Author of “Drunk Mom,” on addiction, recovery, and relapse

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13 years ago, the Toronto writer Yovita Bidlovska introduced herself to the world as a drunk

mom.

That was the title of her memoir, which became a huge bestseller, described what it's

like to be a mother of a young son when you are also addicted to alcohol.

It was a stark, brutally honest picture of binge drinking, blackouts, clandestine trips

to the liquor store, and the story of her eventual path to sobriety as well.

Now all these years later, Yovita Bidlovska has a new story to tell, and it opens with

her regaining consciousness after an alcohol-fueled bike accident on the boardwalk of Toronto

Island.

The book is called Unshaming, a memoir of recovery relapse and what comes after Yovita

Bidlovska is with me in our Toronto studio.

Good morning.

Hello.

Thank you for having me.

Thanks for being here.

Can you start with that bike accident?

It sounds brutal in the book.

What happened and how badly hurt were you?

Well, first of all, I don't remember the bike accident, which is the whole point, but

I...

speaks to how bad it was.

Exactly.

And it also speaks to how I used to drink.

So it was a blackout drinker from the beginning.

And most people would take that as a sign to quit, but that was not my story.

So with the bike accident specifically, I just have a memory of coming to and feeling

that there was something really wrong with my face, with my body, and not having any

memory of what happened the night before.

And we called an ambulance.

I was ferried to back to the city on a barge wearing a party dress, and then I had to

speak to doctors in the ER.

And because I had a lot of shame about how this bike accident occurred, I made up a whole

story.

I said, you know, it was a morning ride.

And my front wheel got wedged and one of the wooden boards.

And I catapulted myself right into this wall, and this is what occurred.

Why did you do that?

Why did you lie to the doctor?

Precisely because I didn't want to tell them that it was due to the fact that I was drinking

the night before.

And it's interesting because, you know, the ER doctors are trained in what they do obviously

so they could tell that the blood has been coagulating and that, you know, that this was

not a fresh injury.

But I just thought, I don't know.

Maybe I thought I wouldn't get the care that I deserve if it was like an innocent accident.

And I also believe myself to be someone who was publicly sober because of my memoir,

you know, I had this idea that I was a supposed to child for recovery.

Not that the doctors would know who I was, but I just wanted to create a story that

would omit all the circumstances of that accident to whitewash my story, essentially.

Why did you start the book there with that story in particular?

Oh, because I think it really brings the reader right away into the sort of the gist of

what's going on because, you know, it shows me in a middle of a relapse, it shows me lying,

it shows me, you know, living the sort of double life of pretending that there was something

else going on.

You know, the book is about relapse, but it's also about shame, it's about secrecy, it's

about hiding.

And I just thought that would illustrate it the best.

But also sort of I wanted to lead into another part of that accident, which is where I had

to go fund me to collect money for some of my dental surgeries.

I sort of, you know, cleaned up that story in front of the whole world.

Like I lied about my accident, I lied about the circumstances of it, and I thought if,

you know, if I were to reveal all those things in a book about shame and a book about secrecy

and hiding, then I would sort of, you know, declare myself an expert on shame and on what

it means to hide.

Can I ask you about sobriety?

You describe sobriety as a rickety roller coaster.

What does it feel like when you're riding the rickety roller coaster of sobriety?

I mean, this is specifically my sobriety.

So my sobriety story does involve a lot of relapses.

And because of these relapses, it's not a sort of straightforward path.

Yeah, I didn't get from point A to Z.

I had to be thrown off this roller coaster.

I had to get off the roller coaster, get back on it.

So there's always this feeling of sort of hanging on and hoping that, you know, we will

get to some point where the ride becomes, I guess, smoother.

And when it's easier to sort of control it.

And then there's also this feeling of, of having to hang on for dear life, you know, in

order to, to sort of stay sober.

Like this, maybe portrays more to the first sort of, you know, six months to a year of

sobriety where you, we really are sort of a touch and go with your recovery.

But yeah.

And as you said, you, because of the success of your memoir, Drunk Mom, you became kind

of a poster girl.

Yeah.

For sobriety.

