Beyond Eat, Pray, Love: Elizabeth Gilbert's Raw Truth About Addiction, Codependency & The Awakening That Saved Her Life

Elizabeth Gilbert is the bestselling author of "Eat, Pray, Love" and her new memoir "All the Way to the River." This conversation explores sex and love addiction, her partner's death during relapse, and finding recovery through radical honesty. We discuss hitting rock bottom while buying drugs for her dying partner, six years of celibacy as self-care, the illusion of control, and learning "no abandonment of self." This exchange reveals how the "Eat, Pray, Love" author ended up in her darkest chapter. Elizabeth's courage to be this vulnerable is inspiring. Enjoy! Show notes + MORE Watch on YouTube Newsletter Sign-Up Today’s Sponsors: LMNT: Get a free LMNT Sample Pack with any purchase 👉 https://www.drinklmnt.com/richroll AG1: Get a FREE bottle of D3K2, Welcome Kit, and 5 travel packs with your first order 👉https://www.drinkAG1.com/richroll Pique: Get up to 20% OFF plus a FREE rechargeable frother and glass beaker with your first subscription 👉https://www.piquelife.com/richroll Momentous: High-caliber human performance products for sleep, focus, longevity, and more. For listeners of the show, Momentous is offering up to 35% off your first order👉https://www.livemomentous.com/richroll WHOOP: The all-new WHOOP 5.0 is here! Get your first month FREE👉https://www.join.whoop.com/Roll On: High-performance shoes & apparel crafted for comfort and style 👉https://www.on.com/richroll Check out all the amazing discounts from our Sponsors 👉 https://www.richroll.com/sponsors Find out more about Voicing Change Media at https://www.voicingchange.media and follow us @voicingchange Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Rich Roll?

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• 1:05Speaker 01

  I have always used people the way other people use substances. Handing over of the power of your own life force to pour into somebody else is what I used to call love. Before I could even like check the words, the words came out: "Make it worse." Like I said to God, like, "Make it worse." There are certain things that I can't do that other people can do, and I just know that now, and I hope I don't forget that. Addiction is giving up everything for one thing, and recovery is giving up one thing for everything. Addicts' secret lives are dark, and the reason you hide your secret life is because if people knew it, it would destroy both your private and your public life.

• 1:54Rich Roll?

  Liz Gilbert is here, you guys. Can you believe it? Liz Gilbert. Liz is one of my very favorite people. I've wanted to get her on the pod for so long. She is one of the people that I look up to the most. As a writer, of course, as a creative inspiration and teacher, and really just as a human, because Liz embodies and is basically the full expression of just so many laudable qualities that I personally struggle with, like total fearlessness and gratitude, as well as just being this beautiful, open channel of creative flow. But also, when it comes to the deeper stuff,

• 2:38Rich Roll?

  like how to live life full-on and unapologetically, and lead with unconditional love. Unconditional love, that is the big one. That's the one when I sat in front of the Dalai Lama last year, he talked about the most. It's the idea, the expression, the embodiment that I find so difficult to give and receive, despite knowing, like really knowing that it's always the answer. It's always the way forward. Which kind of brings me to today, which is a big day because it's 9/11. I'm recording this on September 8th in New York City. I'm actually gonna be leaving tomorrow, so I'm not gonna actually be in New York City on the day that it all happened.

• 3:22Rich Roll?

  But I have been here on past 9/11s, not in 2001, but on the anniversary dates. And there really is nothing quite like being in New York City on this day. And if this is something you haven't experienced, it's not exactly what you might expect. Of course, it's solemn, it's sad in so many ways. But it's also this example of oneness in action. Because even though this city is so large and can be overwhelming, it also really is a community. And that day, 9/11, and every 9/11 after is this day where you have the privilege of witnessing this community coming together, to remember what happened, of course, but also to remember that people can come together

• 4:07Rich Roll?

  and that the best of humanity amidst tragedy can prevail. And I think it symbolizes and captures the relationship between two ideas that I think about a lot, that are central, in my opinion, to success as an athlete, as a creative person, and as a human, which is this relationship between vulnerability and resilience. And given the very strange state of the world right now, which seems to be bringing out the worst in people, where disagreement and acrimony seems to dominate the discourse as we descend into what to me appears pretty clear to be autocracy, it's easy to feel like humanity, not just in America, but in many places across the world,

• 4:49Rich Roll?

  has lost the ability to come together to solve our common problems, to remember what's important. And that while we have our vulnerabilities for sure, we are fundamentally resilient. And that is the stuff of hope. So I'm grateful to reflect upon 9/11 as I sit here in New York a couple of days before this anniversary. I'm grateful to be alive, to be healthy, to be healing, to have my family, to be reminded that things like community and hope can exist and can prevail. And grateful to have this conversation with Liz to remind me of all of this, that gratitude and love are not only possible when things feel dire, but actually are more important than ever.

• 5:32Rich Roll?

  You probably know Liz from her stratospherically bestselling book Eat, Pray, Love, which was made into a major motion picture in which Liz is played by Julia Roberts. But Liz has written many books, my favorite among them being Big Magic, which is big time magic for anybody who's pursuing a relationship with their creativity and really among my very favorite books on that subject matter. It's basically a must read that sits right alongside, at least for me, books like The War of Art, The Artist's Way, and The Creative Act. I've known Liz for a long time, so this conversation on some level is long overdue, as I said at the outset, but also kind of perfect because Liz is in a place

• 6:15Rich Roll?

  she wasn't only a few years prior, which is to say that she is sober, not from the condition that ails me, but from something I'm not sure I've ever fully explored on this podcast before, which is sex and love addiction. And what she has to say about it is, I think, profound because this affliction is something I think that so many people struggle with, whether it shows up as sexual compulsion, codependency, or unhealthy attachments motivated by a fear of abandonment. This is an addiction for just far too many goes unnoticed and untreated, in part because it's a little bit harder to identify than

• 6:56Rich Roll?

  something like substance abuse or gambling, but also because it's the most stigmatized. It's an addiction that leads to just profound levels of shame and demoralization, basically like no other addiction, which means that people end up suffering from it in silence. Despite the fact that, left untreated, it will destroy lives just like the worst kind of addiction you can imagine. So that is a huge part of what we talk about today, which Liz lays out in her latest book called All the Way to the River, with just the most courageous honesty and vulnerability, which makes this book such an important and incredible

• 7:38Rich Roll?

  read, obviously for anybody who does struggle with these issues, but also for basically everyone. I mean, even if you can't relate to what Liz has endured, it's an important read because... First of all, this is beautifully written. Nobody can write like Liz and this book really burns down the house. And second, because my bet is that you do have someone in your life, whether you're aware of it or not, that does struggle with what you're gonna hear Liz talk about. And you can't really show up to love and support these people unless you have an understanding of the problem. This is a gift. This one is extraordinary, and I'm grateful to share it with you. So have at it. Pick up All the Way to the River

• 8:19Rich Roll?

  right away and check out her Substack, which is called Letters from Love, where you will find her and her 250,000-strong community actively practicing unconditional love.

• 8:36Rich Roll?

  We have been going back and forth for I don't know how long to like make this happen, right?

• 8:41Speaker 01

  I know.

• 8:41Rich Roll?

  But these things happen when they're supposed to happen. You know, I would have preferred you to be this coming on for like your 10th time on this show.

• 8:49Speaker 01

  But we're gonna do 10th time. We have to do first time. So we'll start with first time and then we'll ramp up.

• 8:56Rich Roll?

  Well, what I didn't expect is that we would be doing a little bit of what it was like, what happened and what it's like now, you know? And that's my favorite kind of conversation to have. And you're in the right place in your life to kind of have that conversation right now.

• 9:10Speaker 01

  Thanks for the little coded introduction to that.

• 9:13Rich Roll?

  Inside baseball.

• 9:14Speaker 01

  100%. And people can take what they like and leave the rest.

• 9:17Rich Roll?

  That's true.

• 9:17Speaker 01

  Another little inside baseball thing there. But yes, this is the moment and this is the subject.

• 9:22Rich Roll?

  Yes. And Earth School is in session, Liz.

• 9:24Speaker 01

  Earth School is always in session, Rich.

• 9:27Rich Roll?

  So that Margot show, which I do think must have been 2018, and I'm trying to match that up on the timeline of your sobriety. You were either in early sobriety or not quite sober at that time.

• 9:38Speaker 01

  I think I was, if I do the math, I think I was four months away from walking into the rooms.

• 9:43Rich Roll?

  Oh, wow. Wow.

• 9:45Speaker 01

  I was on my last little bender.

• 9:47Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 9:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:48Rich Roll?

  You feel like you're in a really good place right now, though.

• 9:51Speaker 01

  Oh, thank you.

• 9:52Rich Roll?

  Just energetically.

• 9:52Speaker 01

  That's good to hear. Thank you. I am just for today. And I think that's the important thing to remember, because I get into this place where I start negotiating with the universe and I'm like, let's keep this. Like, this is good. Like, let's keep stable. I think I've had enough of a curriculum, and I don't need any more big lessons. And let's not have the ground fall out from beneath my feet anymore. Let me not be a creator of chaos. Let me not have any chaos created upon me. And the answer I always hear back is like, let's just do today.

• 10:24Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I mean, grip too tightly to that.

• 10:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:26Rich Roll?

  And we'll see what happens.

• 10:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:27Rich Roll?

  Usually not good, right?

• 10:28Speaker 01

  Trust your 24. Let's just, you're good right now.

• 10:31Rich Roll?

  This is just another, you know, lesson in earth school of deepening your surrender. And you don't get to hold on to what you're not giving back.

• 10:40Speaker 01

  For sure. 100%.

• 10:42Rich Roll?

  Was the decision to write about this stage of your life a difficult one to make? Or did it feel natural to you?

• 10:51Speaker 01

  It was really difficult. I mean, so the book is about my partner, Rea, who died of pancreatic and liver cancer seven years ago, who had been a heroin and cocaine addict in recovery for many, many, many years, and then had a massive blowout bender relapse right before she died. So the book is about that experience, which was extremely harrowing. And I was her partner and her caregiver during that. But it's also, in a parallel way, about my addiction that I never had had a name for, that I kept acting out in, my version of her bender, which is, I use people the way she used cocaine and heroin.

• 11:31Speaker 01

  So sex and love addiction, codependency, manipulation and control, trying to outsource my care to whoever would do it. Like, are you my mother? Are you my mother? Like that Dr. Seuss book, just walking around, like, handing my power over to people and asking them to give me back a little bit of it. So the book is about that relationship, and it's about my awakening to that. But I was so rattled after she died. I mean, I was rattled with grief, but I was also rattled with, like, what happened? How did the person who was the most trusted person in my entire life, like, the one person who I trusted without any reservation in my life, the one person who could always make me feel safe, turn into?

• 12:16Speaker 01

  Like an absolute vampire who was using me and degrading herself and me. What did that mean? What did it mean about us? I mean, it was so difficult to unthread that. And there was a part of me that didn't even want to look at it because it was so excruciating. There's a part in the book where I say, like, when I get to the really bad part, I'm like, I don't even, I still don't want to tell this story. Like, I still don't want this to be how that story ended. So I wrote, right after she died, I wrote sort of a little novella, like a little 70-page piece of fiction, sort of loosely based on it. And I'm like, you're hiding from this thing. Like, this isn't it. And then I tried to write it as a book of poetry. I'm like, that's not it. And then finally, it was like, dude, you have to actually just sit down and say what happened. And that's what the book is.

• 13:00Speaker 01

  It's just, it's almost like a postmortem on a crime scene. Like, what happened here? How did we get to this point? And how do we get out of that point once we're in it?

• 13:11Rich Roll?

  It's hard and painful enough to look at Rea and try to solve the equation of how she went from one person to the next. But that's a pretty easy equation to solve for. You know, insert heroin, cocaine, amphetamines, you know, all of it, right?

• 13:28Speaker 01

  Right, whatever you're inserting, yeah.

• 13:30Rich Roll?

  It's like, no surprise that there is a complete, you know, character shift as a result of that. The harder thing is to look in the mirror and to try to deconstruct, like, how you went from this person who believed themselves to be something into something else altogether. Like, how did you get lured into that trap? And what is, you know, kind of the wiring inside of you that impulse you to make decisions that with time, distance, space, and recovery, you can see clearly were not in your best interest?

• 14:00Speaker 01

  Right. And if I had written this book directly after Rea died, it would have been a book about what a nice person I am and what a terrible thing happened to me. You know, and I think I had just enough wisdom and perspective at that time to be like, it can't be that simple, kind of. You know, like, it can't just be that I'm a really nice, giving, generous, loving person who ended up getting taken advantage of. But I didn't know what it was. And the question, I think, that is always present in any of the 12-step rooms that deal with relationships, and I'm in all of them, is what is my role in this? How did I co-create this? I mean, Rea used to say to me, one of the things I loved about her is whenever I was feeling even remotely sorry for myself, she would be like, there's no victims in this room, Liz.

• 14:46Speaker 01

  There's no victims in this room. And I'm like, I sure feel like there's one, you know, like, I sure feel like there's one. So the rigorous honesty to start to unthread, wait, not only why did this happen? Why does this always happen? You know, how did I end up here? It's not even just a book about how did I end up here? It's how did I end up here again? When I kind of thought I had my life in order in a certain way. You know, it's like, the Zen say that, you know, first they pull the rug out from under your feet, and then they pull the floor out from under the rug, and then they pull the ground out from under the floor. And now you're ready to begin. And that's sort of the state I was in after she died, where I was like, there's no rug,

• 15:30Speaker 01

  there's no floor, there's no ground. I don't know how that any of this happened or who I am. And I'm somebody who thought she knew and didn't.

• 15:39Rich Roll?

  That had to get untangled first, though, before you would be open and willing enough to do that inside glance.

• 15:47Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:48Rich Roll?

  Yeah. I have so many questions about this, but I think it would be good to spend a few minutes elaborating further on Sex and Love Addiction.

• 15:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 15:56Rich Roll?

  Because it is a tricky thing to really wrap your head around if you're not familiar with it. Everybody has some connection to substance abuse addiction or gambling, and you know, there's many varieties of addiction. And it's great that there's a kind of greater conversation happening around all of these things to normalize them. But I feel like Sex and Love Addiction isn't really all that well understood, and it's still attached to a lot of like taboos and fears. And I think maybe that's what keeps it a little bit more in the dark. So maybe talk a little bit more about what it is and maybe how even someone could self-diagnose themselves.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  I think the best way to do it is

• 16:43Speaker 01

  To do this like a qualification and just tell my story. And I think that people may recognize parts of themselves in it. I would be loathe to start giving tools of diagnosis for something that can be so subtle. But I can say this about me. I can say that what it manifests as in me is a sincere belief that there's somebody out there who I can meet who's going to make me feel okay, lastingly. And that my job is to find that person. And it's a difficult thing because, of course, culture teaches us exactly to do that. And especially if you're a woman, you're very much taught that.

• 17:26Speaker 01

  That's a story that's as old as the hills that girls and women are taught. There's an incompletion in me, and I'm going to go find the person who's going to complete me. That's the sort of soft way to describe it. The way that I would describe how I experience it is that I have always used people the way other people use substances. So there are people who I have used as sedatives, and there are people who I've used as stimulants. And what I want to take complete ownership over, as I tell my story, is what that has made me into over time is somebody who can be extremely manipulative. And that's the sort of side effect of this. It's like if I don't feel okay, and I need to find somebody who's going to make me feel okay,

• 18:11Speaker 01

  then in order to get that need met, I'm going to have to figure out how to be an operator in terms of how do I have to present? Like, what do I have to become in order to get what we call in some of these rooms, lava, which is love, attention, validation, and acceptance? So that's what I'm longing for, because I can't generate that within myself. So I need to go get this lava. Like, somebody else has this. Somebody's the plug. Like, somebody's got this stuff. I don't have it. And so what do I have to do? Like, what ends, like any addict? It's like, what manipulations do I have to do? What lies do I have to tell? What tricks do I have to turn in order to get your eye contact on me? And the words that I need you to say?

