I breathe a huge sigh of relief every time the summer ends, school starts again, and the air chills. I like the idea of summer more than the season itself. This summer, especially, it felt like the sun was just so aggressive. The heat and the beating brightness. The urgency to enjoy, soak up, get out there. I was emotionally in a winter most of these last few months—I didn’t feel the looseness and freedom summer implies or asks of us—so I was out of sync, agitated, and so many of the days felt impossibly long. By four o’clock I’d already lived a full day and was ready to cozy up and turn down the lights, but the world was still buzzing and brimming.

My daughter started her senior year yesterday. Per usual, she was running late, stressed out and trying to get out the door on time with everything she needed, sixteen different objects in her hands and a brick of a bag on her shoulder. Her first day of school picture was classic: her backing out of the driveway in my Jeep, hand up to the window shielding her face like I’m the paparazzi. Perfect! Just how I imagined it!

I wanted to send a note today about how this newsletter and community are shaping up, where I plan to take things, and what’s happening with my work overall. Next month will be four years since I started Love Story here on Substack and it’s evolved as both my interests and the platform have changed, but I haven’t always communicated these changes as many of them start out as experiments or just happen organically, so I think we’re due for a solid state of the union.

Monthly Offerings Summary

Going forward, I’ll send an email like this at the start of each month with a condensed summary of my offerings: events, workshops, retreats, courses, The Luckiest Club programs, podcasts, book news. I have a lot going on at any given time, and it’s hard to communicate it without feeling like I’m constantly promoting at you—but since this is my only newsletter (I brought my own marketing list over when I moved here in 2022), it’s not just where I write essays and host conversations, it’s also where I tell you what’s available.

This month’s is below.

What happened to The Dig List?

You may or may not have noticed I haven’t sent one since spring. The Dig List was my monthly roundup of things I loved—books, mostly, but also podcasts, shows, articles. It fell off when I got deep in book-writing and wasn’t reading or watching much. I’m retiring it for now as a formal thing, though don’t worry, I’ll always gush about the things I love here, especially books. Maybe I’ll start a monthly books-only list instead, since that’s all I ever really cared about writing anyway. :)

On that note: More of a focus on writing, author/craft interviews, book discussions

I've always talked a lot about my writing process and book publishing here, but I'll be doing more of it, and bringing in other authors and creatives for regular conversations. I have an endless appetite for these topics, and there are a lot of writers and creatives here, so I want to make this a community conversation, not just me talking at you. A few things already underway:

• Love Story Writing Group - central hub for all this type of content going forward, including…

• Weekly cowriting, Thursdays 12–1:15pm ET. Quickly become my favorite hour of the week—a couple dozen of us show up regularly, getting to know each other and our projects. We write for an hour, then hang and chat for fifteen minutes. Last week that turned into a full astrology deep-dive—you just never know. Open to all paid subscribers. Learn more & join.

• Hosting regular author conversations on craft, book releases, publishing. Next up: me and the one and only , Sept. 23 at 1:30pm ET, talking about her banger of a memoir about relationships, out 9/29. Stay tuned for an invite.

• My recent conversation with about Permission and What We’re “Allowed” to Write About was a big hit.

• Outside of this newsletter, I’ve got some new 1x1 offerings to support non-fiction writers, detailed below.

Second Sundays will continue

We’ll still gather on the second Sunday of each month at 11 am ET to spend time on a chosen topic. I’ve started recording these for those who can’t make it live.
Register for the September 13 session below.

Still going to write about

Sobriety, emotional sobriety, relationships, psychology, purpose, writing, the business of writing and entrepreneurship, midlife.

Honestly, I’ve been pretty frozen and locked up writing-wise for the past couple of years. Some of this was due to saturation after writing so heavily in a certain way about addiction and sobriety for a decade, and some was simply a natural fallow period in creativity and production. A lot of it was heartbreak and fear.

Blessedly, I’m finally coming through it. I’ve tried to force myself to get here several times by making declarations and such, which didn’t work. But now, I’m actually here, and I’ll write/say more about what that’s been like in the coming months: evolving in creative work, accepting what’s working and what’s not, surrender, the business of writing, self-doubt, mental health, and more.

September 2026: Offerings

Courses

• ✨ THE PRACTICE, my powerful six-week writing and meditation course, kicks off NEXT Tuesday, September 8. Grab your spot. Paid subscribers get 15% off, code below.

• THE BOOK PROPOSAL LAB, my 10-week, small-cohort intensive for writing a book proposal that actually sells will run in new year. This isn't just proposal-writing: it's a masterclass in nonfiction publishing, and insider access to how agents and editors actually think. Registration will open mid-December; only 20 spots available. Learn more & join the waitlist.

Sobriety Support

The Luckiest Club offers 40+ meetings each week + an amazing app & the best community around. I now lead the Weds 12 pm ET meeting each week. Try us out with a free 7-day trial.

• If you need to get sober, or are already there and need support, community, and structure, THE SOBER 90 begins October 1. Early bird pricing available through Sept. 7. Register.

• If you’ve got some sober time, but motivation is waning and you need more tools and resilience, THE SOBER STEADY begins October 1. Early bird pricing available through Sept. 7. Register.

• If you’re ready to do the deeper work of emotional sobriety, THE SOBER LIFE begins October 1. Early bird pricing available through Sept. 7. Register.

Events

• SECOND SUNDAY, Sept. 13, 11 am ET. Topic: Surrender. Paid subscribers register:

• SUBSTACK LIVE with Sarah Hepola, Sept. 23 at 1:30 pm ET. Invite coming soon.

Retreats

• Oct 16-18, 2026: PUSH OFF FROM HERE, Kripalu (Stockbridge, MA). Live retreat is now on a waitlist, but you can register for the virtual experience.

• April 7-9, 2027: WE ARE THE LUCKIEST, Kripalu (Stockbridge, MA). Hosted by me and Eric Johnson, for anyone sober or sober curious. Filling up.

• June 18-20, 2027: THE BIGGER YES, Omega Institute (Rhinebeck, NY). This is the first time I’m teaching at Omega and I’m thrilled—it was the first place I ever dreamed of leading a retreat way back when! Not available for registration yet, but stay tuned.

• If you’re looking for an immersive writing retreat, is hosting an 8-day AWAKENING RETREAT in Portugal next June. I’m not involved in this, but I love Amanda’s work and wanted to make you all aware of this special opportunity to work with her.

Support for Non-Fiction Writers

In addition to The Book Proposal Lab, I’m now offering 1x1 support for non-fiction writers, including book proposal reviews and book consults. Learn more & apply here.

That’s it for now! Thank you, as always, for being here. ♥︎

Love,
Laura

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

This is a live conversation between me and award-winning author about the permission.

Background: Elissa’s first memoir, Poor Man’s Feast, revealed a long-held family secret — that her grandmother abandoned the family in 1926 — which her father had talked about openly for decades but her cousins never knew. A year after the book’s release, she was cut o…

Read more

Hi all —

I’m thrilled to announce that I’m teaching The Practice this fall.

I built this course from almost twenty years of teaching yoga and twelve years of writing and teaching. In that time, I’ve come to believe one simple thing: the answers we need are already inside of us; we just need the support, presence, and clarity to hear them.

The Practice is 40 days of daily prompted writing, meditation, and embodiment work—the three tools I’ve found most reliable for grounding, guidance, and insight.

This is for anyone who wants to establish a regular ritual of self-inquiry and stillness. If you want to break through resistance—creatively or otherwise—navigate a difficult transition, or find your voice again, this course is for you. No writing experience necessary; the writing we do is for personal inquiry only.

This round, I’ve refreshed several of the writing prompts, and I’m teaching it while I’m in a period of uncertainty and transition myself, so I’ll be walking right alongside you. In addition to me, two of my dear friends and colleagues, and will be serving as mentors.

What it looks like

Course dates: September 8 - October 20

40 days of daily writing prompts and custom meditations (written and recorded by me), plus weekly live sessions on Zoom where I offer instruction, feedback, and coaching.

Live calls are on Tuesdays at 10 am PT / 1 pm ET / 6 pm BST. All calls are recorded for later viewing.

Each week’s theme guides the prompts, meditation, and embodiment practices:

• Week 1 // Establishing your Practice

• Week 2 // Courage

• Week 3 // Dignity

• Week 4 // Power

• Week 5 // Renewal

• Week 6 // Truth

Who it’s for

Consider joining me if you’re in a period of transition and need grounding and guidance, are struggling with a big decision, need help moving through fear or uncertainty, or desire a steady meditation and journaling practice but can’t seem to make it stick on your own.

What past students say

I’m still doing The Practice after four months and it has fully changed my life. Thank you. - Nathan Fox

The Practice was exactly what I needed to stop running from myself and face questions and feelings about a crucial transition I needed to navigate. The weekly meetings and community of participants were so encouraging and supportive that the course flew by and was over before anyone was ready! - Tammi Scott

Cannot recommend this course enough. I mean, if you’re into stuff like self-awareness, growth, healing, clarity, connection, and transformative magic. And this is probably underselling it. It’s that powerful. For real. - Jennifer Bridgman

The meditations are beautiful and the exercises really help set the tone for being consistent and grounded for the year! Highly recommend if you’re feeling a bit lost or unfocused. - Lindsay Ulrey

I credit the Practice with instilling in me a deep trust in my own words. The combination of meditations and rich prompts from Laura really planted a writing bug in me. I flip through my journals from the time in the course and can see so much was planted back then. - Allison Deraney

If you’ve taken the course in the past, please let folks know about your experience in the comments!

