00:05:25.060And, you know, I was a publicly sober person with Drunk Mom and with its success and all the controversy around it and then all the praise, all everything else.
00:05:36.640In the meantime, I was drinking in secret.
00:05:38.280And I thought, you know, like, if I'm going to write a book about shame, I need to expose my biggest shame in a way that will illustrate these more general concepts, you know.
00:05:47.700um yeah i think i think that people perceive uh recovery as okay i i have a problem i go to
00:05:58.060recovery i come out no problem yeah oh my god what a misrepresentation of what it really can be
00:06:05.940because that journey and it's so interesting because you highlight something that i think
00:06:14.200is so important for people trying to make that journey is that it's not a one-time thing it's a
00:06:19.940well we did it today maybe tomorrow we did it today hopefully tomorrow and i think that although
00:06:27.380we say that the beautiful thing about taking the shame away from relapse is that it then kind of
00:06:35.060reveals that you are working so hard that you continue regardless of the pressure against you
00:06:43.440to try to overcome yeah i i absolutely agree with you i you know there i feel there's a couple
00:06:50.800different formats of recovery and i think people usually think about the recovery the way it's uh
00:06:57.280designed with uh 12-step programs alcoholics anonymous famously where you know recovery
00:07:02.640really means abstinence and you know spiritual health and all those other things uh that you
00:07:08.900learned in the rooms of AA, which is how I got to my recovery. To me, every time I, you know,
00:07:16.340picked up a drink, or even like, you know, relapsed in thought, because there's that whole
00:07:22.880thing in AA as well, I did feel like a failure. And then, you know, once you feel like a failure,
00:07:27.900then you think, okay, well, may as well just go all in. And that's when this sort of more serious
00:07:33.180relapse happens um so what i've learned through my and this is not to excuse myself not to say you
00:07:39.020know i'm this like actually i have been recovered and because i've kind gained all this wisdom from
00:07:43.820the place of chaos and that's not it entirely but i think that recovery is very accumulative
00:07:51.260you sort of you know you and you and you learn from your mistakes obviously that's that's what
00:07:55.820humanity is uh and i mean just from my little research you know i've learned that
00:08:02.700very few people stay sober from first meeting from their first attempt whether it's rehab
00:08:07.660or you know naa meeting or sos recovery or anything else uh and most people do relapse
00:08:13.740you know in a first year i think stats are quite high i think it's about 83 percent uh if not more
00:08:20.860because they're all self-reported, you know, stats. So, so yeah, so it's a very,
00:08:26.860and I like what you said, like it's, it's not a linear journey and I think we have an obsession
00:08:32.540as human beings in this idea of sort of, you know, before and after and a happily ever after and,
00:08:39.420you know, we tie a bow at the end of it and it's, it's not a Disney movie, like we're,
00:08:44.540will continue to live and uh and i think that's what's exciting about uh recovery is that you
00:08:50.780know they're just it's imperfect and i love how does how does unshaming address this um for our
00:08:58.700readers well i i because i wanted to write about shame i just started to think about you know what
00:09:04.140creates shame how does it become your sort of you know shame is sort of identity based so guilt is
00:09:10.460i did a bad thing shame is i am a bad thing you know like what needs to happen to get to the
00:09:15.100point where you're so entrenched in it and i'm talking about toxic shame healthy shame is
00:09:20.700different uh so yeah this toxic shame that basically keeps you stuck and it keeps you
00:09:26.700sort of doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results which is
00:09:31.180a definition of insanity etc uh and those things are hiding and secrecy and and isolating and
00:09:39.260you know being an addict these are wonderful little like you know places where we burrows
00:09:46.300ourselves into because we don't want to be seen we don't want to be known we don't want to be
00:09:50.460exposed we don't want to be you know uh lose our jobs family friends like we just don't want to
00:09:56.300tell people so i thought of like what what's the opposite of shame it's not shameless i think
00:10:02.140shameless is something else but something where you undo the thing so i'm shaming really generally
00:10:09.660just means sharing your shame uh and how you do that we can talk about it in a minute but
00:10:14.860so that was kind of it's funny though when you share a little bit of shame
00:10:19.020the whole room wants to share shame i have some too i have some you're not gonna believe
00:10:25.500yeah no and you're so right i mean this was my joke because i said every time i told people
00:10:30.620what i was working on they would say oh my god you're working on shame or let me tell you about
00:10:35.820my catholic sexual like whatever it was you're absolutely right i think it's the best dinner
00:10:41.580party conversation starter not hopefully with you know not too many drunk people around but