• 18:56Speaker 01

  I need to make you say those words? I need to make you make these promises to me? I need to completely abandon myself in order to get you to do this thing for me? And if I don't get the thing that I need... I'll go get it somewhere else, regardless of what commitment I've made to somebody. And so when I look at my particular history with this, what I see is for 35 uninterrupted years, tiny little interruption, when I written Wit and Roadie Pray Love, there was like a nine month period where I wasn't doing this, but which was actually the healthiest time of my life until now. I was just going between sedative stimulant, sedative stimulant. This person is extremely exciting. This person is extremely calming.

• 19:40Speaker 01

  You know, like, okay, now I'm so calm that I can't bear the restlessness and the irritability and the discontent. So now I have to go find somebody who's absolutely thrilling, who's gonna like light me up until they withhold and then I go insane and now I need another sedative and now I need another stimulant. And this is, this is what I did to great cost, you know, to great cost to me, to great cost to other people. It involved cheating on people, allowing myself to be cheated on, breaking up other people's families and relationships. There's a ruthlessness that any addict has, which is what I have to do to get this, I will do, no matter what it costs me or anybody else. And I knew my entire life that there was something wrong with me because I could see that other people weren't doing this.

• 20:25Speaker 01

  You know, like, I think that's something that every addict kind of knows from an earlier age than we can admit, which is like, other people aren't doing this. Like somehow other people are just going and having a Tuesday while I'm out here playing this like high stakes roulette with my life and with my body and with my heart and with my spirit, bringing other people into danger with me, like putting myself at risk and not being able to stop.

• 20:48Rich Roll?

  And that low level of self-awareness drives shame and isolation and loneliness. And you start to compartmentalize it and create this secret life because deep down, even though, you know, you're not ready to confront it, you know that you need to hide and shroud it from everybody else.

• 21:07Speaker 01

  There's a line I quote in the book from Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who said, Everybody has three lives, a public life, a private life, and a secret life. And the private life is the life you share with your family and your friends. But the secret life is the life you share with no one. And addicts' secret lives are dark, you know? And the reason you hide your secret life is because it would destroy, if people knew it, it would destroy both your private and your public life. Like, if people knew what you were up to, you don't even approve of what you're up to.

• 21:35Rich Roll?

  But the trick there is that the addict thinks that it's their secret life. They don't realize how patently obvious it becomes.

• 21:41Speaker 01

  They don't realize it's your public life. It is your public life. Everybody's like, "We all saw that a long time before you did."

• 21:47Rich Roll?

  But there is something uniquely insipid about sex and love addiction, because it isn't necessarily immediately obvious. You're not going to be necessarily late for work. Or there's the general evidence that people use to kind of point to someone and say they have a problem, isn't something that you can do with that kind of facility, with this condition.

• 22:11Speaker 01

  Except, all those things that happen to addicts also happen in these kind of obsessive maelstroms of, like, the vortex of insanity that people can get into with each other. Like, not only can you be late for work, you can destroy your entire career. You know, like, you're going to have an affair at work with a supervisor, and you're going to lose your job. You're going to hit on an intern, and you're going to be dismissed from the faculty of the university where you teach. Like, your marriage is going to be destroyed. All the stuff that also happens in addiction also happens here. In addition to killing yourself and killing others, you know, it's one of the leading causes of suicide and homicide, is like, the horror that people get into with each other, where like, I mean, you read it every, open the papers.

• 22:56Speaker 01

  It's like, every single day, people are killing their partners and/or killing themselves over relationships and over heartbreak. And divorce is one of the leading causes of suicide. And sex and love addiction can be a thing that leads to divorce, right? So I actually would argue that it's every bit as destructive. But the tricky thing is, the culture doesn't say to you in a million different ways, what will cure you is if you do more heroin or gamble more. What the culture teaches you in a million ways is what will cure you is finding true love. And so, you're being taught that the solution, I mean, you'll be told to go out and try again.

• 23:33Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you just haven't found the right person.

• 23:35Speaker 01

  You just haven't found the right person yet. So how many more people was I going to try this with?

• 23:42Speaker 01

  You know, it's like, anybody want to be my fourth spouse? Like, anybody want to do this again? Like, really? You want to roll the dice with me? Like, it's like, how many more times? How many more different kinds of people? Like, I put the hours in on this. Like, men, women, open relationships, closed relationships. Like, I'm like, I'm like, let me try. I'm constantly trying to get the levels right and never able to get the levels right.

• 24:07Rich Roll?

  But that's why Rea is such a fantastic gift. You know, back to the Earth School idea. I mean, for people don't know, maybe you can explain it. But essentially, the notion is that, you know, we've all volunteered for this incarnation. And the curriculum is presenting us with all of these assignments, which are essentially obstacles and hardship and suffering, to test our ability to navigate them, each of which is its own individual opportunity for growth, evolution, and ultimately liberation, right? Should we choose to accept it? Like, you know, in this Mission Impossible, you know, kind of context? And, you know, here comes Rea, this, you know, comet, right? Who's just like the most larger-than-life character you could ever imagine.

• 24:52Rich Roll?

  Like, just catnip for somebody who's a people pleaser. Like, the charisma of this individual.

• 24:57Speaker 01

  And an intensity addict.

• 24:58Rich Roll?

  And I can't imagine, like, the tractor beam or like center of gravity that this person held that made it impossible for you to, you know, it was undeniable, right? But because this person was so large, like a comet, like, she was going to flame out, right? And in the most fantastic way. And it gets so dark, like, at the end there. But ultimately, this is exactly what you needed to interrupt that pattern. Because short of that, you could have gone through a string of 10 more relationships and kept that, you know, kettle at a low boil and never, you know, met your maker to learn the lesson that you needed to learn in order to, you know, evolve to this new phase.

• 25:40Speaker 01

  You just said that so well. And that's, that's exactly it. And I remember when she was flaming out and my life was tanking. I, and I was so trapped in this nightmare. Like, suddenly this beautiful love story turned into Sid and Nancy. I'm like, what's going on? How is my house?

• 25:56Rich Roll?

  You're literally tying her off and shooting her. It's crazy, the stuff that you talk about.

• 26:00Speaker 01

  Crazy. How am I going down to Chinatown to get clean needles? How am I? Like the lady who wrote Eat, Pray, Love.

• 26:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 26:08Speaker 01

  Like taking.

• 26:08Rich Roll?

  This is like the A24.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Thousands of dollars out of my ATM to buy cocaine from teenagers in the East Village for my partner so that she'll love me. Like, how am I in this? You know, I mean, and how am I in this is I think, I don't think it's possible for anybody to go through their earth school curriculum without having multiple occasions of how am I in this? Like, how, how did I end up? I thought this was a parachute, but it's a backpack full of bricks. Like, you know, like, what's happening? Like, how am I? And, and I remember at that time, just being so bewildered, like, what? How is this happening? And I went for, I remember going for a walk and leaving her in this like cloud of cigarette smoke and drugs in our apartment and walking down the street in New York. And I was like, I need to pray, I need to pray, I need to pray.

• 26:55Speaker 01

  And I don't think I've ever told this story before, but you just spurred it in me, which is the weirdest prayer came out of me. I was on like East 9th Street, broad daylight, and I was like, and before I could even like check the words, the words came out. Make it worse. Like I said to God, like, make it worse. Whatever this thing is you're doing to my life, this like sledgehammer that you've taken to my life, I don't get it. I don't, I still don't get what this is. I know this is, this has got to be part of an earth school curriculum, but all I see is like useless suffering and pain. So don't be easy on me. If there's something that you're trying to show me, hammer it harder, like destroy

• 27:38Speaker 01

  me so that I can see this, because there's obviously something I can't see yet. And it did get worse, and I still couldn't see it. You know, like, it took another, it took a year after she died for me to finally be like, oh. And it took somebody sitting me down, you know, and 12-stepping me, essentially, and just saying like, I've watched you do this for 35 years, and there's a room for this, and I think you're not well. And I'll go with you to a meeting. And I was like, me, a meeting? I'm not the drug addict.

• 28:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's so interesting because you're in the midst of it and can't see it for what it is, which I think gets to that other earlier point about like, it is, it's, it's tough to notice and until you have some education into what this thing actually is for you to be able to identify it.

• 28:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:31Rich Roll?

  Paint the picture of this relationship with, with Rea, like how it began and kind of where it ended up. So, so people understand, you know, kind of the trajectory.

• 28:41Speaker 01

  It was a very slow burn. It was like, she was an acquaintance and then she was a neighbor and then she was a friend and then she was a close friend and then she was my best friend. And then she was, there was a moment I reached where I was like, oh, she's indispensable. Like, I saw the impact that she had on me, that her incredibly grounding, reassuring and strong presence had on me. So I'm somebody who has always had a very deep fear of people and a fear of the unpredictability of people and like anyone can go off at any, there's reasons that I have this fear, but like, folks is crazy here, you know, like, and my job that I took on from earliest childhood was like vigilance, you know, like vigil,

• 29:24Speaker 01

  like you must be vigilant, you must never, never rest because these people are capable of anything. So, read the room, feel the room. I can read a face from a hundred yards. I can feel, I can sit in a house with 10 people in it in different rooms and I can tell you what everyone is feeling. Like, it's essential for me to know and monitor and track the moods and the sensations of everyone in the room for my own safety. This is how I always felt.

• 29:47Rich Roll?

  You grew up in an alcoholic household then?

• 29:48Speaker 01

  I grew up in an alcoholic influenced house, you know, and I grew up with children of alcoholics and, and deep alcoholic damage multiple generations down the line on both sides of the family. So, I'm nervous and I think, and nervous is my baseline. So Rea shows up. And she's not nervous. And whatever insanity anybody brings, she'd lived on the streets. She'd been in Rikers Island. She'd been in insane asylums. She'd like been in the Tompkins Square riots. Like, she could handle everybody and everything in this seemingly effortless jujitsu way. And whatever crazy anybody brought, she just met it with this sort of clear-eyed like, why are you being crazy, man?

• 30:31Speaker 01

  And like, just, she was like, she could just hop out. She was like the calm dog in the herd of, like, in the pack of dogs, who all the other dogs laid down when Rea walked in. So when I saw what that did to my nervous system, I experienced, for the first time in my life, when she was in the room, this feeling of absolute safety. And once I experienced that and externalized that feeling of safety, where you are the provider of that, you can't leave now. Because otherwise, I have to go back to the anxiety field that I live in all the time. And that began my addiction to her.

• 31:05Rich Roll?

  And it starts with, hey, you can, you can stay rent-free in my house.

• 31:10Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. What do I have to give you?

• 31:12Rich Roll?

  I have a spot for you. Yeah, like, all these sort of moves that you're making unconsciously to bring her closer and make yourself indispensable.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Exactly. I will make myself indispensable to you because you have become indispensable to me. None of this was above the level of consciousness, and none of this was ever spoken. Right? This was like, this is the secret operating system that I've got underneath me that's hustling to make sure that my needs are met because I can't meet them.

• 31:50Rich Roll?

  With this hypervigilance and this sense that the world is not a safe place, to encounter somebody who is completely unafraid, is insanely truthful in every regard, has no care for other people's opinions. Like, there's something intoxicating about... Being in the presence of someone who feels that liberated when you're so guarded and so afraid to be yourself and trying to figure out which mask you have to wear and which context, which is exhausting, right?

• 32:18Speaker 01

  Exhausting.

• 32:18Rich Roll?

  And then here's this person who doesn't have any of that.

• 32:20Speaker 01

  It's just free.

• 32:21Rich Roll?

  How is that possible, right?

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:23Rich Roll?

  And you're the successful one and she's the hairdresser who's weathered hardship and, you know, is not really living in the same socioeconomic, you know, sort of strata as you are and operating in a very different world.

• 32:37Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I was like, I'll bring you up to my strata, which is where you've always wanted to be.

• 32:43Rich Roll?

  And she pulls you, instead she pulls you down.

• 32:45Speaker 01

  And we did a little of both.

• 32:48Rich Roll?

  A little, yeah.

• 32:48Speaker 01

  We did a little of both, you know? I mean, she did write an incredible memoir.

• 32:51Rich Roll?

  You guys did a tour together, right?

• 32:53Speaker 01

  And I helped her get it published. Like, there were things I was doing for her. I mean, I'm very careful in the book to say there's two things I don't want to do. I don't want to pathologize every single instance of this relationship and I also don't want to idealize. So that's also why it took me so long to unthread this book. Like, where's the truth here that's somewhere between pathology and idealization? Because we loved each other a lot and we cared for each other a lot.

• 33:16Rich Roll?

  That comes across very clearly.

• 33:17Speaker 01

  And we helped each other a lot.

• 33:18Rich Roll?

  And I think you do do an excellent job of showing, like, listen, like, this was an incredible person who had insane gifts.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:27Rich Roll?

  Who was so courageous and unafraid and capable.

• 33:31Speaker 01

  And cool.

• 33:31Rich Roll?

  And was this person that everyone wanted to hang, all these amazing qualities, right? And also this, you know, self-destructive thing inside of her.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  And this was a person, and here's what I could, and so, once I'm blinded by need, now I cannot see the full truth of you. Because once I've idealized you and pedestalized you and decided that you're my solution and that you're my drug and you're the reason I don't have to suffer anymore. It's imperative that you not have feet of clay. You can't. I mean, this is a child's idealization of an adult. It's like you are my, I mean, I made her into my higher power. Like, absolutely. I was like, in any circumstance where I would now go to what I call my higher power, where I would now get silent and pray and meditate and ask Source, what should I do? I called Ray and said, what should I do?

• 34:21Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 34:22Speaker 01

  And she would tell me great advice most of the time about what to do. But what I wasn't seeing through that haze of idealization was, for instance, this was somebody who had 13 years sober. I mean, this was somebody who was like a hard, low bottom drug addict. Like, living on a park bench with a needle in her arm, drug addict. Multiple stays in jails, like, hard, hard, hard, hard drug addict, who finally found recovery in 12-step. And whose ego decided, after a certain amount of time in 12-step, that she didn't need it anymore. And decided that she didn't need to go to the rooms anymore. And announced to me and to the world, I am no longer an addict. I've cured myself of my addiction, because I'm Ray fucking Elias.

• 35:04Rich Roll?

  But the best part is that she says, she says like, I want to start drinking wine because my friends are pressuring. It's like, she put it on her friends.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  Her family. She said they had an intervention. My friends had a, I don't even know if this is true. I doubt that it is. Like, I think this is-

• 35:18Rich Roll?

  We need you to start drinking wine.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  We need you to start drinking wine because it's uncomfortable for us when we're at the table drinking and you're not. And she's telling me this. And she's saying, I'm going to start drinking again. Oh, and by the way, don't tell any of my friends in 12-step because they're going to be really upset. So this is going to be our little secret. This from the woman who taught me the phrase, we're only as sick as our secrets, right? So she comes to me and says, like, I want to start drinking. It's not a big deal. Alcohol's not a problem for me. I'm a heroin addict, not an alcoholic. Don't tell anyone. And I also kind of hate alcohol. And I was like, okay. You know, and because I had created a construct in which everything she did was, was right, strong, powerful and cool. I'm like, Ray is so cool. Like, Ray is so cool. She's the addict who can drink. You know, so this is the kind of stuff that like,

• 36:02Speaker 01

  when you give your power away, and you give your perspective away, and you give your wisdom away, what you're left with is just, I have to go along with whatever you say because I've fully given you my power. I don't have the power to be like, hang on. What? Your friends had a reverse intervention and they told you they want you to start drinking? That doesn't even make sense.

• 36:27Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 36:27Speaker 01

  You know?

