The Dig List: September 2024

Soup season is the best season and I've quit coffee*.

Hello! Before we begin, a few announcements.

• The Sober 90 opens for registration on Sept. 30. The perfect entry point if you’re new to sobriety or already sober but need community, structure, and support. Learn more and add yourself to the waitlist.

• 10/17: An Evening with Laura Cathcart-Robbins and Laura McKowen in Boston, MA. Join me and Laura, author of Stash, for a conversation and book signing at Hummingbird Books in Chestnut Hill. The event is free, but you have to register.

• 10/18-10/20: Push Off from Here retreat at Kripalu in Stockbridge, MA. This retreat is sold out, but you can add yourself to the waitlist.

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I want to start by saying that despite the subhead for this edition, I don’t have any soup recs for you. I don’t want to tease. But I do want your soup recs. Share them with us in the comments, please!

The second part about quitting coffee is true. Well, mostly true—I’m getting there. I’ve gone from 3 large cups daily (probably more like 6 actual cups, which makes my jaw twitch) to one cup of half-caffeinated coffee a day, before 9 am. My plan is to go full decaf starting Monday. That also means no Diet Cokes, which I didn’t drink super often, but enough, and obviously no black tea, which I also love from time to time, or any other caffeinated things. I’m going to do a full post about this when I’m further in, but I can tell you that after just ten days, I feel entirely different. Like I have someone else’s nervous system. Like I can’t quite believe it.

I’ve given up so many things over the years and I’ve always sworn, aggressively, that I would never give up coffee. Nevaaaarrrr. I looked forward to that first cup when I went to bed at night, every night. I love the ritual of it, the way it feels like it organizes my brain, the smell, the taste, everything.

But a couple of weeks ago, after six straight months of heightened anxiety, seemingly uncontrollable bouts of rumination, more difficulty sleeping, debilitating exhaustion, and a string of panic attacks, I hit a wall. Something had to change. I knew a lot of what I was experiencing was grief, but I also knew my body felt like it was in chronic fight or flight. My thoughts raced constantly, and the only way I felt tethered to the earth was when I got a super deep massage.

I went to acupuncture for the first time about a month ago and felt like I was levitating off the table and might break my teeth I was clenching my jaw so hard. So I’d take a deep breath, trying to bring some space into my body, and I’d feel it spread onto the table, and then, within ten seconds, I was levitating again. I’d repeat this cycle for thirty or forty minutes until the session ended.

It didn’t feel right. I knew I shouldn’t be that jacked up.

Serendipitously, my friend Matthew texted me around that time to tell me about the new decaf coffee company he’d started called Wimp (perfect, right?). Aside from being a branding genius (he’s the designer behind The Luckiest Club) and a dear friend, he’s also sober and switched to decaf a while ago. He was disappointed with the quality of decaf out there, so he decided to create his own company. He sent me some bags to try.

Great branding, right?? My favorite is Coltrane.

I love the coffee and love that it gave me the on-ramp to quitting. Follow Wimp on Instagram here.

So, the first couple of days, I had a consistent, dull headache, and I was tired. The tiredness lasted about four days, and then it lifted. But even with the headache and tiredness, my rumination was gone. Like, gone! It feels like I got off a treadmill where I was running a six-minute mile for six months. I’ve also been sleeping without my Advil PM aid, and although I have some trouble falling asleep and have been waking here and there for a while in the middle of the night, I feel way more rested when I wake up.

I also started hormone replacement therapy about three weeks ago, so that could be playing into it quite a lot, too. And, sure, perhaps I’ve reached some turning point in my grief process, but my intuition tells me the coffee is the main thing.

Have any of you had this experience? Share with us. I am in disbelief.

OK! Let’s get to it.

What’s The Dig List?

Sharing stuff I love is my favorite thing, so instead of trying to squeeze recommendations into the other newsletters, I started a series called The Dig List. It’s a monthly roundup of things I’m digging: books, podcasts, music, cultural moments, art, products. Nothing I share is sponsored. Read past ones here.

The Dig List: September 202

Books

Sharon McMahon’s book, The Small and The Mighty is out TODAY! If you don’t follow Sharon on IG she’s incredible, and so is the book. I received an advanced copy, and it’s hopeful, inspiring, and uniting. It's everything we need in this election season and now in our country. Sharon writes

The Preamble

here on Substack.

A friend recommended that I read The Wound Makes The Medicine by Pixie Lighthorse as a balm for my heart, and it’s perfect. More personal than her other writing, she offers a view into her own process of heartbreak when her second marriage ended and a path forward.

Shows

I freaked out when I read Three Women by Lisa Taddeo five years ago, and now it’s a TV series on STARZ! It’s a total masterpiece of a book, and I can't wait to watch it. Here’s the trailer.

The Perfect Couple on Netflix is the perfect show. It has all the elements: a mysterious dead body, the quintessential Chad brother, obnoxious Nantucket wealth, a pregnant diva, whodunit energy, disgust, humor, and Nicole Kidman at her absolute *chef’s kiss* finest.

My daughter recommended Agatha All Along on Disney+. Although only two episodes are out so far, it’s the Halloween treat we didn’t know we needed. Plus: Kathryn Hahn and Aubrey Plaza.

Links and Other Stuff

Exquisite writing by

Hannah Betts

: Ten years sober: the story I haven’t told.

I was lucky enough to be a guest contributor to Suleika Jaouad’s Isolation Journals and wrote about the wisdom of no escape. What an incredible community she’s developed there—wow.

If you need a LOL, the worst breakup story ever.

Mentioning this again. I got one of these Spacies desk pads, and I LOVE IT. Total upgrade to my desk life.

My Spacies doodles.

Thank you, as always. xo

Laura

You are reading Love Story, a weekly newsletter about relationships, recovery, and writing from Laura McKowen. Laura is the founder of The Luckiest Club, an international sobriety support community, and the bestselling author of two books, We Are The Luckiest: The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life and Push Off from Here: 9 Essential Truths to Get You Through Sobriety (and Everything Else).

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