Anna David is the New York Times-bestselling author of six books. She’s been published in The New York Times, The LA Times, Details, Playboy and Women’s Health, among many others, and has appeared repeatedly on The Today Show, Hannity, Attack of the Show, Dr. Drew, Red Eye, The Talk and many other programs on Fox News, NBC, CBS, MTV, VH1 and E. Anna is the Editor of AfterPartyMagazine and a speaker and coach on relationships, addiction and recovery.
Anna David, former party girl and author, shares her thoughts on current party girl, Cat Marnell’s new book How To Murder Your Life.
Moby on his addiction, getting sober, and his thoughts on drinking and using now that he’s been sober for over 15 years.
Whether you’re in the 12-step camp or not, recovery looks and works differently for everyone. So why are we all fighting?
The problem, as I see it, isn’t the word addict. It’s that some people don’t allow that label to evolve.
Once upon a time, I trusted my brain implicitly. Why wouldn’t I? It had kept me alive, after all, and no one had ever told me that this cerebral cortex of mine was unreliable. When my brain told me certain things—say, that I didn’t have feelings for someone anymore, that a friend had wronged me or that my boss deserved to get an earful about how dissatisfied I was—I assumed it was correct and acted on those thoughts.
When I was struggling to get sober, people told me that I needed to surrender. All I could picture when they said that was a white flag, as well as one of those trust exercises where you’re instructed to fall back into the arms of people you may have just met at some Trust-Building self-empowerment weekend event.It also just meant confusion. How, I wondered, are you supposed to surrender? What does that even mean?