• 36:28Rich Roll?

  It collapses on top of itself immediately.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Instead, I'm like, let's get a bottle of wine, you know? And so I can see now that she was slipping back into losing herself at the same time that I was losing myself into her. So of course, the end game was a disaster.

• 36:46Rich Roll?

  I'm curious around your response, now that you've had time to reflect on it, when she gets diagnosed with cancer, which that was like 2016?

• 37:00Speaker 01

  Mm-hmm.

• 37:01Rich Roll?

  Like, in a perverse way, that is almost your opportunity to really lock it in, because now she really can be dependent upon you.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  I will take care of your every need.

• 37:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 37:10Speaker 01

  And I remember, in the horror of the diagnosis, and some things happened very quickly, there's that famous line in F. Scott Fitzgerald about first slowly, then quickly. It's been used a million times, but that's often how benders go. You know, like, first she sort of slowly drank Amistar bitters, and then she sort of slowly drank wine, and then she started smoking cigarettes again, and then she started doing mushrooms and I was getting MDMA again, and then it's like, ooh, might as well have a little cocaine, you know? And then it just, like, builds and builds and builds. But the slow love story that I was having with her escalated immediately upon that announcement that she had six months to live. I'd been hiding that love for her from me, from her, and from my husband, up until that

• 37:51Speaker 01

  point, but the thought that she was going to die very quickly was the energizing excuse that was needed for me to finally say this thing that I hadn't been saying for years, which is, I am in love with this person. And I left my marriage to go to be with her. And I remember, even in the horror of I'm losing the foundational person in my life, in the first weeks of her diagnosis, I remember showing up at her apartment with my suitcase and saying, "I'm not going anywhere." I mean, like, a threat. When I see it now, it's kind of a threatening thing to say to somebody. I didn't say, "Do you want me to stay?" I just said, "I'm not going anywhere."

• 38:34Speaker 01

  And for somebody who can't take care of herself, and gets her worth and value and esteem from what I can give to others, and then have reflected back to me about my value from what I'm giving, this is a perfect storm. Because... The feeling I had was one of utter, I remember this deep calm where I was like, now I know what I'm here for. My purpose on earth is clear. I am here to serve Rea's every need. I don't have to have an identity anymore. I don't have to have any needs. I can completely abdicate responsibility for myself. No one would blame me for it. I mean, I'm being heroic. I'm showing up for somebody who's dying.

• 39:11Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that's the added bonus. Like, look what a good person I am. Like, I'm so committed to this other person.

• 39:17Speaker 01

  Which is what I've always wanted to be.

• 39:18Rich Roll?

  So it's this weird thing because, on the one hand, there's this liberation from the marriage that wasn't working. Like, you were able to stand up and speak your truth. And there's a freeing, very healthy, you know, kind of peace to that. But only so that you could entrap yourself in, you know, in a situation and kind of indulge this, this, you know, addictive tendency.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Yeah. One of my friends in the rooms, she and I have a, our sort of daily kind of test of sobriety. Sobriety is kind of easy to chart when you're a substance addict. Like, you're either using, you're either drinking or you're...

• 39:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, it's hard to know when you've relapsed, right?

• 39:58Speaker 01

  So we're like, so I have a couple kind of markers that I can use. So one, one definition I love of relapse is that in all the relationship programs of 12-step is relapse is returning to your original role in the family system. So good. Right? So if I'm the caregiver, if I'm the one who's got to make everyone happy, if I'm the one who has to take care of all the grownups, if I'm the golden child, like, that's a relapse for me. But another way that we sort of test relapse is no abandonment of self. That's our, that's, this friend and I, that's our motto. Like, no abandonment of self. So at the end of the day, like, was there anywhere in this day where I said yes when I meant no? Like, when my body said no, but my mouth said yes?

• 40:43Speaker 01

  Where I people-pleased my way through some sort of situation in order to gain love approval, validation, and acceptance? Where I infantilized myself because I was in a really difficult situation and I didn't want to face it and I asked, I tried to make someone else do it? It's like, no, you be the grownup and you do this thing because I can't, I don't want to. So those are sort of these markers, but... Handing over of the power of your own life force to pour into somebody else is what I used to call love and what I thought was love. And now, when I, when I see it, there's a, there's a sign, Rea was a songwriter and a musician, and we used to write music together. And there was a song I wrote for her that, at the time that I wrote it, I'm like, this song is so beautiful. And it's so romantic, and it encapsulates completely this story.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  And she, she wrote the music for it, and she sang it and performed it. I was like, this is so great. And one of the lines in it, in my voice at her, was, "I'm just trying to give you a home. My body and life are your own." Right? It's like this complete, and in our culture, we actually kind of like reward that as, what a beautiful romantic story. But when I hear those lyrics now, I'm like, yikes. Like, my body is yours? Like, my life is yours? My money is yours? My energy is yours? I'm your home? Where's mine? If I'm making my whole existence into your home, there's no one home here. You know? And I see that now, and I'm like, my little cousin, when she was little, used

• 42:13Speaker 01

  to have a little seal, and we used to play this game where the seal was trapped. And we would just say, "Help, help, I'm trapped in kelp." And I look at, I look at that now, and I'm like, "Help, help, I'm trapped in kelp." Like, what am I doing? And I'm calling that love, and I'm calling that friendship, and I'm calling that nobility and sacrifice. But what it also actually is, is complete and total abandonment of self.

• 42:34Rich Roll?

  How much self-awareness did you have prior to going into the program around this? Like, presumably, I mean, you're the Eat, Pray, Love person, right? Like, you're, you're in touch with your, your past and your trauma. You know, there's therapy, there's all these other things that, that you're doing that I would imagine gave you a glimpse of some of these patterns and habits prior to, you know, kind of all the chaos that ensued later? And why was that not enough?

• 43:03Speaker 01

  Addict to addict, you know.

• 43:06Rich Roll?

  I mean, I'm setting you up for your.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  That you have a disease. You know, addicts have a disease that lies to them and says, you don't have a disease. Right? So the first person we fool is ourselves. Right? So there's like a section of Eat, Pray, Love that I quote in this new book where I describe my addictive tendencies. And that was 20 years ago. Like, I could have written a doctoral thesis by the time I was 30 called Why I Act Like This. Like, I totally know the psychological reasons why I act like this. It didn't stop me from acting like that. Right? Like, what they say in there is discovery is not recovery. Like, knowing why something is.

• 43:37Rich Roll?

  Self-awareness will avail you nothing.

• 43:38Speaker 01

  Of nothing. Right? Like, I was an expert on my dysfunction. And every single time, I was like, this isn't that, though. Even though it matches up completely with the fingerprint of what I always do, I'm not doing it. In the same way that Rea was like, the drinking that I'm doing isn't a problem. It's not a substance. Drinking and drugs are not the same thing. I'm an addict, but I can drink. It's not okay. And I was like, all right. And she was like, all right.

• 44:07Rich Roll?

  She's so honest about everything else.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  She's so honest. She's so candid. She's not hiding it. She's telling everyone she's doing it right. So I have infinite capacity to be a PR agent for my own bullshit. You know? And I have to. I mean, addicts, one of the things I write in the book is that addicts have to lie. Addicts have to live double lives because they can't, until you find recovery, you can't live without the thing that you're using. And so you've got to create these incredibly elaborate sort of narratives to pretend that you're not doing what is so obvious that you're doing. I mean, Rea said to me during her spiral, when I confronted her, since when is cocaine addictive? She looked me in the eye. She looked me in the eye with these like pupils like this.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  And she's like, since when is cocaine even? She's like twitching.

• 44:57Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  And I'm like, what did you just say? And she said, it never used to be back in my day.

• 45:01Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 45:02Speaker 01

  You know? And I'm like, you're amazing. Addicts are amazing. We will say anything. And I believe that if you'd hooked her up to a lie detector test at that point, she would have believed what she was saying.

• 45:11Rich Roll?

  Right, of course.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  Like, since when is cocaine addictive? That's amazing. Is one of my favorite lines I've ever heard in my entire life. God bless her and me. So I was doing precisely what I have done a million times. I was leaving someone to go be with someone else, which is my pattern, while at the same time saying, it's not like that this time, even though it 100% is.

• 45:33Rich Roll?

  Had you ever not been in a relationship? Did you just go, you were just overlapping them all along from the get-go?

• 45:41Speaker 01

  Stacked like cordwood, one after another. I mean, I started when I was 15. I would have started a lot earlier if I was prettier. Like, I was trying to do it earlier, but, you know, it wasn't until I got over my, like, ugly duckling thing that I could make it work.

• 45:53Rich Roll?

  Just can't not be in a relationship.

• 45:55Speaker 01

  Can't. And there was a part of me that always knew that I was missing, I was robbing myself of something. I knew, I knew that it's important to learn how to be with yourself and to learn how to be alone. So, the only time I didn't do it, there was like a nine, 10-month period during the Eat, Pray, Love journey when I didn't do it. But then I met somebody who was so loving.

• 46:16Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  You know, who was so attentive and so loving and so dialed in to me. And I was like, I can't deny myself this. Like, this person's so good to me and so kind to me.

• 46:29Rich Roll?

  This is why it's such an innately human story. Like, you go on this journey with Eat, Pray, Love, and you meet your maker and probe the depths of your soul trying to find these answers. You return, you meet this man, you get married, and you write this book, and it's this smash sensation success. And then you kind of slowly, you know, slink back into self-will and old habits.

• 46:55Speaker 01

  Slink is such a good word for it.

• 46:57Rich Roll?

  And then you're just kind of doing your thing, and you're like, it's fine, right?

• 47:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:02Rich Roll?

  And you need this, you know, comet to collide with your planet in order to wake up and realize like, oh, the work wasn't done when I left Bali? Like, there's still more that I have to do, that I have to look at? What is it about needing these incredibly painful moments in order to get us to awaken to ourselves and make those changes that are obvious to everyone else except ourselves? It's such an intractable human problem.

• 47:28Speaker 01

  I know. It's adorable. We're so cute. We're so cute and hopeless and adorable and loved. And when I bring that up with my, what I call God, you know, and I want to be really careful when I use the word "God" that... There's a Rob Bell line that I love where he was always like, "Whatever God you don't believe in, I also don't believe in that God." So we're good. Any God trauma that anybody has, but it's a word I use for the mystery that doesn't have any other word that I do feel loves me and wants me to be okay. And, and the way that it speaks to me is like, "Oh, honey, we tried as gently as we could to get your attention about this." Like, we tried.

• 48:07Rich Roll?

  Right. There were a lot of, there were a lot of knocks.

• 48:09Speaker 01

  If we could have done this without sending the comet.

• 48:12Rich Roll?

  But why can't we just heed that gentle knock?

• 48:14Speaker 01

  Because you can't see what you can't see. And I think when you're somebody who's accustomed to being very powerful, which is something like, there's another element of me where I'm like, "I'm the manifester." Like, I can create things. Like, I can make, like, I can do stuff in the world. I'm a person who can do stuff very successfully. I'm accustomed to being successful. Rea was accustomed to being powerful. She was accustomed to walking into the room and being the effortless alpha in every room that she walked into. Why the hell could she not manage a little bit of cocaine? Like, why the hell could she not manage a little bit of alcohol? It's like, this is her Achilles' heel, right? Like, I'm accustomed to manifesting beautiful things.

• 48:55Speaker 01

  So why can't I have a normal relationship, like a normal person? And the thing that I find so touching and that I come back to again and again about addiction that I find so sweet about us, I say us as addicts of all sorts, is like, because you can't. Like, there are certain things that I can't do that other people can do. And I just know that now, and I hope I don't forget that. But like, other people can do things that I can't do. I have a friend who's a ferocious alcoholic. And we were at a wedding together and somebody handed her a glass of a flute champagne to make the wedding toast. And she just went like, you know, it says in the big book of AA, "We recoil as if from a hot flame," right? And, you know, she's going nine years sober.

• 49:39Speaker 01

  And she just was like, you know, she just like backed up from this thing. And the person was like, "It's just for the photo." Like, you can surely hold a flute of champagne safely in your hand. You're not going to drink it. And she just, she just said, "I cannot do things that other normal people can do." Like, this is what I have to know about myself. In this regard, I am not normal. And I think what I was doing for my entire relationship history was trying to like, I read a whole book about marriage, trying to figure out, how do I contain this thing? How do I do this successfully? How do I be normal? And I'm not. And that's lovely. I'm just not. This is how it is. And that abnormality that brought so much pain and suffering and shame

• 50:24Speaker 01

  and degradation is also my path to God.

• 50:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Because it's where my power ends. And if I were as good at relationships as I am at everything else, I wouldn't need a God. I'd just be out here giving seminars.

• 50:38Rich Roll?

  I mean, it would find you.

• 50:39Speaker 01

  I'm nailing it.

• 50:40Rich Roll?

  It would find you in some other way.

• 50:41Speaker 01

  You know, and then, you know, I'm so good at life.

• 50:44Rich Roll?

  Here's what's great. Here's what's great. You're cruising around, you know, America, doing these workshops with Rob Bell on creativity. You know, I adore Rob. Like, what a wonderful human being. And the two of you together, it's like a supernova. It's like an amazing energy. These two human beings who have this spiritual connection and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that creativity is something divine. It's something that we can court and make ourselves available to flow through us, but it is not something that is generated inside of us. And it descends upon us when we open the portal, are in a place of ease and allowing, like, you know, all of that.

• 51:28Rich Roll?

  Like, you're the best at this. There is no question that you are tapped into something very real and deeply spiritual. And yet, you're walking around with this God-sized hole in your soul, determined to fill it with externalities.

• 51:50Rich Roll?

  What applies to creativity doesn't apply to relationships. You have compartmentalized your spirituality and you know, God came down and gave you a reckoning and said, your surrender is half-baked, right? Like you have it for this, you're very clear about that. You helped all these people and you've been able to, you know, build this beautiful, creative, inspirational life in this one area. And yet, you can't seem to understand that you need to apply it not just to this other area that's going sideways, but to everything. And I'm curious, like, where's Rob Bell in this? Is he going, "Hey Liz"? Is he seeing this? Is he not seeing this? Like, where's the blind spot?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Oh, for me, like, calling me out or being like, as your friend?

• 52:37Rich Roll?

  Not for him necessarily, but it's like, the blind spot is what's interesting. Cause we all have them. Like, I'm not like judging you. I have a million of them. You know what I mean? It's like, we think we've got it figured out.

• 52:46Speaker 01

  I don't feel judged at all. I feel like you just, I don't feel judged. I feel the delicious, velvety softness I always feel in the truth. You know what I mean? Like, that's just, what you just said is true. Like, I'm like, yep, that you just, what that guy said.

• 53:00Rich Roll?

  And so, yeah, Earth School says, "We've got another class for you."

• 53:04Speaker 01

  Right, right. "We hate to do this, honey, and we'll do it as gently as we can, but here we go." I don't think, the definition of a blind spot is that you can't see it. You know? I mean, that's where, that's where the beautiful human quality of mercy has to come in. And not instead of like, "How could you not see this?" It's like, "Of course you can't see this." Like, of course, of course you can't. Like, I feel the only compassionate way to look at an addict is not like, "Why do you keep doing this?", but like, "Why in the world wouldn't you?" You know, like, "Why in the world wouldn't you? And nothing can save me but a miracle." Like, psychology can't save me. Like, my own massive creativity.

• 53:48Speaker 01

  I mean, how many times did I say precisely what you just said, Rich? Like, I wish I could be in relationship with people the way I am in relationship with creativity. It's so clear to me how this works in creativity. It's so effortless. It's so beautiful. It's so warm. It's so soft. It's so free. There's no stakes. I've got no attachment to the outcome. I can, this just happened a couple of years ago. I can write, like, spend four years, write a book.

• 54:14Rich Roll?

  Yeah, you wrote this novel and then...