00:10:47.340but it's it's a fascinating topic and and you know we should we should talk about it all the time um
00:10:54.060so let's talk about yeah i'm so sorry i didn't mean to catch off what you're saying no i was
00:10:59.820gonna say that you quickly learn that that you know that people have either much worse shames
00:11:03.900or very similar ones to yours and then yours becomes a lot smaller because you think oh my
00:11:08.060god i'm not such a you know uh screw up so it's really funny is uh i've had people tell me about
00:11:15.820a piece of shame in their life and i'm like what that's normal every day for me you're you're ashamed
00:11:21.100of okay well i want you please feel better i get by every day living that shame apparently unnoticed
00:11:27.420let's talk a little bit about uh some of the tools people can use that you discovered along the way
00:11:33.900uh if you have shame uh if you feel like it's because it can be debilitating i mean people
00:11:40.060you know people have a body shame we shame each other social media is so focused on i love how
00:11:47.740many people on social media are spiritually elevated get out of here if you're spiritually
00:11:53.340elevated you're not on social media but boy we we're presented with all of these superheroes of
00:11:59.260spirituality and inner strength and the reality i think is really different that many people
00:12:05.580need to get by they need tools and they really want to break out of that that shell yeah and
00:12:11.580and you know it's funny that you say social media because one of my biggest interests was public
00:12:17.100shame and just sort of sort of you know the thing that we do engage with on social media i'm guilty
00:12:22.620of it too you know commenting on strangers posts and arguing in comments and all this stuff just
00:12:28.220trying to trip each other up really to just like yeah especially if someone's doing well like you
00:12:33.420know there's there's no greater pleasure that people seems to take seem to take and you know
00:12:39.340this uh dismembering someone virtually uh on social media i think it's uh it is it is absolutely
00:12:46.380fascinating so yeah we were obsessed with it like to to an extent with with this yeah idea of like
00:12:53.180shame as sport or shaming as sports so yeah yeah um and there are very like yeah you're asking
00:13:00.300about you know the tools tools are very simple because i thought about it you know i have been
00:13:04.860very lucky because i have encountered recovery through the rooms of aaa i feel very i have all
00:13:11.980kinds of opinion on aaa and obviously i'm breaking a traditional level by even talking about it but
00:13:17.100i do uh i what i did find was you know being able to connect with people and being able to find
00:13:23.180people who uh drink like me and who thought like me they might have had entirely different
00:13:30.540backgrounds from me but there was something about us that you know that i was able to relate to uh
00:13:35.980So I learned that, you know, things do become smaller, whether it's addiction or like spiritual malady, again, or shame by sharing it with others and by being able to relate and hearing theirs as well.
00:13:49.180And it's not for everyone because I do know people who have recovered in isolation in the woods, you know, maybe with one other person.
00:13:55.980but uh so i like in my in my book you know it's it's not self-help but i talk about the things
00:14:02.540that have worked for me and have worked for others like studying as simple as journaling
00:14:08.300as much as i hate this word especially being a writer like i just want to roll my eyes at it
00:14:12.700because it's right next to scrapbooking but journaling and being able to you know express
00:14:19.420yourself even putting things on paper like that's a start and in a book i talk about my
00:14:24.540experience that like I really my bottom and it was a mental and emotional bottom I talked to my dog
00:14:33.480like I told my dog my shames first uh because there were no people around me left like I
00:14:39.660exhausted them and you know they had other things to do my son didn't want to stay with me like it
00:14:45.100was you know so the only thing left was you know this little chihuahua puppy that I spent weeks
00:14:51.340talking to before i was ready to you know go to a zoom meeting and before i was ready to
00:14:58.300tell friends and family etc so yes start small but um and i i think it's funny that we've changed the
00:15:05.420name to uh journaling from diary and i think i think i think a diary is kind of a cool thing to
00:15:14.140do uh you may never read it again but once you've committed your hand to writing these thoughts
00:15:20.940you've refined them a little bit you've edited yourself your own thoughts you've second guessed
00:15:27.900your torture your opinion by the time you put it down you might have actually changed
00:15:34.300your own perspective i think that's that's really cool i think it's also cool to call it a diary
00:15:39.340that's okay um and this is uh when i uh when i quit drinking i became addicted to something else
00:15:47.580i became addicted to uh hockey on the radio i know that sounds wild no why no not a hockey fan
00:15:55.980but uh thank you to joe bowen and uh ralph jimmy ralph on uh on the radio back in the day uh i
