Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome, everybody. This is Avoiding the Addiction Affliction brought to you by Westwords Consulting and the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: It never ceases to amaze me how much creativity and truth come in recovery. I'm privileged to be able to have one of those conversations today with an extremely gifted and passionate woman, Jessica Guerreri is a writer and novelist who lives in Northern California with her husband and three daughters. With a background in special education, Jessica left the field to pursue a career in writing and raise her children. With over a decade of sobriety, she is a fierce advocate for addiction recovery and her award winning debut book Club fiction novel Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea is available for order today.

Mike: And Jessica we'll put links on the blurb of the podcast so people can go and order it today after they hear.

Jessica: Thank you. Yeah. Pre order it because it comes out May 13th, but pre ordering is so important, especially for debut. So it'll be bookstores everywhere, May 13th.

Mike: That's gotta be exciting.

Mike: Do you have a whole bunch of signings and appearances?

Jessica: (chuckle) Honestly, it's like, I just feel like I'm floating above my body most of the time, which as somebody in recovery, it's amazing to be floating above my body in such a wonderful sense of the world, it's so different than before. But I just look, I can't believe it.

Jessica: I, yes, I have appearances. I get to go, across the country. It's no joke. It's so thrilling.

Mike: We'll get to your book in a minute, but when I do these, I always like to start with the, for me, the good stuff. You're recovering for over a decade now.

Jessica: Yup, I am.

Mike: Alcohol, right?

Jessica: Yes. I'm recovering from alcohol. So in May I'll have 12 years of continued sobriety. And then I also identify as an addict as well. And so I have a separate clean date. Which is in August of 2021, and I just separate those two out for reasons that I'm sure we'll get into. (laugh)

Mike: Well, let's do that, because not everybody, you know this, not everybody does that. I kind of like that, but why did you decide to do that?

Jessica: So, obviously I got sober through a recovery program, through a 12 step program, and I'm very vocal about that. Inside the program, we talk about other forms of alcohol, right?

Jessica: And so, to me, I was hanging on to that last little bit of, like, not ready to be fully succumb and powerless to everything. And when the pandemic rolled around, to me, it was like Well, it's the end of the world. And I'm sober and I had six years of sobriety at that point. And I was like, okay, I have enough recovery under my belt and all of our meetings went virtual which wasn't great for me, I love in person I'm a people centered person. And so I use that as an excuse to kind of back away from the program and start to explore other sort of quitlet fiction and things like that. And inside of that space they are more forgiving to the idea that like, you can identify separately and have, some people do, they don't drink alcohol, but maybe they do marijuana.

Jessica: And, that's everyone's journey. My experience was that I can't do anything halfway, I can't put any substance inside of my body without completely overdoing it. And I needed to learn that lesson the hard way, as most addicts do. And so that's what I did during the pandemic, which is actually how my novel came to be, because I was able to write from a place of active addiction, not necessarily with alcohol, because that's what my main character's issue is.

Jessica: But addiction is addiction. And so as you've read the novel, the feelings of being trapped inside that are visceral and real. And you can read that in the book.

Mike: I'm shaking my head because you're about the millionth woman to talk to me about pandemic isolation. And so, boy, that did a number on us, didn't it?

Jessica: I mean, honestly, I think, I mean, everybody had their horrible experience, of course, but I was at home and my husband worked. He was an essential worker. So he was out of the home. I was at home with a five year old who had halfway through kindergarten and pulled out of kindergarten and a four year old who was in preschool and an 18 month old.

Jessica: And it was actually my hell to be trapped at home in that way. Because like I said, I need people. I have a community. I'm part of a mom's workout group called Fit for Mom with Lynn Davis. And we do, motherhood and mental health where we're exercising. I do Spartans. I love community.

Jessica: And so to just be isolated with them, it brought out the, like the darkest, ugliest versions of motherhood in me. And I learned that I wasn't alone in that. That was so common. And I wanted to show that, like, I wasn't afraid to show the ugliness of that. Because I think there's so much shame that's attached with that where it was just like, it's not okay to say these things about and not be grateful for our children every moment of every day.

Jessica: And I was like, but this is horrible. (laugh) Like, this is terrible to be, you know, there's milestones of my third daughter that nobody ever witnessed, right, besides us as her family, right? And that's like, part of that is we live near family and we didn't get to share that with them. Like her first steps and words and things that we'll just never get back.