• 54:15Speaker 01

  And then just be like, oh, okay. And just not publish it and not lose a minute of sleep over it, right?

• 54:19Rich Roll?

  That was insane. I remember talking to Adam about that. I was like, she, like, what was the interior experience of that?

• 54:26Speaker 01

  Mellow.

• 54:26Rich Roll?

  But I know you were like, it's cool.

• 54:27Speaker 01

  It was mellow. It was kind of like, there'll be another one.

• 54:30Rich Roll?

  Because you were doing it for the love of doing it and the process.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  Exactly. But I can't, that level of detachment, that level of non-attachment to outcome, I have never been able to do that with a person. You know, it's just like, once I feel that they have something that I need, like all addicts, you can't take it away from me until it's got claw marks in it. So, that's my thing. That's what I, that's what I came here in this lifetime to address. And, and that's what I'm doing to the best of my capacity, with the help of a very amused God. You know, who's like, all right, honey, how many more times you want to do this? You done yet? If you're done yet, come with me. If you're not done, go try it again. Like, go try it again.

• 55:23Rich Roll?

  When you came into the program, were you open-hearted about it and willing to do the work? Or were you fighting it and, and trying to convince yourself that you didn't fit?

• 55:34Speaker 01

  Which time, when I came into the program?

• 55:36Rich Roll?

  I don't know. Well, you tell me.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  When I came into the program, the first time, I came as a spectator. And so a friend 12-stepped me and was like, you gotta go check this out. And I went, and I checked it out, and I was like... These people are super sick. You know, like, these people are really not well. I'm not nearly as fucked up as these people. The literature's good, I get it. I'm very smart, I'm a lot smarter than other people, so I'm just gonna

• 56:02Rich Roll?

  That's a liability.

• 56:02Speaker 01

  just gonna read the book in an afternoon and download it and be like, "Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, I see that." Definitely not gonna get a sponsor. Definitely not gonna ever make a program call with another fellow, because these sick people, I don't really want to deal with these tragic. Like, this is how I was seeing it. And I was there for a couple of months, and then I was like, I think I've, you know, I'm an accelerated student, so I think I got it. "Cool, thanks a lot, thanks for the lessons, I don't need this." And I went out and picked up, again, like, instantly picked up another person, and instantly did the thing I do. So after that kicked my ass, and this was after Rea died, like, one comment wasn't enough, it's never enough, you know? Like, I'm a low-bottom sex and love addict.

• 56:47Speaker 01

  I have to have many more serious consequences than a normal person to finally give up. But then I came, the second time, I was like, "Okay, got it. Let's do this now. Who will be my sponsor? Let me take 10 phone numbers, let's do the steps, let me put this thing down." And there, I was still negotiating. There was a beautiful moment at the beginning of my recovery, where I said to my higher power, who I feel like I can hear, and who hears me, I said, "If I do this, if I do this right, and, and I'm good, and I do the steps, and I get a sponsee, and I, like, am the perfect A student, will you send me another great love story?"

• 57:32Speaker 01

  And instantly, I heard, "I will promise you no such thing."

• 57:36Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 57:37Speaker 01

  You know?

• 57:38Rich Roll?

  It's not a conditional thing, it's not a quid pro quo. Like, the gift of sobriety is sobriety.

• 57:44Speaker 01

  But I want the cash and prizes that come after. And the, and the invitation that I felt at that moment was, "Are you willing to, are you willing to fully put this thing down? Are you not willing to just do, like, 90 days of no contact with your qualifiers, or a year of celibacy and working on yourself? Are you willing, this is my deepest dream, this is always my best idea for how to be well." And God was like, "Will you," what I heard was like, "Will you put it on the divine fire and not take it back out?" Like, just... Here, you can have this. You can have this dream. You can have this fantasy that the entire culture has celebrated. I mean, Eat, Pray, Love ends with me as Julia Roberts, literally sailing into a sunset with Javier Burt.

• 58:28Speaker 01

  Like, that's the story. Like, it's literally... And, like, that's the story I had built and created. And God was like, can I have that? Can I have that dream? Like, can I have that dream? Can I have all... And what I often hear God saying about surrender is like, can you come to me with your hands empty? Can you come to me with nothing? A little bit hidden behind your back as an ulterior motive of if then? If I do this, then maybe I can, you know? And, and I did. I was like, like, I pushed all the chips in. I'm like, you can, I'm putting this down. Like, I'm putting this down with no promise that I'll ever get anything in return,

• 59:08Speaker 01

  except a life that is, for the first time in my life, manageable. Right? Which is the gift of sobriety. Like, I can actually handle my life today. Today, I'm okay. So that's the only deal.

• 59:23Rich Roll?

  That requires a tremendous reservoir of willingness. And willingness is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. And I want to run this idea by you that I've been thinking a lot about and working on. Your ideas, around ideas in Big Magic, that's something I think about a lot. Like, the notion that ideas are out there in the ether. And, you know, when one occurs to you, or you grab it, or it descends down upon you, it is your responsibility or obligation to bring expression to it, or it will evaporate, return to the ether, and make itself available for somebody who is willing to do that.

• 1:00:05Rich Roll?

  In the way that ideas work, I think there's something to be said... That's analogous around the way that willingness works. Because I don't think that willingness is something that can necessarily be self-generated. You can't, you can like be willing to be willing, but that's sort of like wanting to want something that you don't actually want. You can aspire to willingness, but that doesn't necessarily make it so. I think willingness is something that arrives from somewhere else. Much like an idea, it strikes you and then you have a brief moment of time where it's

• 1:00:46Rich Roll?

  your responsibility to exercise that willingness through some kind of action, some kind of contrary action. But if you don't do that, it will pass and evaporate. Willingness is like this very fickle thing that I can't quite put my finger on, but it's so powerful when it does arrive. If you have the awareness and the presence of mind to recognize it and take that contrary action, because in that moment where you did have the willingness, this extreme capacity to turn everything over, it's a very dramatic act. There were many days and probably darker days, more desperate times, when you didn't

• 1:01:30Rich Roll?

  have that and couldn't make that choice.

• 1:01:33Speaker 01

  I always say, I wish I'd found recovery programs in this problem earlier, but I also need to call myself out on how very unlikely it would have been that I would have availed myself of them, because I think I still felt like I can, I can solve this, right? I can solve this with my intellect. If I learn more, like I'm a great student, so it's like, I'll learn, I'll learn more. Like, I felt like I divorce-proofed my second marriage by writing this book called Committed, where I spent three years researching the history of marriage, all the sociological data around marriage, interviewing everybody that I met about marriage, and then collating

• 1:02:16Speaker 01

  it into this book where I was like, now I'm divorce-proof, because I have every single piece of information that there is about marriage, because I never want to go through a divorce again. So I'm like, I'm gonna just apply this, I'm just gonna learn my way into safety, which is not the same thing as being willing to not know. You know, one of the things when I was going through withdrawal and withdrawal from the dream. Right? Withdrawal from the dream, the fantasy that someday I'm going to get this thing right. Like, the humility of being like, I might never get this thing right. Like, I might not be here to get this thing right. This thing maybe can't be made right. Like, all of that. And the deep loneliness, the deep loneliness, like, the searing

• 1:02:59Speaker 01

  physical pain of waking up in my bed in trauma, literally shaking and crying like a baby, and this voice being like hysterical inside me being like, this is not okay. Like, this is way too much. We need someone here. We can't, like, go get someone. Like, go get some, you know how to go get someone. Go get someone. It doesn't matter who. Like, doesn't matter who. Just a body needs to be here in this bed. This is not okay. And sitting with myself through night after night of that and calling, and just being very unhappy and miserable and uncomfortable, like, all withdrawal, and calling my sponsor

• 1:03:43Speaker 01

  and saying, when will this end? And what will be my reward? You know? Like, what will be my reward for all this discomfort? And when will this end? And, and she said, it'll end when it ends, and when it ends, it won't be you who ended it.

• 1:03:58Rich Roll?

  That's a classic sponsor, yeah, thing to say.

• 1:04:02Speaker 01

  It'll end when it ends, and when it ends, it won't be you who ended it. And can you live without knowing what the reward is? Can you do, she said, can you do what your sober predecessors before you did? And walk through this withdrawal without knowing what you're going to get? You who love to know. I mean, knowing is how I stay safe. And I found there to be something, like, when I, when she introduced the concept of a lineage, like, others before you have done this, like, others before you, I don't know why that makes me just want to cry right now, but like, others before you have been in this much pain. Like, this pain is not original to you. And the people who

• 1:04:42Speaker 01

  were in this much pain before you found a series of actions that they could take that kept them out of extreme degradation and suffering. And can you just walk where they walked without knowing why you're even doing it? And I, and I think, I don't know whether my willingness to do that was a decision of my own will, or if it was a gift.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  From the mystery to be like, "This kid has suffered enough." Like, "Let's just put her on this path."

• 1:05:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:17Speaker 01

  Like, "Let's just make her willing to be on this path." Like, "Maybe she's had enough of this particular kind of pain."

• 1:05:24Rich Roll?

  When did the idea of doing this extended celibacy come in?

• 1:05:30Speaker 01

  I didn't make a decision to be extendedly celibate. I made a decision to leave that up to God. So I don't, I'm not in a celibacy experiment.

• 1:05:43Speaker 01

  God is in charge of what I do in this realm. I don't make any decisions around this realm. So for me to say, "I'm going to be celibate," is just as ridiculous as me saying, "I'm going to stay faithful in this marriage," or "I'm not going to be attracted to this person." Like, I'm powerless over this. So what, the relationship that I'm in is, "What's your will for me, God? What is your will for me that would be of the highest use of me and service of me to this gift of life that you've given to me and to others, where I would cause the least harm and be able to do the most service?" And so far, you know, as of like 20 to 4,

• 1:06:26Speaker 01

  on this day, six years into my recovery program, God's been like, "I want you doing just what you're doing, and I will notify you if that needs to change. And if that needs to change, it's not going to be your idea. It'll be my idea." But, you know, actually, the shorter answer is when I say to my higher power, "Should I be dating?" God's like, "LOL, no."

• 1:06:49Speaker 01

  Like, uh-uh. And other people in my program do date, you know, and they date with sober dating plan. I mean, I have a sober dating plan. I've got a document in place for if that day should come, and I hope that I have the sobriety to use it if that day should come. But for now, the answer is,

• 1:07:05Speaker 01

  we have so much healing to do of the... It's not just that I have so much healing to do of the damage to me from 35 years of abandonment of self, degradation of body. Disregard for my own well being, like, there is so much healing to that's a long time. I was

• 1:07:25Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:07:25Speaker 01

  Deep in the pain in this thing for a long time, right? So there's a lot of amends that I'm making to myself about things I'm sorry that I made myself do in order to get love approval, validation and acceptance. And so the amends process for me is like, we're not going to do that now. Like, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna make you go do that. Like, I will take care of you so that you don't have to degrade yourself so much so that somebody else will. But there's a lot of healing I have to do with people who I harmed. And, and that's been a really long process. Because the amends process is difficult when these kind of actions hurt people at such a profound level. And so there's a, there's

• 1:08:07Speaker 01

  a lot of delicacy in terms of like, is it even safe for them if I approach? Is this a person who ever wants to hear my name again? Like, I did the worst thing to this person. Like, do they even want to, you know, so there's a lot of, like, there's a lot of healing, I think of it as like, healing a wetlands, you know, it's like, these heavy metals that are in there take a long time to, to get out. And I don't want to rush, I don't have a deadline on that process. Like, that's an open ended process. So that's where I'm at.

• 1:08:37Rich Roll?

  Yeah, the amends, you know, it's a case by case thing, right? Like, when is it a living amends? When is it appropriate, and in the best interest of everybody to directly approach somebody? Like, it's, it's hard to know. And when those, when those harms are, are severe and cut deep, you know, sometimes it's, it's better to leave them be and to just, you know, kind of, change your behavior going forward, or, you know, write a letter to them that you don't send, or, or, you know, just treat other people, you know, in a manner befitting your recovery. Like, it's, it's, it's a hard thing.

• 1:09:11Speaker 01

  It's really hard.

• 1:09:12Rich Roll?

  But when it's unresolved, it also makes it more difficult to move forward and release the baggage. And so you're still somewhat connected to those feelings of guilt and shame that surround it. But when you take dating off the table, And you can no longer export or externalize how you feel about yourself upon the opinions of others. You're in this rare place of solitude where you can do that work. And you can begin to exercise self-care. And that gets into this really important piece around self-love, which is like something I still, like so many years later, I struggle with so deeply.

• 1:09:55Rich Roll?

  It feels so cringey, the whole prospect of it all. Because deep down, I still harbor all of these like negative emotions about myself that creep up and start to infect my relationships. And there's a whole terrain that still is out there for me to travel.

• 1:10:16Speaker 01

  I try to avoid using terms self-love and self-hatred because self-love can feel really cringey and self-hatred is so dark. And I just think of it in terms of friendliness and non-friendliness. Like, the thing, the way I'm speaking to myself in this, I can like do a little assessment and be, "The way I'm speaking to myself right now isn't very friendly." It's not even about loving. It's just like, "This is unfriendly." Like, I would never speak to a friend this way. I would never degrade a friend this way. Is this a friendly moment or an unfriendly moment? Do you know the story about the Dalai Lama and Sharon Salzberg, the meditation teacher? Have you heard this story?

• 1:10:53Rich Roll?

  I don't think so.

• 1:10:54Speaker 01

  So, when the Dalai Lama came to the West for the first time through California, and it was probably in the 70s, 60s, some 70s, I think. I don't have the exact date. But he, nobody really kind of knew who he was. He wasn't this huge global figure yet. And some people, I'm going to guess, around Esalen brought him, you know, like in that sort of circle, like people who were philosophers and thinkers and meditators. And they had a kind of summit. And they brought him and invited various therapists and thinking people and academics to meet this kind of obscure Tibetan monk. And Sharon Salzberg, the great meditation teacher who teaches a lot about Metta, loving-kindness meditation, was in the room. She was a young meditator.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  And she had the opportunity to ask him a question. And his English was very poor at the time. And she said, "What is the traditional prescribed..."

• 1:11:48Speaker 01

  Within your lineage, what is the traditional prescribed cure or treatment for self hatred? And he had to talk to a translator for 15 minutes before he even understood the question. He kept thinking he was hearing it wrong because he kept saying, who's the person that you're having a conflict with? Like, he kept coming back and being like, who's your enemy? Who's the one that you're in trouble with? And they kept saying like, me. And he's like, but that, you're your own enemy. That doesn't even make any sense why you would be your own enemy. Because you're the only one, like, you're you. Why would you, why would you be an enemy to you? And he was bewildered by this question. And then he was even more bewildered when he sort of took a survey around the room and was like, does everyone have this?

• 1:12:33Speaker 01

  Like, is this a thing? Like, is this?

• 1:12:36Rich Roll?

  Every Western's hand goes up.

• 1:12:38Speaker 01

  Every Western hand was up. And he was, as a person of compassion, he was devastated. And he said, his exact quote was, "I used to think that I understood the mind, but I find this very, very disturbing." He came away from that. And his sort of approach toward the West was, we're going to have to start with this. Because this is, this is not okay. And this absence of a sense of just inherent, your sovereign right to feel friendly toward yourself has been so violated and decimated in this culture that we think it's natural to hate ourselves when it's actually the very, very furthest thing.

• 1:13:20Speaker 01

  So it's, that's where I sort of start with, with people, you know? And where I start with, with myself. Like, and the way that I see it now, on a sort of cosmic level, is I believe that my little soul spirit that came here to come to earth school, that God or whatever, or the great mystery, gave this one to me. Like, I don't know totally what's going on here, but I know that I'm not you. I mean, I know we're one love or one, but in this duality, like, you're having a totally different experience over there than I am. Like, so there's a rich guy, there's he's in there, and then I'm in here, and I'm in here talking to you. But like, this one.

