Log in

goodpods headphones icon

To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon
headphones
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

Tara Boyce

Warning: This might be hard to hear. It was hard to LIVE. Having an honest dialogue about what active addiction was like isn’t pretty, but I’m hoping that even if you come for the train wreck you’ll stay for the recovery conversation. Settle in for notes from the thick of two decades of substance abuse, mental health struggles, romantic obsession, rehabs, hospitals, institutions and general despair, to the last few years of coming out the other side. I've had a lot of time to collect insight about recovery, and to stay sober I had to be as obsessed with getting better as I was with staying sick, and I hope to share some of that insight with you. Through writing a memoir about my recovery from alcoholism and mental illness, I realized, my recovery is an ongoing process, and also an interactive one, based on shared insight and dialogue. So why would a book about those things be any different? I want to share my story while engaging in a conversation about the nature of addiction and recovery, to share tools and crowdsource far more wisdom than I could export on my own. Join me as I read chapters from my memoir and join the discussion about recovery, addiction, mental health, spirituality and humanism. I invite you to e-mail any questions or comments to: [email protected]

1 Listener

bookmark
Share icon

All episodes

Best episodes

Seasons

Top 10 Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - The Perils of Perfectionism

The Perils of Perfectionism

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

06/16/21 • 31 min

I certainly had a lot of the 'isms' of alcoholism before I even touched a drink. My personality was fertile ground for disorders to develop even as a child.
Reflections on how perfectionism limits living a full life, the beliefs behind it, and a few strategies I use to talk myself out of it.
Audiobook Chapter 2: The Thoughts, goes through childhood anxieties and developing cognitive distortions.
Please send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

or

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, I’ve set up a buymeacoffee page, and you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Hope to see you again next week!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Disgraced Drama Queen

Disgraced Drama Queen

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

06/30/21 • 30 min

Addicted To Recovery : The Interactive Memoir Episode 4:
What does it really mean to drink alone as opposed to with other people? Drinking with others was still, essentially, how I was trying to manage my own mind, not other people's. For me, it was an indication that the relationship I had with my mind had become more strained than the most forced social situations. I figured alcohol could force us to get along the same way it had with various frenemies over the years. It had the opposite effect of completely alienating me from any sense of synergy with my thoughts.
In chapter 4 we wrap up the Theatre School arc, in which denial, misdirection and medication cause me to improve my acting skills unintentionally, though it seems the only one convinced by my performance was me. Sure, things were getting a bit freaky, but me, an alcoholic? Naw. THAT'S really dramatic.
Please send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

or

https://twitter.com/ToMemoir

or

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, I’ve set up a buymeacoffee page, and you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Hope to see you again next week!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - But Everybody's Doing It!

But Everybody's Doing It!

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

07/21/21 • 33 min

It’s easy to obscure a drinking problem when everyone else drinks. It was all happening in plain sight. It wasn’t a PROBLEM! I was nineteen! I liked to PARTY! And so did EVERYONE ELSE! In this chapter I drift further into denial when drinking is normalized by friends, family and a culture that thinks drinking is just the obvious way to have a good time. It also delves into the awkwardness and anxiety of trying to convince myself I was having a good time when I was really just desperate to be in an environment in which drunkenness was accepted. It was also easy to blame the culture and avoid taking responsibility. Alcohol promised to BE MY FRIEND, it WAS, and then it turned on me. It's clearly someone else's fault. Feel sorry for me yet? I sure did. And that never solved anything.

In recovery, I still grapple with some conflicted feelings about other people in my life who DO still drink. It’s kind of like breaking up with someone, but still having them around all the time. Having a recovery community has been vital in staving off resentments.

Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, I’ve set up a you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Please send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

or

https://twitter.com/ToMemoir

or

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

Hope to see you again next week!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - When It Was All Supposed To Happen

When It Was All Supposed To Happen

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

07/28/21 • 31 min

So the 'S' word... no, not the one referring to bodily functions, but SPIRITUALITY. There. I said it. This episode breaks down my still rather dubious relationship with the word itself, but the ways in which embracing the principles behind it, as I understand them, (and even the ways I DON'T understand them) has aided in my recovery and life in general, if I stop being so hung up on having to have all the answers, because really, no one does.
In the memoir, time to hoot and holler at one of the more glaring examples of a mind not all that calibrated to reality, and the ways in which rejecting reality and embracing fantasy was a means, perhaps, of protecting me from the greater threat, my alcoholism and self-loathing.
Relationships and love are tough to navigate at the best of times, but throw in acute vulnerability levels created by substance abuse or fresh sobriety and we have a whole lot of future episodes of Dr. Phil waiting to happen.
Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Please send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

or

https://twitter.com/ToMemoir

or

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Things Fall Apart

Things Fall Apart

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

06/23/21 • 31 min

Addicted To Recovery : The Interactive Memoir Episode 3:
When did I know I had a problem? What are the red flags? In my case it was muddled by a personality that enjoyed the chaos, and thought drinking was just an extension of being a bit more dramatic than everyone else.
In chapter three, we flash forward again to the onset of alcoholic drinking, as I struggled to process a loss while trying to cut it at a challenging performing arts school. Unable to manage my emotions I took to day drinking and courting eating disordered thoughts and behaviours. This episode does contain references to suicide, without being explicit, so use your own discretion.
Please send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

or

https://twitter.com/ToMemoir

or

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, I’ve set up a buymeacoffee page, and you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Hope to see you again next week!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Happy Holidays!

Happy Holidays!

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

12/25/21 • 18 min

A few thoughts on the holidays, and the challenges they have presented, as well as the legitimate joy they can bring.
The holidays can be difficult for people in recovery So many holiday traditions involve alcohol, the office party, the Christmas cheer, and let’s not even get started on New Years Eve.
There is this idea that the holidays should FEEL different than other days. Your relationships should feel closer. There should be a warm and cozy fireside feeling in our hearts. We should feel like the Christmas songs and Hallmark cards and commercials and Love Actually promises we will feel. But how about embracing how we actually feel? Whatever YOUR holidays look like for you, rather than missing them because you think they're supposed to feel like someone else's Instagram.

Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at
[email protected]
Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.
Join the Facebook group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378
If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery
Find me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/ToMemoir
If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!
Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Functional Alcoholism

Functional Alcoholism

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

01/06/22 • 34 min

Over the next year, I kept both a job and a boyfriend, and was thus performing normalcy to a dazzling degree that surprised even me. Since the incident and my outpatient therapy, every time I drank and nothing terrible happened I gave myself permission to drink more often and still, nothing catastrophic occurred. I’d broken the system. I’d graduated into what I believed was functional alcoholism, and was perfectly content to stay there indefinitely.

People speak of addiction as progressive, something that gets worse and never better, and though it eventually passed the point of no return, for awhile the progression was far less linear. My pattern was that it would get bad, some incident would happen, like splitting my head open on the kitchen floor, and I would reign it back in to almost normal for someone in their early 20s, figure, OK, I’ve got a handle on this, then increase it bit by bit, seeing what I could ‘get away with,’ until another accident, humiliation, betrayal, meltdown, shitshow, and I’d reign it back in again, to show everyone, and myself. how capable I was of managing life with alcohol.
Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at
[email protected]
Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.
Join the Facebook group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378
If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery
Find me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/ToMemoir
If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!
Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show (https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=PYGYDK9EHG2AW)

Support the show

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Monster

Monster

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

06/02/22 • 35 min

It seems the Johnny Depp vs. Amber Heard trial made me have a whole lot of feelings.
Particularly, where do ideas and 'victim' and 'perpetrator' fall apart when there is wrongdoing on both sides, or when an environment or relationship is in itself intrinsically chaotic. I have been in plenty of mutual destructive relationships, and substance abuse seems to change the rules of engagement.
To what extent do we hold people to different ethical standards when they are intoxicated? Should we? To what extent do we hold ourselves to different ethical standards when intoxicated? And also, should we?
Talk to me about it! [email protected]
Share this with someone you think might relate to it. Ask for help if you need it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.
Join the Facebook group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378
If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!
Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - I Am An Abusive Person.

