The return of the Recovering Roundup

Links for the month of July, 2025

Hi readers,

Starting today, I’m bringing back something I used to do weekly (this time monthly)—the Recovering roundup: a link dump with all the things I’ve been reading, watching, listening to, and texting to my friends, sometimes with a note at the top. The RR will go out on its own once a month, sometimes paywalled, sometimes not. Today’s is free.

In general, I’m doing relatively well, considering. No, actually, that’s not true. I don’t know what I am. I’m both finding joy and getting back into my work in a way I never thought I would and feeling a sense of power and hope, and I’m also just so fucking horrified and heartbroken, the kind where you cannot really swallow because of a permanent lump in your throat and pain behind your eyes.

One big thing for me this past month has been getting my meds right (for ADHD and emotional disregulation/I’m using Wellbutrin and Amantadine), starting HRT, and taking a break from pot. I don’t recommend doing all these things at once to anyone, like omg I’m surprised I still have a boyfriend and friends and my career and a home, but on the other side of figuring all that out, I feel the best I’ve felt in a long long time. Stable. Good even.

Another big thing has been getting clear on what my role in the world is right now, which I finally have, which is where it’s always been—at the intersection of addiction, recovery, trauma, identity, politics, and culture—and letting that be enough.

I talk about this (what my role in the world is) in the interview I did on co-regulation Erica Chidi (“Why managing your nervous system IS managing the crisis”) and this one with Elise Loehnen (“Are you betraying the world by being okay”) (if you’re struggling with that same question, these episodes are for you). You *might* notice a subtle shift in the topics¹ I cover, but you likely won’t if you take the whole of this newsletter all together and have been here a while. I’m sure to plenty of you it doesn’t feel like I ever left that space (considering the name of this newsletter and the fact that I’m writing my third book on addiction), but I definitely left the building and wasn’t sure I’d ever come back. I’m back.

Coming up next in this newsletter: A short essay about my upcoming podcast episode with Laura McKowen² (drops early on Patreon) and our ten year on-again/off-again creative partnership and friendship (and all the healing we had to do to become friends again); an essay on self-help as self-harm/addiction to healing; an updated booklist for folks in recovery (neurodivergent/cptsd/hormone version) (paid members, you can add your recs in this chat); and the seven things I’ve done that have saved my life the past five years. Thanks so much for being here; I appreciate each of you more than you could know.

In love,

H

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Recovering Round-up, July 2025

📚 Tons of books recs but my top five for right now: Are You Mad at Me? by Meg Josephson; I’ll Tell You When I’m Home by Hala Alyan (fucking stunning book); Fatherhood by Augustine Sedgewick; Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman; The Girl Who Baptized Herself by Meggan Watterson. (No fiction, as per usual, but I do have Orbital on my nightstand in case I become a different person.)

Related: Hala Alyan talking about relapse as a visit with the exiled self

Not using cannabis for sleep is hard, but I made it back to falling asleep and staying asleep without it in about two weeks. Here’s what I did/am doing [sharing this as an amateur who has thoroughly researched what works for her—not a doctor] I used a small dose of Xanax the first week (about .125 to .25 mg as needed; benzodiazapines hold no appeal for me but even if they did this was a game-changer in my transition); GABA calm lozenges (or just dumping GABA powder under my tongue); high-potency CBD oil (100 mg to 200 mg); Yogi Bedtime tea; magnesium glycinate. I also swear by these moxa patches that I burn on acupuncture points related to sleep promotion; stroke breath (four strokes in, one long exhale out). All this, along with all my other sleep hygiene stuff: dark room, no screens before bed or screen switched to red filter if I “have” to; waiting until I am tired even if it means staying up later; hot baths or cold shower (I find the same effect); lavender oil; Truvaga 2x; ear plugs; eye mask if necessary; cold room. Literally the most high-maintenance human.³

Related: Cannabis users are too dangerous to have guns, Trump admin tells SCOTUS

Related: Italy gets medicinal pot

Alcohol sales in pubs/bars are down (here, here), which feels like something good until you realize the alcohol industry is still growing massively (here, here), which might be related to off-premise drinking as well as a move to cannabis infused drinks.

Why I don't want a boyfriend

Related: I’m loving Too Much on Netflix (new show by Lena Dunham)—it hits so close to home that I have to take it in pieces. This piece by Kate Manne about the show is also worth reading; and then read her piece on how problematic women become pariahs.

Related: This excellent piece by Devany Amber Wolfe, “Of course we're in the era of heteropessimism.”

