The Boozeless Book Club: Brave Enough, Grief, and Learning to Play the Hand You're Dealt

What if the loneliness you feel isn't proof you're broken — just proof you're human?

Amy and Dr. Sarah Michelle return for another episode of The Boozeless Book Club, this time diving into Cheryl Strayed's Brave Enough — a slim collection of quotes that packs a serious emotional punch. From the danger of "gathering receipts" to prove you're an outcast to the necessity of saying your feelings out loud even when it feels like vomiting, this conversation is raw, relatable, and real. They talk about codependency, compassion, courage in close relationships, and why sometimes the bravest thing you can do is grieve what didn't happen so you can finally move forward. If you've ever felt too messy, too much, or too alone — this one's for you.

Key Takeaways

• Loneliness and feeling like an outcast are often self-created stories — and saying them out loud breaks the spell
• "You're only as sick as your secrets" — vulnerability is the spark of human connection
• Not everything will be okay, and that's okay — acceptance is a small, quiet room
• Don't own other people's crap — their unkindness is usually about them, not you
• Grief is about time, feeling your feelings, and eventually realizing you're okay
• You have to be brave enough to tell the truth in close relationships — even when it's uncomfortable
• Sometimes healing means moving forward even when it still hurts

Guest Bio

Dr. Sarah Michelle is a psychologist, recovery advocate, and co-host of The Boozeless Book Club with Amy. She brings decades of clinical experience, spiritual curiosity, and a healthy dose of Gen X wit to every conversation.

Episode Resources

Brave Enough by Cheryl Strayed

Notable Quote

"We know we're telling the truth when we feel like vomiting." — Dr. Sarah Michelle

Connect with Amy

Amy Liz Harrison: amylizharrison.com | @amylizharrison

Amy's Books: amylizharrison.com/books

Memoir Coaching & Courses: amylizharrison.com/services-7

Eternally Amy is hosted by bestselling author Amy Liz Harrison — a sober mom of eight sharing her journey from jail to joy with humor, heart, and hard-won wisdom. Each episode blends raw storytelling, spiritual insights, and the kind of honesty that makes you feel less alone. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

This podcast shares personal stories and spiritual insights. It is not a substitute for professional medical, mental health, or addiction treatment. If you're struggling, please reach out to a qualified professional.

Grief isn’t just about death.

In this deeply honest Boozeless Bookclub conversation, Amy, Dr. Sarah, and Erin unpack The Grief Recovery Handbook by John James and Russell Friedman — and what surprised them most about grief.

Spoiler alert: It’s everywhere.

From friendship breakups to miscarriages. From career shifts to empty nests. From childhood wounds to identity loss.

If you’ve ever said, “I don’t really have anything to grieve,” this episode might gently prove you wrong.

In This Episode, We Discuss:

• Why grief isn’t limited to death and divorce
• How unresolved grief can show up as addiction, busyness, anger, or depression
• The friendship wounds that still live in us decades later
• Miscarriage and pregnancy loss as invisible grief
• Parenting transitions and empty nest emotions
• Sexual trauma and identity loss
• The surprising power of writing a completion letter
• How grief can shape our triggers
• Why our culture makes no space for grief
• Teaching our kids how to process loss early

Book Featured

The Grief Recovery Handbook

By John James & Russell Friedman

An action-based guide for processing grief beyond death, divorce, and other losses.

Key Takeaways

• Grief is cumulative — and most of us are carrying more than we realize.
• Many of us were taught: Don’t feel bad. Replace the loss. Just give it time.
• Avoiding grief often shows up as addiction, overworking, shutting down, or relationship patterns.

• Grief isn’t linear.
• Completion doesn’t mean forgetting — it means releasing emotional charge.
• Making meaning out of loss can transform pain into growth.
• Curiosity toward your triggers is more powerful than self-judgment.

A Powerful Reminder

“All human beings experience grief — and yet our culture makes no space for it.”

So this episode is your space.

Connect with Amy

Amy Liz Harrison is a bestselling author, speaker, 12-step coach, meditation teacher, and mental health advocate.

amy lizharrison.com

Follow @AmyLizHarrison on all platforms

If this episode resonated with you, please subscribe, rate, and review. It truly helps.

Five days before heart surgery, Amy Liz Harrison opens her heart—literally and spiritually. In this intimate solo episode, Amy reflects on mortality, fear, surrender, and the surprising peace found by going inward. Drawing from Christian mysticism, neuroscience, meditation, and lived recovery, she explores what it means to stop striving, let go of outcomes, and find the calm center within—even when everything feels uncertain.

