Addiction & Recovery
![Laura McKowen - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B07THL2DDY.jpg)
Push Off from Here: Nine Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else)
From the bestselling author of We Are the Luckiest and founder of the international recovery community The Luckiest Club comes a modern exploration of addiction that offers nine foundational building blocks that anyone at any stage of sobriety can use.
No matter how far astray you've gone or how many times you've tried and failed before, as long as you're still sitting here, breathing, and reading these words, freedom and joy are still possible.
When Laura McKowen was two years sober, she received an email from a woman whose sister was struggling with alcohol addiction. McKowen had barely climbed out from the dark place the woman's sister was in, but she made a list of the things she most needed to hear when she was deep in her own battle.
1. It is not your fault.
2. It is your responsibility.
3. It is unfair that this is your thing.
4. This is your thing.
5. This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
6. You cannot do it alone.
7. Only you can do it.
8. You are loved.
9. We will never stop reminding you of these things.
In Push Off from Here, McKowen delves deeply into each of her nine points: what they mean, how they work, and how every person can live them. She addresses topics such as the correlation between trauma and addiction, the importance of radical honesty, letting go of the illusion of control, the value of community, a reminder that healing is a continual process, and that the process is a gift. Whether you're just starting out or have been sober for decades, McKowen instructs us to be kind to ourselves: Change is messy and progress is rarely linear, but we can always push off from here.
The stories and advice McKowen shares are specific to alcohol addiction, but the tenets are universal in their application and useful no matter what challenge you face. With profound honesty and boundless compassion, Push Off from Here provides an actionable framework for healing what pains us and proves that a life of sobriety can be synonymous with a life of magic, peace, and freedom.
No matter how far astray you've gone or how many times you've tried and failed before, as long as you're still sitting here, breathing, and reading these words, freedom and joy are still possible.
When Laura McKowen was two years sober, she received an email from a woman whose sister was struggling with alcohol addiction. McKowen had barely climbed out from the dark place the woman's sister was in, but she made a list of the things she most needed to hear when she was deep in her own battle.
1. It is not your fault.
2. It is your responsibility.
3. It is unfair that this is your thing.
4. This is your thing.
5. This will never stop being your thing until you face it.
6. You cannot do it alone.
7. Only you can do it.
8. You are loved.
9. We will never stop reminding you of these things.
In Push Off from Here, McKowen delves deeply into each of her nine points: what they mean, how they work, and how every person can live them. She addresses topics such as the correlation between trauma and addiction, the importance of radical honesty, letting go of the illusion of control, the value of community, a reminder that healing is a continual process, and that the process is a gift. Whether you're just starting out or have been sober for decades, McKowen instructs us to be kind to ourselves: Change is messy and progress is rarely linear, but we can always push off from here.
The stories and advice McKowen shares are specific to alcohol addiction, but the tenets are universal in their application and useful no matter what challenge you face. With profound honesty and boundless compassion, Push Off from Here provides an actionable framework for healing what pains us and proves that a life of sobriety can be synonymous with a life of magic, peace, and freedom.
