Why Glennon Says We Should All Be In Recovery
April 18, 2023
Glennon Doyle:
All right, everybody. Here we are at We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
Welcome back.
Glennon Doyle:
How are you two doing?
Amanda Doyle:
I’m actually doing great. I don’t know if something’s happening with my med equilibrium or something, but I woke up this morning and to my husband, I said, “I do not feel bad this morning.”
Glennon Doyle:
Oh, my God.
Amanda Doyle:
And you know what? I’m like, “Just riding that horse to town today.”
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
Because I’m excited.
Glennon Doyle:
So you-
Amanda Doyle:
I woke up not feeling bad.
Glennon Doyle:
You feel not bad. That’s great.
Glennon Doyle:
What about you, love?
Abby Wambach:
I’m actually great today.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You know when you feel a little off? I think I felt a little off for the last couple of weeks and trying to do all the things and I don’t feel off today.
Glennon Doyle:
Great.
Amanda Doyle:
You feel not bad today?
Abby Wambach:
I feel not bad today. I don’t feel great.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s great.
Abby Wambach:
But I don’t feel bad.
Glennon Doyle:
All right. We take it.
Amanda Doyle:
We’re wishing all of you a not bad day.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, that’s a win.
Abby Wambach:
How are you Glennon?
Glennon Doyle:
I am feeling, let’s see. Well, today I’m going to give a recovery update and so I feel like I’m going to talk about some things today that have been floating around in my head, and body, and universe and I’m trying to grab, and keep and put them on paper and then talk about them on the pod. And sometimes in recovery, it feels like what you’re discovering is the most amazing thing that anyone has ever discovered and probably going to change the whole world. And then when you say it out loud, everyone’s like, “What?” Or they’re like, “Yeah, everyone knows that.” Either it’s, that doesn’t make any sense or that makes so much sense that it should have made sense to you before now.
Amanda Doyle:
Right like when you were five.
Glennon Doyle:
Right. So I feel nervous a little bit talking about what I think has been a tremendous breakthrough for me.
Amanda Doyle:
Ooh. Hashtag breakthrough.
Glennon Doyle:
I know, right? So you
Amanda Doyle:
Heard it here first, or maybe you heard it a long time ago.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. Maybe I heard it a long time, but right now it feels very, very-
Abby Wambach:
New. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Fresh take. Hot take.
Glennon Doyle:
Hot take. So maybe this hour will change your life. Maybe it will not. Thanks for listening anyway, so.
Amanda Doyle:
Hopefully, it’ll be not bad.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes, yes. We keep talking about recovery. So the first thing I want to talk about is, I’ve been thinking about what the hell is recovery? Because a lot of people think of it as just this thing that happens when somebody’s really addicted to something, and then their whole life is, and then they get dragged away and it’s this horrible, painful process that only happens to a certain amount of people. And I’ve been thinking about it so much differently lately that I feel like we could consider thinking about recovery much more widely. That we always have invitations to recovery. It kind of feels like being invited to a quest, or an adventure or something. And I think that it happens when someone you trust, or your deepest self or whatever shares with you that something you’re doing is kind of like a blocker. And yes, that thing can be alcohol, or drugs, or anorexia in my case, but I don’t think it has to be, I think it could be, you’re interrupting me all the time or you’re overworking or you’re just doing something that is blocking something else.
Glennon Doyle:
And I think that something else is usually connection, but I think it is a moment arrives in our lives, big or small. When someone says to us, “There’s something you’re doing down here that I think is keeping you from this treasure that might be on the other side of the blockage, that if you get the treasure then you might be able to live deeper, or truer or freer.” But there’s this quest that you have to go on first to get it. And I think a lot of people, we don’t accept the invitation. And the question arises then, how do you know when it’s an invitation for a blocker that you should pay attention to and accept, or when is it just something that is bullshit, that’s criticism that you’re like stat that you just say, “No, I’m good?” And the only answer I can come up with that is that you just always know.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, it’s the dragon. It’s the dragon in the middle of the snow globe that you’re like, “If I’m really quiet by myself, what is the thing that I’m not saying out loud that I know to be true?”
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly. When I think about every person who’s come to me to say, “Well is it a problem? Do you think this thing is a problem?” I always know that that person knows if it’s a problem or not. It’s people who think, “I don’t know. I mean, I’ve spent all year thinking about whether I have a drinking problem and I just don’t know. I don’t think I do.” And I’m like, “Well, I don’t know if people who don’t have drinking problems spend all year wondering if they have a drinking problem.” So there’s that moment where you decide whether you’re going to accept this invitation. And I think even that acceptance or not acceptance is so hard because you have to get over an ego thing because it’s not like this invitation is coming from an angel who’s like, “Blah, blah, blah. You have been invited to a quest.” It’s like usually someone telling you that you’re being an asshole.
