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Nancy and Sarah are joined by Katie Herzog, co-host of the Blocked and Reported podcast and author of an up-and-coming book on quitting booze, Drink Yourself Sober. They talk about getting canceled, navigating public backlash, and why Katie’s drinking tale is different from Sarah’s — she used Naltrexone, an opioid-blocker, to help quit. They discuss AA, the meaning of the word “alcoholic,” the nature of addiction, and why there’s no wrong way to get sober.
Also on tap:
* Jesse Singal, analyzed
* If you walk into the online arena, expect to get gored
* Helen Lewis, epic BARpod co-host
* Dan Savage is brilliant, but can he help us understand “freak offs”? (Please?)
* The Onion was once sold for $10,000?
* Andy Mills, top-tier man!
* Missing Twitter, pre-Elon
* Do NOT type your name into BlueSky
* When Katie realized she had a drinking problem
* “Science may one day accomplish this, but it hasn’t done so yet”
* Sarah breastfed until what age?
* The Sinclair method
* Fun drunk v. sleepy drunk
* The tragic death of Jonathan Joss
* Sarah was Katie’s AA sensitivity reader
* Naltrexone, the Ozempic of booze
* Sarah learns a new phrase: “pharmacological extinction”
* “My life is monumentally better than when I was drinking”
* AA founder Bill Wilson = weirder than you think
* Writing a recovery book is a weird form of insurance
* GETTING FREE
* That Salon personal essay Katie can’t get off the Internet
* Piled on by Milo Yiannapoulos, oh the irony
* Katie is fine being cringe
* RIP, William Langewiesche
So much wisdom in this podcast, but the best parts are for paid subscribers