I Am An Abusive Person.

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

08/25/21 • 36 min

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that I am an abuser. There is someone in my life that for years I’ve been abusing mentally, emotionally, and physically. I also neglected her, endangered her and left her vulnerable to the abuse of other people. Beyond that, I was so convinced for much of this time that she deserved it, or even that it was for her own good, that I was teaching her a lesson, that I didn’t recognize I was doing anything wrong.
The only reason I'm not in jail is because the person I was abusing was... myself. Why is it that we think it’s OK to to do and say things to ourselves that we would never dream of saying to someone we cared about, or even someone we don’t particularly like? And what do we do when these patterns of behaviour and thinking persist, even when we know better?
Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at

[email protected]

Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.

If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery

Find me on Twitter!

https://twitter.com/ToMemoir

Join the Facebook group!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378

If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!

Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir - Edgy, Cool and Tortured

Edgy, Cool and Tortured

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir

play

01/27/22 • 35 min

My classmates in Creative Writing would understand how edgy, cool and tortured I was, and how cool my drinking was.
The first writing assignment I workshopped in my fiction writing class was from my *ahem* novel, a chapter in which the narrator, reeling from a devastating breakup, hurtles into alcoholic drinking and ends up in rehab. Funny how I was writing things, as ‘fiction,’ that hadn’t happened to me yet, but were going to. Was it prediction? Manifestation? But a story about rehab, that would certainly make everyone think I was edgy, cool and tortured. I didn’t even bother to mask my breath if I came back from swigging wine in the bathroom at break, because that’s what someone who was edgy cool and tortured would do, and because I WANTED them to talk. I imagined them having whispered discussions about me in the hallway, wondering if I had indeed been to rehab myself, because that would just be so ME, given how edgy cool and tortured I was.
Want me to talk nerdy to you? Check me out on the Ryan Stick show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ynHQudyAyuk&t=4110s
Send questions, comments or just say ‘hi’ at
[email protected]
Call to action: Share this with someone you think might relate to it. We never know what little things might make a difference in someone acknowledging their own need for help.
Join the Facebook group!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/156764336366378
If you want to support the podcast, the book, and my ability to keep doing it, you can show your support at:
https://www.buymeacoffee.com/recovery
Find me on Twitter!
https://twitter.com/ToMemoir
If you like what I’m doing and find it useful or entertaining, recommend it to a friend, subscribe, rate it, share it, or all of the above!
Thanks to Bensound.com for the intro and outro music
Here is a list of suicide crisis hotlines by country:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines
Here are links to support groups with an online presence that can be vital in recovery:
For a comprehensive list of 12 Step Meetings:
https://12step.org/social/online-meetings
Smart Recovery:
https://www.smartrecovery.org/community
Refuge Recovery
https://www.refugerecovery.org

Support the show

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Show more best episodes

Toggle view more icon

FAQ

How many episodes does Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir have?

Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir currently has 29 episodes available.

What topics does Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir cover?

The podcast is about Addiction, Health & Fitness, Bpd, Spirituality, Mental Health, Sobriety, Podcasts, Self-Improvement, Education, Audiobook, Philosophy, Drinking, Recovery, Alcoholism and Mental Illness.

What is the most popular episode on Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir?

The episode title 'Things Fall Apart' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir?

The average episode length on Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir is 34 minutes.

How often are episodes of Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir released?

Episodes of Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir are typically released every 14 days.

When was the first episode of Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir?

The first episode of Addicted to Recovery: The Interactive Memoir was released on Jun 9, 2021.

Show more FAQ

Toggle view more icon

Comments