When Your Higher Power Is a Mini-Dachshund with Natasha Ruby

Plenty of people struggle with the Higher Power part of AA. Natasha Ruby had a particularly good reason: she’d already dismantled the entire religious framework she was raised in and wasn’t especially eager to replace it with another male authority figure.

So she chose a mini-dachshund.

Before that came Mormonism, an eating disorder, alcoholism and a terrifying psychotic break that left Natasha unable to understand a New York subway map she’d used for years. She believed every conversation was prophecy, gave her phone to a stranger and told the hospital staff she was essentially Bradley Cooper in Limitless. The aftermath was darker: she returned to Utah, covered her windows with a felt blanket and drank in a locked closet because she believed her life was over.

It wasn’t.

Nearly 10 years into sobriety, Natasha has turned 15 years of journals and voice recordings into the brilliantly titled memoir Latter Day Psychosis. She also found something she once believed she could only access while drinking: creativity. Now she makes art sober, which may be less cinematic than Bradley Cooper becoming superhuman but has worked out considerably better.

In this episode:

·      Why leaving Mormonism made alcohol feel like freedom—very briefly

·      What Natasha remembers about losing touch with reality in New York City

·      Why AA offended her until the moment it saved her

·      How a mini-dachshund became a perfectly legitimate Higher Power

·      What she discovered inside 15 years of journals and recordings

·      Why publishing her memoir feels like a 12th step