Registration

Registration is now open! The cost of the course is $468, payable in one or two monthly payments. A number of full and partial scholarships are available—apply here.

Paid subscribers get 15% off—discount code below.

REGISTER FOR THE PRACTICE

If you’d like to learn more, visit the course page—you can register from there too.

Love,
Laura

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

My phone started blowing up last week after the Brad Pitt Esquire piece dropped, wherein he disclosed he’s back to drinking after seven years of sobriety. Instagram messages, texts, a few emails, and a lot of buzz of in The Luckiest Club community and meetings. My feeds have been flooded too—even here on Substack.

It’s a small part of the overall piece; the totality of it is here:

I had zero inclination to write or say anything about this, but got to talking with a friend over the weekend and realized perhaps I do. Not about Brad’s decision or situation, exactly (this will shock you, but: I don’t know Brad Pitt!), but about the collective reactions to news like this, and my experience with such things.

My dad's story

When I was fifteen, my dad stopped drinking. He announced it one day when we were out to lunch—me, my brother, and him—and I noticed he hadn’t ordered his usual beer. He said he was done with it, “Enough weekends spent on the couch ignoring my kids.”

I remember feeling relieved, like something had been lifted, or perhaps confirmed or explained. My grandma (my mom’s mom) had told me numerous times growing up that his drinking had been part of why they divorced, though I never saw him egregiously drunk that I remembered. He drank consistently, but so did everyone else. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine it as a “problem”—whatever that meant, exactly, to a kid—because my dad’s demeanor had always been intense, with extreme fluctuations. Big highs, big lows. It felt more or less like believable lore, and by the time he told me he was stopping at fifteen, I welcomed anything that might lend more stability.

He went all in on AA. Got a sponsor, had a copy of the Big Book laying around the house, went to multiple meetings a week. When we were with him on the weekends, Joe and I would sit in the car while he went to a meeting before we’d go to dinner and a movie—our long-standing Saturday night tradition. He’d come out of those meetings buzzing like a bee. He had new, sober friends. Got a girlfriend who was also sober (and half his age). Started working out again and talking brightly about the future.

Ten years later

Ten years later, on a trip back home to meet his new wife, I noticed he was drinking wine at dinner with her. I panicked, cried on the phone to my brother, and then to my dad when I returned back home to Boston a few days later. It felt like the floor had been ripped out and nothing was safe or sure anymore. He assured me that the decision to drink was not a rash one, that he and his new wife had talked about it at length. He said he realized he had a spiritual problem, not a drinking one, and that his time in sobriety had helped him work through that, but that he didn’t need it anymore. I was suspect, but what say did I have? I was twenty-five years old at the time and lived thousands of miles away. My brother, who still lived near my dad in Colorado, promised he’d report back if things seemed to be going off the rails.

Fast forward ten more years, and I’m the one facing sobriety.

My dad, unironically, is one of the people who points out my drinking as problematic. When he does this, I argue, “But you went back! You were able to find a way to do it normally.” He doesn’t argue with me here, just focuses on what he sees in me, and this infuriates me. This fact—that he went back to drinking after ten years of sobriety—sticks in my craw; it’s menacing. I turn it over, spit at it, wonder how it could possibly be true. It goes against everything I’m hearing in my own meetings—everything I’m hearing everywhere. It’s one of the things that keeps me stuck in my desperate search for a third door.

Ultimately I decide that if I get to ten years of sobriety like he did, I can decide then if I want to drink again or not. I put it aside.

How did it work out for him?

Here’s what everyone wants to know: How did it work out for him?

When I tell this story, it’s what people always ask, and they usually ask it as if they already know the ending: that it couldn’t have turned out well. But the truth is: I don’t really know. Has my dad died of alcoholism, or suffered severe consequences from his drinking? No. Have I seen him drink too much on occasion in the past twenty years? Yes. Does that seem to be a regular thing? No. Do I have a clean answer for where alcohol sits in his life, or whether or not he has a problem with it? I do not. My gut answer is, I don’t think he does. But I do think he suffers otherwise, and always has. I realize this may be entirely unsatisfactory, and I get it. For a long time, it would’ve been for me, too.

On the whole, people I’ve met in recovery—in the thousands at this point—have not returned to ‘normal’ drinking after sobriety. Which is to say their relationship to alcohol is not neutral or even kind of destructive, but very, very bad. Many have died. Some just seem to struggle off and on, to varying degrees. Others have disappeared, sometimes for years at a time, and then come back and say they’re ready to try again, and that it was hell. Stories like my dad’s are not the norm, but, of course, they’re out there—of course they are.

Here's what’s true for me

Regardless of what Brad Pitt’s deal is, or my dad’s, or anyone else’s: drinking for me is a living hell.

When Brad talks about drinking like a “professional” I don’t even know what that means. No, really, what does that even mean? When other people talk about moderation I feel my chest actually constrict. I never wanted to moderate, ever. I mean, sure, I wanted to believe I could if I tried, but really what this meant is that I wanted to believe I could drink as much as I needed to drink without suffering the consequences of how much I needed to drink. And I needed to drink it all, all the time. And I’m not using the word need here as I just kinda want to drink more but need as in there is literally no way I can stop.

Look: I could probably, for a very limited time, “hold it together.” I’m sure I could make it through a couple dinners with my friends, a party or two, maybe even a few weekend nights on my own, without drinking far too much. But the amount of effort that would take? The amount of brain space drinking or not drinking or when am I drinking next? and am I okay? and do people notice? and is this too much? and will it be obvious if I have another? and and and—OH MY GOD, NO.

Moderation, professional drinking, a few glasses of wine: that is not the place I want to live. That is me pretending to be a zebra when I’m an elephant. And for what? A few hours of…something…with every moment in between consumed by torturous mental gymnastics?

But: I get it. It took me years to let go of alcohol completely, to rewire my brain and my body so that it didn’t feel like something was missing. It took time for me to see that being able to drink alcohol was not a prize, not a gift, but the opposite of what I actually wanted in this life. And until I got to that place, I was pissed. I was slightly or very sad. I was frustrated by news like Brad’s, and rigid about what sobriety needed to be for people so that I could feel safe and justified in my own. And this is normal: it’s totally normal. Identities are rigid when they’re still being formed, and that’s okay.

Worth getting curious about

I know this part might be really annoying, so I’m sorry, but the truth is: whatever you felt when you read about Brad (or learn about any similar-type story)—relief, fear, anger, vindication, dread—it has more to do with where you are right now than it does with him. I’m not saying that in a finger-pointing way, but a kindhearted, I’m-with-you one. My first reaction to the headline was two-fold: no, thank you, and who cares. Not because I think Brad doesn’t matter as a person, but because it’s none of my business, and I knew a pile-on was coming.

But that wouldn’t have been my reaction in early sobriety! It might not have been my reaction three or four years in, either. Back then I’d have had a lot of feelings about it, and I’d have needed to talk them out. If you’re having feelings about this, it’s probably worth doing the same. Things like this point to where we are in our own process—and while that’s often uncomfortable to look at, it matters.

Love,
Laura

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Offerings

Get Your First 7 Days of Sobriety - Join me this Saturday

Maybe you’ve told yourself you’ll stop drinking tomorrow (again), maybe you’ve seen a hundred Day 1’s, or maybe you’re just curious what a week without alcohol would feel like.

Push Off From Here is a guided 7-day start, led by me and Eric Johnson: two 75-minute live workshops (Sat, Aug 22, 12–1:15 PM ET to plan your week, Sat, Aug 29, 12–1:15 PM ET to talk about how it went) plus daily morning and evening support emails in between. Replays will be available for those who can’t make it live. You’ll also have the option to try The Luckiest Club free for 7 days for extra support, meetings, and connection.

Cost: $77. No labels or forever decisions, just a real start with great support. ♥️

Register for Push Off From Here ($77)

Registration for The Practice opens tomorrow, Tuesday Aug 18 ✍

I’m teaching my writing and meditation course, The Practice, this fall from Sept. 8 to Oct. 20. Join me if you’re in transition, wrestling with a big decision, moving through fear, or craving a meditation and journaling practice you can actually stick with. Zero writing experience necessary; the work we do is guided personal journaling.

Paid subscribers here will get a code for 15% off—I’ll drop the link in the chat tomorrow.

Learn More & Join The Waitlist

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

Buddha is actualized when our human striving, desires, ambitions don’t work anymore. The times when I have borne witness to such parts of myself as hopelessness and loss were the moments of deepest self-acceptance.

—Katherine Thanas, The Truth of This Life

Thank you to all who joined our Second Sunday last weekend, with special guest . Below is the replay and notes. Our next session will be on Sunday, September 13.