This episode isn’t about answers. It’s about presence. About the heart as both a physical organ and the seat of the soul. And about learning how to do hard things scared.

Key Takeaways

• Why heart illness carries a unique emotional weight—and how it mirrors vulnerability itself
• How Christian mysticism and The Interior Castle reframe spiritual transformation
• The difference between emotional regulation and emotional suppression
• Why surrender isn’t passive—it’s courageous
• How meditation and the parasympathetic nervous system support healing and peace

Key Timestamps

• [02:40] — Facing heart surgery and the loss of control
• [05:20] — Why heart illness feels different than any other diagnosis
• [08:45] — St. Teresa of Avila and The Interior Castle
• [13:30] — The nervous system, fear, and emotional regulation
• [17:05] — Meditation, ADHD, and 175 days of showing up
• [22:15] — The defibrillator, resentment, and letting go of outcome
• [27:40] — “Doing it scared” and finding the true center

Notable Resources & Mentions

• The Interior Castle — St. Teresa of Avila
• Father Richard Rohr — Falling Upward & Immortal Diamond
• HeartMath Institute
• Insight Timer (Amy as meditation teacher)

If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone navigating uncertainty, recovery, or a health journey of their own.

Thank you so much for listening to Eternally Amy, a mom of eight’s journey from jail to joy. Amy Liz Harrison is a bestselling author, speaker, meditation teacher, and recovery advocate. To learn more, visit www.amylizharrison.com and follow @amylizharrison on all platforms.

What happens when the life you were trained for stops making sense? In this deeply honest Boozeless Book Club conversation, Amy Liz Harrison sits down with Dr. Sarah Michaud to unpack Wake Up by Jen Hatmaker—a raw exploration of religious conditioning, patriarchy, shame, betrayal, and the long road back to self-trust. Together, they examine how repression breeds rage, why recovery often begins with grief, and what it means to finally choose agency over obedience.

Takeaways

• Patriarchy and religious conditioning often strip women of agency long before adulthood
• Shame thrives in systems that reward silence and compliance
• Rage can be a healthy, clarifying emotion in recovery and deconstruction
• Codependency often begins as “goodness” disguised as self-erasure
• Rebuilding identity means learning to ask: What do I actually want?

Key Timestamps

• [00:01] — Introducing the Boozeless Book Club + Wake Up
• [00:06] — Religious conditioning and the loss of self
• [00:10] — Shame, obedience, and the “good Christian girl” myth
• [00:15] — Rage, repression, and addiction as rebellion
• [00:18] — Betrayal, divorce, and discovering agency

Notable Resources

Wake Up by Jen Hatmaker

Dr. Sarah Michaud — Leaving CrazyTown

Amy Liz Harrison — Eternally Expecting, Eternally Awkward

CTA

If this episode stirred something in you, share it with a friend who’s waking up too—and don’t forget to subscribe and leave a review.

Visit www.amylizharrison.com for books, memoir courses, and soulful recovery resources.

In this deeply moving episode of Eternally, Amy, Amy sits down with author Alex Konicke to explore the unthinkable — loving a family member through severe mental illness, surviving devastating loss, and choosing truth over silence. Alex shares the story behind his memoir Evil Among Us, chronicling the events that led to his mother’s death at the hands of his brother during a psychotic break, and the systemic failures that followed. Together, Amy and Alex discuss intuition, boundaries, grief, recovery, and the courage it takes to tell a story that could save lives.

Takeaways

• Why trusting your intuition in crisis situations matters
• The difference between compassion and enabling
• How systemic gaps in mental health care impact families
• The role of storytelling in trauma recovery
• What it means to survive — and still advocate for change

Key Timestamps

• 00:01 – Introducing Alex Konicke and Evil Among Us
• 00:06 – The warning signs and the hospital discharge
• 00:15 – Trusting your gut when something feels wrong
• 00:23 – Writing through trauma and grief
• 00:34 – Advocacy, accountability, and systemic change
• 00:44 – Alex’s mission moving forward

Notable Resources & Guest Links

Evil Among Us by Alex Konicke (Amazon)

Audible & Spotify Audiobook (launching January 19)

CTA

If this episode moved you, please share it with someone navigating mental health challenges or recovery. Your share could save a life.

Follow Alex: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/alexkonicke/⁠

Buy Alex’s Book: ⁠https://a.co/d/ibqqLsA⁠

For more from Amy Liz Harrison, visit ⁠www.amylizharrison.com⁠ and follow along on social @amylizharrison.