00:16:04.380quit drinking during the hockey season i spent a lot of time just listening to the radio because
00:16:09.340i didn't feel like talking to anybody and so suddenly i became interested in that season of
00:16:15.900hockey and so whatever these steps are that just keep you moving forward and feeling good in another
00:16:24.300way uh you know you'll find your own and i think that that's that's the beauty and what you did
00:16:29.580is you're like okay this worked for me this worked for me this worked for me you have your own
00:16:34.140journey uh it sounds like that's that's the realization that you actually have through all
00:16:38.540of this as well yeah and and i love the you know thank you for sharing that i think that's quite
00:16:44.700beautiful and as you know as you know when we do quit drinking or any sort of self-harming behavior
00:16:51.980like we have to redirect that attention somewhere because it still has to go somewhere whether
00:16:57.020that's you know because it's obsessive thinking or it stems from trauma or it's something else
00:17:01.980entirely there has to be something to fill its place so for a lot of people it does become a
00:17:08.300in meetings and connecting with others for other like i i always found it so fascinating i don't
00:17:13.340have any stats on that but i found it so interesting that a lot of people that i met in
00:17:17.420recovery specifically in a rooms uh started to run and and become marathon runners or do like
00:17:24.220some other extreme you know riding motorcycles like because we need that adrenaline and whatever
00:17:29.580dopamine to like to hit us in the face for me it was like you know it was walking weirdly enough
00:17:35.740like that's one of the things that i did and that's a common one too yeah yeah and writing
00:17:41.180like writing was uh here's another one yeah do you drink coffee now like a maniac no i used to
00:17:47.260but i don't know i it's so funny because i started to refer to aa as coffee time because so much
00:17:54.540coffee is consumed um what about the state what about in your mind you know it's so funny i i
00:18:01.820speak to my family and my wife and i had this discussion the other day kids are not doing
00:18:07.100things anymore they're not out there dancing they're this is going to sound like an old guy
00:18:11.180those kids are not doing anything but they really are not and one if you ask a youth why won't you
00:18:19.980show your friends how good a dancer you are why won't you sing at in the school choir the reason
00:18:27.180is this they don't want to be captured in their worst moment and they have they have this fear of
00:18:36.460shame that i think is elevated like i i don't recognize anywhere else before this i i completely
00:18:43.500agree with you uh and i call like i know they're called gen alpha my son is 17 so i i call them the
00:18:52.220generation surveillance because i think it's uh i think it's the second generation that grew up
00:18:57.260entirely under his eye being you know the big brother of social media and as you said everything
00:19:03.980is recorded everything is exposed everything can be made fun of you know the word cringe is uh
00:19:10.300so prevalent uh you know any sort of innocent as you said like a sweet activity like yeah like a
00:19:15.900dance or or any sport like we just don't want to embarrass ourselves because our friends are
00:19:22.300going to make fun of it like i just find it like it was hard when i was in school you know i grew
00:19:27.340up in in the 80s and people may find them find a view they may you know they give you nicknames
00:19:32.220et cetera but but that was it like i'm like we lived completely in a dark like we could do1.00
00:19:38.460stupid that nobody would ever you know call us out on and right like these boys girls non-binary
00:19:47.500kids like they're under surveillance constantly and i think that also like weirdly enough i was0.99
00:19:53.180because i was i did a uh documentary a couple years ago talking about why kids are having like
00:19:57.740less sex or why they're less interested in relationships and i thought this is probably
00:20:02.300as well because you know the moment you enter into a conversation with uh you know with your
00:20:07.900interest your crush like that can all be like posted or screenshot so they're all on snapchat
00:20:13.340because it's 30 minute limit so you know you don't leave any evidence of vulnerability essentially
00:20:20.380like they're terrified of being vulnerable yeah it's awful yeah well now let's let's do this
00:20:27.020uh let's let's pull some results out of this um unshaming what do you think the the benefits of
00:20:35.820trying to unshame yourself are physically and you know i guess not just spiritually but in
00:20:46.060in your everyday interactions with people and just living life well i wanted to preface this
00:20:51.660with saying two things so one thing is uh you know not every shame can be shared uh
00:20:59.260in a sort of like flamboyant way or in a memoir uh because there's some shames that you know
00:21:04.620definitely you need to do this with a therapist you need to do it in a safe space uh you can't
00:21:10.700do it like because you may re-traumatize yourself especially if this is a shame that was put on you
00:21:17.180by other people that you know i i want to say this so because i i'm not advocating for everyone to