First:

I’m teaching my writing and meditation course, The Practice this fall, Sept. 8 - Oct. 20. Take this course if you're in transition, wrestling with a big decision, moving through fear, or craving a meditation and journaling practice you can actually stick with. Zero writing experience necessary; the work we do is personal journaling. Registration opens August 18. Learn more and get on the waitlist to get a discount (note: paid subscribers here will get a code for 15% off).

Join me for cowriting tomorrow and every Thursday from 1-2 pm ET. Link to join will be dropped in the chat a couple of hours before.

Open to all paid subscribers.

Staying with The Situation through Spiritual Practice (Second Sunday, August 2026)

Key Takeaways

• Theme of the day: “What is real?” Staying in direct, continuous contact with your life (body, breath, this moment) rather than the mind’s stories, predictions, and rumination.

• Elena’s core teaching — “staying with the situation”: not fixing, controlling, or figuring things out, but remaining fiercely and intimately present with what’s happening, no matter what. She connected this to relinquishing control, which she noted lands as especially scary for women raised in volatile households

• In meditation, the mind “unspools”: Elena’s practical approach: let the mind’s material (to-do lists, worries) run itself out at the start of a sit rather than fighting it; eventually it “runs out of gas” and settles, like silt sinking to the bottom.

• Micro-moments count as practice: You don’t always need a long formal sit. Noticing a tree, breathing at the kitchen window, or any brief return to the body is real practice too. Natalie’s teacher’s line: “body time is 7 beats slower than mind time.”

• Building sit-time gradually: Elena’s guidance for beginners is to start at 10 minutes, build to 20 for a month or two, then 30–40, since ~20 minutes is often where the mental “unspooling” starts to settle.

• On comparing yourself to others’ practice: Elena reassured Sukie that you don’t need 7 hours of meditation a day. The real work at any duration is letting stillness interrupt the usual internal dialogue, the same way sobriety interrupts destructive patterns.

• Hospice work as practice: Elena described her hospice volunteering as a place where “staying with the situation” is the whole job. You can’t have an agenda, there’s no fixing, just presence.

Read more

Earlier this week, I published a piece about how I’m feeling lately, and your responses have brought me such comfort, truly. I’m still reading through them, each one a hand on my back, a little bulb of insight, a voice of solidarity and kindness in a shaky time—and I love that it’s all there for you to see, too, to provide the same for whoever needs it.

There are two comments that are staying with me in particular:

This, from Shana:

And this, from my long-time sober connection and fellow Enneagram 7, :

I like to think I’m so much wilder and more brave than to be driven primarily by the need for safety and security, but she’s right. She’s so right it makes me laugh (and cry). Just because my methods for seeking safety sometimes look wild and bold, like drinking and flinging myself into new situations and people all the time, starting companies and writing books, taking on bigger and new challenges without much conscious fear, the driver is first-chakra stuff all the way. Foundation, stability, safety. Without it I’m rocked to the core.

Which leads me to tomorrow’s Second Sunday gathering, 11 am ET. I chose the topic of Spiritual Practice because it’s something I’m focusing on now, and as a special treat for me and all of you, I’ve invited my dear friend to join us.

Elena is one of the most grounded people I know—a constant source of kindness, humor, honesty and wisdom in my life—and one of the first I reach out to when the shit really hits the fan. She’s also a dedicated, hardworking student of spiritual practice, day in and day out—she really walks the walk. Read her latest piece, are you real?, for the basis of our conversation tomorrow.

Second Sundays is my monthly community gathering for paid subscribers. I choose a topic, we begin with a meditation and breathing, I discuss the topic for a bit, and then open it up to conversation. For the last couple of months, I’ve recorded them for later viewing—watch or listen to past sessions here.

To join us tomorrow, become a paid subscriber.

» Also: I’m leading my 40-day writing and meditation course, The Practice, this fall. If you’re feeling stuck in your creativity or your life, need guidance on building a foundational practice, or simply need a powerful reset, this is the place. I’m teaching it because I need it, and would love to do it together. We kick off September 8. Learn more & join the waitlist.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

I began to get restless at bedtime, just as I was meant to wind down. At first, there weren’t any thoughts attached—it was more of an inner trembling, a vague feeling that something was wrong, or about to be. Getting to sleep became difficult, and then I started waking in the middle of the night shot through with adrenaline, sheets soaked with sweat, breath caught in my chest. I chalked it up to another symptom of perimenopause, made an appointment with my OB and also my physician, treated the symptoms with medication and hormones. This helped for a while, but eventually the slithering feeling of dread crept back in, stealing my nights and finding its way into my days, too.

Buying my own house had been a long-held dream, something I’d imagined and hoped for since the early days of sobriety when I began to piece my life together. The dream was very far off back then; I had to first crawl out of significant debt, then save enough for a down payment—a mighty task given where I live in the Northeast—but I felt I could do it, little by slow.

Over the years, I thought about it constantly. Created vision boards with pictures of cool front doors (always blue), brightly lit kitchens, moody living rooms with bookshelves, funky tiles and opulent light fixtures. I made a dozen Pinterest boards for inspo, and when Alma got old enough, I included her so she could add her style. We learned hers leans Coastal Grandma, whereas mine is some mix of Mid-Century Modern and Old World European, so that really threw the algorithm for a spin. When friends talked about their remodel projects, or asked about a new couch, or what kind of blinds or flooring they should buy, I’d jump in and excitedly offer my opinion—a proxy for being able to do it myself. I followed interior design and home renovation accounts on Instagram, imagining how fun it would be when I could finally make a space fully my own.

I’d always created sanctuaries in the condos and apartments we’ve lived in, taking great care to make them feel like home. Tending to my physical space had become one of the great joys of sobriety—one of the ways my shifting inner life began to express itself externally: more sanity, more beauty, more peace. But renting had its limits; I always wished I could do more. And after moving twenty times in as many years, I wanted a place to settle into, grow roots, stay.

Following my breakup in early 2024, I moved back to my little seaside town, and resumed the dream of home ownership. In my heartbreak, it became something of a white whale, an achievement that came to mean much more than it had before. Then, last September, just two days after celebrating eleven years sober, I got the keys to my very first home.

It was a thrilling time, those first weeks here. Before we moved in, I had all the carpet removed, revealing beautiful hardwood floors. I put a fresh coat of paint on every wall and spent a full week wiping every surface clean. I relished the fact of an actual basement to store things in, and a garage—a garage!—extravagances I haven’t had since I was a kid. There were a zillion projects I planned to do in the future, but after a couple of months, we were mostly settled in.

Then came the leak. One night after dinner in early November, just after I’d collapsed into the couch to watch a show, I heard a strange sound coming from…somewhere. I jumped up and recognized it immediately as the sound of water, but from where? When I followed the sound to the kitchen, I saw a literal waterfall coming through the light fixture in the ceiling. Buckets. Torrents. So much more water than you ever want to see inside your house.

I ran upstairs and realized one of the toilets had been running, so I shut it off, and emergency texted my friend whose boyfriend is a plumber. The following morning I learned that because of a broken part, the toilet had been dumping water into the ceiling for more than an hour.

Fast forward to today, nearly ten months later, and my kitchen is still being worked on. At this very moment, I hear drills and hammering. The water damage spread to several rooms in the house and while insurance covered a portion of the repairs, it didn’t come close to covering all of it. The upside is I got a new kitchen (and had wanted to renovate it someday, anyway); the downside is I was forced to do it way before I was ready, financially or mentally.

Oh but these are just the surface facts.

Yes, I bought an old house, there was a water leak, and I had to undergo repairs, which are taking far longer than expected. It happens all the time, people keep telling me; this is home ownership, and intellectually I know that’s probably true. There are other things, too, but they’re also just facts of living. I had two medical scares in a six-month period, one last fall and one this spring, both of which required minor surgery (all results, gratefully, were benign). My daughter is starting her senior year, and the fact that she’ll be leaving for college next fall is a wobbly chin, a lump in my throat, a breath I can never fully take in. I have a book deadline that’s hanging over my head, with significant financial and career consequences attached. My body is constantly changing and my mind always feels muddy and my face looks different in the mirror these days. AI and women’s shrinking bodies (again), among other things, feel near-apocalyptic.

These things are all real. I’m not saying they aren’t, or that I should be coasting through (though, of course, some part of me thinks I should). What I’m saying—what I’m trying very hard to say—is something in me seems to have cracked when the water came rushing in, or perhaps it was when I bought the house, or maybe it all started when my relationship ended two years ago and my sense of reality, and of myself, became a sudden hall of mirrors.

Whenever it was, however it happened, that crack created a fault line of doubt in my foundation and despite all my efforts—despite everything I know to do, and all I’ve learned from the past—it feels like I’ve fallen through.

I was talking with a friend yesterday morning, trying to explain what it’s been like. I said I’m afraid all the time, but it’s a different kind of fear, one that’s seeped into my bones. I said I wake up with dread most mornings and hardly ever sleep through the night anymore. I said there’s a story that whispers in my ear: I’m being right-sized for reaching too far, flying too high, getting too close to the sun. I don’t deserve what I had and maybe never did; that it was all a fluke anyway, and now I’m just being found out. I told him there are other stories, similarly dark, and they circle around like vultures sometimes.