And the thing that I believed, so it's not that it wasn't true.

I just think I gave it so much, so much energy and so much space in my sort of belief about

myself that this became this other almost entity in my life where I believed that I was not

just responsible for my recovery from my sobriety, but I was also responsible to, to the readers,

to the people who, you know, were inspired by Drunk Mom.

I still get letters from readers.

It's been 13 years, as you said.

So I certainly felt the pressure of having to, you know, carry this story of like redemption

and triumph and, and it was really clashing with what was going on privately, right?

So what does that word, I mean, it's in the title of the book, but also it runs through

the book in many ways.

What does that word relapse mean to you?

I mean, I only see it in terms of abstinence from alcohol or from, I guess, self harm.

Because I got sober in AA, there's sort of strict rules, but there's a couple of like

things that we understand when we get sober, especially in a 12-step program, is that anytime

you pick up a drink or a drug, that is considered a relapse.

So whether that resets you to the beginning of your recovery or not, I'm not entirely sure

because I like to think that you sort of, you know, acquire wisdom, whether you relapse

or not, you get more tools and you have sort of more evidence that it's a bad idea to

drink or use drugs again.

But for me specifically, this is how I saw it.

So every time I would, you know, have sometimes what's called a slip, every time I would, you

know, deviate from my abstinence, that would be a relapse.

And it didn't necessarily end, you know, a result or in bench drinking, sometimes it would

be like, you know, a night or two or something, but it's certainly at least in my mind in

a beginner, it used to reset me to the beginning of it.

But later I learned that it, that's not necessarily the case because I still have the tools

and I still have some of that recovery that accumulated previously.

You tell some of the stories around relapses and one of them, I mean, it comes after that

bite crash where your son is with his dad during that time, but you describe him at a different

point, going to a barbecue with your boyfriend, which is going to be kind of like a bonding

moment for the two of them.

What happens after they leave?

So it's interesting because, you know, we have this belief about that people reach for

a drink or a drug because, you know, there's something seriously wrong or they need a to-nam

or they need to check out a reality.

And that's certainly the case.

But they're unhappy.

Yes, they're unhappy, exactly.

But I think ultimately, you know, that you reach out for these things where you're unregulated.

So in my case, you know, I used to say like anything could be a trigger.

So happy and happy, you know, bored, et cetera.

In that case, what happened is I was very happy.

I was, I want to say almost you for it because we were, you know, this was a new relationship

and I really liked that they were developing their friendship outside of the three of us

and that they wanted to do something separately on their own.

And I got so happy that at some point I had this thought or this, you know, idea to go

and sort of elevate and make it bigger.

And I thought, you know, what's the best, there's no thinking around it.

But I certainly thought, you know, in order to make it, I should celebrate it and, you

know, I don't, I don't celebrate.

I just go, you know, straight into binge drinking.

There's no two glasses of wine.

It's a whole bottle.

So yeah, so I would, I would argue that we use alcohol and drugs, et cetera, in moments

where we're unable to regulate ourselves emotionally.

I think for people who struggle with addiction, the safest place is sort of in a middle when

there isn't too much happy or too much sad when, when you have a lot of balance and you,

you know, you sort of attend to your, to yourself, well, and the moment you stop sort of noticing

what's going on is, is when you are in danger.

So that was a moment of kind of not noticing what was happening.

How did you feel after that?

I mean, and I ask you that in part because of the conversation around shame and unshaming.

How did you feel after that?

I felt like the worst failure ever because I thought I ruined, you know, I ruined their

moment.

I ruined my son's trust again.

You know, I ruined my own trust, you know, and here I am.

I did it again.

And yeah, it was, it was very emotional and it was very, you know, this is, this is sort

of where where my shame was certainly like so overpowering that I had no other emotion.

Like I just, I just didn't know how to sort of reconcile this within myself.

It was just like an almost feeling of failure and of, you know, not doing something awful

but doing something that was like I ruined a beautiful innocent moment, you know, single

handedly by drinking.

How do you understand that idea of shame?

I understand it as this idea of believing yourself to be bad, not evil or not, you know,

necessarily like even morally wrong, but there's something.