Jessica: And that's tragic.

Mike: I've had a lot of people, not a lot, but I've had a bunch of different folks try to tell me and convince me that edibles are okay in recovery. And that's where we're going. That, you know, those, that blurring of the line, that's a dangerous little tight rope to walk.

Jessica: Sure. So here's my, here's my rigorous honesty, because I'm very upfront about it.

Jessica: My drug of choice was edibles. I abused THC and that in the corners of my brain, I was like, had I had access to other things, granted, I also got access to painkillers, so I was mixing those as well, and that was like, very telling, too. But I live in California, and it's, we do drive through cannabis. And I told myself that this is totally fine and of course, like, my addiction brain is screaming at me, like, this is not fine, you know this isn't fine, I had friends telling me this isn't going to work.

Jessica: And I just absolutely took it too far. As I do. Of course, as I do. And so that, to me, I think is very important, because I also wanted to message people saying that, you know what, you actually can overdo it with things like THC, because that messaging is very confusing. That it's natural and it's all the things.

Jessica: If it's a substance, You can abuse it.

Mike: You had something very similar happen to you that happened to my mom way back in the day. You had a physician that you went to, and my mom, despite the fact she was in his office from overdosing on alcohol, he wrote her prescription for Valium.

Jessica: Right. Oh, same. I mean, I literally, on my my Kaiser. You know, diagnostic of everything. First of all, I was very upset because they don't say, in recovery, they say like, substance abuse disorder. And I'm like, well, hey, like, I'm in recovery, yes, I do have this. But I also think you guys should have a box that says, checking that you are working a program because they say the same questions of how many alcoholic drinks do you have.

Jessica: But I end up going to my doctor and I told them, after I came out as being an addict as well, I said, In my chart, please write, Do not prescribe this woman anything, no matter what she says.

Mike: Oh, good for you. Good for you. Well, how did they react to that?

Jessica: I can't, I cannot.

Jessica: And I don't want to be tempted by it. Like, I need that honesty so badly and that's the thing that keeps me clean and sober, is like, I need to be held accountable because if you let a little bit of a messaging come in, it just sneaks in, and it'll find a way.

Mike: Yeah, oh, that, that is great.

Mike: I can just see the double take from that person.

Jessica: Of course, I like, I needed it for, I had to do an MRI. And I'm claustrophobic, and so I talked with my doctor, I talked with my sponsor, and I said I, I have to do this MRI we have a history of breast cancer in my family, and so we're rigorous in our testing for everything, and I said I cannot get in this tube without something. And they said, okay, but it says on your chart (laugh), I know! I was like, do you want me to call my sponsor too? We can all get on the phone. But you know, it was just like, I have to tell on myself. I always tell him myself.

Mike: That's the kind of honesty you need. I'm going to ask you one more question about yourself.

Mike: Cause it cracked me up. Talk about the first time you went to an AA meeting sitting in the parking lot, that just, that was so good.

Jessica: You know. Okay. So and it's also like, just karma. 'cause I have three daughters, right? And so, like, I was a tomboy as a kid. Like I love sports. I'm 6' 1", so I'm an athlete.

Jessica: But I also love all things girly. And so my, like youngest is my, like my girly girl. And so, it's so interesting to me that in my head at the time, as sick as I was, I had literally, I'd fallen off, I was painting my house while intoxicated during spring break when I was a teacher. And I got drunk and decided to paint my living room, as you do.

Jessica: And I ended up falling off a chair and I tore my knee in three places. And so, I was on painkillers. I was, on into anxiety medication, and then I was drinking, two to three bottles of wine a night at the same time, so like, on my, like, death's door, essentially, and then I have this enormous knee brace. And I'm literally, and I wear, like, a, I specifically chose, like, a long skirt to cover my knee brace, even though, like, I'm hobbling on crutches, and I'm, like, sitting there in the back alley, because like, some of these meetings, places are not exactly the most, you know. And I'm putting on, like, bright red lipstick, like, because the image of myself and what I presented to the public was so important to me to show that I still had it together.

Jessica: Literally I was broken, like, falling apart at the seams, but look, I still look, I mean, I, my face was puffy, I looked like a shadow of myself, and yet I still was so concerned with the image of it. Walking into a room with other recovering alcoholics, I needed to be the most functioning.

Jessica: I needed to be the hottest alcoholic that was in that...