Abby Wambach:
Or you’re telling yourself
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. It’s like-
Abby Wambach:
This is also a relationship with yourself too.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Or that you’re hurting yourself or hurting somebody else. So you got to kind of get out of your ego to even see the invitation instead of just the insult in it. But if you can get past that ego part, then therein lies this invitation to recovering some part of ourself that we were supposed to be or some part of life that we were meant to have. A recovery is like a reclaiming of what could have always been.
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah. The origin of that word is to salvage or to rescue. It’s like you salvage a treasure. If you can search through the place and salvage it, you’re regaining a thing that was lost.
Abby Wambach:
So many of us, every day we know some of the things that we want to work on, some of the things that we struggle with, whether it’s relational or personal, how does one think about their ego? Because maybe some of the listeners might feel confused even about that. What is the ego? How do you keep it in check, so that you can actually see the invitation when it arrives?
Glennon Doyle:
I think the ego is the part of you that holds on tight. That is like, “Whatever that thing is, it’s part of my identity,” and the ego says, “I’m trying my best. I’m doing good enough. I’m good enough. It’s good enough.” It’s like protective, I think. The ego is protective of something.
Abby Wambach:
Or defensive.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. And defensive. The true self is soft and a little bit curious. It wonders.
Abby Wambach:
Protective, defensive and judgmental.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Absolutely.
Abby Wambach:
Versus, open and curious
Glennon Doyle:
And longing and yearning for something better.
Amanda Doyle:
And practically speaking, it makes sense that that’s such a struggle because a lot of people who have developed these coping mechanisms that aren’t working, whether it’s eating disorders, or drinking, or overworking or whatever, we’ve developed them honestly, to protect ourselves. And then when people come to us and say, “What you’re doing is hurting me or obnoxious or messing up your relationship with me,” we are defensive of ourselves because we’re like, “Wait, why should I make the world perfect for you? It wasn’t perfect for me.” And then it becomes this cycle where if you’re motivated by preserving your relationships or you’re motivated by making someone else feel better or making yourself more palatable to someone, it’s never going to sustain. It has to be because you believe it could be better for you.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And that’s where the ego gets out of the way better for you. If you’re like, “No, I deserve a better life. I know deep in my bones that things could feel more peaceful, and real and less frantic for me.” That’s when you’re integrated in the, “This is what I want.”
Glennon Doyle:
And that’s the moment of knowing. That’s what I meant by people know or they don’t. It’s this interesting backwards and forwards motion. I mean, the reason why it’s so scary to accept the invitation is because you know something terrifying is coming next. If you do that, because that’s why, the ego is fearful. It wants to hold onto this thing that a previous version of you has decided you need. A previous version of you has decided you need to drink to survive, you need to overeat to survive, you need to restrict, you need to interrupt, you need to keep people out. Yourself has decided that as a sound judgment.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, might needed to use those things to survive.
Amanda Doyle:
I’ve heard you say that before and that is one of the true statements about recovery that I’ve ever heard, because deciding to give your go at recovery is deciding with no evidence, that you can live without something that you cannot live without.
Glennon Doyle:
This is why I consider invitations into recovery, some kind of cosmic honor. I feel honored by it when it happens because what it is to me is whatever you want to call it, God, the universe, your people, whatever, looking at you, and all your coping mechanisms and all the things that you have decided correctly that you needed to survive up to this point and saying, “She’s ready. She’s ready now to live without this blocker. She wasn’t ready before, she needed that shit.” But to me, it’s like the universe tapping me and being like, “Oh, she’s ready to level up. She’s ready to enter into this faith leap with no evidence at all that she can live without something that a previous version of her decided she could certainly not live without.”
Amanda Doyle:
I think that’s so important, I want to say it again.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Amanda Doyle:
Recovery is so courageous, and nonsensically faithful and wild, because it is deciding with no evidence, to live without something that you cannot live without.
Glennon Doyle:
Exactly.
Amanda Doyle:
The reason you need to live without it is because you can’t live without it. The reason you’re so worried about your drinking is because you know can’t stop drinking.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
And so you’re just deciding, “Okay, I’m going to do that thing.” And that’s the wilderness, right? That’s the miracle of it, that’s like, yes-
Glennon Doyle:
That’s the miracle of it. That’s miracle because it’s ridiculous. It’s the biggest act of faith.