I said it feels like I’ve lost my voice, and that’s been the most terrifying of all. Because when I sit down to write—the thing I’ve always been able to do when nothing else makes sense; the thing I rely on to make things make sense, or at least find the next thread to pull—I simply…can’t. I sit down to work on something, a newsletter or a page of my book or even a basic email or an Instagram post, and I freeze. I am frozen. I can’t find a way in or out.

This has bled into the rest of my work, too, and even my personal life. I’m hesitant and self-conscious. I second-guess, struggle to make decisions. I ruminate in ways I never have.

My friend listened and then, very gently, suggested: perhaps I should write about this. He reminded me I didn’t have to have any answers, and people would probably feel less alone if I did. Something in me knows this is true, and yet I’ve been hesitant to put it down.

But here I am, and here we are. I promised myself when I got off the phone with him that I’d write one simple thing. I’d type the words, not think about it too hard, and hit publish no matter what. I’m also, at the advice of my brother, surrendering and asking for help. Not from you, but from God. The universe. The great source of love I feel disconnected from, but am told (and somewhere know) is still there.

That’s it. Thank you, truly, for being here.

Love,
Laura

Offerings

» If you need sobriety support, The Luckiest Club offers 40+ meetings each week, plus programs to meet you where you are. I’m now leading the Wednesday 12 pm ET meeting each week.

» The first ever We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life Retreat is taking place at Kripalu next April 9-11, and is filling up quickly.

» I’m leading my 40-day writing and meditation course, The Practice, this fall. If you’re feeling stuck in your creativity or your life, need guidance on building a foundational practice, or simply need a powerful reset, this is the place. I’m teaching it because I need it, and would love to do it together. We kick off September 8. Learn more & join the waitlist.

» Join me for cowriting every Thursday from 12-1:15 pm ET. Bring your project, work for a dedicated hour, then hang around at the end and chat. These sessions have been lovely. The Zoom link is dropped in our chat on Thursday mornings, a couple of hours before we begin. Become a paid subscriber to join.

» Join me for our monthly community gathering, Second Sundays, THIS Sunday, August 9. This is an offering for paid subscribers where we come together, I present a topic, and we spend time with it for an hour. August topic: Spiritual Practice.

Register below.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

I’ve got three exciting offerings to share this morning.

Write with Me: Weekly Cowriting on Thursdays

If you struggle to secure time for your writing, or to focus when you’ve got it (who doesn’t?!), cowriting is nothing short of magic. There’s something about sitting with other creative people who are committed to the same difficult task that both lightens the load and multiplies momentum. Plus, you get to meet other writers.

We had our first session last week and it was so fun and productive, I decided to make it a weekly thing. Join every Thursday from 12-1:15 pm ET.

This is the first part of a Love Story Writing Group I’m creating, open to all paid subscribers.

Learn More & Join Cowriting

We Are the Luckiest Retreat: April 9-11, 2027 at Kripalu

The first-ever We Are the Luckiest retreat is happening next spring at the incredible Kripalu yoga center in Stockbridge, MA. After years of requests for a live TLC gathering, we’re finally doing it (you do not need to be a member to join).

Hosted by me and Eric Johnson, this will be a weekend of connection and inspiration. Whether you’re newly sober, years into your journey, or simply wondering if alcohol is getting in your way, you are welcome.

I expect this will sell out quickly, so if you want to come, jump on it! Single rooms are limited.

Learn More & Register

I’m back! Join me on Wednesdays at 12 pm ET for a TLC sobriety support meeting

A couple of months ago, I took a pause from leading a weekly meeting in The Luckiest Club to clear my mornings for book writing, and while I’m not done with the book yet, I’ve really missed this connection point. So we did a little schedule shuffling and starting THIS Wednesday, July 22, I’ll be hosting the Wednesday 12 pm ET meeting. It’s an all community meeting, open to everyone. (RIP Tuesday mornings, my time slot since 2020!).

If you’ve been trying to get sober on your own, or you’re already there but it feels hard and lonely, give TLC a try. I’m biased, but I think it’s the best place around. It’s everything I wish I’d had twelve years ago and more. Try us out for a week for free when you join, and hopefully I’ll see you this Wednesday at noon Eastern.

Try The Luckiest Club

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.

—David Bayles

Thank you to all who joined Second Sunday yesterday! Below is the replay and notes. Our next session will be on Sunday, August 9—topic TBA.

As mentioned on the call, Starting this Thursday, July 16, I’m hosting biweekly cowriting sessions from 12-1:15 pm ET. Bring whatever you’re working on, we’ll write for an hour, and then connect afterward for 15 mins (no obligation). I’ll drop the Zoom link into our chat a couple of hours before we start.

This is the beginning of building a more formal Writers Group here at Love Story.

Open to all paid subscribers.

Quotes

• “In the end it all comes down to this: you have a choice (or more accurately a rolling tangle of choices) between giving your work your best shot and risking that it will not make you happy, or not giving it your best shot — and thereby guaranteeing that it will not make you happy. It becomes a choice between certainty and uncertainty. And curiously, uncertainty is the comforting choice.” —David Bayles, Art & Fear

• “So, yeah—here’s a trick: Stop complaining. First of all, it’s annoying. Every artist complains, so it’s a dead and boring topic. Second, of course it’s difficult to create things; if it wasn’t difficult, everyone would be doing it, and it wouldn’t be special or interesting.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

• I told the universe (and anyone who would listen) that I was committed to living a creative life not in order to save the world, not as an act of protest, not to become famous, not to gain entrance to the canon, not to challenge the system, not to show the bastards, not to prove to my family that I was worthy, not as a form of deep therapeutic emotional catharsis…but simply because I liked it. So try saying this: ‘I enjoy by creativity.’” —Elizabeth Gilbert, Big Magic

• I also read a long excerpt from the introduction Annie Dillard’s The Writing Life to underscore the tremendous effort and uncertainty inherent to the writing process

Read more

I do not thrive in the summer.

I enjoy the early morning and late evening vibe of summer light, but the heat, the expectation to TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THE DAYS, the guilt if you don’t, the chaos of unscheduled time for my daughter—it’s just not for me. I was saying to a friend last week, “Whatever animal I am, it does not belong in this.” Give me the unfurling of spring, the nostalgia of fall, and even the cold, early winter. It happens to be a decent time to be heads down writing this book, though.

I wrote last week about wanting to quit writing; this book has really done a number on me. I’m beginning to, very gingerly, step into what I believe is a non-stuck place, so I thought I’d share what’s helped me along the way. None of what I’m offering is original, but sometimes we need to receive things in a particular way on a particular day, so this is my contribution.

One more thing before I jump in: I'm piloting a new offering for writers. Starting Thursday, July 16, I'm hosting bi-weekly cowriting sessions on Zoom, 12–1:15 pm ET. Cowriting is weirdly effective for me, and I know this community is full of writers who'd love to connect—so I'm starting here, and building toward a more formal Love Story Writing Group. (This is open to writers of all kinds and levels; everyone is welcome.)

How it works: we write together for an hour, then stick around 15 minutes to connect if you’d like—I’ll be there. No agenda, nothing to prepare. Come and go as needed.

How to join: Not a paid subscriber yet? Subscribe below. I'll drop the Zoom link in our chat a few hours before we meet—look for it next Thursday, July 16.

6 ways to get unstuck in your writing.

These largely apply to book-length projects, but could be useful for essays or newsletters, too. And, I write non-fiction, but I believe these would apply to fiction as well.

1. Write this down: You can trust yourself.

You have instincts as a writer. You have your own voice and way of writing and speaking and creating. Maybe your body says: get on the floor, do jumping jacks, take a shower, go for a walk, write every scene you can possibly think of on notecards, or in a spreadsheet, or use the biggest wall in your house to map out ideas, but you think, No, I MUST SIT HERE AND THINK AND TYPE.

Thinking is useful, of course. Butt in chair, words on the page, sentence after sentence, brick by brick: you must do these things; there’s no way around it. But writing is an embodied, intuitive, whole-self endeavor. If you’re only trying to flex the muscle of your thinking to get there, you won’t get there—or what you produce will lack heart and the essence of your spirit. You will have words but not movement; you will have a story, maybe, but it’ll be a thin, brittle thing.

You have instincts, and you can trust them. I sometimes read pages from my books, or old essays, just to see the fact of my work: that I have produced things, even entire books. Often, I cannot remember writing what I read, and while writing this book I’ve been astonished that I once wrote so freely. Who was that? Something about this book (I mean, I know what) has had me jammed up. I’ve been controlled, restrained, worried about rules and writing well instead of just writing; about sounding smart or literary or more like this person or that or whatever the fuck, and it’s impossible to do anything that way. Impossible.

The way in for me is my body. If I get freer in my body and listen to what it wants to do in service of creation—and sometimes this is something directly and obviously connected to writing, like mapping my book on a wall with Post its and index cards; but more often it’s less obvious, like going for a swim or screaming into a pillow—then I’m able to remember and connect to my full self, my animal self, my instincts. This makes me freer on the page.