Mike: With a knee brace. (laugh)

Jessica: With a knee brace. With, yeah, with a drinking, it's like, come on, but to me that I can laugh at that. Now, of course, I can laugh with you about that now, because that is the epitome of it. That is what we are in my head, especially as a woman and how we're supposed to present in a certain way. To me, like, that just says it all.

Mike: The reason I liked it is I think that that is pretty typical of that facade that people try to maintain. Let's talk about your book for a minute because there's a contrast in your book and your other writings. When you got pregnant you celebrated your pregnancy, am I getting this right?

Mike: On the same day you got your 30 day chip?

Jessica: I did, I took the pregnancy inside of an AA, well I had already taken a pregnancy test and it was positive, but as a true alcoholic, I like, I don't believe it until something's like, smacking me in the face. So I had like 15 pregnancy tests, so one of my tests I actually took in the bathroom of my 30 day AA meeting where I received my 30 day chip.

Jessica: My husband and I had been "trying" (finger quotes) to get pregnant with, children for over a year. And by trying, I mean, you heard what I was doing. I was abusing drugs and alcohol. And it was like the ultimate God shot for me of, okay, well, here, it happened. And for me, I'm very specific in this instance that I don't hang my recovery on my children's shoulders.

Jessica: It's not their burden to carry. And I would never say like, I got sober for my children. It's actually like, to me, the most amazing thing that they helped me stay sober than I think I was going to because I got pregnant and I had that protective barrier, like, I say built in protective barrier of another thing that was like, okay, I really can't drink.

Jessica: But like I said, I had to tell on myself. Because I ended up calling my entire family, all my friends even before I got pregnant, so in my first, like, two weeks, I told everybody, I'm an alcoholic, I can't drink anymore, hold me accountable, make sure you know and so, I needed that. I needed that because had I not gotten pregnant with my daughter, and I can say this in full honesty, I absolutely would have started drinking the moment she was born.

Jessica: And I would have backpedaled and said like, nope, it wasn't a problem. Nope, it was fine. And to be honest, my daughter wouldn't have survived that in the sense that I wouldn't be able to mother, safely the way that I was drinking. I was passing out, not able to come to. I couldn't take care of a newborn at the same time doing that.

Mike: Compare your personal experience with that to the choice that you gave the main character in your novel. Leah, the main character, the narrator, she celebrates her pregnancy by?

Jessica: So this was very important to me. So Leah, she has three children as well.

Jessica: You'll see some similarities in there. She's also very tall. (laugh) You know, there's some things that we have in common. Her first two pregnancies, she doesn't drink and isn't tempted to drink. And I wanted to show sort of how it can slip in there and go sort of under the radar.

Jessica: And this was very important to me to be to show because it's very authentic to the experience, at least of my experience and what I've heard in the rooms and other people's experience in recovery by the third baby. And this was true for my pregnancy as well. Yeah, I had no interest in drinking, like it did sound gross, like coffee sounded gross, things that we weren't supposed to have, like sushi sounded gross.

Jessica: So that was like a nice reprieve, right, from my mental obsession. But I will say, by the third baby, and the reason that I put this out there that Leah actually does drink in her third pregnancy she has like a bender. I wanted to show this because, It is very... I wanted to take this, shame away from this idea of, the choice of it, given that women, if you're struggling with addiction, or even if you're not, and this whole narrative surrounding shaming women around drinking with pregnancy or not drinking and Oh, it's, even if I'm at a event and I'm not drinking and people don't know, they're like, Oh, are you pregnant?

Jessica: And it's just like, why is this all associated with this? To me, it was really important to show that and to take the shame away from it because for her, it was like a foregone conclusion. She had, she was already doing these things and didn't want to be doing them. It's not that she didn't love her children.

Jessica: It's not that she didn't want to be pregnant. It is a force greater than yourself. And for me that was really important to show. And I recognized that in myself because by the time I had my third and I was nursing her, I ended up nursing her longer than I did with my other ones because it was another protective barrier, right?

Jessica: It was another way of like, being like, no, I, I can't, I can't drink. And so actually when I got done nursing and done having children I did the steps again with my sponsor because I was like, I feel like a newbie because I'm coming in this, a completely different place with, number one, all these children now, and I don't have a protective barrier.

Jessica: And so for me, it was really important to put that in the novel in that capacity as well.

Mike: You mentioned Leah's struggles and you communicate that so well in the novel and your literary agent said that you write pain so beautifully. That's a great way to put it. And I'm not a literary agent.