So inherently wrong with you that, you know, there's no way the outside world would

possibly see it with compassion or that you yourself would be able to see that.

So, and I also think shame is, you know, it's, it's frankly, it's death, you know, because

it keeps us isolated because it keeps us hidden.

It's, you know, it's all based on secrecy and hiding and not letting yourself be seen.

How's it different than guilt?

So guilt is more, I, I did something bad and shame says more, I am bad.

Not the bad guy.

So guilt is, you know, guilt can be motivating, right?

Guilt is a chance to fix whatever action happened or, or it's a, you know, it's, it's

a sort of a reminder.

It's like an alarm clock, you know, here, here you are.

You can fix the situation.

But with shame, it's, it's so in her and it's sort of ongoing and it's relentless.

And you know, and the more you have it, the bigger it gets, like it's just this monster

that feeds itself.

You mentioned the, the GoFundMe that was set up after you wrecked yourself on the bike.

What was the place of shame in that?

Well, the, the shame and that was that I felt that I lied to people because, you know,

with GoFundMe's, you give people a neat little story and you say, you know, this is what

happened or this is why I need this money.

And what was the story that you told?

So the story was I had a terrible back accident while I went writing, I don't know if it's

the first thing in the morning, but it was definitely not a story that included drinking.

So it was a friend's idea to set up the GoFundMe, but I obviously, I ran with it.

And I just, to be honest, I, I have a lot of internalized judgment.

I asked myself, you know, where I to see this story, would I donate money knowing that

this person had this accident because of their drinking, because of their actions?

And my instant answer was no, I would not.

So it wasn't entirely a lie, but it was certainly, you know, making the story more digestible.

Do you think the people who donated, would have donated, had they known?

I don't think so.

No, no.

Were you afraid that they would find it?

Part of shame, as you said, is the idea that if it's exposed, it can be, I mean, in the book,

you say that it's worse than death in some ways.

Were you worried that they would find out?

Well, this is, yeah, and again, this is our own belief, right?

So, you know, the shame sort of keeps you when it's throws as long as you believe that.

And that, that is not necessarily true.

I would say that it's probably not true in most cases, right?

So, to me at that time, yeah, I certainly thought, I can't remember if I thought, you know,

I'm going to have to refund this money if anybody were to find out.

I mean, clearly, people are going to find out right now.

So, yeah, I hope I won't have to write a bunch of checks and send them.

But again, it was my own belief about something that, you know, I made it a lot bigger

because of how badly I felt about it.

And I certainly did not think I was going to find compassion or sympathy

because I didn't have it myself.

So, it would be silly to expect that from others.

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What is the place for compassion in stories of addiction and recovery?

There's a whole literature of a round addiction and recovery stories, too.

But how much compassion is there?

Do you think in that literature for people who have relapses?

For people who, I mean, as they say, have a slip?

I think there's a lot more compassion for a very neat story.

So, sort of before, present and after, you know, the sort of stories that we do,

for example, talk about in a meetings, you know, what was it like?

What happened and what it's like today?

Because you have a very neat arc of a story and everyone wants to celebrate success

and everyone wants to celebrate sobriety.

So, I think those sort of cases, as few of them as there are,

because I think relapse is very much part of most recoveries.

I think those sort of stories are a lot easier to find sympathy and compassion for.

But I think with story of sort of repeated failure,

there's a sense of, you know, exhaustion, exasperation, you know,

yeah, I mean, you, in personal life, you deal with your loved ones who, you know,

sort of just, I think, rolled their eyes internally or not at you saying,

you know, I'm sober again.

Like, how many times are you going to say that?

So, I think the compassion just gets smaller and, you know,

and I also have to say that having been to 12-step programs,

it is very much suggested that it is our own responsibility.

There's not a lot of sort of room for, you know, always me

and these are my circumstances and this happened because of certain traumas.

And this is good because it means that, you know,

we take responsibility for drinking, but also for recovery,

which it doesn't leave a lot of room for compassion for compassion

or use the word failure.

I mean, is that the right word to use if somebody has a relapse?