2. Listen to books about writing or creativity before sleep.

Bird by Bird by ; What to Remember When Waking by David Whyte; Permission by are a few of my favorites, but explore your own. I listen before I go to sleep, when my mind really loves to start spinning the fuck out. I set the timer for 30 minutes and let their voices soothe me while I drift off. I also imagine, and believe, that their instruction plants seeds into my unconscious that help solve problems while I’m asleep. To that end, I always make a wish (a prayer, an intention, whatever you like) before I close my eyes—for the forces that be to do the invisible work I most need while I’m under. It may sound silly, but it’s actually wildly effective (and is an act of both humility and faith, which are critical to the creative process, I believe) because it pulls me out of the apply more pressure, more effort, more thinking mode. That mode has its place, but must be balanced with release, receiving, and rest. Writing is part practical, part mystical.

3. Get help.

I’ve had tons of help writing both of my books and this one is no different. My friend Sarah Hepola (who, btw, has a new memoir coming out in September, and I just know it’s going to be a banger because she’s genius) said to me the other day, “You’re really good at picking up the phone and asking for help.”

I guess I am.

I’d texted her as soon as I saw her new book announcement, partially out of panic (because our books have overlapping topics and the scared, scarcity-thinking part of me thought, Noooooooo!) and partially to high-five her and hear all about it. Following our initial conversation, I had questions about how she navigated a certain aspect of writing hers, and I just needed a pep talk in general, so I sent her an SOS text and we connected a few days later. Sarah is a far more experienced and talented writer than I am, and it’d be easy for me to feel like I’m bugging her or that I’ll embarrass myself (I might!), but recovery has taught me to get over myself and reach out anyway.

Sarah is just one example. I call and text people a lot to ask for help or talk something out, and this is not—or did not used to be—my nature. But I’ve learned people actually want to help. I want to help! It’s so nice to be let into someone’s world, and most people are glad to offer you what they know or have learned, because we all like to feel useful. Writing, like sobriety, is humbling and we’re all weird and confused and slightly mentally ill and unsure what we’re doing most of the time.

As far as help, there’s the free kind that comes from calling and texting friends, mentors, or whoever else you’ve got in your corner. But I’ve also hired help along the way, and these are all folks I strongly recommend.

• Elissa Altman for editorial, developmental, or craft guidance. I’m not sure if she’s working 1x1 at the moment, but she teaches widely. Non-fiction only.

• Tracy Clark-Flory for coaching, manuscript or book proposal work, and more. This summer, she’s taking on 1x1 clients. I just finished working with her on my current book and cannot say enough about her talent and support. You can see my testimonial here. Non-fiction only.

• Laura Zigman for writing therapy (seriously!). She has a genius offering called Zigman Freud (!). She’s been in the industry for decades, has seen everything, and is so wise and helpful. Fiction and non-fiction.

• Amy Shearn for creative coaching, manuscript support, and more. She also teaches widely. Fiction and non-fiction.

If you’ve got other writing supports you’d recommend, please let us know in the comments.

4. Delete the apps. You know which ones.

Not only are they a time suck, they will dangerously fragment your attention and worst of all, especially while writing, trigger your worst insecurities, scarcity thinking, fears, all of it. It’s just a mess.

I have to use social media for work so I can’t bounce completely, but I regularly delete the apps for days or Brick my phone so I can’t access them. Has to be done.

5. Start a process journal.

I got this idea from Elissa Altman and it’s been hugely helpful. I’m a lifelong journaler and to-do list maker, but this is a dedicated space just for this project. Ideas, brainstorms, chapter title ideas, quotes or sources I may want to use, word count logs, what worked about writing on a particular day, what didn’t, themes that come up, questions I have, drawings, stickers—anything I want to put in it. I don’t know that there’s a right or wrong way to do this, I just know it’s been a tremendously useful for me, and at the end, I feel like it’ll be such a cool record to have.

6. Trust the process.

I know, but it’s true. I can only see now that I had to go through the full two and a half years of living and trying and failing at writing this to be able to do it now. As the stoics say: the obstacles are the path.

Last, remember: If you want to be the noun first do the verb. - . Or as Anne Lamott says, her number one piece of advice for people who want to write is: you’ve got to stop not writing.

Love,
Laura

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Offerings

» *NEW* Write with me! Join me for bi-weekly cowriting sessions, starting Thursday, July 16 from 12-1:15 pm ET. We’ll write together for an hour, then stick around 15 minutes to connect if you'd like—I'll be there. No agenda, nothing to prepare. Come and go as needed. I’ll drop the Zoom link in our chat a couple of hours before it’s time.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

“Is this normal?” I asked her. (The answer, about writing, like sobriety, is always yes—but I have to ask it anyway.)

“Laura, yes,” she said. “Usually it’s the second book that does this to authors. But your second book was so different that this is basically your second, even though it’s technically your third.”

It’s true. Although Push Off from Here was extremely challenging for me to write, it was hard because that kind of writing (prescriptive, research-heavy) is not all that enjoyable to me. I was also writing it in the heaviest pandemic years (2021-2022) and my system, the world, was fried. But this one? I knew it would be rough waters, emotionally. I expected to get stuck here and there. But I never thought I’d run into the kind of crushing insecurity, self-doubt, fear, and confusion I’ve experienced. I never thought I’d write my way into so many holes. I never thought I’d fantasize about quitting the whole project—not just the book, but being a writer altogether—continuously, for years.

I’m sure some of you reading this and thinking: Really? She didn’t know it could be like that?

I did and I didn’t.

I’ve experienced levels of all these things—doubt, insecurity, etc.—of course I have. Writing is hard, and book writing is a herculean thing. But I’m still pretty new at it ten years in. And either because of the relative newness, or the luck of my circumstances, or the way I caught wind of a certain moment in culture, or my tendency toward optimism and possibility, or whatever, it had not yet broken me completely. I’d struggled hard, but I’d never felt like, You know, maybe this just isn’t for me.

Well, reader: we have arrived. We’ve been here for a while now. And as brutal as it’s been, there’s some small part of me, a tiny voice that has, at times, whispered through the worst of my despair: Maybe this is good.

says of our relationship to work, if we’re lucky enough to do work we care about deeply, that there is “no sincere path that any human being can take without having their heart broken.” When I’ve remembered this and can pull myself out of the certainty that my suffering is special for a fraction of a second, it’s a salve. A bitter salve, but a salve. Like I experienced in getting sober, and my last relationship ending, there is an initiation in burning up completely.

Today, I’m only offering some solidarity, if you’re in the heartbreak place or thereabouts. Next week, I’m going to share a list of things that have helped (and are helping) me move through: resources, books, teachers, practices. I’m also going to announce a new offering to support writers—it’ll be part of the paid subscription here, not something extra—and I’m very excited about it.

In the meantime, we’re having a conversation over on chat about our upcoming Second Sunday gathering on July 12, where I’ll be talking about writing again. I’ve asked you all to weigh in on topics you’d like me to cover in general, but specifically about writing. Second Sundays are for paid subscribers, and you can become one below.

Love,
Laura

Offerings

» If you need sobriety support, The Luckiest Club offers 50+ meetings each week + programs to meet you where you are.

» Boston area folks: I’ll be in conversation with about her new memoir, MONSTER OF A LAND, tomorrow, Tuesday June 30, at Porter Square Books. RSVP here.

» Join me for our monthly community gathering, Second Sundays, on July 12. July topic: WRITING AND THE INNER CRITIC.

Register for Second Sunday on July 12

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In the meantime, I think we’ll continue to focus on various aspects of writing in upcoming Second Sunday meetings. Paid subscribers get access to all live calls and recordings.

Writing Is a Way to Interact With Our Longings

This month, I wanted to focus on writing as a way to connect to, better understand, work with, and—for some of us—even satisfy our longings. I’ve been thinking about the concept of longing for some time, and about four months ago, after a massive download about my book, realized it’s the core theme of it.

The word longing comes from the Old English verb langian or longian, meaning both “to grow long” and “to yearn for.” Historically, it paints a physical picture of the soul stretching out, or extending itself, toward something that is distant or missing—an extension of time or space, like reaching across a distance.

Writing is a way to interact with our longings. I believe this is the core of why I do it—and for some of us, the act of writing itself is a distinct longing. Sometimes the satisfaction comes from the act of expression itself—getting as close as we can to putting language to an experience, and in that process creating a new understanding, an integration, or digestion of the thing. And then, of course, there’s the transmission from writer to reader, which feeds our need for connection and understanding.

Read more

Grateful because for so long, I wanted to have a home where Alma could bring her friends—big groups of them, if she wanted—to hang out or spend the night or whatever else. I wanted the same for me: to be able to have friends over comfortably, host dinners or barbecues, have a place for loved ones to stay. You don’t realize that your kids won’t be kids forever, or I didn’t—those early days go so slow, but then the years speed by and somehow, you blink, and you’re talking about SATs and college visits.

Since her dad and I separated fourteen years ago, we’ve lived in rentals—always condos or apartments—and that’s been fine, we’ve had lovely spaces. But I wanted her to have a place she called home, that we’d get to live into fully, and as she entered high school and time clicked on, I worried I’d miss my chance.

I didn’t, though. We got our home, just in the nick of time last fall. This weekend, I had my first backyard gathering with my friends, and last night, Alma had her girlfriends sleepover so they could decorate my Jeep (impressively!?) and wake up before dawn.