Abby Wambach:
And that’s why it’s so hard for so many people that are at the edge, having to make that leap. That’s why it’s so hard, and I want to just say to the people out there who don’t make that leap that this is the hardest step to take. I just want to be conscious of those listening that are still struggling, that haven’t made the choice go on.
Glennon Doyle:
So it’s like when people say to me, “Well, I cannot stop this thing. I cannot stop drinking. I cannot. I do not.” I’m like, “Yes, you are correct. I get that you are absolutely right.” It’s just that when you enter into recovery that quote, “Let me fall if I must, the woman I am becoming will catch me.” You are throwing yourself into this abyss, trusting that the person that comes out is going to be the one that can live without the booze. Knowing full well that you can’t. That a new self is going to have to be born. After this fucking dark night of the soul that’s about to come, because if you do take that ridiculous leap of faith that there is a forward version of yourself that is going to be able to live without this thing, that’s going to be a happier, freer version of yourself. But first you have to take this leap, there’s no cart before the horse. You get rewarded for this amazing act of courage with withdrawal. Okay?
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Exactly. What you’re saying applies not just to strictly recovery things. When you think about need to leave your spouse, but you absolutely cannot leave your spouse.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s recovery!
Amanda Doyle:
It’s that whole world. You cannot live without them. You cannot live without this life you made and then you go ahead and do. It’s the same phenomenon.
Glennon Doyle:
I’m going to throw myself off the cliff and just assume that the person I’m going to become after is going to be at the bottom of the cliff and is going to catch me. And that there’s a bunch of shit that’s going to happen in that fall that’s going to change me into a different woman by the time I catch myself at the bottom. And so, you trust that. I don’t even know if it’s trust, it is this ridiculous hunch.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s a devil’s bargain, right? You can’t stay, you can’t leave. So here the fuck goes.
Glennon Doyle:
You could stay. You could though.
Abby Wambach:
You’re going to go see about a girl.
Glennon Doyle:
No, most people stay. Most people stay. Oh, you’re going to go see about a girl who’s yourself. I get it, I’m with you. So what I want to say about the next part-
Abby Wambach:
The reward of withdrawal?
Glennon Doyle:
The reward of this leap of faith is the shittiest shit that ever shit, okay? I’m just coming out with it now.
Amanda Doyle:
The shittiest shit that ever shat.
Glennon Doyle:
The shittiest shit that ever shot from shitter town. And by the way, let’s think about this, you know I freaking love a metaphor. So if you think about all those movies you see where the person’s literally withdrawal and you’re like, “Just hang in there. Just hang in there. You’re going to cut out. Just make it through this night. We all know the heroin’s going to get out of you and you’re going to be this…” I just watched this movie last night, but-
Amanda Doyle:
Yeah, I’m like, do we? Do we know that? I’ve never had that experience.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah! Well, those of us who have been through many recovery situations know that there is this withdrawal period, and when it’s a drug, it’s very-
Abby Wambach:
Painful.
Glennon Doyle:
Well, yeah, but it’s very obvious. It’s very literal. When you’re leaving a bad relationship or you’re even recovering from anorexia, the withdrawal is much different. It’s just as hellacious, but it’s just like this long, drawn out shit show where all your coping mechanisms and, are gone. It’s this transition period where you’ve stopped doing the thing that you needed to live with and you haven’t replaced it with anything else yet, and you haven’t become the person you need to be to fall. And so, it’s very tempting to want to turn around and grab back onto the edge, and just sort of crawl your way back up there and decide to live there. It’s like, the free fall lasts for a very long time and you just are this like S sniffling, shaky, cranky, terrified, sweaty, newborn self, which is very interesting because it is a rebirth. You are actually becoming a different version of yourself. So it is strange to me to think about how small, and clueless, and just a bundle of tears, and reflexes and instincts that you are during that time. Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. You’re like a little baby deer.
Glennon Doyle:
And it feels like nothing’s happening. And the thing is that everything is happening. I don’t even know what else to say except for everything is happening during that time. You’re just becoming the person who knows more than your last self did.
Abby Wambach:
I know you say it’s hellacious, but what are some other words that you can describe the last couple of months?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s been six months, hasn’t it?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s felt different at different times. I have felt like this is absolutely pointless, that I’m never going to become. What happens when you’re in withdraw is you’re left with yourself. I just read a study that said people would prefer to be electrically shocked over and over again than to be alone with their thoughts. That people chose that you can fact check that, sister. But I know that-
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, I sure will.
Glennon Doyle:
It is a terrifying thing to live without the thing that you decided that you needed to survive, because you are just a raw nerve. And then what happens is a lot rises up that was there before, but that you pushed down with this blocker and the universe has decided that now you can deal with that shit.
Abby Wambach:
Why did you decide to stay?
