it wasn't really hard to write a book.
[34:16]And it really, I mean, it wasn't any harder
[34:18]than the rest of the writing I do.
[34:20]And I actually, once I kind of set myself to it
[34:25]and put myself in the mindset of like not being a newswriter,
[34:27]but being a memoir writer, it actually was really,
[34:30]really fun to kind of play with, you know,
[34:32]the way that I wrote and to write in a way that I don't usually,
[34:36]because I'm usually very straightforward kind of just the facts
[34:39]sort of writer.
[34:40]So I didn't have to do that with this, which is really fun.
[34:43]Awesome.
[34:44]Well, this is great.
[34:45]I feel like I have someone I like share a brain with
[34:48]and been hard here.
[34:52]Yeah, I just, I don't know.
[34:53]Somebody the same coping habits.
[34:55]Anyway, it's nice to see it reflected.
[34:58]And it was awesome.
[34:59]Yeah, I like why you said it's been really fun.
[35:02]Well, thanks for coming on.
[35:03]And I will think of you as I don't work in the mornings
[35:05]and I will think of you as Saturday's and awesome.
[35:09]You went and yeah, all right.
[35:10]Well, thank you so much.
[35:11]You have to know you.
[35:12]Thanks, Evie.
[35:13]Okay, take care.
[35:14]Take care.
[35:16]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[35:19]to Read Books.
[35:20]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram, at Zebie Owens
[35:23]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[35:25]Also sign up for my newsletter at Zebie Owens.com
[35:28]and sign up for my virtual book club
[35:29]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[35:32]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan in fact,
[35:34]texture sound for the sound editing.
[35:36]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[35:38]for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music.