Editorial Reviews
"I wish I had it when I first got sober, but I'm glad I have it now."-Anne Lamott, The New York Times bestselling author of Dusk, Night, Dawn
"The writing sparkles on every page, but the biggest gift of this book is Laura McKowen's insistence that we all deserve grace for who we've been in the past and permission to get busy building the lives we've always wanted."-Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group
"Wise, practical, empathetic, beautifully written, above all USEFUL. Reading this book is like having coffee with your big sister whose been through it-loving but clear-eyed about how to get through the next stretch."-Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet
"This is the book, and Laura McKowen is the voice. Push Off from Here offers one of the bravest and boldest takes on recovery I've ever read, and there is no one who won't be comforted, supported, and empowered by Laura's words."-Melissa Urban, co-founder and CEO of Whole30 and New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries
"Whether letting go of addiction, healing a broken heart, or looking for a new direction in life, the answers are here for you."-Kelly McDaniel, LPC, therapist, and author of Mother Hunger
"The clarity and succinct simplicity in Push Off from Here make this required reading for all humans struggling with any level or type of addiction. Countless lives will be changed by McKowen's grounded, compassionate truth. No matter where you are on the path, wrap McKowen's words around you and push off from precisely where you are."-Elena Brower, bestselling author and host of Practice You
"The writing sparkles on every page, but the biggest gift of this book is Laura McKowen's insistence that we all deserve grace for who we've been in the past and permission to get busy building the lives we've always wanted."-Christie Tate, New York Times bestselling author of Group
"Wise, practical, empathetic, beautifully written, above all USEFUL. Reading this book is like having coffee with your big sister whose been through it-loving but clear-eyed about how to get through the next stretch."-Shauna Niequist, New York Times bestselling author of I Guess I Haven't Learned That Yet
"This is the book, and Laura McKowen is the voice. Push Off from Here offers one of the bravest and boldest takes on recovery I've ever read, and there is no one who won't be comforted, supported, and empowered by Laura's words."-Melissa Urban, co-founder and CEO of Whole30 and New York Times bestselling author of The Book of Boundaries
"Whether letting go of addiction, healing a broken heart, or looking for a new direction in life, the answers are here for you."-Kelly McDaniel, LPC, therapist, and author of Mother Hunger
"The clarity and succinct simplicity in Push Off from Here make this required reading for all humans struggling with any level or type of addiction. Countless lives will be changed by McKowen's grounded, compassionate truth. No matter where you are on the path, wrap McKowen's words around you and push off from precisely where you are."-Elena Brower, bestselling author and host of Practice You
Readers Top Reviews
ABSOLUTELY 💯 POWERFUL YOU WILL REGRET NOT READING IT…SHARING IT WITH ALL THOSE YOU ❤️ LOVE….LAURA HAS A WAY OF LOVING YOU BEFORE YOU CAN LOVE YOURSELF THROUGH HER HONESTY…HER TRUTH AND VULNERABILITY
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
It Is Not Your Fault
It's 2013 and I'm sitting at a table on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston on a hot August morning, across from my friend Grant. He's a partner at the advertising agency I worked for before I started my current job as an account director at a different agency down the road, and one of the only two sober people I know in the world. I'd emailed him a few days earlier, when I woke up hungover again and scared. Grant suggested we meet for coffee.
As I stabbed at the ice in my coffee, I explained to him what had been happening. I told him about the DUI earlier that spring, about leaving my daughter alone in a hotel room overnight a couple of months later, which had forced me to go to my first twelve-step meeting, and how that still hadn't been enough to get me to stop. I told him I never knew what was going to happen when I drank anymore and that I was afraid, really afraid, both that I had to stop and that I might not be able to. He listened and nodded and smiled his warmas-sunshine smile. He said he knew exactly what it was like. He told me some of his own stories from years back. He'd been sober twenty years by then-an inconceivable thing.
After a while he looked at me and asked, "So, what're you going to do, kiddo?"
I was struck by the casual, curious nature of his question, as though he was asking me what I was going to have for lunch later. Why is he acting like I have options? What does he mean, "What am I going to do?"
"I mean, I have to get sober," I said, confused.
He read me. He knew the dense knot of shame permanently lodged in my throat, the self-loathing I carried everywhere and the effort it took to live this way, day after day. He knew my answer came from a punishing, punitive place inside me.
He paused and waited for me to look at him.
"Girl, I want you to know something. You're not bad, you're sick, as in not well right now. And it's not your fault, not any more than it would be your fault if you had cancer."
"Yeah, I know I know," I replied, waving my hand in the air. I couldn't hear it. I didn't buy that this was a disease, if that's what he meant. And if he meant something else, the intimation that this was anything or anyone else's fault but my own was ridiculous. I drank and kept on drinking. I knew better. I lost control.
"You deserve to heal. And it's going to take time. You need to do whatever you need to do to give yourself that chance."
The idea that I deserved healing was preposterous to me. Healing is defined as the act or process of regaining health, getting well, mending. To me, the word suggests that one has sustained an injury outside of their control, that something has happened to them-an accident, the death of a loved one, an illness-such that the natural, responsible reaction is to allow for a period of repair. Healing, as a word and a concept, carries tones of empathy and compassion. I couldn't fathom feeling deserving of either of these things when it came to my drinking. Because I was the one who made the messes. I chose to drink, despite the mounting consequences. I lied to people I cared about, manipulated them, betrayed them. I didn't show up. I didn't keep my word. I kept moving the line of acceptability further and further out. I chose alcohol over the people I said were important to me-even my daughter. I had done the injuring.