Well, that's what I used with myself.

I do think quite differently, but the thing with people who have addiction

or, you know, it doesn't even have to be addiction,

but people have very much on their own with their problem.

So, it's sort of apt to, I'm going to use the word addict

because that's what I use with myself.

So, it's apt to an addict to recover on their own and there are places like,

you know, obviously, therapy groups for family and loved ones.

There's some education about addiction, but there isn't enough.

So, you know, in the end, you are sort of,

you're stuck with your own problem

and you're stuck with having to find your recovery.

I mean, the few times I've been to rehab twice

and both of those times, you know, I had to find rehab.

I had to find the bed for it and I had to, you know,

find the money for it, et cetera.

It's not because my loved ones didn't want to help.

It's just that that's kind of how it's understood

that that's how you could take care of your addiction.

And, you know, to be honest, when you are at the point

where you're looking for example for rehab

where you're trying to get sober, where you're trying to recover,

you're sort of at your lowest

and you don't have a lot of energy.

You don't have a lot of motivation.

You may not have a lot of resources to help yourself.

So, I'm just saying, you know, the responsibility is yours

in terms of your recovery,

but I would really like to see a lot more education around addiction

and around the fact that it's not, you know,

we call it a family disease.

I mean, I don't know that terms are still used,

but it is very much so because, you know, even imagine

somebody goes to rehab and they come out

and they're full of hope and excitement,

but they go back home to the same frustrated people

whose trust you've broken a million times, you know,

people who have very fresh memory of all your, you know,

transgressions and they're not getting any sort of healing

or recovery, so it's not the best environment to go back to.

So, I do think that it needs to be more of a,

even a community event for people to get sober and to recover.

I don't know if people will say, like, you know,

why is this my problem?

You know, it's, you know, you were drinking,

you were using, you know, why should I be going to therapy?

But I think we know enough now about mental health

and therapy to know that it's not just the people

who suffer from it.

It's all the people around them, you know,

and globally it's all of us, right?

What is it like to write about your son's involvement

in this? You call him, he's your witness in some ways.

You know, he's an unwilling witness

in the way that children are unwilling witnesses

to their parents' lives in general,

but he's also, you know, he's sort of,

I think he's the most important person in my life

just in general, but also he's the most important person

who's trust I betrayed and, you know, who I have,

who I own any sort of amends and repair towards.

So, the way I see him as my witness

will just because also he has to,

he doesn't have a lot of choice, he has to be around me,

but with this particular thing, you know,

with where I am in recovery right now,

I really want him to see me get better

because he's seen me get worse, he's seen me try,

he's seen me fail, he's seen me do again.

So, it is very important that he also is aware of,

you know, how well I'm healing, whether I'm healing,

and yeah, and I've been very fortunate

with the fact that he's very, you know,

he's very sensitive and he's very supportive

and he's also very boundaries

and that's another thing sort of maybe too tired

and with people being affected by addiction, you know,

from the beginning, from as soon as I recovered,

you know, around the time of drunk mom,

I've always had him speak to mental health professionals.

Now, because he needed any help with mental health,

but I really wanted to ensure that, you know,

when I wasn't around to help,

or even when his dad wasn't around to help,

that he had somewhere or someone to speak to,

and one of the things they taught him was

things about, you know, keeping yourself safe

and having boundaries.

And boundaries are very important, you know,

so just, you know, protecting yourself

in a way that I couldn't protect him

or even that his dad couldn't protect him.

And I'm very grateful that we did that.

I used to think it was an overkill

because I used to bring him to all these, you know,

groups and counselors, and I think that's probably

the best thing I've done in terms of my recovery

and his as well, so.

Has he read the book?

No, he doesn't read his parents' books.

You wonder, will he?

And I wonder, if you think of him reading it down the line?

I think so. He's very, like, he's a lot in this book

and he's very supportive.

He took my author photo, and so I like to joke

that he has his first international credit,

photography credit.

Yeah, I mean, but we talk about it.

It's not a taboo subject at home.

He knows what's in it.