Glennon Doyle:
Well, I think this really cool thing happens when you get out of the first parts of withdrawal, which is like you can kind of feel this new self being born. And it’s like this new self has new eyes that can kind of see or feel this outline of the treasure that you’re about to get. There’s a time when you can start to see something that feels real, that is your reward. It’s unclear, but it’s there. And the more work you do, and the more you stay with yourself and let yourself fall, the clearer it becomes, and then it starts to become colored in, and then you start to feel that it’s real. You can start to feel yourself becoming. And when you start to feel yourself becoming, which is the reward for the quest you’ve been on, which I love that the quest is just the word that means question, it’s really just a question. What if I didn’t need this thing? What if I left? What if I… Starts with a deep question. I don’t know. The answer starts to become clear, I guess, what’s on the other side of it? And that thing becomes more alluring than the thing behind you.
Amanda Doyle:
And you’re also free to ask questions, right? Even that idea of quest, most of what we’re doing when we’re scared that we need to make a change that we’re not willing to say out loud is avoiding questions.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
There is a large sack of forbidden questions that we cannot say to ourselves or others, but when you’re going on that path, it’s like suddenly there’s fewer questions that are scarier to ask.
Abby Wambach:
You’re capable of facing the questions, finally.
Glennon Doyle:
When you ask me what withdrawal is like, the truth of it was that I had to taking away all of my control things and this fake life that I had made around food and body and whatever, because it’s just this little world that I had made up to avoid my actual world, what happened is that a lot of shit came up. A lot of painful stuff from my childhood stuff, from my teenage years, stuff from my college years, stuff from my drinking years, stuff from my drugging years, memories that I don’t even know if they’re real. When you are drunk for so long and you are in addiction for so long, I get flashes of things and I’m like, “Wait, oh my God, did that fucking happen?” I don’t even know. And painful things that I have explained away, “I’m just a sensitive human being,” without looking at all of the things that happened in my life that maybe I was just responding humanly to, not overly sensitively to.
Glennon Doyle:
I would go for walks. I’ve talked about this where withdrawal felt like just allowing every ghost in the world to visit you and just having no doors to close any of it out. And allowing that over and over, just days, and weeks and in therapy, I felt like I just got sober and I just was like, “Okay, now I’m a grownup and I’m just going to move forward.” And it was like there was a kid inside me that was like, “We were never ready to move forward. We didn’t talk about any of this shit.” And anorexia was the grownup that was like, “Get your shit together. We are doing this thing. We have no time for this. We have children, we have a job. We are going to do the thing.” And then when I stopped that, it was like the resurrection of this self, this young self that was like, “We have so much to work out.” And I would walk and I would talk to my therapist, talk to Abby. I still have a lot of work to do
Glennon Doyle:
During this withdrawal time, I kept thinking about the judge in the Larry Nassar trial during my withdrawal time, which was those days where I was just walking on the beach for way too long, and in the fetal position a lot and remembering, remembering, remembering. And that I felt like this younger version of myself was just demanding to be heard. Just demanding that I stay with her for a little while and we just kind of go through our life. And I kept thinking about Judge Rosemary Aquilina, who was the judge in the Larry Nassar trial. So the Larry Nassar trial was that trial of the doctor of the gymnastics national team and several college teams and had been a doctor forever of young gymnasts. And he abused them, hundreds of them for forever. And these incredibly brave, amazing women just came forward and they had a trial. And once a few women came forward, then a ton more women came forward and they kept coming forward. “Me too,” “Me too,” “Me too,” “Me too.” And this sisterhood of survivors. And this judge decided not to only choose a couple of them to tell their stories. She decided that every single last one of those women got to come to the front of the courtroom and tell her story.
Glennon Doyle:
And then 150 ended up speaking and they sat in that courtroom and Larry Nassar, by the way, he said, “This is too hard for me.” The judge in nicer words said, “Fuck you, sit down.” So every woman got to stand up, and tell her story. And nothing was going to be fixed, it just was the telling and having the witnesses. I think somebody I heard once say, “The truth live outside your body.” And she said after this one woman told her story, and she was crying, and the judge said, “Leave your pain here, and go out and do your magnificent things.”
Glennon Doyle:
And I think that withdrawal done best would be like that. If every single podsquader could just have their own freaking beautiful hearing where some judge would let them speak all of their pain, and then bless them to go out and do their magnificent things, that is what withdraw feels like for me this time. And I’ll tell you this, in my therapy, the way it was going, I loved it and it was wonderful, but I didn’t feel like there was enough space for me to do that. And so, I’m changing. I need the kind of therapy where my younger self gets to show up for as long as she wants, and tell every story she needs to tell. If it takes three years, great. That’s what needs to happen. I need to go back before I can go forward. And that’s why this recovery will be different. Because I’m not just trying to do a bunch of strategies. I’m allowing that self to speak.