No, I did not need "healing." I needed to fix it. I needed to suck it up, get a grip, and stop f***ing drinking already. I wasn't helpless; I wasn't a child. I was a grown adult approaching forty years old. I had a graduate-level education, a career with a string of promotions and accomplishments. I had experience and skills, and I made important decisions at work and at home every day. I'd already been married and divorced. And principally, I was a woman and a mother, which meant I was supposed to provide the help and healing, not the other way around.
I had become an expert at pushing through and pressing on while appearing to be unfazed-a skill I began developing very young. When my parents divorced when I was six, I distinctly remember walking into my dad's small, sad, empty apartment for the first time and smelling the weight of his sadness everywhere, as if there'd been a gas leak. I decided right then that I would...
It Is Not Your Fault
It's 2013 and I'm sitting at a table on the Rose Kennedy Greenway in downtown Boston on a hot August morning, across from my friend Grant. He's a partner at the advertising agency I worked for before I started my current job as an account director at a different agency down the road, and one of the only two sober people I know in the world. I'd emailed him a few days earlier, when I woke up hungover again and scared. Grant suggested we meet for coffee.
As I stabbed at the ice in my coffee, I explained to him what had been happening. I told him about the DUI earlier that spring, about leaving my daughter alone in a hotel room overnight a couple of months later, which had forced me to go to my first twelve-step meeting, and how that still hadn't been enough to get me to stop. I told him I never knew what was going to happen when I drank anymore and that I was afraid, really afraid, both that I had to stop and that I might not be able to. He listened and nodded and smiled his warmas-sunshine smile. He said he knew exactly what it was like. He told me some of his own stories from years back. He'd been sober twenty years by then-an inconceivable thing.
After a while he looked at me and asked, "So, what're you going to do, kiddo?"
I was struck by the casual, curious nature of his question, as though he was asking me what I was going to have for lunch later. Why is he acting like I have options? What does he mean, "What am I going to do?"
"I mean, I have to get sober," I said, confused.
He read me. He knew the dense knot of shame permanently lodged in my throat, the self-loathing I carried everywhere and the effort it took to live this way, day after day. He knew my answer came from a punishing, punitive place inside me.
He paused and waited for me to look at him.
"Girl, I want you to know something. You're not bad, you're sick, as in not well right now. And it's not your fault, not any more than it would be your fault if you had cancer."
"Yeah, I know I know," I replied, waving my hand in the air. I couldn't hear it. I didn't buy that this was a disease, if that's what he meant. And if he meant something else, the intimation that this was anything or anyone else's fault but my own was ridiculous. I drank and kept on drinking. I knew better. I lost control.
"You deserve to heal. And it's going to take time. You need to do whatever you need to do to give yourself that chance."
The idea that I deserved healing was preposterous to me. Healing is defined as the act or process of regaining health, getting well, mending. To me, the word suggests that one has sustained an injury outside of their control, that something has happened to them-an accident, the death of a loved one, an illness-such that the natural, responsible reaction is to allow for a period of repair. Healing, as a word and a concept, carries tones of empathy and compassion. I couldn't fathom feeling deserving of either of these things when it came to my drinking. Because I was the one who made the messes. I chose to drink, despite the mounting consequences. I lied to people I cared about, manipulated them, betrayed them. I didn't show up. I didn't keep my word. I kept moving the line of acceptability further and further out. I chose alcohol over the people I said were important to me-even my daughter. I had done the injuring.
No, I did not need "healing." I needed to fix it. I needed to suck it up, get a grip, and stop f***ing drinking already. I wasn't helpless; I wasn't a child. I was a grown adult approaching forty years old. I had a graduate-level education, a career with a string of promotions and accomplishments. I had experience and skills, and I made important decisions at work and at home every day. I'd already been married and divorced. And principally, I was a woman and a mother, which meant I was supposed to provide the help and healing, not the other way around.
I had become an expert at pushing through and pressing on while appearing to be unfazed-a skill I began developing very young. When my parents divorced when I was six, I distinctly remember walking into my dad's small, sad, empty apartment for the first time and smelling the weight of his sadness everywhere, as if there'd been a gas leak. I decided right then that I would...