00:21:22.860just chatting shouting out their biggest trauma that they're dealing with like i i really truly
00:21:28.060believe in therapy but if it's something that you know like let's say i drink in secret and i'm
00:21:35.260ready to like i'm i'm gonna explode if i don't tell someone right like maybe i'm not ready to
00:21:41.020go to a meeting i think what it does what unshaming does and this there's there's no more beautiful
00:21:45.900thing it liberates you uh you know and then what this liberation and freedom do for you it gives
00:21:52.380you more confidence right like you walk around the world without having to ever lie which is like the
00:21:59.100most incredible thing ever like white lies okay whatever you know kind lies okay but you and
00:22:04.860yourself are as truthful and as authentic you can be i don't i can't think of anything that's better
00:22:12.060or more luxurious or more expensive like you know like i'm not a huge i i'm not a you know very
00:22:20.220materialistic person because i i feel like i'm rich like i feel like i'm i have everything
00:22:25.260because i don't have to i don't have to create stories i don't have to like i am me and that's
00:22:31.020like who can say that you know i think that is freedom yeah yeah yeah and you know the dalai
00:22:38.940lamas the dalai lama says true happiness is enjoying what you already have by the way if i've
00:22:45.260nick if i've misquoted the dalai lama you can let me know i don't want to do that
00:22:50.220but the notion of that is very beautiful what you already have is you right and so if you can just
00:22:58.140love being you what else do you really need yeah everything else will fall into place
00:23:04.940yeah and you know i'm a true patriot love so let's talk about like the things that we already
00:23:10.860have in place like we live in a very nice country uh there's no wars going there's all kinds of
00:23:17.020horrible things going on i'm not going to deny that but but for the most part you know we're
00:23:23.660we're not at a place where we need to worry about like not dying by going out onto the street you
00:23:29.660know and i and again i speak from a privileged point as a white woman even though i'm an immigrant
00:23:34.300but still it's like i have everything so my only responsibility is to you know make myself happy
00:23:43.020in a way that i can actually be of use to people around me you know instead of being this hiding
00:23:50.060you know addict who's like like i have all these visuals in my head i'm just coming up with them
00:23:54.940like slinking away you know like a little warm like i and i'm just gonna sit with my little
00:24:00.620things in a corner and no one can get at them because like i need my little space my secrets
00:24:05.820and and and then i'm alone i'm completely alone and there's you know and not in a solitude way
00:24:13.420so yeah i mean that's yeah i think just yeah unshaming opens you up to a lot of things
00:24:19.660uh it was uh it was difficult for me to admit that i had a drinking problem when i did but you
00:24:23.980know there afterward it became a superpower in many ways yeah because every every day that i
00:24:29.340overcame made me feel like i was you know uh viewed better by my community around me oh i
00:24:36.460have a question i know i know i know i've got a question what's the difference in your mind between
00:24:41.740uh guilt and shame well as i said so guilt is uh i did something bad and shame is i am something bad
00:24:50.620that's probably the easiest definition so i would say that shame is you know it's it's almost like
00:24:55.740an identity uh where where it just or i in my case i would see it as this like monster sort
00:25:03.980of behind closed doors and i always had to like be aware of and especially like around addiction
00:25:09.180because you know uh there's that famous quote in uh little prince you know why do you drink i drink
00:25:14.220because i'm ashamed and i'm ashamed because i drink so it's like it doesn't end it goes on
00:25:19.580right and and guilt again guilt is you can be motivating guilt can be very useful uh because
00:25:26.620you a lot of the time with guilt you want to kind of tell somebody right away because you're like i
00:25:30.700don't want to feel these grut like these disgusting feelings and guilt can absolutely lead to shame
00:25:35.980because i had a lot of guilt about you know drinking when i was taking care of my son even
00:25:41.900especially when he was you know a baby like that there's no bigger guilt because you know parental
00:25:47.500guilt is massive to begin with and then i'm drinking to it and like you're drowning in it so
00:25:52.840because it was such an ongoing thing for me it became my shame my biggest shame and yeah i you
00:26:00.500know maybe the first time if i did it if i had the resources and the sort of mental uh capacity to
00:26:06.660reveal it and to take care of it it wouldn't have turned into shame but that wasn't the case so yeah
00:26:12.280uh okay so that now this leads me to to uh probably what might be my my last question so
00:26:18.180how difficult is it to write these books i mean even uh drunk mom is is uh so you know this is a
00:26:28.780if maybe you're not a drinker maybe you're not an alcoholic but you might recognize around you that
00:26:34.840young parents are a struggling factor in alcoholism it's a transitional time in people's