Mike: However she's right, man. You can feel it in the novel. As a non novel writer, when you're writing that, do you feel the pain? Like when you're writing the pain, do you feel it? Are you reliving part of it? How much is autobiographical?

Jessica: Yeah, that's such a good question. I just listened to the Audible version, so our narrator Mia Hutchinson Shaw does an incredible version, like her acting in, she is Leah, I actually got to pick from a cast of people and they had them read and I listened to the first chapter of my book from all of these incredible voice actors. And then when I heard her voice and I heard her do it I was like Leah, is that you? (laugh)

Mike: Wow, that's great.

Jessica: Talk about out of body viscerally feeling it inside my body. So I spent all weekend doing laundry with my earbuds in. And so, I actually, to experience my book that way and then hear my own pain and my own reliving of that it took a toll, like, it feels like a gut punch and I came away from it being like, wow, you know, this is gonna be too much for some people. This'll be like, too heavy for some people, but I like came in crying to my husband because he was working in his office and I was just like, I'm so dang proud of this.

Jessica: So amazed that I'm still here. Because this pain is so, it was so real at the time I don't feel it anymore, but it is the nostalgic ache that I talk a lot about in the book. Glennon Doyle talks a lot about this like, ache as it associates with motherhood and addiction and longing, and I really like tapped into that idea, because that's what it is, it's this like, all the ways ache is one of the quotes that I have in there, and it's true about motherhood in general.

Jessica: It's just hard no matter what. It's hard if you're in recovery. It's hard if you're an addiction. It's hard if you're not. It's it's just hard.

Mike: And by the way, if you're listening to this or watching it on the YouTube channel, there's no spoilers here I'm not gonna give away the end of the book. But there's themes in the book and it's not just Leah's pain, ah, but the pain of family is so relatable and I found myself just going, yep, yep.

Mike: Secrets, Jessica, family secrets just are so, so dysfunctional.

Jessica: And everyone has them.

Mike: Yes! Right!

Jessica: So for me, one of the themes is there's the mother in law trope, right? That I use of everybody's heard the version of the, like, the terrible mother in law and this idea. And to me I wanted to play off of the idea that the main character was going to pick a villain that was not herself.

Jessica: She wasn't the villain of her story. And so, I've gotten a lot of feedback positive feedback as it relates to this unique idea where I take the villain in a different direction because it's not the, like, typical evil mother in law. And that was really important to me because I married into a very established family and I had the most wonderful mother in law in the entire world.

Jessica: She unfortunately passed away tragically, unexpectedly during COVID. And I actually wrote this as a love letter to her, which her family now reads it and everybody reads it and knows like she was never that person, but I villainized her and other people in my life because they were the problem.

Jessica: I wasn't the problem. And so ultimately for me, the love letter that I wrote to her is the relationship between Amy, who is the sister in law and the mother in law characters and they're able to come together and find an understanding. And so that's where it's, it's this tie in, but yeah, it's the family secrets to me.

Jessica: Those are my favorite books to read in the whole world, like complicated family dynamics. If that's in there, sign me up because everybody relates to it. I come from a big family. I married into a big family. There's just something so fascinating about the ins and outs of it all.

Mike: And silly at the same time, because  what we do.

Jessica: Totally.

Mike: You mentioned how she villainizes Christine, right? Or the mother in law. Well, she also does that self focus. There's a scene in there, this is no spoilers again, where Lucas and his brother, that's her husband, is building the restaurant, and she makes a comment that he can see everything in the restaurant before he even pounds the first nail.

Mike: How come he can't see what his wife is becoming? Everything is about her. When you're in the middle of that addiction, right, it's so you.

Jessica: Right. And yes, it's so egocentric, right? You can't, I mean, it goes back to like me putting on lipstick before.

Mike: Yes, right.

Jessica: It's exactly that, where it's like, you cannot see what's truly going on.

Jessica: And so one of the things that is so interesting, and it's the difference between when I see that people either understand my book and are very much afflicted or have someone they know about addiction. Some people will come back and say Leah is very unlikable. And I don't understand how she could be so selfish.

Jessica: And I'm like, wow, you must not have anyone, anyone in your family who is an addict or an alcoholic because that's the nature of the disease. But the thing it isn't the person because you're talking with me right now and this person that I am right now is not the person that I was 12 years ago.