• 1:14:02Speaker 01

  Was entrusted to me to, to carry through this experience of earth school. And I like now, the way I think of it is, they must have thought I could take care of it. You know, or they wouldn't have entrusted me with something as sacred as a soul. Right? So now, the way I see it is like all the rage and resentment and fury that I felt at Raya and many other people where I'm like, you abandoned me. Like you betrayed me. We had a contract. You were supposed to take care of me. You know, and it's like, good guess and a totally innocent misunderstanding. Like, this is mine to carry through this world, right? And I'm just learning how to do this. I'm just learning.

• 1:14:46Speaker 01

  So I'm just learning how to look in and be like, are you all right in there? How can I serve you? What do you need? Like, how can we, I can see you're suffering. This little one is suffering in here. And when I was going through withdrawal and having those nights where that addict voice that's trying to get me what I need is like jonesing and being like, we need to get someone here. You know, what I was saying out loud in my bed, and this is, I also remember having this feeling like, I'm so glad I'm alone. I'm so glad I'm living alone so that I can do all this stuff that would look very weird to someone, you know, like flopping about PTSD, shaking, talking to myself, comforting myself. I'm like, I'm actually really glad that I've got this container

• 1:15:29Speaker 01

  of this house that I live in where I'm not pulling anyone into this drama with me. I'm actually in the crucible with myself and the only people here are the ones who need to be here, which is like me and God. And I would just say, out loud, I would say to her, I know, I totally know why you want that. It makes so much sense. I know, I know your whole story and I know why you want me to get someone here. And I know what you think you're going to get out of that and you're not wrong. Like, That would actually be a fix for tonight. Like, it would work. It always, it always works like all drugs. It's like, it would.

• 1:16:08Rich Roll?

  You just, you play it out to its conclusion.

• 1:16:11Speaker 01

  You play the tape out and it's like, and then I would just say to that part, like, do you remember all the other times we did that? And do you remember how it always ended? And it always ended worse. So, we're just gonna not do that. And I was watching this division in me, like, this thing was trying to run away from me. And it was like, I don't trust you to take care of me. I wanna go find someone else. And I'm like, I get why you don't trust me. You shouldn't. All I've ever done is abandoned you, but like, I'm, it's like I'm in parenting school at the Y, learning how to take care of you now. And I'm not gonna always be great at it, but you are my priority now. And even if I'm not always a great mom, like, I'm here. And, and I'm not going anywhere. And I'm not gonna let us bring someone else in here, because that actually ends up harming us. And it's okay if you don't like that.

• 1:16:56Speaker 01

  And it's okay if you feel like that's enough. And we're gonna, and I don't care if we're up all night doing this. Like, I am not leaving you. And I think the, the thing that I have always most needed to hear is, I don't care if we're up all night doing this. I am not leaving you. You cannot exhaust me. You are not too much for me. And I'm the only person, I now believe I'm the only person in the world who I am not too much for. Like, cuz it shouldn't be anybody else's job to do that. Like, that's too big a job. They have to be doing that for themselves. They've got their own, like, neglected, abandoned kid in there, who needs them, who they would abandon if they tried to do that for me. Right? So, it never should've been anybody else's job. But I didn't know that. And I couldn't know that, until I knew it.

• 1:17:42Rich Roll?

  It's not dissimilar from the way, again, like, back to creativity. Like, the idea that you talk about, like, oh, the negative voice, the self-defeating voice, like, we're going on a road trip. You can come, but, you know, you gotta sit over there, and if you pipe up, you're going in the backseat. Like, you're not allowed to, like, raise your voice. Like, you know, I love you, and, you know, you can, I'm not abandoning you. Like, you're part of me, but like, there's rules, right?

• 1:18:06Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:18:07Rich Roll?

  So good at setting boundaries around that. But here we are. This is the same situation. It's just that you have to cleave off. A deeper part of yourself that you have a harder time disassociating with or letting go of, right? The wounded child that needs care, that you're, that you've got bottled up in here. Like, the negative creative voice, that's easy for you, you know? But this is the tough one. But on some version, it's like Russian nesting dolls. Like, this is just, it's the same thing, right?

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  Yes, that's so well put, Rich. Exactly. Exactly. And Rea used to say, there's always a, I mean, I think it's a common recovery phrase, but there's always a trapdoor under every bottom. Like, just when you think you've hit rock bottom, there's a trapdoor and you can always go lower. But there's also always a ladder of ascension. You know, you can always evolve higher. Like, you can always, your soul can always be sort of more polished. And I think a lot of, sort of, the journey of life is like, you start to get rid of the, you know, the external things that you've been using to not go to the bottom of the bottom of the bottom of the thing. And when they're all gone, then it's just you and the little creature at the bottom of the hole, you know?

• 1:19:22Speaker 01

  Who, when I met her, frankly, looked at me and had no hope. I mean, she looked at me, she had the thousand mile stare of a ten tour of duty soldier. And, and I was like, what do you need from me? And she was like, you will always abandon me. You will always abandon me. You'll always choose everybody else's comfort over my safety. Always. You'll always people-please your way into destroying, you'll always give everything that's mine away to everyone. Like, I can't count on you for anything. And I was like, you're right. You're right. Let me see what I can do about that. Let's start over.

• 1:20:02Rich Roll?

  Like, all these things, though, they, they track back to...

• 1:20:07Rich Roll?

  Childhood wounds and traumas.

• 1:20:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:20:09Rich Roll?

  I'm sure you have some awareness around, you know, how this pattern originated and what locked it in. Beyond 12-step, are there other healing modalities that have been helpful? Like, internal family systems? Or, I mean, there's a, you know, there's a panoply of like, stuff out there.

• 1:20:25Speaker 01

  Yeah. IFS has been great. I would say for me, the two, the two modalities that I think have actually given me transformation, because everything helps. But I don't think helping is quite the same as having a transformative awakening experience where you feel like you're actually being changed.

• 1:20:44Rich Roll?

  Say more about that.

• 1:20:45Speaker 01

  So I did talk therapy for probably two and a half decades, and it was helpful. Like, it's helpful. It was, it was such a Band-Aid. It was so helpful to go in there and talk about my problems and have somebody compassionately listen. But I didn't stop doing those things. Right? I didn't. Some people, it may actually transform. So for me, it was almost like a methadone clinic. It's like, I'm gonna go get a little bit of love and connection with this person that's gonna be able to keep me alive for the next week until I go get another. But I don't, you know what I mean?

• 1:21:17Rich Roll?

  Using the therapist to like, meet your addictive need.

• 1:21:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:21:21Rich Roll?

  The validation.

• 1:21:21Speaker 01

  You'll be a kind of temporary mommy for me. You know, and comfort and understanding. And then these little awakenings where it's like, oh, an epiphany. I understand more. But I would go out and do the same thing again. You know? So the two things that I feel like are the only two things that for me have actually made me not do those two things again, those things again. One is 12-step, and the other is Byron Katie's work. And self-inquiry and the four questions like that.

• 1:21:48Rich Roll?

  Right. It's called the work, right?

• 1:21:50Speaker 01

  It's called the work.

• 1:21:51Rich Roll?

  I don't know that much about her stuff, but...

• 1:21:53Speaker 01

  I find it to be really, that it creates radical transformations of thought within my mind. It asks me to have... A really open mind and to be able to sort of jujitsu flip my beliefs where all of a sudden I kind of physically can't believe that anymore.

• 1:22:09Rich Roll?

  It has something to do with basically just challenging everything you believe is true, right? Like, what if it's not true?

• 1:22:14Speaker 01

  Your negative thoughts.

• 1:22:15Rich Roll?

  Like, releasing your attachment to

• 1:22:17Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:18Rich Roll?

  ideas and identity.

• 1:22:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:22:21Rich Roll?

  Is that right?

• 1:22:21Speaker 01

  So, yeah, a good one would be Rea abandoned me. I'm in that belief and I'm suffering enormously because I'm in that belief. So, anyone would agree with it. Like, anyone would have looked at her, like, checked out on the couch, spending money on cocaine with a needle in her arm, be like, sure looks that way. Like, I could definitely get a consensus of people to back me up on that. But, but what that work would do would be to ask me to dare to have an open enough mind to, I can always go back to the belief later, but would you sit in meditation and ask these four questions of this belief? And the first one is, is it true?

• 1:22:55Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:22:57Speaker 01

  That Rea abandoned me? And the answer to that can only be yes or no. So, you have to really think about, like, is it true she abandoned me? The second question is, if the first answer was yes, the next question is, can you absolutely know that it's true? And that's where the ego starts to kind of like disintegrate like a slug when you put salt on it, because it's like, well, I can't absolutely know much. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, it looks true, it feels true, but like, absolutely, absolutely. Like, it starts to introduce this possibility of doubt to this belief that I'm hanging my whole life on. And then the third question is, how do you respond when you believe that it's true? I'm a victim. I'm enraged. I have to go find someone else to love, to make up for what I lost with her. You know, I'm sick and suffering in pain. And who would I be without that belief is the fourth question.

• 1:23:41Speaker 01

  And it's like, if I didn't have the belief that she abandoned me, I would be free from that rage. And then you do the, the really cool jujitsu part is you take the original belief and then you try to find three opposites of it. And you try them on. She always says, try them on like a pair of shoes and walk around in it and just see how that belief feels. So, with that belief, Rea abandoned me, an exact opposite would be, I abandoned me. That, actually, when I try that on and walk around in it, it feels more true.

• 1:24:09Rich Roll?

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:24:10Speaker 01

  It's like, oh, wait a minute. That actually kind of feels like, like I did that. Like, I agreed to go buy all those drugs. I made you into my higher power. I enabled this. Or Rea abandoned herself.

• 1:24:23Speaker 01

  Like, that also feels very true. She abandoned her recovery program. She abandoned her highest ideals. She abandoned her integrity. It depersonalizes it, where suddenly it's like, she didn't do that at me. She was just doing it. Like, she was just an addict having a relapse. It wasn't, it wasn't personal to me. Like, if I wasn't there, she'd be yelling at a tree. You know what I mean? Like, she was just in her own experience. And so you start to take these beliefs and like, have the... I love an open mind. So that's why I think I really love that. Like, willingness is an open mind.

• 1:24:54Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:24:54Speaker 01

  Like, when God said to me, "Are you willing to put this thing down? And just come in with no understanding? Are you willing to be in a beginner's mind? Are you willing to be in a don't-know mind?" So, her work helps me with my, like, fears and resentments throughout the day of, like, I've got, you know, because all addiction comes from fear and resentment.

• 1:25:14Rich Roll?

  And when those ideas are challenged and you feel an emotional charge, obviously, that's when there's something there to explore.

• 1:25:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:25:23Rich Roll?

  The resistance is because whatever that idea is, no matter how much it's leading you in the wrong direction, it is doing something for you. It's fulfilling some sort of need that needs to get understood and deconstructed and filled in a different way.

• 1:25:39Speaker 01

  It's crying out to be liberated. You know? That's how I see it. Because like, a free mind, an open mind, a soft mind, isn't getting... Like, I'm thinking of like, a snag in a river. You know, like, the, like, a free and open mind is just sort of a river flowing. And then there's like, a bend and like, a giant log sort of just gets snagged. And then, like, all the other logs start hitting. I mean, we've seen it so many times in nature, where it's just like, just hooked on that thing. And so those, like, deep endemic beliefs, those self-hating, self-abandoning, betraying beliefs are like, these snags that I just keep getting caught on. And once I'm caught on them, I have no choice but to act out the way I act out. Like, if I'm trapped in this belief of "Rea abandoned me",

• 1:26:23Speaker 01

  I have to go find someone who's not going to abandon me. Like, I have to. Like, if I, if I believe that, like, I have no choice. And of course, I'm going to go do that. And if I retreat to, "Wait, oh, I abandoned me", now I, like, I love the, one of the definitions I love of sobriety is, "Sobriety is the restoration of choice", because addicts have no choices. It's like, "You've got to do this thing. You're so compelled." So it's like, "Well, now I actually have a little bit of space where I can decide, how would I like to respond here?"

• 1:26:50Rich Roll?

  I mean, that's a good way of putting words to, to the fear that a lot of people have around 12-step recovery, which is this idea of surrendering to a higher power, this notion that you're, you're giving up, that you're relinquishing any agency over your life. It's a very, you know, confronting, threatening prospect that, that is short sighted in that it doesn't, it doesn't fully comprehend the liberation that, that occurs when you kind of let go of all these attachments and, and turn it over and really develop this spiritual connection. I mean, truly, like, that is, you know, this is the, you, you get your diploma

• 1:27:34Rich Roll?

  in earth school when, when you realize that there is nothing, there is nothing more important than your divine connection. Like, it's really, that's it, right? And we struggle so much and try to figure that out in all these material ways that lead us astray, when all we want to do is kind of go home, right? And it's so hard for us. And I fight it tooth, tooth and nail.

• 1:27:57Speaker 01

  And we try to make so many other things our home.

• 1:27:58Rich Roll?

  And it's like, my surrender's conditional, like, yes, but like, I'm still, I still need to like, you know, over here is where like, I'm in control of this. And the idea of, of relinquishing control, like that, that notion that maybe you're not in control, like, that's where all the juice is. Like, that's when you open the portal to all the good stuff. And it's so difficult to make that leap, though.

• 1:28:23Speaker 01

  There's a line in the book, I actually did a little illustration of it, that you don't want to surrender because you're afraid of losing control, but you never had control. All you had was anxiety.

• 1:28:34Rich Roll?

  It's the illusion.

• 1:28:34Speaker 01

  All you had was anxiety. You know, and there's the other line that says, like, when you give up control, you're giving up something you never had in the first place. Like, you're just giving up this, this dream of this thing that you never had. When I work with sponsors and they're having trouble with... Steps two and three, which are the, you know, made this decision to turn our will and our life over to the care of a higher power and came to believe a power greater than ourselves, those ones. Especially people who have a lot of religious trauma, which I'm extremely sympathetic to, where those concepts can feel really, really super threatening. One of the things that I invite them to do is that they get to write, I ask them to write an essay to, they get to create, it's like a Build-A-Bear. You get to create your own higher power. So, write down what qualities, it's almost like the qualities you would want in a partner.

• 1:29:19Speaker 01

  What are the qualities that you would have to have in a higher power to surrender to them? Like, because it's not going to be to the God, you can't surrender to the God you were taught is judging and hating you. Like, you already hate yourself, like, you already hate yourself so much, you already judge yourself so much, like, that's not going to feel good. So, I'm like, just, you get to create your own HP, let's go. And they're like, you can't do that, can you? I'm like, totally you can. And why would a loving, mysterious God not take whatever form it needed to take for you to find it? Right? So, it's interesting, because usually the first thing they have on the list is unconditionally loving, especially love addicts. You know, it's like, I need a higher power who thinks I'm absolutely perfect as this

• 1:30:04Speaker 01

  wreckage that I am right now. Like, that's where it's got to start. Like, I can't have a God coming in here and shaming me.

• 1:30:10Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:30:11Speaker 01

  I can't.

• 1:30:12Rich Roll?

  The other idea that's helpful for people that come in with that kind of baggage and resistance to anything spiritual in any regard, because of their religious background or whatever, is to just say, kind of what you said earlier, which is, there's wisdom in these rooms. Like, a lot of people have faced and overcome things that you're struggling with right now. And one of the choices you can make is just to make the group consciousness your higher power. And that is, that is a higher power at work.

• 1:30:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:30:44Rich Roll?

  Certainly being channeled through those people. And it just grounds it and makes it a little bit easier to make that leap.

