Amy Dresner is a journalist, author, and former comedian as well as a recovering addict and alcoholic. She has been a columnist for the addiction/recovery magazine theFix.com since 2012 and has freelanced for Addiction.com, Psychology Today, and many other publications. Her first book, “My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean,” was published by Hachette in 2017 to rave reviews from critics and readers alike. 

 

Elle magazine compared Dresner’s darkly comic memoir to Carrie Fisher’s “Postcards from the Edge” and Mary Karr’s “Lit,” calling Dresner’s book “one for the ages.” Dresner has appeared on the television show The Doctors and on numerous radio shows and podcasts, including Dr. Drew and Rich Roll. She does regular speaking engagements around the U.S. and Canada. Her book is currently in development for a TV series.

 In this episode we talk about:

    • struggling with addiction and depression for 25 years
  • being raised in LA with a father involved in the entertainment industry and being a good girl all while growing up and through high school 
  • being raised mostly by her father and how that shaped her
  • compressing her sexuality as to not push her father away
  • seeing that wanting to win her mother’s attention 
  • starting to drink in college and having her first anxiety attack and becoming anorexic
  • realizing she could control her feelings through her body (and abusing it by withholding food and using drugs)
  • making her way to San Francisco and having a year of YES which led her to trying crystal meth and getting immediately addicted
  • drug addiction being like weight gain that you don’t notice at first and then turning into a prison
  • having a grand mal seizure that made her go to rehab for the first time at 25
  • staying sober for 7 years
  • having lots of mental illness in her family and what her genetics hold
  • the genetic deformation that makes it so you don’t create enough dopamine and that a lot of addicts happen to have. 
  • thinking after 7 years sober she could smoke pot as it wasn’t her thing and going back down the path of addiction
  • going through years of addiction and rehabs
  • how pulling a knife on her husband (at the time) ended up being the best thing in her life as it forced her to change
  • being forced to do 250 hours of community service hours and how choosing to accept what was happening to her could be the best thing for her
  • how shame lowers your dopamine
  • her experience once recovering and writing the book having her very real and raw story out in the world
  • how her hardships have now given her the attitude of how what seems like the worst thing could actually be the best thing
  • how she gets through the day to day now to stay 
  • not letting her feelings get the best of her
  • taking contrary action and how that creates a new neural pathway in your brain
  • how shoulds have us living in shame
  • real life gratitude and how we always have something to be grateful for
  • how laughter helps people to absorb information and relate it to themselves
  • Which keychain she chose from my line and why!

Make sure to get Amy’s book My Fair Junkie

Find her @amydresner and www.amydresner.com

 

LINKS to other things/people/music we mentioned! 

 PS.  If we mentioned something and I forgot to include it here leave a comment and I will track it down for you! 

Mother Hunger book

 

MTHFR gene mutation 

 

The infared sauna blanket that I mention. Use code JOY100 for $100 off!

 

Subscribe to the podcast and rate it, it helps! And if you send me a screenshot of your review  to podcast at yourjoyologist dot com, you will be entered to win a surprise box from my product line!

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