00:26:42.280lives you're often young you're still letting go of that party scenario uh the the the miracle of
00:26:49.480of pregnancy is often a surprise um yeah it's it's not uncommon to find young parents struggling
00:26:59.400with alcohol um to address this i think is really important i wanted to point that out as you were
00:27:06.680talking i thought wow yeah i remember that i remember being a dad with a baby and being
00:27:11.900a drunk guy and thinking i don't deserve this baby yeah yeah no like what have i done and so
00:27:20.040i think that there is a certain amount of shame that is elevated at that time if that's your0.99
00:27:25.340experience but how do you get through some of these revelations are painful are you a sucker
00:27:32.780for self-punishment how did you motivate yourself to do this no not at all and i you know with drunk
00:27:39.340mom it certainly was it was a little bit of a crazy thing to do because i did it on a weird
00:27:44.700timeline where we really uh shamed addicts even further especially when they were like revealed
00:27:51.260to be addicts you know Britney Spears Amy Winehouse like all these people that are you know either
00:27:56.880dead or like even worse off right now it was not a safe time in 2013 to to admit to a couple of
00:28:03.560those things but I wrote this book for myself because I was a young parent and I was struggling
00:28:09.220and I thought okay if I if I feel this way there must be others and if you remember I wrote it as
00:28:14.200fiction so I removed that sort of barrier of like oh this is about me but it really was and it was
00:28:20.100more i mean it was about drinking and it was about that pressure but it was also about the trauma of
00:28:25.140like identity loss which i think every parent goes through especially first time uh and yeah and
00:28:32.740just sort of speak to trauma and shaming strangely enough was about a sort of more collective
00:28:38.820traumatic experience so i'm already a parent at that time and there's a relapse and there's
00:28:42.820shame around that but it was you know happens during the pandemic and interesting thing about
00:28:47.540the pandemic is that you know the the drinking rates went like astronomically high i don't know
00:28:52.74040 to 60 percent there was 400 percent more uh deaths from opioids in the united states during
00:29:00.980that time like it was a collective trauma that we went through and i'm not using that as an excuse
00:29:06.420i'm just talking about the sort of underlying factors of it so i think what i try to do with
00:29:12.260my books as one does with anything that they communicate is just to uh what make myself to
00:29:19.860like understand the experience better and sort of show other people what i have understood about it
00:29:25.700uh being able to share with them you know like being able to write and to put things into books
00:29:31.060and into words is is a sort of a gift that uh is not just yours to you know uh keep and i also write
00:29:37.940fiction I you know that's that's sort of my passion I have three fiction books under my name
00:29:42.140but these memoirs yeah I mean I've asked myself I'm like am I a masochist like do I really want
00:29:47.280to be like James publicly and and you know made like like 2013 was like next level crazy and I'm
00:29:55.860not but again I have you know the talent I have the platform um and and I I don't know and in
00:30:05.260some ways i am shameless about it so well i think that i think that it's beautiful that you're the
00:30:11.340result of this because you sit there happily saying to me yeah you know what i i guess maybe
00:30:19.180i am but you you have to understand that as i share this and i unravel people's shame
00:30:26.140there's joy in that and there's joy in your life from it and so i guess the mechanism of
00:30:30.940of writing this book is actually a great example of what the book can do the the the tools in the
00:30:36.620book can actually do for people i know that you're saying that yeah because it's like i don't want to
00:30:41.540be cheesing like oh this is a live book but in a way like you know i talk about uh witnesses in a
00:30:46.880book and the witnesses are the people and animals and anybody who can like sit and hold space for
00:30:52.880you let you share this shame the witness can be imaginary it could be your death grandmother who
00:30:58.880had a great report with like it can go that in that way but so yeah and then i have you know i
00:31:05.280have these unknown readers who are reading it uh and i'm sharing something with them not to burden
00:31:10.400them with my you know uh trajectory and that's why i try to make it entertaining so they're not too
00:31:16.320bored with it and uh but ultimately we're all doing work you know and i'm hoping okay pass it on like
00:31:23.440the book itself i would love to have that happen but also pass on whatever you learned from this0.99
00:31:28.720and and if all you learned is that you know it's a crazy polish lady who will like get another book1.00
00:31:34.000about being embarrassing that's totally fine too because it you know it starts a conversation right0.87
00:31:40.560so you know what's very funny is uh the the consistent reviews about your writing uh
00:31:47.440certainly on drunk mom in this book are tough topics easily presented delightfully positioned