Mayim Bialik's Breakdown Substack Live Re-Air: Elizabeth Gilbert on Addiction, Love, & the God-Shaped Hole
Mar 21, 2026
Elizabeth Gilbert, best-selling author of Eat, Pray, Love, reflects on love, codependency, and spiritual revelation. She recounts a friendship turned romantic, the slide into unmanageability, and confronting dark thoughts. The conversation explores visions, hearing a Higher Power, and why discovery alone cannot replace surrender and spiritual healing.
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Addiction Tricks You Into Believing It's Unique This Time
- Addiction deceives you into believing "this time it's different," so you repeat patterns despite evidence.
- Gilbert calls her pattern "jungle gymming" — moving from person to person expecting identity change, which failed across 35 years of experience.
Friendship Turned Intense Love That Became Unmanageable
- Elizabeth Gilbert fell in love with her best friend Rayya after a 17-year friendship and left her marriage to be with her.
- The relationship began as a liberating limerence then devolved as Rayya relapsed and Gilbert became an enabling codependent, making life unmanageable.
Use Step One To Recognize When Love Becomes Addiction
- Use the 12-step Step One test: ask if you're powerless over the behavior and if your life is unmanageable as the practical threshold for admitting a problem.
- Gilbert suggests backward-engineering into Step One by checking whether the behavior makes daily life unmanageable.