I can get very tripped up on all the worries and anxieties I have about the future, work, projects, people I love, my resentments and judgments, the world, some dumb argument on Instagram—those things can consume me and grow bigger than all that’s good and right. So easily, this can happen, every day. But I’m working very, very hard now to double-down on presence, to be a real steward of my attention. It feels harder than ever given how we live, but I’m determined.

Practically, this has meant a few things—sharing in case it’s helpful. I Brick my phone a lot. I’ve made reading my default state again, versus scrolling or half-watching shows, or whatever else. And, I’m meditating daily for 20 minutes using the Waking Up app. (There’s nothing special about this app in terms of meditation; I’ve subscribed for years because I find the conversations there invaluable, and they happen to have a “Daily Meditation” feature, and I like Sam’s voice.) I’ve historically been a half-hearted meditator, but something in me (and my friend Elena Brower’s persistent voice) is saying it’s time to take it seriously.

Strategically, I’m sorting out my work priorities, and that includes how I’d like to show up here, and what is of most value to you. When I started writing here in 2023, it was sort of crowded, but nothing like it is today. It’s beautiful that Substack has provided such an opportunity for writers and creators—incredible, really, to have access to so much and so many. But I also sense (and subscription rates would affirm) that we’re all, collectively, full up. There’s simply too much, everywhere we turn. I don’t have a solution for this, and I’m not changing anything right now, but I’m paying attention—both as a reader, and a writer—and want you to know that.

My priority for now is still to write (or talk; I love the Substack live feature!) about sobriety, recovery, relationships, and writing. Later this week, I’ll be publishing a Dig List: Summer Reading Edition.

Today, I’ll leave you with a few highlights from my reading life, which has been FULL OF RICHES. I absolutely loved Maria Semple’s new book, Go Gentle. How is she so smart and funny, my God. Similarly, I cannot stop talking about Famesick. I didn’t think I’d be into it (not because I don’t like Lena Dunham, I do, I just thought: eh). It’s excellent. Last, I read Ann Patchett’s latest novel, Whistler, over the weekend—wonderful, tender, heartwarming (and despite the cover, not about a horse!)—and then listened to this interview with her on The Book Show, which was such good medicine. She talks about the book, but also her writing process, her family, and (my favorite) her proclivity to see the good in things and people, and what that’s meant for her in life.

More soon. xo

Laura

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Offerings

» There are three spots left in the summer cohort for The Book Proposal Lab, which starts June 16. Learn more.

» Our Second Sundays community gathering is this Sunday, June 14 at 11 am ET. This month’s topic is WRITING, and I’m going to share some of my favorite thoughts, inspirations, and guidelines/practices these days. Whether you consider yourself a writer or not, this will be an hour to tap into the creative heart-mind, and ask questions. This is for paid subscribers, register below to get Zoom info.

Read more

Here’s the question

Any words of advice when sobriety drives a wedge between a couple? I have over 3 years of sobriety and know I have to protect my recovery fiercely but what that looks like sometimes is casting shade on my spouse (who still drinks, though not problematically), for no fault of his own. He tries, he really does, to "get it" and I feel he offers all the support he knows how. Yet. I just know he may never understand me the same way. Or the way I need him to. Like I may never be truly seen by him. Does any of this make sense?

- Allison

Yes, it all makes complete sense.

Anytime one party in a relationship changes, it will cause a disturbance in the force, and some changes—like sobriety—are cosmically significant. It’s the kind of change that eventually ripples into every single aspect of our lives from the inside out. It shifts how we show up in our relationships to how we want to spend our time, who we want to spend it with, what we value, what we prioritize, how we define fun, how we define success, how we have sex, work, play, communicate, everything. Right down to our sleep habits. It’s like a wildfire that lasts for years; the transformation doesn’t happen all at once, but it eventually changes the entire ecosystem of one’s world.

I think we more or less attract people on our level of consciousness, meaning someone with similar emotional development, trauma resolution, and capacity and interest in growth. And when we join with someone, we assume we’ll stay in tandem throughout the relationship, meaning neither party will make so much of a giant leap forward as to leave the other behind and vice versa. This is one of the subconscious “contracts” we agree to, and because love requires a bit of fantasy to allow us to join together initially, we can’t and don’t see the many ways a relationship could break. In other words, we assume the love and commitment we feel in the beginning will never change. While we love the idea of “growing together,” it’s threatening as hell and scary in reality, even in the most solid relationships. Socializing and drinking together is often one of couples' many unspoken, subconscious contracts.

When one person grows in a relationship, it seems to go one of three ways:

1. The growing party reverts back in order not to threaten the relationship. I’ve seen so many people keep drinking because they know sobriety will threaten the relationship. Sometimes, this is because their partner has explicitly stated as much: “You’re less fun when you’re sober,” or, as one of my friend’s husbands said about a year into her sobriety, “I didn’t sign up for this” or because they sense the resistance, even if their partner claims to be supportive. This is not great and rarely works in the long run.

2. The other party is challenged to grow, and they grow together. In the case of sobriety, this doesn’t necessarily mean the other party gets sober, although sometimes it does. It’s more about the willingness to eventually (because it doesn’t always happen right away) enter a liminal space of curiosity and change with the partner, to be uncomfortable as the ground shifts, and for both parties to take responsibility for their own experience while tending to the relationship as best as they can.

3. The other party refuses to grow, and they split. Because it just doesn’t work anymore.

You can’t know the outcome until you do.

Allison, I imagine you and everyone else in a similar situation reading the above and scrambling to figure out which of the three categories their relationship falls into. Maybe you’re secretly hoping the relationship will not work, or perhaps you’re terrified by the idea it may not. Most likely, you don’t know yet.

I’ve seen plenty of people leave immediately after getting sober because they’d known it wasn’t right for years, and drinking was a way of coping with that knowing. But more often, I see people go through the messy process of figuring it out, fluctuating between “this is doomed” and “I could never leave” until they arrive at the answer. Unfortunately, there’s no shortcut here, but the questions you ask yourself in the meantime are critical, so let’s talk about those.

Asking the right questions.

In your letter, you said:

He tries, he really does, to "get it" and I feel he offers all the support he knows how. Yet. I just know he may never understand me the same way. Or the way I need him to. Like I may never be truly seen by him.

I know what it’s like to want to be truly seen and understood. We all want that. Maybe one of the great heartbreaks of life is realizing nobody can ever perfectly see and understand us—even our partners. No one will ever be the perfect support or mirror. It’s not wrong to want that (I do!), but expecting it will always lead to disappointment.

You’ve gone through one of the most epic changes people can go through—an actual Heroine’s Journey situation. Who you were three years ago is not remotely who you are today. I’m guessing you don’t even see yourself clearly right now, so to expect your husband to is natural, but it’s also unfair. You’re changing all the time, right? So fast you can barely keep up?

If that feels true, the more helpful questions to ask yourself as you move through this are: Is your husband capable of seeing you in a way that’s enough for you? Is he willing and capable of joining you as you grow? Are you allowing him to join you and see you, or are you expecting him to do it intuitively? And last, Do you really want him to join you?

If the last question gives you pause, that’s a big ol’ sign to slow down and figure out what you’re up to. I’m just speaking for myself here, but I’ve pointed the finger at my partner more than once when I wanted out of a relationship but didn’t have the courage to be honest with myself or them about it. Ask yourself what the “casting shade” is all about. Ask yourself what outcome you’re genuinely hoping for here, and if it turns out you’re genuinely hoping for your marriage to grow and thrive in this new era, see how you can take responsibility for your part, which is all you can do.

New contracts require new rules. While the two of you may have been able to skate through in the past without excellent communication, you won’t be able to do that now that you’re sober because you’re too aware. It’s not likely that the two of you have new issues now that you’re not drinking; more likely, you’re just not able to ignore them any longer. There’s no buffer anymore. This is scratchy and hard, but it might lead to beautiful things if you’re both willing to do the work.

Trust yourself, but verify.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a newly sober person (within the first five years) say they don’t think their marriage will survive this…I don’t know; I’d be wearing La Perla underwear right now or something. The point is that we have all kinds of big feelings when we get sober. Some are fleeting; some aren’t. Sometimes, we mistake the discomfort of change for “this relationship is wrong,” and sometimes the discomfort is our long-ignored intuition screaming at us to get the fuck out. So my message is to trust yourself but verify.

By verify, I mean ask yourself if your questions about the relationship are new or if they’re just surfacing now because you’re not drunk or hungover all the time anymore.

By verify, I mean talk to people who really know you and really want what’s best for you (if you’re lucky enough to have those people in your life) and ask them to tell you the truth. Also, talk to a therapist.

By verify, I mean give it some time to see if things shift. In that time, be honest and forthcoming with your partner about your thoughts and feelings. Give them the best opportunity you can to grow alongside you. Stay curious. I don’t know how much time will be enough, but you will if you’re listening closely.

I hope this is helpful to you, Allison, and anyone else reading this. These situations are all so unique and complex. If you’ve got a story of what happened to your relationship when you or your partner got sober, please share it in the comments. We all learn.

Love,
Laura

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If you’re serious about writing a non-fiction book, there are five spots left in The Book Proposal Lab. We begin June 16. Learn more »

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).

