(note: all of these book excerpts from my memoir “Dark is the New Light” are 100% my words and ZERO AI intervention)
I have been writing my memoir since 2018. If I am honest; I suppose I started it back in the 90’s with my angsty poetry and short stories that will make up much of the backbone of the lessons and learnings I will be sharing inside it. I picked it up again in 2012 I suppose - when I began telling my story in blog form, both on my own page and more publicly in my column of Huffington Post. In 2018 I started calling it a memoir and dedicated more time to writing it; this time more seriously. It wasn’t until then that I felt I had some real themes and meanings I could extract from a life wildly lived.
Writing has been a go-to for me since I was a child. It has long been my way of expressing and make sense of a world that is so seemingly nonsensical. And the more I write, the more I understand that I understand nothing…but I have learned a thing or two about myself and what it means to human.
(I am actually in the midst of writing not one but two books and I am going to be sharing short excerpts here over the summer as I plug away.)
In 2017 I worked with a sacred plant called Iboga from Africa. This particular plant medicine is renowned for its support in releasing addiction and I can honestly say that my experience with it definitely had much to do with my now near nine years of sobriety.
Here, a section of my book on what life was like post-healing:
What my life looked like before I got sober was this: it consisted of my career (whether it was TV in my 20’s, wellness retreats in my early 30’s, or plant medicine in my early 40’s) and my addictions. We all have 24 hours in the day and I spent eight to twelve of those doing my job (and doing it damn well I might add; hello perfectionist striving for approval) and when I would clock out I’d head straight to the liquor store to grab two bottles of wine and maybe a small bottle of vodka. Some days I would also hit the grocery store where I would purchase up to $200 worth of treat foods like ice cream, donuts, frozen cakes, chips and chocolate. I would head home and binge (numbing technique numero uno). Then purge. I’d shower (to cleanse myself of the stench of vomit), let the dog out, and pour myself a glass of wine. That would turn into another... and another. Eventually I would make dinner and open another bottle. After eating and cleaning up I would put on Netflix, drink more, and send regrettable text messages. I would consume until all the booze was gone and then stumble to bed. That was it. That was my life.
That first day back to work after Iboga was interesting. I stayed later than usual for one thing. Up until that point I had zero patience staying for dinner service at the hotel - my hands would be shaky by then and my capacity for human interaction, nil. No, once my urge to drink took over my capacity to be of service in any way was shot. But that day - that first day back - I stayed (much to the surprise of my staff). In the evening I eventually left and went straight home. I let the dog out. I sat on the couch…
Hmmm… I sat. I looked around the house. I twiddled my thumbs. I asked myself, Do I have any hobbies? I checked my watch. OK, so 6 hours til bedtime…
It was wild. All of a sudden I had all the time in the world that was previously eaten up by addiction.
And so, I got to know me. This was when I began my personal development growth tour version 2.0. Yes - I had been in the wellness world for 5 years by then with a strong focus on nutrition and body health. But in 2017 I got far more into the work. I read. I coursed. I studied, obsessed even. And thank goodness I did. You see this period of adjustment revealed so much; all of a sudden I could feel again after decades of numbing. I started drinking as a teen in order to not have to embody all the fear, anger and shame I felt from sexual abuse. It was easier to disconnect, unplug and disassociate from my life than it was to actually face the parts of me that felt gross, guilty and unlovable. Now, at age 37 allllll of that started to come to the surface.
I am grateful that I was at a time in my life where I had a great (decent) support network. My group of friends were all personal development junkies and my workplace was all about spiritual healing and self study. I had world renowned teachers and healers on speed dial and ayahuasca on tap. And so navigating this period was ok. Christmas came and went and my family saw me (for the first time in YEARS) enjoy brunch booze-free (you should have seen my sister almost fall of her Yorkville restaurant chair when I ordered beet juice and not champagne).
That January my mother had a health scare that sent her to hospital for pacemaker surgery. It was the type of life event that would have normally forced me into a bender - the blackout drunk for days kind - but instead I hopped on a plane from Costa Rica and was able to be by her side for some of her recovery- sober.
In the 6 months that followed I lived. I started get tattooed more regularly. I spent time out of big boats on the ocean. I learned how to scuba dive. I went skydiving. I spent a lot of time writing pages and pages of this very book. I met a guy online and within weeks booked a flight to meet up with him in Croatia for a tour across the country on a rented Harley (although I decided he was too bitter and angry a man and ditched him after 3 days and flew to Italy solo). I wandered the streets of Rome, hitting patio after patio sipping fancy coffee and eating luxurious pasta dishes all by myself…realizing that the old me - the drunk me - would have never thought one could INjoy Rome without wine.
I went to a Shakira concert. Was a guest wellness expert on two live national TV shows in Toronto.
And one day - a good friend at the time turned to me and said, “Meg - I know you quit drinking….but I have to ask: did you start doing cocaine?”
And I get it - from the outside I must have seemed a bit…manic. I was doing ALL. THE. THINGS, after all.
But here’s the thing about numbing yourself silly. When you work really hard to not feel any of the “bad” shit, aka all the heavy painful stuff that you think will kill you - like grief, shame, guilt, and anger…what you inadvertently do is stunt your ability to feel any of the magical stuff too!
Allll those years I ran from my pain, I also capped the amount of joy that was possible for me too. After that Iboga journey, the little girl in me; my SOUL SELF; was ready to FLY! I wanted to feel allll the big beautiful feelings like exhilaration, ecstasy, bliss, and even pain from tattoos. I wanted to feel ALIVE for fuck’s sake! After years of feeling quite dead inside. I needed to recreate my relationship with emotions and I rushed into it like a wild woman running into the forest barefoot. So it freaked my friends out.
The tricky bit was this though; while I was learning how to truly feel happy again I was also having to navigate a new way to approach the harder stuff. My mom’s heart trouble tested me, yes. But so did all the other little moments when my ego was pinged around old beliefs about me not being good enough. At times when I would normally turn to the drink I had to instill new coping skills - new tools - in order to let the feeling move through me and not hold me down - or hold me back in life. It was a real journey towards making my pain my teacher; and learning how to extract the lessons, the learning, and the healing was a full time job all its own.
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