• 1:30:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, I love that. The group, that's the G O D equals group of drunks, isn't that what they say? That you make that your God, the crew. I also love, there's a couple of questions I've heard, which is like, can you imagine, and it's just a hypothetical, that there might be an intelligence in the universe greater than yours? And you don't have to know what it is, but like, even looking at, like, the ocean tides, like, I'm not doing that. Like, and it's a very intelligent system, the way it's working. There's like a beauty in an order that's, that might be smarter than me. Like, it might be, like, could it be? Or is my brain the highest intelligence in the universe? Which doesn't even make sense, especially looking at how badly I've done managing my life.

• 1:31:34Speaker 01

  Right? Like, you can just take that as an example. Like, if I'm so smart, why do I keep driving myself over a cliff? Right? So, could it be possible that there's an intelligence in the universe? And you don't even have to name what it is or know what it is. And the second question is, if the answer to that is yes, and if it's possible, could it be possible that it cares about you? That you're part of it? Like, you were created unto this? And if it's possible, you don't have to know, but is it possible? And then the third question is, if it's possible that it cares about you, can you imagine a possibility that it might want to be in communion with you? Which brings us back to creativity and this idea of like, ideas in the ether that want to be in communion with you. And is it possible that it's trying to communicate with you?

• 1:32:19Speaker 01

  And that if you ask it to communicate with you, it will? And if you ask it to help you, it will? Is it possible? Or are we gonna stick with, your brain is the highest intelligence in the universe? And it's got all the answers, as evidenced by the wreckage of your life?

• 1:32:39Rich Roll?

  Pete Holmes has a pretty funny bit about this. Have you heard this one where he talks about nothing? You know, like, you ask people, what happens when you die? And, nothing, nothing happens. And reconciling that with the idea that, you know, before the big bang, there was nothing. You know, so if it's nothing, well, then that's God. You're just calling it nothing. It's some, you know, like, obviously, he does it in a brilliant, you know, way.

• 1:33:01Speaker 01

  I have seen that clip, he's so great.

• 1:33:04Rich Roll?

  It's like a mental, like gymnastics to like, get around the language.

• 1:33:09Speaker 01

  And Rob Bell has said beautifully, you don't have to call it God, but that doesn't solve the problem. Of what the hell is going on?

• 1:33:16Rich Roll?

  Liz, what is going on?

• 1:33:19Speaker 01

  What is going on? Earth school, I think.

• 1:33:22Rich Roll?

  I'm taking this off.

• 1:33:23Speaker 01

  I mean, I think that's what's going on. I think earth school is going on. And when you look around, what we've been able to see yet of the universe, it doesn't appear there's anything else that we've found yet that's like this. Something very special is going on here. This is a very, this is a very special place, this planet. And consciousness seems to be a very special thing. And the Buddhists say that it's a very precious thing to have a human life, even with all of its suffering. And it's, I have not always felt that way. I've often felt like, check please. I don't care for it. No, thank you. Zero out of five stars. You know, but you know, the Buddhists say like the, your chances of being born in human form and having the opportunity to have this spiritual experience on life, they're so glancingly slim.

• 1:34:07Speaker 01

  They're like, it's the same as the chance of a turtle that lives at the bottom of the ocean, that only comes to the top of the ocean once every hundred years, coming to the top of the ocean for a moment, and its head coming up in a ring that's floating on the ocean. Like, those are the odds, which actually biologically is true when you look at sperms and eggs. It's like, the odds of that one inseminating event are so, like, what are the hot? They're like astronomical, you know? And, and so, you're being offered and invited, but not forced, to have an interesting experience here and show up for it. Like, let's show up for it and see what happens next.

• 1:34:55Rich Roll?

  One of the things that you talk about is, is this idea of like, purpose anxiety, right? Because when you, when you talk about that... Preciousness, then that trickles down into, okay, I'm here. You know, I have a certain amount of time. What am I going to do with it? Let's get to work. And there's, there is a cultural pressure out there that I think really makes people feel lousy about themselves, where they feel like they have to, like, what is my purpose? What is my thing? Like, I'm falling behind. I don't have it. I don't know what it is, so I'm less than as a result.

• 1:35:37Rich Roll?

  Because the more you talk about how precious this life is, I think that that can like, turn the volume up on that feeling of, of like, well, how do I fit in here? And am I anything if I'm not special in this particular way?

• 1:35:53Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah, Americans can contaminate anything.

• 1:35:58Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:35:59Speaker 01

  It's like, we took preciousness and turned it into purpose theology. Like, you have to earn that preciousness by achieving something, you know, or, or leaving an impact or changing the world. The problem with that, and again, I think there's an innocence in that belief, but one of the problems with that is like, when do you know you've done that enough? Right? Especially in a culture where nothing is ever enough. Because you and I both know, people who are, appear to be at the very top of that purpose game, and when you're in their company, you're like, this person's not well. You know? Like, you can feel that they're not well. And they're nailing it. Like, they're just extremely anxious in a much nicer house than I will ever have. It's not work, it's not even working.

• 1:36:44Speaker 01

  That purpose-driven thing doesn't even seem to be working for the people that it's working for. And the anxiety's not gone, you know, despite the tremendous accomplishments. Like, people with tremendous accomplishments kill themselves all the time. So do people with no accomplishments. So it's not, it's not that that kills you, it's just that it doesn't seem to answer that deeper question. And You know, there's a story that I think we've all been told in a million commencement addresses about this idea that you've got this unique spark offering and it's your one job to figure out what it is and then you've got to monetize it and then you've got to bring it to other people and you've got to have a legacy, like you've got to be remembered after you. You know, all of this to me just sounds like the fears of

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  the ego. Like, am I important? Am I special? Did I earn my right to be here? Did I waste my time? Should I have done more? Did I save enough lives? Did I leave a long enough legacy? Did I make enough of an impact? You know, all of this is like ego, ego, ego, ego, ego. Whereas the preciousness that I feel like I'm speaking about doesn't need any of that. It just is. It's intrinsically precious. It is sovereign in its preciousness. It is precious whether you're living under a bridge, wearing a garbage bag, and screaming at people when they walk by, or like running the world. There's something happening that is extraordinary,

• 1:38:11Speaker 01

  which is that you're here. And so the thing that I'm always, when I teach, like I ask people to forget about purpose. Like when I teach workshops, I'm like, I hope you didn't come here to find your purpose because I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to help you because I actually want to help you kind of let that go and see if you can replace it with presence, which I think is just an awareness of awareness. Like, I have no idea what's going on here, but it's objectively very interesting. You know, and even the really horrible worst moments are objectively interesting. I mean, even when Reo was diagnosed, I remember there was this tiny little awakened part of my mind that was like, and I put it away

• 1:38:56Speaker 01

  really quickly, but there was a recognition where I was like, this is interesting. Like, this is the person who I can't live without. This is a one person. Like, if God had come to me and said,

• 1:39:07Speaker 01

  I'd be like, you can take all the rest of them. Like, all of them. They can all come, they can all go. You know, like, this is the one that you can't take. This is the one that you can't take. This is the one that I can't live without. And they're like, okay, we're gonna take that one. And even in the grief, there was this teeny little thing was like, that's interesting. Like, that is really objectively interesting. Like, oh. Because lots of times you think you have your purpose. And then life will teach you otherwise. Like, my purpose is to be this tremendous parent. Like, I'm gonna be this great parent. And, and then you fail. Like, you have a child who, what Rob Bell always goes, everyone's got that one kid.

• 1:39:50Speaker 01

  It's like, you got one that it worked with, and then you've got one that it just doesn't work with. And, and then maybe they spend their entire life estranged from you. And maybe they spend their entire life blaming you. And you're like, well, this is interesting, because I totally thought, like, so much of my life is things where I'm like, I thought I was gonna be good at this. You know, I thought it was my purpose to do this. And maybe it wasn't, you know? And Leonard Cohen has a beautiful, beautiful line in a documentary about him where he said, you know, one of the great sufferings that we often have is this feeling that there was some mission that we were supposed to do, and we failed at it. And he said, but maybe, and he then went and lived in a monastery for a ton of time and meditated on it until he came away with like, but what if

• 1:40:34Speaker 01

  there's a deeper mission, which is to fail at it? And what if it was never yours? You know, you took on the mantle and the assignment that this is what you're here for. And, and the sort of punchline is, apparently not. Right? Like, apparently not. And what if just sitting in your shared humanity of the wreckage of your expectation is actually the portal to joining us here in our shared humanity? Like, welcome to your family. Here we are. Like, we all thought we were supposed to do something, you know? And like, even now, like, we're supposed to save the planet. Like, maybe not. I don't know.

• 1:41:19Speaker 01

  Like, I can't, I'm, like, I don't know. And I feel like we're failing at it, but like, are we supposed to do, like, I don't know. So just being present to whatever is. There's a line I love that Byron Katie says, "Whenever I argue against reality, I lose, but only always." So, a lot of my purpose anxiety in the world is about like, I want to imprint myself on the world in this particular way. And reality's like, no.

• 1:41:47Rich Roll?

  I share that. I share that. I mean, first of all, you know, that's beautiful, what you just shared, and I think highly advisable and actionable in this moment that we're experiencing. Like, it's, there's a lot of crazy shit going on right there. It's very easy to get dysregulated or caught up in your opinions or inflamed, you know, around your attachment to certain ideas. And it feels like that is a pathway to equanimity and compassion for yourself and other people. And I think that we need that right now. You know, in my first school classroom at the moment, like, you know, all of what you said is like, kind of coming up for me right now. Like, I just had this

• 1:42:27Rich Roll?

  serious spinal surgery about five weeks ago. And I'm being forced to, you know, stop and slow down and just be with myself. And it's sort of like COVID lockdown, except with, with physical pain and, you know, not being able to move your body. Like, I'm here at work, it's fine. But, but not being able to kind of do the things that make you feel like yourself. And I'm very good at like outrunning anything that makes me feel uncomfortable and hiding in my work or just, you know, kind of escaping. Like, I like what I do. And it's, and my life is good. Like, there's not like any kind of chaos happening or huge

• 1:43:06Rich Roll?

  problems. But I do have a lot of self-awareness around this need to like be seen and validated. That's driven by this notion that love is transactional and needs to be earned through achievement and, you know, approval and accolades and all that kind of stuff. And obviously, that's a hedonic treadmill that leads nowhere. And I don't want to, you know, be a victim of this strivers dilemma. The solution to it is being with myself and not being able to move or escape, you know, this discomfort, but to actually sit with it and cultivate, you know, this presence with that discomfort as a, as a teaching

• 1:43:49Rich Roll?

  tool, to like, learn a different way, to let go, to realize like, Whatever attachment I have to the meaning of who I am or what I do, or this notion of purpose, like it's all, these are just constructs,

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:44:03Rich Roll?

  You know, that we create and adorn with meaning that create more suffering. And, and for as much as, you know, my behavior traits have led me to a certain privileged place in the world, they are also the Achilles heels that are in the way, you know, obstructing, you know, my connection with a higher consciousness and a deeper sense of meaning and greater connection with other people and more intimacy and all these other things that I sort of am too quick to kind of shove aside as optional and I'll get to it when, you know, I have more time.

• 1:44:39Speaker 01

  That's like, was that you needed more time?

• 1:44:43Rich Roll?

  Yeah. You know what I mean?

• 1:44:44Speaker 01

  Done and done. Let's, let's ground him.

• 1:44:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:44:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, you're being held in from recess.

• 1:44:50Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  You're at school. You're not allowed to go out there on the playground.

• 1:44:55Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I can come out and talk to you, but then I need to go back and think about what you just shared with me.

• 1:45:00Speaker 01

  There's a Bedouin line, I think, that says, "The only thing that belongs to you is anything that cannot be," this is interesting to say in California at this moment, "but anything that cannot be burned in a fire, lost in a shipwreck or stolen by pirates." And that doesn't leave much, you know, including your own body. So what belongs to us, I think, is actually, like, if we start to, what does belong to you then, also, I think, is the answer to, like, what are you? Which I think is also the answer to what is God? It's like the thing that cannot be lost in a shipwreck, the thing that cannot be burned by fire, the thing that cannot be stolen by a pirate. What, what is that thing?

• 1:45:43Speaker 01

  And the, the Ramana Maharshi used to tell his students, the great Indian sage and teacher, he was like, "There's two questions. It doesn't matter which one you use." He, he was just like, "Your choice, dealer's choice. I have the solution for you. It's just in, you get to pick. You either spend your life meditating on who is God, or you spend your life meditating on who am I? And just sit and keep asking that question. Either one of them will get you to the same place." It doesn't matter which way. It's like both paths lead to each other. You're gonna bump into God by asking, who am I? And you're gonna bump into yourself by asking, who is God? And that's the thing that, that's all you have. Like, really? I think, I think.

• 1:46:28Speaker 01

  And I think the reason I feel like I know that to be true is when I remember that, my whole nervous system is like, oh, thank God.

• 1:46:36Rich Roll?

  Are you able, are you able to like?

• 1:46:37Speaker 01

  Thank God, I don't have to go, I don't have to go hustle. Then I'll go out and hustle till I forget.

• 1:46:42Rich Roll?

  Can you marinate in that consciousness? And, you know, kind of stay present with it throughout the day? Or do you just have fleeting glimpses of that? That, or is it like a practice to always try to return to that place?

• 1:46:54Speaker 01

  I couldn't for a long time because my shame was in the way. I think that was the biggest thing. Like, I couldn't sit still because I was in so much shame. And like, so anytime I tried to sit still and meditate, all I felt was shame, including shame that I can't sit still and meditate. But, but then below that, like multiple sub-basements of shame, where like my mind would just come out with a parade of horrors of like all my shortcomings and, and failures and disasters. And you're a garbage person and a fraud and you're, you know, I mean, like, just, it was, it like, it would feel like hell to me to sit quietly. And I think 12-step really has made it easier for me to meditate

• 1:47:37Speaker 01

  because I'm sort of like, at this point with the transparency that comes in recovery, it's like, bring me one of those things, those horrors that I did. Let me take it out of the sub-basement, bring it to the room, tell a bunch of people about it. You know, like, one of my friends and I in the room, like, one of our rules is, once a week, we call each other. And we're like, this is the thing I don't want anyone to know about me today. So it's like, let's take this thing out, show it to someone. Like, let them sit in a loving presence for me while I reveal this. The world doesn't explode because they now know this awful shameful thing. And then I'm gonna show it to God, and God's like, I know.

• 1:48:16Speaker 01

  You're not telling me anything, do you? And then, and then I'm going to take it to my sponsor. And it's like, did I do, did I do something that was horrible? Like, did I do something that was wrong? Did I do something that was hurtful? Did I do something that I need to immediately fix? And not manage, but like, take accountability for. So instead of just stewing in this constant, you know, like, "Half of Eat, Pray, Love" in the India section is just me describing how much I hated meditating. Because I was suffering. Like, I was just, it was just like watching the worst movie in the entire world. It's like a life review in heaven where your life is awful and it's all your fault. You know, and it's like, here's another thing you did. Here's another thing you didn't, you know, it was horrible. But now I'm like, oh, there's a thing I did.

• 1:49:01Speaker 01

  And then I'm like, oh, you're right, I did do that. Like, that's kind of the way to defeat that shame. It's like when the devil comes knocking, you invite them in for tea. What's your worst? Like, show me the worst thing I did. I'm like, wow, I acknowledge that I did that. I'm going to share that thing that I did with somebody. And then I'm going to take it to my sponsor and be like, how do I, how do I make an amends for this? And then that thing doesn't have any power over me anymore. So just doing that, like, so steadily over the last six years, like, like, I just wrote an amends letter yesterday to somebody that I harmed like 35 years ago. That's like in one of my sub-basements. And I'm like, I think it's time to reach out to this person. And it's like a long, ongoing process. So the more of those I do, the less power that awfulness has over me.

• 1:49:45Speaker 01

  And then I can sit for a really long time and just be... And when I do that, and I get really quiet, and I sit there for a long time, what I hear is, "I love you, I love you, I love you." That's all I hear, which is all I've ever wanted to hear. Which is what I was doing, all of this out here, to try to get people to say.