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Ciao, friends.

Writing to you from Siena, Italy, on our last day here. This is not my first time in Italy, but it’s my first time with girlfriends, and let me tell you: go to Italy with your girlfriends.

We started talking about this trip several years ago. This group is my local crew, the ladies I’ve raised my daughter with, who I became connected to through my ex-husband in the early years after our separation. Newly sober, I was isolated and lonely, though not always unhappily so; I was writing like mad and building something new, and also taking to my bed and to quiet rooms for very long periods of time for the first time in my life. This quiet, intensely internal time felt nothing short of holy, and it was, it was—sober, I was finally respecting my true nature after thirty-five years of forcing myself outward into the noise, the crowds, the hamster wheel of activity I felt compelled to stay on to not get left behind in life, or something.

It was extreme, that energetic pendulum swing from the drinking life to the sober one, and although I could’ve happily sequestered myself for years, I had a young daughter who needed social interaction, and despite myself, I did, too.

Out of slight concern for our daughter’s social life, and perhaps even mine, my ex frequently invited me to gatherings with this group—his new, post-separation group of friends—who were all raising kids around the same age in his town. He would tell me about this person or that and how old their kids were, how a group of them had ski trips planned, an April break road trip to South Carolina, a Fourth of July party in someone’s backyard. This kind of group socialization felt so suddenly foreign to me then, a baby bird sober gal who could barely manage a coffee conversation with one person without needing a three-hour nap. Whenever he suggested I join or reach out to them, I always turned it down.

But after a while, as I got my bearings, I started to reach out. Sunday football watching. Local beach days. A barbecue. Friday night lights at the high school. Soon, we became close, and eventually, they became my girls. Our kids brought us together, but our friendship has grown roots beyond that (this isn’t always the case!) and now here we are in Italy, celebrating a few of us turning fifty this year.

Three times on this trip we’ve been stopped by young girls—just out of college, in their early twenties—asking if we’re on a girls trip. Girls, haha, we laugh, but yes. Each time they’ve said seeing us gives them hope for what their future might be. Each time, I’ve thought, make sure it is.

Over the course of the past three years, as I’ve been writing this next book about the difficulty and disappointment of romantic love in my life, I’ve become increasingly aware of the other love stories in my life. My work. My daughter. My home. My geography. And, of course, my friends. In a conversation with a friend a few months ago, catching up about our mutual recent heartbreaks—his marriage, my engagement—I said to him that it was hell to go through but my life was then, and still is, an embarrassment of riches.

One question I’ve been turning around of late is whether I would have such rich love stories had my love life gone another way—the way I had hoped for so long. And if not, is it really such a disappointment? I don’t know if the math works like that, but the amount of myself it’s required to build what I have—especially, in particular, my work—makes me wonder. And would I do it any differently if I had to choose between one love story or the other?

Would you?

Love,
Laura

Offerings

The Book Proposal Lab

June 16 - August 21, limited to 20 writers, 7 spots remain.

If you have a nonfiction book idea and you’re finally ready to do something about it, this is the program. Over 10 weeks, you’ll build an agent-ready proposal from the ground up, with weekly live instruction, direct feedback on your work, and insider access to the mysterious, often intimidating world of publishing.

You’ll work from structured assignments, study both of my book proposals, and sit in on live sessions with my literary agent and an editor—the real insiders who decide what gets published and why. You’ll leave with a group of fellow writers, confidence in your process, and solid next steps.

Join The Book Proposal Lab

Sobriety Support Programs Begin June 1

We are now enrolling in the summer sobriety support programs in The Luckiest Club, each one for a different place on the path. Learn about The Sober 90 (for new folks), The Sober Steady (the messy middle), and The Sober Life (emotional sobriety) here.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

I was getting a facial recently when the woman doing it asked me what I did for work. I told her I was a writer, which led to me mentioning my sobriety. After a long stretch of silence, she asked, "So, why did you stop?"

I’ve been asked a version of this question hundreds of times in the past ten years, and almost always give the same answer, at least to start, which is, “Oh, I was going to die.” That’s what I said to her as she massaged my face.

She let out a little laugh, but then froze, her hands hovering above me.

“Wait, really?” she said.

Then I laughed. “Yes, really.”

She paused, either surprised or actually uncomfortable, then said, “Wow, I would’ve never guessed.”

This kind of comment used to unnerve me, and I’d find myself launching into a diatribe about how addiction doesn’t usually look like addiction, and it isn’t just ‘alcoholics’ and ‘normal’ people; how problematic drinking is pretty ubiquitous, and on and on. Not because I wanted to make the other person feel stupid or because I was ashamed of how they might see me, but because I needed everyone to know about this mind-bending reality I’d uncovered.

I don’t do this anymore, though I’m happy to talk about it if my conversation partner wants to.

After another beat, she asked, “Can I ask, though, did something happen?” So I told her briefly about the big things that happened in the summer of 2013: a DUI, a couple of extra-terrifying blackouts, and the wedding where I left my daughter in a hotel room, which got me to go to my first meeting.

“Ohh, so you stopped after that?” she asked. After the wedding, she meant. She told me she was a mom, too.

“No, actually,” I said. “It took me another year.”

“Then what finally got you to stop?” she asked, and I’ve never known the honest answer to this question, and I don’t know that I ever will. It was so many things—a constellation of tries and falls and moments of grace and effort and humility and help and mystery. It was me and my efforts, to be sure, but it was also not me at all, and the longer I go on, the more I believe in the latter. The longer I go on, the more I believe that it was just fucking luck. I kept showing up, but I also got really, really lucky. There’s no other way to explain the fact that I’m here when so many others I’ve known, many of whom were not as far down the scale as I was, are not.

And this is what I want to talk about today.

There’s an open-door policy in every recovery ‘room’ I’ve been part of. As there should be, of course. Sobriety isn’t typically a ‘once and done’ kind of thing; it often takes a few tries (though sometimes it doesn’t, and bless those lucky souls!).

I remember finding a certain solace in this early on, and also—if I was really honest with myself—using it as an excuse to keep drinking at times. The idea that I could start tomorrow, or whenever I really wanted to down the line, was seductive. What significant difference would it make, I’d argue, if I began now or after the next whatever: holiday, birthday, weekend, milestone? I’d proven to myself that I could stay sober for a week, two weeks, even three, so it was just a matter of that last little bit of commitment, I thought. Of deciding.

But here’s the thing: sometimes the door closes on its own.

Sometimes we don’t get to decide because the decision is made for us.

You might think, like my friend Abby did, that you’ll start for good after the summer. She was a teacher, and the summers were her vacation, and the school year was stressful, but she knew—because she’d had some good stretches of sobriety during them—that she could handle everything so much better without drinking. So she made a pact to put both feet in after Labor Day. A few weeks later, she drank herself to death in her car two hours from her house. Nobody knows why, or whether it was intentional. She had two young girls.

I know someone else who drove home after dinner with friends and caused an accident that took a life. It wasn’t even one of his ‘big nights’ of drinking, just a random Thursday.

I have too many stories like this, and I see too many people in recovery rooms who have been at it for years, even decades. Some of them have had terrible lows; some not. And I only have compassion for this struggle, and I’m not saying it’s all in their control or that it’s even their fault, but I do know that we all get these momentary openings: these windows of opportunity that slide open here and there.

The impulse to tell someone the truth. To turn left instead of right. To join the meeting, or finally open your mouth, or ask that one person for help. Maybe to drop to your knees and pray.

We get these windows—we see them—and then just as quickly, they’re gone. The window closes, and the urgency is wiped from our memory like it was never there.

A few weeks ago, I stumbled upon the Jack Kornfield quote1 “The trouble is, you think you have time,” which I first saw back in 2014. I knew it was meant for me right then because it struck my heart like a lightning bolt.

Maybe it’s meant for you today.

The trouble is, you think you have time.

This applies to sobriety, of course, but it applies to anything you know you must do. As a culture, we’re very hurry up and go-go-go when it comes to everything except the hard things. We’re very busy and right now for anything that keeps us numb, dumb, and asleep.

Yes, there’s time for your change to unfold, but the hard work of beginning? It probably had to happen yesterday. It probably can’t wait.

Love,
Laura

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Offerings

The Book Proposal Lab begins June 16.

If you have a nonfiction book idea you’re ready to take seriously, this is the program. Over 10 weeks this summer (June 16 - August 21) you’ll build a complete, agent-ready proposal. With live instruction, direct feedback on your work, access to my two book proposals, and sessions with my literary agent and a editor.

Limited to 20 writers. Enrollment opens May 20, but paid subscribers get early access and a 10% discount—just hit reply and request the discount code and registration link.

Learn more →

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).

You can give a gift subscription here.

As always, if you cannot afford a paid subscription, email admin@lauramckowen.com, and I’ll provide one.

To join future Second Sunday gatherings, become a paid subscriber.

Highlights

• 12:00 min - Does the urge to drink ever creep back in long-term recovery? After celebrating 5 years, one member reflected on the discomfort that can resurface even after years. We discussed that recovery requires consistent tending, the way anything that matters does (a relationship, our bodies, our mental health). As time goes on, we forget how hard it was, the urgency fades. That’s why staying connected (not just in emergencies, but regularly) makes all the difference.