Jessica: I mean, yes, we are talking all about me, (laugh) and that's like, my ego loves it. I'm like, yay, let's talk about me. But I'm not focused on the thing that was all consuming, which was how do I get access to drinking and drugs by any means necessary, by hurting anyone necessary. Instead, my focus now is like, How do I help?

Jessica: How do I get this message out to more people and how do I offer a sense of hope because I'm living proof that recovery is possible. And I want to be that. And so, yeah, yes, Leah is an incredibly selfish, self centered, but at the heart of it is from her addiction and that is what I want. I wanted to show that viscerally and make it very clear that is t isn't her at the core of who she is. She suffered.

Mike: And at the same time, you can't help but feel for Lucas.

Jessica: Right.

Mike: What a weird place to be like, no matter which way he leans, he's going to take crap. And if he tries to ride the middle, well, that never worked.

Mike: Right?

Jessica: Right.

Mike: So what's a spouse to do?

Jessica: I love that you brought that up because my favorite reactions have actually been like husband and male reactions. A lot of my best friends have read my book and then their husbands go on to read it and like one husband like wrote like a book report on it and sent it to me. (laugh)

Mike: Did you correct it?

Mike: You're an old teacher

Jessica: No, it was like introspective book report like how this will help men and husbands and I'm like, amazing. But I feel like it is such a hard place to be as a partner on the other side. It was hard for my husband to read this, obviously a lot of the arguments were like verbatim arguments that we've had, we had during my addiction, but it's you it's a lose lose.

Jessica: You can't win, right? My husband never presented me with an ultimatum. He never said, you need to stop drinking or else. But what he did say to me that will forever have changed the course of how my sobriety ultimately went was I don't feel safe having kids with you,

Jessica: And to me, like, there, it was no greater way that he could hurt me, and it wasn't him, he was saying this monster is making it so I can't. And of course my inside addiction, your resentment is like, oh, how dare you, and it's your fault, and it's your mother's fault, and it's everyone else's fault, right?

Jessica: And so, I had to hear that and I learned through that, like, and I actually told myself, I was like, Oh, well then I just won't be a mother because I want to drink more. And then that was actually the first statement that I made to myself that scared me more than anything and said, I think something's wrong because I wanted to be a mother.

Mike: Well, right. And don't you think that's the place where people look and say, well, if this Diet Pepsi is more important to me than my relationships that's kind of messed up.

Jessica: That is such a hard pill to swallow.

Mike: Yeah, it is.

Jessica: But it's such a hard pill to swallow because it's like, we as a society, we want more of everything, right?

Jessica: And we're so fed that way. And so to come at it from a place of like, oh no, you can't do this anymore, and you can't safely. A place of no, like you truly have to change and your mortality is looking at you in the face. That is hard. It is really, really hard to come to that. And to go back to your point about the partner and the spouse is that.

Jessica: No one else is going to do it for you. Like, if my husband could do recovery for me and save my life, he would. He absolutely would. And it's not about love, right? It's not about how much you love someone. You can't love someone into recovery. My children don't keep me sober. I make a conscious choice to stay sober.

Jessica: So that's the thing. And I think that's the hardest part where people are coming to. They have to get there on their own and what does it take? And it, and it takes what it takes for every person.

Mike: I love how you talk about being honest and forthcoming because it keeps you on the right path.

Mike: You also wrote an article that I liked how Dax Shepard's relapse, the actor, podcaster, how Dax Shepard's relapse is saving my sobriety. How did his disclosure of him falling off for a little while help you?

Jessica: So when I listened to his cause I love armchair anonymous and armchair expert and all of that.

Jessica: And when I listened to his relapse episode and I was in the middle of abusing drugs during the pandemic. And he said all the things that was currently happening to me. Where it was like, he also separates the two out recognizes, and he doesn't, like, he gave himself permission to say, like, my sobriety date isn't changing, which is up for interpretation in the AA community.

Mike: Right.

Jessica: Of course. And to me, first of all, that gave me a lot of hope because I was like, I earned that sobriety. I haven't drank alcohol and that feels really important to me. But it's the hiding in plain sight is what I call it. And so when I wrote that article and I put it out in the world.

Jessica: I made the claim that he was keeping me sober because he was being so honest. All the while, I was actually doing exactly what he was doing, which was hiding using drugs. And so I wanted to show everyone, again, putting on the lipstick before the meeting, I wanted to show everybody that I was doing great.