I mean, recently I showed him,

there's a little story about a painting

in the book, and this premonition I had with the painting,

and I, so I took photos of those particular pages

and I sent him that, so he read that.

Yeah, I think when he's ready, he's gonna read it.

Both books are sort of dedicated to him.

The first one is, you know,

drunk man was sort of dedicated,

like as an apology, this one says,

sort of thanking him for supporting,

for existing, it's written in Polish.

So I do have hope that he will read it,

but he also doesn't have to.

Like, I'm around to show my recovery and show my healing.

How do you unshame yourself?

How do you let go of shame?

So I see unshaming as this idea of having a witness

and having an opportunity to share something dark,

something that is creating that shame,

because I think the moment we do share that

is the moment that we make it smaller.

You know, unshaming is a verb because it's a process, you know,

and I'm not sure if it's about forgiveness,

but I certainly found that in my specific case,

I forgave myself when I started to share my story.

And in a book I talk about some of those unshaming methods.

So, you know, I start off by talking to my dog at the time.

I start off by very sort of basic prayer

where I just say, please,

but what I'm doing is I have, I'm speaking up,

I'm opening my mouth, could be in my mind,

and I'm sharing something that's, you know,

that's keeping me isolated,

and I sort of bring it out into darkness.

So this is not, you know,

some sort of call to action for people

to start revealing, you know,

because they're because secrets.

But I also do believe that we are on this specific timeline

where people have a lot more opportunity,

I think, an easier time to share a lot of their vulnerable,

sort of dark moments.

You know, there's TikTok, Instagram,

like I recently watched the real of someone

talking about their day in life at KMH, you know, mental hospital.

And I can't even imagine that happening 10 years ago.

So I think we're a lot more open

to having people talk about their vulnerable moments.

And I think that's all sort of this act of unshaming.

Therapy is a perfect place for that.

You said it's a process.

Where are you yourself in the process, in that process?

I certainly think that this book is a part of the process.

And I don't want it to be seen in a way that I, you know,

I'm hijacking my readers to witness all these shames.

I'm simply presenting my story

and revealing my biggest shame,

sort of in a way of showing rather than telling.

And I don't need people to, you know,

forgive me or not forgive me.

But this idea that I am getting an opportunity

to speak about it, I'm really hoping this is something

that's going to start a lot of conversations.

I didn't write these things to shock

or to, you know, provoke people.

I certainly genuinely think that we can all benefit

from sort of learning more about each other.

And I mean, just to go back,

I think if I continue to keep things secret

and I think if I continue to sort of continue

with the lie of being this sober poster child

for sobriety while drinking and relapsing,

I think it would eventually kill me.

Like I just, I don't know how I live with myself

and living this double life.

So I don't know.

How are you doing now?

I'm doing really well, but I'm really nervous.

No, but it's one of those books that, I mean,

there's a lot of you in here.

So I can imagine you could be nervous

in putting it out there to the world

because it's like drunk mom, it's about you

and you don't even know where you're at.

Well, I'm certainly worried

because I never read a lot of memoirs,

but I read the one memoir, Christian F,

and I remember looking her up what happened to her

after she published this book about addiction

in which she recovers and I learned that she relapsed

and she was using heroin again.

And I was so disappointed.

You know, I really hated that this happy ending

was ruined for me.

So I certainly thought, you know,

there's a risk that I'm taking

because, you know, whether people got better

or reacted emotionally in a positive way to drunk mom,

here I am telling them that, oh, actually,

it didn't quite work out and I kept struggling

and you know, it's a sort of ongoing process.

So I certainly feel like I don't want to disappoint people,

but at the same time, you know,

the relapse stories are the most common stories,

you know, the stories of recovery.

I mean, it's the majority who relapse,

it's the majority who go through failure.

So I was also interested in sort of investigating

what happens, you know, after the happy ending,

and maybe dismantling this idea of happy ending.

So yeah, so this was a risk I took,

not a book I intended to write, but here we are.

So.

I think a lot of people will find themselves

in your story and find themselves reflected

in the things that you've been willing to share.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Noviets of Idolska's new book is Unshaming,

a memoir of recovery relapse and what comes after.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.