• 42:00 - Does sobriety ever stop feeling so consuming? And do I get tired of talking about it? Short answer: yes, it does get less consuming, and yes, I have become tired at various points. This was a fun one to answer.

• 48:00 - Being sober through a brutal breakup. One member shared that she’s just days out from ending a relationship, and the waves of pain are brutal. I felt this, being a couple of years out from my own devastating breakup. (We love you, Erin.)

• 54:00 - How do you shift from sobriety as a goal to sobriety as a life? Someone approaching her one-year mark asked what to do when that first year milestone energy disappears. There’s no formula, but the short answer: you do it because you have to.

• 1:09 - How do you stay sober when your partner still drinks? One member talked about navigating almost a year of sobriety while living with a drinking spouse. Her approach: detachment, not management, not being the alcohol police, doing her own thing. The room affirmed it — trying to manage someone else’s drinking doesn’t work, and protecting your own sobriety is the job.

A few things mentioned:

• The Luckiest Club is currently enrolling for summer programs for sobriety support. The Sober 90 is for the early days, The Sober Steady is for the middle stretch where motivation fades and things start to get hard, and The Sober Life is focused on emotional sobriety.

• My Push Off From Here retreat at Kripalu in October is sold out, but you can attend virtually, AND there’s another one in the works.

• A TLC sobriety-focused retreat is in the works for April 9–11, 2027 at Kripalu in Stockbridge, MA—details coming soon.

• The novel Yesteryear—the current #1 NYT fiction bestseller, dark and smart, and possibly the seed of a future Love Story C

  ook club! (I was up in the middle of the night thinking about this!!!!)

Watch The Replay

Listen

Love,
Laura

P.S. I am going to run my 10-week Book Proposal Lab course once more this year. If you’re serious about writing a non-fiction book and interested in the course, please weigh in one what date you prefer.

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

I made it back from Maui and it already feels like a fever dream. A few photos before I get into the upcoming offerings.

Alright! Just a quick note today about upcoming offerings. Comments are open to all on this post so you can ask questions and see other people’s.

The Book Proposal Lab - Need Your Input on Dates!

If you’re serious about writing a non-fiction book, I will be running my 10-week course, The Book Proposal Lab, once more this year. The current session has so far exceeded my expectations (if you’re in the current cohort, I would so appreciate if you’d share about your experience in the comments!). If you’re thinking of participating, I’d love your feedback on preferred dates; you can also join the waitlist with this link.

Join The Book Proposal Lab waitlist

Summer Sobriety Support Program Enrollment is Open - Early Bird Pricing thru Sunday

» We are now enrolling in the summer sobriety support programs in The Luckiest Club, each one for a different place on the path. Learn about The Sober 90, The Sober Steady, and The Sober Life here. Early bird pricing available through this Sunday, May 3.

Enroll in Summer Programs

Kripalu October Retreat

» My October Kripalu Push Off from Here retreat is sold out, but you can join the waitlist or attend virtually. Also: it sold out so fast, another one is in the works for next spring, so stay tuned 👀.

Join The Waitlist or Attend Virtually

Second Sunday gathering is THIS Sunday, May 3. Topic: Sobriety

Our monthly community gathering, Second Sundays, will is this Sunday, May 2, at 11 am ET. (Technically it’s the first Sunday because May 10 is Mother’s Day.) This is an offering for paid subscribers where we come together, I present a topic, and we spend time with it for an hour. May topic: Sobriety AMA. You can ask me anything!

Register below.

Register for 5/3 Second Sunday

Until soon,
Laura

Leave a comment

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, co-host of the Dear Vernon sobriety podcast and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest and Push Off from Here.

You can give a gift subscription here.

The first night here in Maui, 8 pm local time, my phone dings.

It had been a long, long day of travel. Boston to Maui is a whole deal. Four plus hour flight to Dallas-Fort Worth followed by a nearly eight hour one to Maui. I’m here with my daughter and five of her friends for their April break—a trip they began plotting via giant group text with all the moms last spring.

My mom has lived on Maui at various points over the years, most recently settling in full-time in 2020. The girls are seventeen, old enough to travel sanely with, and my mom was thrilled at the idea, so here we are.

When the text notification went off, I’d just settled into bed. I breathed the epic sigh of relief that comes from going horizontal after a long day of travel, and, ding! Since almost everyone I know had been asleep for several hours back home, I was confused.

It was a newish author friend, asking if I was up.

I was, I said, and he called.

He said he might’ve just finished his latest book, and would I listen to the end?

Of course I would.

The next morning on a beach walk, I remembered that twenty-two years ago, on a trip here with four of my best friends, I read his first book.

We were in our mid-twenties then. Vodka and Red Bull drinking little tornadoes trying to find our way through our early careers and dating and living in the city with never enough money. I don’t remember a lot about that trip except for reading that book on the beach and picking my head up every ten pages to say something like holy fuck or jesus fucking christ, and missing my boyfriend.

He was the man I’d eventually marry, but at that point we were only six months in. I was beside myself—the question of whether we’d stay together left open when he left to start law school a few weeks prior. He didn’t know what to expect from that first year. Would he have the time? Would he want to see other girls? Did he love me? He never verbalized those questions but they were there, floating between us, stealing my breath. I had to wait it out.

Within a few weeks, all that anxiety would melt away, right into the sticky, beer-soaked floor of a bar in Boston on Halloween. My beloved, dressed as a priest with a giant curly wig so big I could barely see his face, finally told me he loved me back—breathed it into my ear on the dance floor while Outkast’s ‘Sorry Ms. Jackson’ blasted. He said it again and again and again that night, like he’d been saving it up for years, and every single time, heaven on earth. I didn’t know I could be so happy.

The following spring, we moved in together. He transferred schools, and by fall, we were engaged. Every day after work I got off the bus and floated home to him, feeling like I was living in a dream.

That love was real—is real. I still love those kids, and that boy I married, and all the hope and promises and naivete we had. There was a darkness blooming in me, though, the same darkness I read about in that book on the beach in Maui with my friends. I didn’t know how big it would get. I didn’t know we were headed for a tsunami of pain.

It wasn’t just the drinking. Ultimately, we weren’t a good match, even if we could have made a life together for a little longer. But we had a baby girl and we love her together and apart and perhaps that was the entire point. Perhaps the point of any relationship is to wake up to who you really are, and sometimes that means crashing against big, monstrous cliffs. Sometimes it means total destruction.

Since I remembered that trip on this one, I’ve been thinking a lot about that girl reading that book on the beach twenty-two years ago.

All I wanted then—the only thing I wanted in the entire world; I would have given up all else for it—was for this boy I loved to love me back.

In Marie Howe’s poem, What The Living Do, she writes

We want
whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss—we want more and more and then more of it.

That’s how it was. I wanted more and more and more of it. Of him. And then, I didn’t. Or I couldn’t. Because underneath all that wanting there was an emptiness so vast there was never going to be enough of anything to fill it. Not love, not work, not booze, not drugs—nothing. I tried it all, and it was never enough.

The thing that’s impossible to explain is that it wasn’t that I didn’t love him.

It’s just that I also couldn’t breathe yet. I couldn’t breathe into my own lungs and have that be enough. And when you can’t do that—when there’s no way to settle into your body, your skin, your own soul—the terror is swallowing. You have to keep running or you will die.

The good version of the story is that nobody gets shattered and cheated on and lied to. Nobody goes through the trauma of betrayal or the grief of divorce or the heartbreak of shared time with your kid. But is it? Is that the good story?

Because there was a time, many many years later, when I texted a friend to tell her I’d just finished my first book, and could I call? There was a time where she sat on the other end, oceans away also, and heard me read the final lines to her. There was a time where we both laughed and wept because oh my god, I’d done it. All that pain turned into something.

We are never just one thing, and neither are our stories.

I would not choose what happened in our marriage, but without it, how else does this go?

I don’t love that I hurt anyone, but I have been hurt, also. I don’t know that we can avoid any of it?

Marie Howe’s poem continues.

But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass,
say, the window of the corner video store, and I’m gripped by a cherishing so deep

for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I’m speechless:
I am living. I remember you.

Maybe this is what we get to do, in the end. Maybe this is the entire point: to be alive while we are living.

To remember who we are and those we love.

To be gripped by a cherishing so deep for the fact that it happens at all.

Leave a comment

Offerings

» We are now enrolling in the summer sobriety support programs in The Luckiest Club, each one for a different place on the path. Learn about The Sober 90, The Sober Steady, and The Sober Life here.

» My October Kripalu Push Off from Here retreat is sold out, but you can join the waitlist or attend virtually.

» If you’re serious about writing a non-fiction book, I will be running my 10-week course, The Book Proposal Lab, in September. The current session sold out quickly, so join the waitlist to get first notification of enrollment.

» Our monthly community gathering, Second Sundays, will be on May 3 next month. (Technically the first Sunday because May 10 is Mother’s Day.) This is an offering for paid subscribers where we come together, I present a topic, and we spend time with it for an hour. May topic: Sobriety AMA. You can ask me anything.

Register below.

Read more