Jessica: And you need to see that, like, I'm working mom of three, at home in the pandemic, yes, I'm struggling. But I'm still doing it all and I'm still sober. That's important for you to see. And so, he was saving my sobriety, yes, but I needed that kick from him of saying, and like, actually looking myself in the mirror and being like, Yeah, you're sober, but you're not clean.

Jessica: You're not clean.

Mike: So what's your clean date?

Jessica: My clean date is August 6th, 2021. So I did one year inside the pandemic of pure, you know, and then that my clean date is the day after I overdosed on THC tincture where I hallucinated, was completely out of my mind. And my husband was there for that and witnessed that unfolding and the next day we had a very similar conversation that we had 10 years before. And he just said, what's going on? And I said, turns out I have a problem with everything because he knew I was experimenting with other things and that was the other thing is I was being very forthcoming.

Jessica: Like I talked to my sponsor. I talked to my doctor. I said, but we're in the pandemic. So like rules don't apply,

Mike: Right?

Jessica: I can take my anti anxiety medication, but I will also try this new natural TH, you know. No. And so that was part of the hiding in plain sight as well, of like, if I'm putting it all out there and I'm super upfront, but then in reality I'm sneaking, I'm hiding, I'm lying, I'm doing all the same things that I was doing with alcohol, I'm just doing it with drugs now.

Mike: You're a walking, talking, writing example of your last, of this quote I'm going to give you. I'll let you walk away with this. Cause I like this. You wrote that the stigma associated with addiction is never going to go away as long as we tiptoe around the topic and continue to attribute it with shame.

Jessica: Yeah. So I'm working on my second book right now.

Mike: I was going to ask you that.

Jessica: I got a two book deal from HarperCollins when I when I signed Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and so I'm working on that right now and I'm very much talking about the subject of shame and specifically with women. And so to me it's very important to be forward facing when it comes to the truth about what addiction actually looks like. There's so much confusion about it. And to me, it was really important not only to write a book about it and show, especially with mommy wine culture and the the push that we have where women are allowed to use alcohol as a crutch. And just like, well, motherhood is hard.

Jessica: Here's wine. Which by the way is deeply rooted in misogyny because we don't say that to men like fatherhood is hard do you need a beer? Do you need substance to get you through this? So that's where my, like, feminist rant comes in, but it's so important and to me I think it's all associated with shame because we're so tempted to shame women into submission, shame them into feeling badly about a disease that I have.

Jessica: I will never feel badly about that. I will always be honest and upfront about it because every single time I have I cannot tell you the amount of people... I just handed out 18 month chip to someone who she messaged me to say, like, I think I have a problem with alcohol because you put it out that, like, this is what it sounds like.

Jessica: Why would I hide that? If that's gonna potentially help to put somebody on a path? Like, if I have a small part in that, I will be very loud, and I will shout it from the rooftops.

Mike: Good for you. I lied. I have one more question for you.

Jessica: Yeah.

Mike: Does your husband surf?

Jessica: My husband doesn't surf.

Jessica: My sister surfs.

Mike: (laugh) Hey, you gotta read the book to get that.

Jessica: And my first love surfed, actually.

Mike: Oh!

Jessica: You know, like my, like, teen, my teen love. And he is actually a professional surfer now. And I was just talking to him the other day, actually. And I was like, oh! He's like, when are you coming to San Diego on your tour?

Jessica: I was like, I'll be there. Honestly, surfing to me, in this book, I loved the idea in general, it's like, surfing, running, sex, drinking, any form of escape the main character could explore, anything that is outside of herself she would do, and that to me was a very important theme, because we're so consumed with escapism, and like not feel this?

Jessica: How do we not, how, how do we not experience the hard and what can we do? And so, what I ultimately want to convey is that motherhood is not a thing that we need to, like, the hard isn't things that we need to escape from. Like, we can exist inside the hard and still be okay. And still, and still find joy in it, even in the hard.

Jessica: And so yeah, surfing was the perfect, using the ocean and the metaphors and all of that. So yeah.

Mike: It's great. The book is Between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea, and it's terrific. Pre-order, it it's on the bottom of the podcast. Jess thanks for your work. When you do the second one, I'll invite you back on.

Jessica: Yes, please. I would love to.

Mike: For all of you listening we always appreciate you listening, listen in anytime you're able until then stay safe and surf's up.