Erica Chidi on how to turn your day around at any point

I’m back on Instagram, which is surprising (to me). I started using it again to promote co-regulation, and then I realized it felt fun and good and cathartic, and that’s probably because I’m just blocking every dickhead and not arguing in the comments or checking it maniacally after I post and not scrolling for more than a few minutes a day and because I am not really interested in posting about my life and also just not really worried about Instagram at all?⁴ I also realized, um, I need to promote my work again, which I’ve been hesitant to do, and haven’t done these past four years, save for the rare exception. This piece (“If You *Must*, Here is How to Be a Content Creator Without Crashing Out or Losing Yourself”) by Devon is superb on how to use social media sanely especially for us sensitive types; and this piece by hero Cody Cook-Parrot about marketing without Insta is a great counter-point to everything I just said.

I usually check into a hotel to go deep on writing or when I’m under a deadline, but I’ve found recently that does not work so well for me. I like my home; it’s all set up for me, and traveling has gotten harder. This is a really great offering on how to do a lock-in at home when you need to go deep.

This beautiful piece by my dear real-life friend, a true love activist, Scott Stabile, on how to keep your heart open in the face of such violence. I’m not at the part where I’m ready to put Trump on my altar, but it’s a nice aspiration.

I don’t usually call to use social media, but I am asking for those of us with platforms that can to amplify what’s happening in Gaza right now to do so. We can send all the money we want, and we should, but it doesn’t work if the aid doesn’t get in. (You can read what I wrote about it on IG.) Here is Gabor Mate, talking about it. Please read this footnote⁵ if you intend to comment.

artists4ceasefire

A post shared by @artists4ceasefire

Related: “Why The More Who Die, The Less We Care: Un-numbing and growing our capacity to face atrocity at scale” On psychic numbing and why we tune out of large-scale disasters (from the Ann Friedman weekly)

Miranda July’s creative process (Thank you Kimberly M. for sending me this)

Laura McKowen, writing about shame while in the middle of a shame cycle.

I used a “Substack whisperer” (after I wrote this post that I couldn’t even bring myself to read and asked myself “wtf am I doing here”) to help me take an objective spin through my newsletter and offering here and make it better for you all, and she was epic. I cannot recommend Erin Shetron’s services enough. The return in value was astronomical—she went above and beyond and helped me get a grip on what’s working and what’s not so I can have fun again. I’m having fun again.

I’ve also meant to share the name of the psychic intuitive I work with (whom I got from Emily McDowell, who all my friends now use): Shawna Reininger. I met with Shawna right after I left Tempest, and I’ve used her services regularly these past few years, sometimes once every six months, or sometimes every few weeks. She’s not a fortune teller and she doesn’t project the future. She’s just someone who helps me access what I already know.

Rest in peace and power, beautiful teacher and now ascended master. Andrea Gibson died on July 14th and like so many of you, it impacted and then changed me in ways I didn’t anticipate; just tremendously. Their beautiful wife megan falley is keeping their newsletter going, which feels like the biggest blessing I could imagine. This list of things she wants to say to Andrea that she wrote that first week of their death and it’s stunning; everything.

“We know this even if we don’t like it: When I inventory my life, the parts that sucked the most yielded the biggest breakthroughs. Encountering resistance from reality is the source of our grit, the grit that slowly perfects the pearl. Absent resistance, there is no real emergence of potential. We don’t fully meet ourselves until we’re under stress.” This epic piece by Elise Loehnen on the necessity of resistance (pairs well with my last essay on being lost for years).

I love it here. I honestly think really do now. Even with all this.

1. Right now I am very interested in exploring the intersection of addiction, relapse, trauma, neurodivergence and dyslexia, drug use/pleasure, hormones, and recovery.

2. My old podcast co-host, creative partner, larger-than-life-on-and-off-again friend, in which we talk about ten years of loving and hating each other, and finally finding peace

3. Note: none of these are affiliate links. I use affiliate links for bookshop.org and otherwise don’t believe or participate in affiliate marketing. I make a few hundred dollars a year from Bookshop.org.

4. What I mean is, it feels like who cares on that platform if people see it or like it or engage or think I’m a monster or a saint or full of herself or, as one nice reader put it recently, “an annoying twat.” Conversely, I DO care about Substack, almost like I used to with Instagram—I have a lot of perfectionism around using this platform and maintaining an idea about my body of work.

5. I’m abstaining from discussions in the comments about this—there is no argument against starving an entire people, starving children. It’s genocide my government and my tax dollars are actively funding, and we can argue about the details later. If you have a counterpoint to this statement and take attention away from the meat of what is happening now, which is horrific, please keep it for another day or somewhere else. I am very aware of the other less amplified horrors around the globe.