OFFICE HOURS! Starting Saturday, October 11th, at 10am PT/1pm ET (6pm UK) I’m going to be hosting office hours for paid subscribers. This will be a call for us to come together, do a little breathing, and either share what’s happening for you or ask questions of me. (If you were in Hip Sobriety School, this will be a little like the Q&A format.) Registration link is at the bottom, below the paywall. The call will not be recorded.
This first bit was a link to an article on leaving the US that turned into an essay so I pulled it up top, because I wanted to share some of my own processing around this topic—I love knowing how different people consider different things; here’s how I’m considering it. Links are at the bottom. Be safe out there buddies.
A few weeks ago I was driving down our windy country road when a tiny little woman of about 80 in what looked to be a panic flagged me down. I pulled over and rolled my window down when before I knew it she was getting in my car; what she needed was a ride to the bottom of the hill to catch a bus. It ended up that she was going to get her hair cut in Woodstock next to where I do yoga, and I told her I’d drive her there instead. She is French; 84; an artist and a mountaineer. She lost her license 3 years ago from a stroke, and she does the whole panicked hitchhiking thing regularly which is how she gets around.
On the way to yoga she told me she was born in France in the middle of the Nazi occupation and that I had no idea what war does to people, what your parents do to keep you safe and fed, what her mom did with the soldiers. Before we departed she told me World War III was coming; “They want what they have always wanted which is all the humans gone, and they will succeed.” I came home and sat Jeremy down and told him I had some bad news about WWIII; it was coming.
Later that night I told a “politically connected” friend about Marguerite and asked what they thought of WWIII, and they’d just been to dinner with even more “politically connected” people who said no such thing was happening and just wait for 2026.
What struck me was how equally firm they both sounded.
In the opening sequence of the pilot of the television series Lost, the character Kate Austin is asked to suture a wound on the the character Jack Shepherd’s back. She gets very scared. He tells her to feel fully into her fear while she counts to five, and then to get over it. She freaks out for five seconds, gets over it, and sutures the wound.
This is what I did on election day. I was scared shitless, then I counted to a few thousand, then I decided I was going to get over it and not be scared. For the better part of a year this has mostly stuck.
Still, sometimes I get scared, and Marguerite scared me, and the other friend relieved me, and that was what struck me: How everyone is guessing, how much I believe them.
In July of last year, when I became convinced that what is happening now was going to happen, I told Jeremy that I’d decided a while ago I was staying in the United States no matter what happened. I explained I’d benefited hugely from being born here and living here as a white woman, and that it would be the most American thing to use my privilege to leave instead of stay and pay whatever cost is due, and I’ve felt this way pretty consistently since.
But then all the people I know that have left. But then this friend saying “Antigua is great and for only $150,000….”But then this couple we met at a birthday party that bought two homes in Italy. But then my sister texting me “Mexico?” because her kids are brown and her neighbors have been disappeared and there are guns and angry people, everywhere. But then my queer friends. But then articles like this.
And then, panic.
Like Carrot said in this article, I don’t think anyone should be ashamed to leave or do what they need to do to feel safe. Also like Carrot, there are times I’ve been hyperfixated on whether I should get the fuck out, or at least make certain preparations.
But what happens when I do that—when I start thinking I need to leave yesterday—is the same thing that happens when I start worrying about saying things online that might get me in trouble, or when I start thinking I need to buy a year’s supply of dried meat, which is that I get small and scared and become an island unto myself I need to defend.
To the friend who said Maybe Antigua? I said, Okay, but then what? Because my guess is that if you move there, it’s not going to make you feel safer. It’s going to make you feel like you might need to move again.
Or at least, that’s how it would make me feel. Like the other shoe is about to drop.
I’m writing about this not because I have such a stake in whether anyone stays or leaves or even because I care about who is doing what. Some people will leave. Some people will stay. (Some people will want to leave and have to stay.) (Some people will want to stay and have to leave.) (This is putting so many violent things nicely.)
But because it is a thing that I keep running my fingers through; this fear, this instinct to freak out and flee and run toward a safety that does not actually exist.
In my experience (in life, in recovery) it’s held true that what I run from follows and haunts me, and that what I turn around and face dissolves and loses its grip; these things continue to hold.
Recovering Round-up, September 2025
📚 Maybe once a year I get a book that I can’t put down/think about incessantly/dream about/and forego all other responsibilities to finish, and this year it’s A Silent Treatment. If you’re not familiar with Jeannie Vanasco (I’m a completist), I recommend starting with Things We Didn’t Talk About When I Was a Girl; then The Glass Eye; and then A Silent Treatment
📚 In the last roundup I talked about how I was working with developing more self-control (…”I feel like I’m becoming dumber and maybe a kind of a robot…”) and I’m still on that kick. I’ve been listening to much Pema (Noble Heart; Practicing Peace in Times of War—both on Audible), and also am on a major Ryan Holiday kick, I’ve listened to Discipline is Destiny 2x, and I’ve been using his Daily Stoic journal prompts. I have a hunch someone is going to say Ryan Holiday is terrible! and to pre-empt that I’m going to say Okay but it’s helping!
Related: “People have always lived in difficult times”
Related: Fear is the mind killer
I have two copies of Are You Mad At Me by
to give away—to enter, reply to this email and change the subject line to “Meg Josephson” (this is limited paid subscribers only). (Meg was a guest on co-regulation for two episodes, Why We Think Everyone is Always Mad At Us.)I can’t believe I’m writing this but just trust me on Trainwreck: Poop Cruise.
Related: I watched the Charlie Sheen documentary for research purposes and it was v. emotional for me?
There’s an IFS workshop for addictions, Healing Interventions for the Trauma-Addiction Cycle, with CeCe Sykes, author of IFS Therapy for Addictions (the #1 book I recommended in my updated booklist for holistic recovery)
Should you tell your kid about weed gummies
💊🍺💉🍸🌲🍄🛍️📲🧑🏻💻 lols okay; ADHD meds could reduce suicidal behaviors; people with ADHD use more pot; rehab fuels relapse; Eric Adam’s proposes involuntary addiction treatment in NYC; a pacemaker for the brain; US alcohol consumption hits 90 year low; we’re addicted to validation and “the internet is Purdue Pharma”; (←related); roadside testing cannabis; opioid settlements just buy more cops; What’s so bad about nicotine?; MAHA + MDMA; CBD helps AUD; every week there is an article about whether Gen Z drinks whyy; Miss Sobriety World; opening dispensaries reduces opioid-related deaths; ADHD + pot use; what’s contingency management; how does self-control work;
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