Hello and welcome to SEASON 22(!) of The Shift with Sam Baker podcast. That's 300 fascinating conversations with women in midlife and beyond, if you're new here and fancy diving in. (To think that when I started it back in 2020, I thought I'd only do six!)
My guest today is Sarah Hiscox. Now a counsellor for NA and AA, amongst other things, the first three and a half decades of Sarah’s life were marked by turbulence and addiction.
Sarah was just eight years old when she first experienced the oblivion drugs can bring - in that case through sleeping pills (mogadon, if you can believe it) - and a young mother by the time she became addicted to heroin.
In her memoir, The Beginning And End Of Everything, Sarah looks candidly at the childhood experiences that shaped her and how ‘the hole inside my being’ led her to lose her marriage and custody of her children. Somehow, after repeated relapses, thanks to her sister, Belinda, then ex-husband Renshaw, and best friend of thirty-odd years, Davina McCall, she got it all back. Sarah has now been clean for 24 years. So, if you’re looking for hope when it feels like all hope has gone, you’ll find it here.
Sarah joined me to talk about self esteem and the life long impact of never feeling enough, the shame surrounding disordered eating and the difficulty of caring for a parent who never cared for you. We also discussed sisterhood and the power of female friendship, how she finally got off the misery go round, overcoming her personal committee of critics and finding purpose at 50.
CW: anorexia bulimia addiction suicidal ideation
* You can buy all the books mentioned in this podcast at The Shift bookshop on Bookshop.org, including The Beginning and End of Everything by Sarah Hiscox as well as the book that inspired this podcast, The Shift: how I lost and found myself after 40 - and you can too, by Sam Baker.
* If you enjoyed this episode and you fancy buying me a coffee, pop over to my page on buymeacoffee.com.
• And if you'd like to support the work that goes into making this podcast and get a weekly newsletter plus loads more content including exclusive transcripts of the podcast, why not join The Shift community, come and have a look around at www.theshiftwithsambaker.substack.com
• The Shift is created, hosted and produced by Sam Baker and edited by Juliette Nicholls at Pineapple Audio Productions.
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