• 1:50:03Rich Roll?

  Right, but you're, you're getting the real, the real shit now.

• 1:50:05Speaker 01

  I'm getting the, from the well that doesn't run dry.

• 1:50:07Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:50:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:08Rich Roll?

  Rea was modeling that level of truthfulness all along. Like, it's sort of breadcrumbs there, right? Like, that was something that was very attractive about her. Like, just her past didn't own her.

• 1:50:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:21Rich Roll?

  Because she had learned in the rooms that, like, honesty will set you free. Like, the idea that by sharing with another person, you know, in the construct of 12-step or otherwise, like, there is a freedom that comes with that, where that thing that you've pushed down and are so afraid to share and feel like if you shared it, the world is gonna collapse, because the world is not a safe place, and you're a hypervigilant person, and you're scanning the room, and you know where everybody is.

• 1:50:49Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:50:50Rich Roll?

  God forbid.

• 1:50:50Speaker 01

  Nobody moves, nobody gets hurt.

• 1:50:51Rich Roll?

  God forbid they know this, right?

• 1:50:53Speaker 01

  Right.

• 1:50:54Rich Roll?

  And then you find out, like, oh, nobody cares. And actually, other people relate to this. And all of that energy and shame and guilt was for what?

• 1:51:04Speaker 01

  Yeah. And it's the contrary action. Because, you know, one of the lines that I say in the book is that there's this series of famous letters between Bill W. and the founder of AA, and Carl Jung.

• 1:51:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:51:17Speaker 01

  And in it, one of the things that Carl Jung says is like, you know, the hunger for alcohol is a sort of low-level spiritual hunger. What it's sort of semi-adequately doing is giving a person a sense of a connection with the divine, probably because the shame drops away, right? It's like, I don't have to think. I don't have to know who I am anymore. I can check out, and now I actually feel good, because I'm not, you know, until the shame, the next day is even worse, right? But he said, "Without a connection to the divine, the average person cannot resist," I think his exact line was like, "what the medieval people rightfully called the devil." And I find that line, like, really interesting. And one of the things that I said in the book is like,

• 1:52:00Speaker 01

  If Satan existed, and I didn't grow up with a Satan concept, so that doesn't mean a lot to me, but like if Satan existed, he could scarcely do better in terms of like creating misery than to talk inside your mind and feed you this like ticker tape of you're the worst, you suck, it's all your fault, if anyone knows this, they'll hate you, you are uniquely fucked, you are like uniquely broken, nobody will ever be able to understand you, you deserve relief, you deserve relief from this, you should go get relief by any means, you deserve to get relief by any means necessary, and don't tell anyone I said this. Like, the big thing is, don't tell anyone I said this.

• 1:52:45Speaker 01

  Like, this must be kept in a chamber of secrets. So I'm gonna torment you from within, but you're not allowed to say that I exist, you know? And so, the counteraction to that, and I think why 12-step, for all its faults, and it's not for everyone, works so well, is because it's like, oh, that's what we're gonna lead with.

• 1:53:04Speaker 01

  You're gonna raise your hand and be like, here's what I did, you know? Like, here's what, you know? And what I've found, what I love about the rooms, and I know you get this, is like the laughter.

• 1:53:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah, everybody loves it.

• 1:53:13Speaker 01

  Like, instead of it being like this horrible thing, everyone's like, ah, yeah, me too. And then I had a good idea, you know? And all of a sudden, it's like, the power is drained.

• 1:53:22Rich Roll?

  Because it's connection. People, the facts of our experience are different, but there's the shared emotional valence of it all. So even though somebody's telling a crazy story, it's like very different from your story, but you're like, I know what that feels like.

• 1:53:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, I can totally get that.

• 1:53:37Rich Roll?

  I have my version of that in my life. And so, things are funnier than they actually are because of that. You're like, I know this.

• 1:53:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:53:44Rich Roll?

  You know?

• 1:53:45Speaker 01

  It's so comforting, right? And you're right, Rea had that, and she was great at it. And that was what was so beautiful to me, because I was doing, like, every word in my mouth was a press release.

• 1:53:58Speaker 01

  I've got to like get the wording on this right, you know, so that like that people don't set on set upon me with pitchforks and flame, you know, it's like, stay safe, stay safe, stay safe, stay safe. Like that was the drumbeat. And she was just like, ah, let's just throw it out there.

• 1:54:13Rich Roll?

  But the flip side of the I'm a piece of shit consciousness is to be able to simultaneously also believe that you're the fucking best.

• 1:54:21Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah.

• 1:54:22Rich Roll?

  You know what I mean?

• 1:54:23Speaker 01

  The piece of shit at the center of the universe.

• 1:54:24Rich Roll?

  Like there's a superiority complex, you know, built into that, that is, I think, unique to the addict.

• 1:54:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:30Rich Roll?

  The ability to hold those two counterpoints.

• 1:54:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:54:34Rich Roll?

  At the same time.

• 1:54:35Speaker 01

  Well, that's the ego. It's like, I'm best, I'm the worst. It doesn't mind being the worst, as long as it's the most something. Like, I'll be the most, right? Am I, did I win? Did I win the worst? You know? Do I get a trophy? Am I important because I'm the biggest piece of shit? You know, and it's, I had a sponsor very early on who I used to love because I would call him and I would like, share these safe self-hating feelings that I was having. Like, I'm like, I'm so ashamed about this. And I'm so embarrassed about this. I don't know what to do about this. And he would say, are you thinking about yourself? Like, he would just say like, oh, it sounds like you're thinking about yourself. Are you thinking about yourself?

• 1:55:09Rich Roll?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:55:10Speaker 01

  And I was like, yeah, I'm thinking about yourself. He's like, well, that's not a good idea.

• 1:55:13Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 1:55:14Speaker 01

  You know, he's like, how about you do some service? Anybody you can help today? Like, let's break that.

• 1:55:20Rich Roll?

  The antidote to self-obsession.

• 1:55:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, is there a newcomer you can talk to? Is there somebody, you know, is there like an act of kindness you can do for another human being? Or do you just want to sit here thinking about yourself?

• 1:55:32Rich Roll?

  Yeah. Well, because that, that's addict behavior.

• 1:55:35Speaker 01

  Until you want to die.

• 1:55:36Rich Roll?

  It's like it's doing something for you. It's like feeding your dopamine or whatever, like nourishing that notion that you're the worst or whatever. There's a weird dysfunctional comfort in that.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  Yeah. Well, it's the line they always say is, I'm not much, but I'm the only thing I ever think about.

• 1:55:52Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 1:55:56Speaker 01

  And that's the beautiful thing about being another bozo on the bus. You know, like, like, I mean, when I first came in, I'm like, I'm a public figure. I can't be in this 12 step room talking about these absolutely shameful episodes of sexual, romantic and ethical degradation that I both committed and allowed myself to receive. People are going to go to page six about this. They're going to tweet about it. They're going to, you know, and my first sponsor was like, you're actually just another bozo on the bus.

• 1:56:25Speaker 01

  Like, you're not Elizabeth Gilbert here.

• 1:56:28Speaker 01

  Nobody actually really cares.

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  They're here to get their own recovery.

• 1:56:32Rich Roll?

  Doing this thing here in LA. Like, I can tell you that the, that the well-known people that, that get well and stay well are the ones who get over that whole thing, you know?

• 1:56:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:44Rich Roll?

  And the ones who don't are the ones who do get caught up in that, in that narrative.

• 1:56:48Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:56:49Rich Roll?

  It's got to be hard that I'm sympathetic to that. Like, I understand that fear.

• 1:56:53Speaker 01

  Yeah, but there really was a reckoning moment.

• 1:56:55Rich Roll?

  Especially when you can't, you have, you struggle to trust people.

• 1:56:57Speaker 01

  And especially because I think you mentioned at the beginning, I feel like sex, sex addiction, and especially anything having to do with sex and love addiction for women, carries the same stigma now that like being an alcoholic would have carried 40 years ago.

• 1:57:12Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I think, I think you're right about that.

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  And that's why people don't know about any of these programs, because it's like, for shame, you know? And that's another reason why I, with counsel from my sponsor, made the decision to be open about it. Because it's like, well, if somebody's going to do, I'll do it, you know? Like, I'll do it because everybody already knows everything about me, you know? Like, I've already, like, made it a habit of telling everybody everything. I don't have a partner to embarrass. Like, my family's pretty hands-off, so they don't care. I don't have kids to embarrass. So, like, why don't I do it? Like, I'll talk about it. And then if you hear something that I'm saying that reminds you of yourself, then you can go look into it and know that it exists.

• 1:57:52Rich Roll?

  That's the way I feel about it. But there are traditionalists who would say that that's a violation of the tradition, you know? Not sharing, you know, publicly about these kinds of things. And I understand the reasons behind that, but... And we all have our different line with that. You know, and I never quite know where to land on that. But I generally err on the, you know, kind of the liberal side of it because, you know, for the very reasons that you that you said, like, there are people out there who are suffering, who either aren't aware about this at all, or have an affiliation or a mental construct of it that's based on television or movies or something like that. And I think it's important to humanize it. And I think especially when it comes to like SLA and the things that you're talking

• 1:58:36Rich Roll?

  about, like, this is uncharted territory for a lot of people.

• 1:58:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. It's interesting. I actually nerded out the way I love to and did a deep dive into what the founders had to say about this.

• 1:58:47Rich Roll?

  Oh, really?

• 1:58:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because there is a lot. I mean, and there isn't a consensus on it in the rooms. I mean, this is real inside-baseball recovery stuff, but there are people get really heated about it. And there's there've been articles in the New York Times about it. Is it OK? Is it not OK? You know, people are like, it's an anonymous program. It's right there in the title. You know, and for me, it's like, well, I would certainly never blow up anybody else's anonymity, but but I don't see anywhere where it says that you have to. You're not allowed to identify yourself as an addict. And there's also to consider that when all of this stuff was created, you would lose your job if you were an alcoholic back in 1935. You would be shunned from from your community. Like, it was essential that there was no discussion about this outside of the rooms.

• 1:59:28Speaker 01

  And yet, Bill W. wrote a couple of really interesting essays about this very topic. And and I was like, what's Bill got to say about this? And his position was, you should talk about it all the time. You should always talk about being an addict. And you should always talk about being an addict who has found recovery because you are a beacon of hope for people who need to see that there is a possibility of healing from this thing that has dogged them forever. But you don't have to get into the specifics of naming your program. You can say, I found recovery in a 12-step program that deals with alcoholism. You don't have to say, I found recovery in AA. And his reason, which I thought was really subtle for that, was if somebody, like, if somebody hears that, they'll go find it.

• 2:00:13Speaker 01

  But he also said, if you. If someone dislikes you, he's like, we have to save the rooms from people's personalities. He's like, if somebody dislikes you and they hear that you're in AA and they need AA, they might not go to AA. But if you just say like, I was sick and now I'm well, and I found a 12-step program about that, he was like, talk about it, write about it, put it in the papers, like, everybody should know about this.

• 2:00:36Rich Roll?

  Well, the other thing they're afraid of is if it's a well-known person and, you know, they're just going everywhere, talking about it, and they're in early sobriety and they relapse, or they relapse later like that, that casts a shadow on the viability of the program.

• 2:00:53Speaker 01

  Suddenly, it's like, oh, that doesn't work.

• 2:00:55Rich Roll?

  Doesn't work.

• 2:00:55Speaker 01

  Because this person didn't work.

• 2:00:56Rich Roll?

  And these things come in waves as somebody who's been around for a long time. Like, every couple of years, there's a sort of zeitgeist moment in the press where it's like, this doesn't work, and here's the new thing. I've seen, like, you know, so many versions of that. But what's stuck around, this miracle where all these people who can barely get along have somehow figured out to create this thing that has thrived across the globe, like, it's really insane.

• 2:01:21Speaker 01

  For almost 100 years.

• 2:01:22Rich Roll?

  I mean, it is a miracle.

• 2:01:23Speaker 01

  And it's free.

• 2:01:24Rich Roll?

  What I always say, it's like, where else can you stumble into a room full of strangers, broken, penniless, alone, desperate, not knowing where to go, who to turn, and this group of people will take you in and hold you and help you and ask for nothing in return? It's incredible.

• 2:01:48Speaker 01

  That's the part that's so interesting to me, is the asking for nothing in return. Because so much of my relationship history has been transactional. You know, like, I'm gonna earn your love, attention, validation, and acceptance by huge acts of service or over giving, or, you know, I'm like, we're gonna make sure that I get you locked down. My first sponsor used to bring up gifts. Like, I mean, that's my, giving gifts to people is my love language, but it's also my manipulation language. It's a sort of a thin line where it's like, I'm gonna give you this thing so you love me and don't leave me. And I remember her saying, like, I don't need this. You know, like, it's very sweet that you gave me this necklace. I mean, now I think it's so, like, if one of my sponsees was like, here, I gave you

• 2:02:33Speaker 01

  a necklace, like, I'd be like, honey, it's not what we're doing here. You know, like, that's not, this is the one place that that's not what we're doing here. And as your sponsor, like, that's what I tell my sponsees now, like, Actually, and I remember my sponsor saying to this to me, and it didn't make any sense, where she's like, I'm getting much more out of this than you are, taking you through the steps. And I was like, that can't be true. You're giving me all this time for free and dealing with my shit. You know, but now that I have sponsors, I'm like, oh, yeah, there's, this is such a gift to be able to do this.

• 2:03:06Rich Roll?

  How has this affected your creativity and your output? Like, you've, you know, opted out of like, a lot of drama and a lot of, you know, energy kind of placed in the wrong direction. And you've replaced it with your engagement with the program and recovery and things like that. But there's a lot of headspace that is now freed up.

• 2:03:27Speaker 01

  I've written three books in the last six years, which is crazy.

• 2:03:31Rich Roll?

  Wow.

• 2:03:31Speaker 01

  I mean, not that that should be a measure of anything other than, wow, look what happens when all of this energy, like, I've had a hole in my boat that I've been like, I've been simultaneously rowing the boat and bailing the boat out. And I'm actually really proud of myself for how far I got rowing with one arm, while simultaneously bailing out the boat. But like, stepping out of the drama cycle, as you just mentioned, with sexual and romantic engagement, it's like, I got two arms to row now. And it's like, whoa, this is, this is wild. I mean, one of the beautiful definitions I heard of addiction is addiction is giving up everything for one thing, and recovery is giving up one thing for everything.

• 2:04:14Speaker 01

  And my everything has gotten so big, like, and it's not just the creativity, but this is the one that kind of a little bit breaks my heart. Like, I've always had great friends and a lot of friends, but my relationships, my central kind of like flagship relationship, whoever it was, whoever I had taken hostage.

• 2:04:38Speaker 01

  At the moment, whoever I had decided was like that person at the center of my life, the amount, the sheer amount of energy that I poured into that was so enormous. And now, when I'm not doing that, I look around and I'm like, I had these incredible friends. Like, I've got these decade-long, decades-long friendships that I had been just nominally attending to for my entire life. Wonderful people, like, loving, extraordinary people. And it's like, it brings tears to my eyes. I was like, you were there the whole time. Like, you were there. Like, I was sending you a Christmas card once a year, and we could have been doing this? Like, we could have been having this amazing, generative,

• 2:05:19Speaker 01

  creative, really fun, incredible friendship. Like, community existed? You know, creativity existed? God existed? Like, it's like, all this other stuff was there that was being blocked by my one thing. Because that thing was like, the thing I was obsessed with and fixated on.

• 2:05:36Rich Roll?

  And now you could take it all the way to the river.

• 2:05:38Speaker 01

  Hopefully.

• 2:05:39Rich Roll?

  Explain, explain what that means, the title of the book.