Be kind. Rewind. Thank you for the honor of your time. Take what you like and leave the rest behind.

Amy reunites with her dear friend Dr. Sarah Michaud for a rich, emotional Boozeless Book Club conversation about Charlotte Kasl’s “Many Roads, One Journey.” Together they unpack fear-based systems, patriarchal conditioning, codependency, and the long-term work of building identity outside dogma. It’s honest, layered, and exactly the kind of dialogue that reminds you you’re not alone on your own recovery path.

Key Takeaways

• Kasl’s work invites women to question rigid systems—religion, recovery, and culture—that shape identity through fear and shame.

• Amy reflects on trading one dogma for another and how belonging once overrode her self-trust.

• They examine how AA slogans, spiritual axioms, and “my way or the highway” thinking can unintentionally reinforce fear.

• Codependency runs deep, especially for women socialized to prioritize harmony over needs.

• Recovery is never one-size-fits-all—every person deserves a path that supports autonomy, dignity, and choice.

Timestamped Key Moments

• [00:00:00] Amy reflects on dogmatic rules, belonging, and fear-based conditioning.
• [00:01:00] Amy welcomes listeners back and introduces Dr. Sarah.
• [00:02:00] Amy discusses how she pushed Sarah into reading the book.
• [00:03:00] Amy reacts to the density of Kasl’s work.
• [00:04:00] Sarah connects the author’s religious background to her rebellious spirit.

Resource Links

• Many Roads, One Journey by Charlotte Davis Kasl

• Women, Sex, and Addiction by Charlotte Davis Kasl

• Leaving CrazyTown Podcast

Episode Description

In Part 2 of this two-part series, Amy Liz Harrison continues her powerful conversation with spiritual director Anne-Marie Cribben, creator of The Wellspring, a yearlong Celtic recovery journey. Together they dive deeper into ancestral healing, the courage to rest, and how even small rituals—a Popsicle in front of the fan, a cup of tea—can reconnect us to our worth and wonder. This episode is a gentle rebellion against hustle culture and a love letter to curiosity, self-compassion, and legacy in recovery.

• Rest and reflection are radical acts in a productivity-obsessed world.

• Generational trauma is real—and so is generational healing.

• Small rituals can become profound spiritual practices.

• Curiosity, not control, opens the door to deeper recovery.

• Living a life you’re proud to die of means honoring presence over perfection.
  

[00:25:00] The Wellspring in practice: healing through the seasons

[00:35:00] Generational trauma and rediscovering ancestral medicine

[00:44:00] Popsicles, rest, and redefining summer as sacred

[00:50:00] Permission to be still, curious, and imperfect

[00:58:00] Living a life you’re proud to die of — the legacy of recovery

• Guest: Anne-Marie Cribben – Thirsty for Wonder

• The Wellspring – Celtic Recovery Program

• Newsletter: Sign up via ThirstyForWonder.com

• Amy Liz Harrison: amylizharrison.com

In Part 1 of this heartfelt two-part conversation, Amy Liz Harrison welcomes spiritual director and recovery coach Anne-Marie Cribben to explore how ritual, rhythm, and Celtic wisdom can transform recovery. Anne-Marie shares her journey from Irish Catholic roots and burnout to a life of sacred pacing and deep self-compassion. Together, they unpack what it means to create safe and brave spaces—and why slowing down might just be the most powerful form of healing.

• Healing begins when we create safe and brave spaces for truth.

• Rituals aren’t religious—they’re restorative practices for everyday life.

• Recovery thrives when we move “at the rate of trust.”

• The Celtic calendar invites us to align with nature’s rhythm, not hustle culture.

• Compassion replaces shame as the true measure of progress.
  

[00:02:00] Amy shares how Anne-Marie’s work inspired her through ritual[00:06:00] Creating safe and brave spaces in recovery[00:09:00] Anne-Marie’s story: Irish roots, Catholic upbringing, and the illusion of “glamorous” drinking[00:12:00] The turning point — from burnout to sobriety through compassion[00:16:00] Introducing The Wellspring: recovery in rhythm with the Celtic calendar[00:22:00] The radical wisdom of rest and release

• Guest: Anne-Marie Cribben – Thirsty for Wonder

• The Wellspring – Celtic Recovery Program

• Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker

TakeawaysKey TimestampsNotable Resources & Guest LinksAmy Liz Harrison: amylizharrison.com