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There was a point in my life where I thought I had it sort of figured out, especially, um, after I got sober for the first time, and then I relapsed.

At the age of 13, so before I moved to Canada, I tried alcohol for the first time, and it was also the first time I went into a blackout, and it was also the first time I thought, "I really wanna do this again." I liked the oblivion.

My name is Jowita Bydlowska.

I'm the author of Unshaming: A Memoir of Recovery, Relapse, and What Comes After.

I'm also the author of a similar memoir called Drunk Mom, which came out in 2013.

Maybe I just liked, you know, not being a straight-A student and having a night out on town [laughs] like in newly non-communist Poland.

The difference being I have no interest in using opioids today, and I do all of the things I've been taught in recovery to, uh, not reintroduce my brain to opioids, and that enables me to live to my full potential.

I don't know how you would explain it with science that there was a floating

faith.

I mean, both with I think with science and magic, the one thing that does unite them is faith, right? Like we have to believe in This very Judas-like situation where you're like, I have to see it, I have to experience it.

And with science, like, well, I have to have scientific proof.

That's why I asked you this, because, okay, how is it magic? What's the connection between the two? And having said that, I'm like, I'm very cynical about supernatural things, etc.

I am Slavic and I am very... much a polish witch and i come from a very long tradition of witches i remember sitting in my grandmother's room we lived with her and looking at her wall and she had her shrines and stuff and she prayed to certain things and certain I want to ask you about the word, not necessarily the word, but what do you think a witch is? But not in that sort of sense, but a modern witch, because I love the idea of a modern witch.

So how much are you going to give out into a world that's not always kind when they receive it?

You know what? One thing that I do share, and especially with that, is that once you're out there and you do reveal things to the public, not that you have to, but if you decide to become a public person, so a person on a podcast, myself writing memoirs, it's like the moment you do reveal things and you tell them to people and you become vulnerable, it's no one has every right to challenge you on anything you've told them it's out there like what are you gonna ask me what are you gonna tell me and and there's so much liberation and freedom in that and I think that's quite beautiful I'm really genuinely interested in riffing off what you said is what do you hope for next season based on what you learned in this season and what do you think is going to be most useful and interesting tell me about that I

web of kind of deception you wove and then the choice to bring it out here and to lay it all out, including your inner state throughout it.

Yeah, so you're reading it in that way and I'm writing it in a way where it says, oh my God, I can't believe I'm writing this and letting you know all this.

And I said this not to be dramatic, but I certainly had a couple of rules with this particular book because Drunk Mom was not supposed to be a memoir.

It was supposed to be a work of fiction.

So blissfully, I had some sort of like distance with it.

But with this one, this was a very conscious decision to make it into a memoir.

And my role was to... to write only things that hurt and not to shock the readers.

And I guess I wanted to ask you, what does relapse mean to you? What does that word even signify? Yeah,

... of around addiction, and recovery stories too, but how much compassion is there, do you think, in that literature for people who have relapses, for people who, I mean, as they say, have a slip?

I think there's a lot more compassion for a very neat story, so sort of before, present, and, and after.

You know, the sort of stories that we do, for example, talk about in AA meetings.

You know, what was it like, what happened, and what it's like today.

Because you have a very neat arc of a story, and everyone wants to celebrate success, and everyone wants to celebrate sobriety.

So I think those sort of cases, as few of them as there are, uh, because I think relapse is very much part of, uh, most recoveries.

Uh, I think those sort of s- stories are a lot easier to find sympathy and compassion for.

What is it like to write about your son's involvement in this? You call him a He's, he's your witness in some ways.