• 2:05:42Speaker 01

  So, my partner, Rea, was a New Yorker. I mean, she was a Syrian immigrant, raised in Detroit, but identified as a New Yorker, and particularly a New Yorker on the Lower East Side. And she had this operative metaphor for describing her friendships. And she said, there's, you got your Fifth Avenue friends. So she would look at a map of New York and be like, right here in the center is Fifth Avenue. So your Fifth Avenue friends are the people that you're completely superficial with. And it's professional relationships. And, you know, you've got a sort of mask on, they've got a mask on, you know they have a mask on, they know you do. You don't want to take the mask off. You know, you're just, you're acting a certain role. And then you go to like, a little farther east, and you go to like, your Fourth and Third Avenue friends, and you start to let them see you a little bit more. And there's a little bit, like, the mask starts to come off. And then

• 2:06:27Speaker 01

  you get to your, like, Second and First Avenue friends, and now, there's intimacy. Like, they know about your history, you know about their history, maybe you went to their wedding, like, you've met their family, you start to see behind the public persona. And she's like, but it's not till you get to your Avenue A, B, C, and D friends, your alphabet city friends. Those are the people who have been in the shit with you and they know everything. Like, they know they were with you through your divorce and through your breakup and through your addiction and they dropped you off at rehab. And like, they know all the stuff, you know, and they love you anyway. And maybe you've had problems with them, you've had fights with them, you've had to make up, like, you've seen them, they've seen you.

• 2:07:08Speaker 01

  And then, she's like, but if you're really lucky, because after Avenue D, there's just the highway and then there's the river. She's like, once in your life, if you're very lucky, you might have an all the way to the river friend. And that's, it just makes me cry again to say it, but she was always like, you're my all the way to the river friend. Like, we're gonna go all the way to the East River together, which means you will see everything. Like, there will be nothing withheld. And they know you. Like, they know you at the depth of, the deepest depth that you can know somebody. And she was always like, you're my all the way to the river friend. And I was, I took so much pride in it. And then when she started, when we found out she was dying, we started calling her death the river.

• 2:07:51Speaker 01

  So, on the day she found out she had terminal cancer, she said, I want you to walk all the way to the river with me. And God help us, I did. Because, as I describe in the book, if you've ever walked all the way from Fifth Avenue to the East River, it's not a very nice walk at times.

• 2:08:04Rich Roll?

  It's a lot better than it used to be.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  Like, back in the day, though, it's like, you're going through projects, you're stepping over drug dealer, like, you're walking on needles and crack vials, there's dog shit. I mean, like, the closer you get to the river, the more intense it is, you gotta make it across the, you know, across the highway, you've gotta find the overpass, there's, and then you get to the East River and it's the East River.

• 2:08:26Rich Roll?

  Right.

• 2:08:27Speaker 01

  Which is like, you don't exactly wanna jump in the East River, you know? So, it's, it's harrowing. Like, the book, the book has been described to me as harrowing. And, but I think that true intimacy is, you know, like, really allowing yourself to be that known, I think is a bit harrowing. Because...

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  We're difficult humans. We're difficult and we're full of contradictions and dangerous and unreliable and beautiful and sublime, all at the same time.

• 2:08:56Rich Roll?

  Yeah, if you want the beauty and transcendence that a relationship can deliver in the best way, you gotta walk past Avenue D and, you know, like maybe step on a syringe or two along the way, you know?

• 2:09:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:09:11Rich Roll?

  Now it's all gentrified. I think, didn't they just down at like

• 2:09:14Speaker 01

  Not at all.

• 2:09:15Rich Roll?

  By the East River also, there didn't that new park like right on the river just

• 2:09:18Speaker 01

  There is.

• 2:09:18Rich Roll?

  Open right now, it's all nice.

• 2:09:19Speaker 01

  I'm still picturing, the housing projects are still there, you know, like the abandoned parts of the city are still there. The power plant is there.

• 2:09:28Rich Roll?

  Yeah, that weird power plant.

• 2:09:29Speaker 01

  You know, that everybody who lives over there has to breathe. And I remember one time, I don't know why I'm thinking of this, but when Rea got cancer and they put a port in her arm at one point so that they could be able to inject her with chemo drugs and not have to just keep taking it port in and out. And this was before she had her big drug relapse. And we walked, we walked out of the hospital and she was like, her eyes were shining and she's like, dude, you know what I could have done with this back then? She's like, she's like, I can't freaking believe they, they do this. She's like, I could put anything in here.

• 2:10:00Rich Roll?

  They just, they let her leave the hospital with it?

• 2:10:02Speaker 01

  They let me leave the hospital with a port in my arm that I could stick a needle with anything in it. She was like, like, like she was kind of like tweaked by it. She's like, I could put Jack Daniels in this. I could put anything in this. I could put like, I could shoot anything I wanted right into my veins so easily. She's like, it's great. And, and I remember we were up in Midtown and like she'd just come from chemo and I was like, if you had to find heroin, you know, now after 18 years clean, how long would it take you? And she, I just remember her whole demeanor changed and she just like, she like looked at her watch. She did this like really like wolfish kind of look at her watch and she's like, and she's like, where are we? She like clocked the street

• 2:10:43Speaker 01

  she was on and she goes 15 minutes. 15 minutes. I could be on Avenue D. I know exactly where to go. And she said, all I would have to do is point to this. And, and I was like, whoa. And, and, and now that I understand how easy it is to be swept into addiction, there's a chapter that I have in my book called, You Will Have 30 Seconds to Save Your Life, that's about

• 2:11:07Speaker 01

  What the vigilance, and this is a good use of my vigilance. The vigilance and the awareness that I have to keep as I move through the world to not be like, I could get that in 15 minutes.

• 2:11:18Rich Roll?

  Yeah, my question to you is, how long would it take you, you know, in a crowded room, walking down the street or in New York City to like identify at 50 meters, like who that person is, who's gonna just light you up and fill those needs and do all the things that, you know, you want them to do for you, like to go right back to that place?

• 2:11:39Speaker 01

  I'm getting a little older, first of all. So it might not be, it might not be quite as easy as it used to. I mean, this isn't about me blowing my horn in any way. It's not hard for a woman. You know what I mean? Like, you simply must agree to make your body available to somebody and there will be somebody who will happily do that. You know, so it's not, it's not like, you don't have to be like a ma, I don't have to be like a master seductress. You just have to be like, you know, just raise your hand and be like, oh, my hair, anybody? You know, like, you know, someone will. So it's not, it's not hard. You know, I think it's, it's not hard. It's not hard for any addict to find the thing. The hard thing is to not do that. You know, that's the thing.

• 2:12:24Speaker 01

  And, and the hardest thing, I think, is to not see, is to be able to see where you're setting yourself up, where you're in dangerous territory. You know, where you are not putting yourself in dangerous circumstances. You know, for an alcoholic, that might be, mean like, I don't hang out in a bar. Like, I'm just not gonna do that to myself. I'm just not gonna put myself in that circumstance.

• 2:12:48Rich Roll?

  When you think of that younger Liz in Bali, on the Eat, Pray, Love train, you know, doing the meditation and, you know, dipping your toe into spirituality. When you reflect back on that time, were there lessons imparted to you then that you feel like you're only learning now?

• 2:13:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, and every bit of it was necessary too. You know, like, there's a common question that I'm sure you've heard a billion times over interviews will say like, what would you have told your younger self if you could? And I am left with no answer, but do everything you're gonna do. Like do everything you're gonna do, all of it. You have to do all of it. You have to do all the great stuff and you have to do all the horrible stuff. Cause otherwise I don't get to be here. Like this is all of that is what's gonna create where we are now and where we are now is good. So, yeah, I mean, and I think I had glimmers of it, you know? I had glimmers of it, but I don't think I believed that. I mean, and I felt God. I've, I've, I've always loved God. I've always kind of believed in God.

• 2:13:53Speaker 01

  I've always sensed God. I've always loved the wonder and the mystery of what I call God, but I've never trusted God.

• 2:14:01Speaker 01

  Not for a minute. It's like, I love you, your work is great, big fan. I'm gonna control this. I'm gonna control this. So I think I didn't, well, I felt that I'd had, I did have beautiful spiritual awakenings in that journey. As like, I'm still driving this car. And that's, you know, mixed results.

• 2:14:24Rich Roll?

  That's why it's a practice of constantly turning it over and turning it over again.

• 2:14:31Speaker 01

  Yeah. And again, and again. I love that the Tibetan Buddhists call meditation remembering. That's their translation for meditation. They don't have a word for meditation. It's just remembering practice. You just sit and remember what you forgot. And some of us needed.

• 2:14:49Rich Roll?

  That we are all one. We're, like I said, we're, we're all just trying to get back home, right? We're trying to find our way and addicts, I think, are fundamentally spiritual seekers. They're looking for something. They're trying to fill that hole. They're doing it in wrong-headed ways, but they're very committed and intent, you know, intent upon finding answers, right? And, you know, the gift of, of bottoming out is that then you're blessed with this opportunity to redirect that energy in a healthy way. And a lot of people don't, don't get that.

• 2:15:21Speaker 01

  Well, I have a funny experience. Like, I totally identify, every addict, doesn't matter what it is. Like, if you're an addict, you're one of my, you're one of my people. Like, I could sit on any meeting, you know, and be like, oh, yeah. Like, I don't do that. You know, I don't, I'm not a gambler, but I could sit in a gambling meeting and I could get recovery, listening to people talk about their recovery from gambling, like 100%, because I know what it feels like to think that you can get this thing somewhere, you know. Here's who I don't get. People who don't feel like they're on fire with questions. You know, people who like, are just like, who did you do, like, kind of walking through life, and I can, I can never tell if they're like, great saints, or just super checked

• 2:16:05Speaker 01

  out. Like, people who are like, "The new Toyota Camry is nice."

• 2:16:09Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:09Speaker 01

  You know, and you're like, I'm looking in their eyes, I'm like, "Do you not hunger?

• 2:16:14Speaker 01

  Do you not hunger? Are you not like, are you not baffled by this? Are you not like?" And they're just like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and I can never tell, like, like, what's it feel like to not have your head on fire? What's it feel like to not be famished for experiences? What's it feel like to be satisfied? Like, people who appear to just be satisfied are a marvel to me. Like, I'm like, "How are you just hanging out?"

• 2:16:38Rich Roll?

  Yeah, I mean, it's either a Buddha consciousness, or it's completely, you know, it's complete distraction, or repression.

• 2:16:45Speaker 01

  And I can't know.

• 2:16:46Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:16:46Speaker 01

  So I'm going to assume Buddha consciousness, because it's a more generous interpretation. But, like, that, that's what I don't get. I get addiction. I just, I don't get, "I'm good."

• 2:16:59Rich Roll?

  Like, if you're not going to the extreme, like, how are you a lot, you know?

• 2:17:02Speaker 01

  You know, people who, like, live in the town they grew up in, and they're like, "I like it here." You know, and I'm like, "Did you not want to go see the other stuff?"

• 2:17:13Rich Roll?

  I mean, God bless those.

• 2:17:14Speaker 01

  Did you not want to, like, go, like, I know, it's incredible, like, and meanwhile, it's like, I'll probably end up back in where I grew up, and be like, "After all that, I just circled around and came home."

• 2:17:23Rich Roll?

  You did do all those things to do what came naturally to that.

• 2:17:26Speaker 01

  With the guy who just never left, you know?

• 2:17:28Rich Roll?

  Who's like, "Oh, good to see you. I knew you'd be back."

• 2:17:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 2:17:31Rich Roll?

  Who's the teacher.

• 2:17:31Speaker 01

  Exactly. I mean, that's why those people are mysterious to me, because I'm like, I don't understand, there's a, there's a scene in Ibrilla with this... This Irish guy that I met there at the ashram, who was deep on a hard spiritual journey. And he said he went home and he was trying to tell his father. His father was like a sheep farmer in County Cork, who was like ninth generation on his land, just living in this life of routine. And he, this kid was just a seeker. And he'd spent his entire life traveling the world. He came home to visit his dad. And he was like telling him about meditation, and about India, and about chanting. And his dad's just listening and like staring into the fire. And he's like, Dad, you gotta try this meditation. It gives you a quiet mind, Dad. Gives you a quiet mind.

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  And his father said, I've got a quiet mind, son.

• 2:18:17Rich Roll?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:18Speaker 01

  You know, but my friend didn't. And when you don't, I think you have to become a seeker. I don't have one either, you know? So I have one now more than I've ever had one. But, you know, it's, it's an arcade in here.

• 2:18:33Rich Roll?

  You too. Welcome to the asylum. You're the best, Liz.

• 2:18:38Speaker 01

  Oh, Rich, I love you too.

• 2:18:40Rich Roll?

  This was fantastic. I could, I could just talk to you. I could do this every day with you.

• 2:18:46Rich Roll?

  You're amazing.

• 2:18:46Speaker 01

  So are you.

• 2:18:47Rich Roll?

  You've inspired me in so many ways over many, many years through not just your books, but your example, the way that you show up, your, your courage to be as honest and as vulnerable as you are. And this latest chapter is just a whole new level of that. It's really beautifully written. And I think it's gonna help a lot of people. So thank you for that. And keep doing your thing. Yeah, I'm always like, I'm always here to support you. I'm such a massive fan. I just have a huge place in my heart for you and feel very connected to the mission that you're on.

• 2:19:21Speaker 01

  Thank you, and I to yours. Let's keep going, huh?

• 2:19:24Rich Roll?

  Thanks. Final thing. Is it true that you met Adam Skolnick in Bali during that Eat, Pray, Love situation? Is that fact or fiction?

• 2:19:35Speaker 01

  Not only is it true, Adam is in Eat, Pray, Love.

• 2:19:37Rich Roll?

  He is?

• 2:19:38Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 2:19:39Rich Roll?

  I did not know that.

• 2:19:40Speaker 01

  He is in.

• 2:19:40Rich Roll?

  That I didn't know.

• 2:19:42Speaker 01

  He is in Eat, Pray, Love.

• 2:19:43Rich Roll?

  Like a newsflash.

• 2:19:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's true.

• 2:19:46Rich Roll?

  All right, please just tell this postscript story quickly.

• 2:19:49Speaker 01

  My friend and yours, Adam Skolnick, I met in Ubud, Bali in 2004. And we became friends. And he came to my 34th birthday part, 35th birthday party, which was held at Wayan, the healer's house. And he's got a couple of lines in the book. And we've been friends ever since.

• 2:20:10Rich Roll?

  I didn't know that he had lines in the book.

• 2:20:12Speaker 01

  And do you know for when he was, he's obviously a very happily married man now, but when he was a young, single man, a very good calling card to get women to like him and trust him was to say that he was friends with Liz Gilbert and that he's a character and he pray love.

• 2:20:27Rich Roll?

  How many dinners did you dine out on that one, buddy? How many dates?

• 2:20:31Speaker 01

  I plead the fifth.

• 2:20:32Rich Roll?

  All right. Next roll on. This is going to be explored.

• 2:20:43Rich Roll?

  That's it for today. Thank you for listening. I truly hope you enjoyed the conversation. To learn more about today's guests, including links and resources related to everything discussed today, visit the episode page at richroll.com where you can find the entire podcast archive, my books, Finding Ultra, Voicing Change, and The Plant Power Way. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and on YouTube, and leave a review and/or comment. And sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is, of course, awesome and very helpful. This show just wouldn't be possible without the help of our amazing sponsors who keep

• 2:21:27Rich Roll?

  this podcast running wild and free. To check out all their amazing offers, head to richroll.com/sponsors. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, and other subjects, please subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page at richroll.com. Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis and Morgan McRae with assistance from our creative director, Dan Drake. Content management by Shana Savoy. Copywriting by Ben Pryor. And of course, our theme music was created, all the way back in 2012, by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Harry Mathis.

• 2:22:11Rich Roll?

  Appreciate the love, love the support. See you back here soon. Peace. Plants.