Amanda Doyle:
What’s so interesting about the part that I remember from those proceedings is that one of the women was saying, “Where were the adults? Why didn’t the adults listen to us? We were just kids, and we were trying to get their attention and tell them about this.” And the judge said, “I’m an adult and I’m listening. I’m sorry it took this long. You were never the problem. But you are so much the solution.” And if you go through a bunch of stuff, and no one is there to pay attention to this stuff, then you are viewed as the problem, and you believe you’re the problem and you act out as if you’re the problem for a really long time.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And then you become your own solution.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And I think that the reason why I have to go back to go forward is because I want to be able to create a life that is as weird as I am. I want to be able to live differently than other people if that is what I need. I want to be able to make decisions that are different than the culture if that is what I need. But I have to start trusting myself completely in order to do that. And in order to really trust myself, I have to go back. My younger self needs to go back and figure out that she wasn’t the problem, that she isn’t crazy. What that judge said to those women that you just said is what I need to finally believe.
Abby Wambach:
One of the things that I’ve just been so amazed about watching you go through this process is you were going to your therapy, and you come out and you kept questioning. “I don’t know, I just feel like I have to go back.” And it feels like you have to go back, unlock the door where this child has been locked away and say, “Come out. Let’s sit down and talk and let’s get the story straight and let’s get to know each other and understand what the fuck happened. And I want you to know that you weren’t ever the problem. And I just want you to have a voice. I want you to have whatever it is you need so that we can both move forward together.”
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Amanda Doyle:
And what’s beautiful about that is that in an imperfect way of looking at it’s this idea of shifting responsibility. This idea of like, “Okay, I’m going to go back and figure out who fucked up my little kid because this is not cool.” And-
Glennon Doyle:
I did, and I was there for a while. I was there for a long while. Yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
Right. But really it’s about complete accountability to yourself. Because whether you are hiding from yourself or whether you’re blaming your parents, or society, or whatever it is for the reason that you are not living your healthiest life, you are still not wholly integrated and you’re still not trusting yourself. Because you’re giving everyone else the accountability and the responsibility and the ability to drive you, whereas if you say, “I’m going to listen to you, I’m going to be your solution, I’m taking you in me, and we are going to be responsible for ourselves,” then you can trust yourself because it’s not up to anyone else.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. It’s full responsibility. And it starts with a question like you said, “Why do I do these things I do? Why do I?” We’re going to find out. We’re going to find out, and then we’re going to get the life that we want, how we want it, and then we’re going to fully be responsible for that.
Glennon Doyle:
So that’s why people don’t go through withdrawal. That’s why it’s the dark night of the soul. And look, it takes so much, it takes so much time, it takes so much energy, it takes so much money. Like therapy-
Abby Wambach:
Makes sense why people turn back, grab onto the ledge and crawl back to their old life.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, it does. I’m starting to be able to see what the treasure is on the other side. The big learning of this, and it of course has nothing to do with food or any of that. It’s like there’s the dragon, and then there’s the thing behind the dragon and you have to slay the dragon, which is the thing they’re doing, but then the thing you get is completely different. It never had anything to do with drinking, or booze, or shopping, or food, it’s a different level of living. It’s a different level of being human. I didn’t mean to talk about all of that today. So I have a whole nother thing to talk about, which is this treasure, this new self-learning.
Abby Wambach:
What the treasure is, you mean?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. And so what we’ll do is we’ll come back.
Amanda Doyle:
#Cliffhanger.
Glennon Doyle:
#Cliffhanger, literally. Oh my God, that’s what we’re talking about. Jumping off cliffs and shit. Okay, so I love you all. Thank you for listening to that. Come back and I’ll give you the treasure.
Abby Wambach:
I’m proud of you.
Glennon Doyle:
I love you.
Abby Wambach:
Love you too.
Glennon Doyle:
We can do hard things. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
If this podcast means something to you, it would mean so much to us if you’d be willing to take 30 seconds to do each or all of these three things. First, can you please follow or subscribe to? We Can Do Hard Things following the pod helps you because you’ll never miss an episode and it helps us because you’ll never miss an episode. To do this, just go to the We Can Do Hard Things show page on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Odyssey, or wherever you listen to podcasts, and then just tap the plus sign in the upper right hand corner or click on Follow. This is the most important thing for the pod. While you’re there, if you’d be willing to give us a five star rating, and review, and share an episode you loved with a friend, we would be so grateful. We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios.