Episode #20 - Amy Dresner

Amy Dresner is the most brilliant, funniest, wildest writer you’ve never met, she used to be a stand-up comic and is still funnier than one. If you want to hear from someone who took it ALL THE WAY; that would be Amy- rehabs for meth, coke, and alcohol, psyche wards, and that’s not even counting the food issues and sex addiction… but she swapped all that for Yerba Mattes, vaping nicotine, and writing for "The Fix" and advice columnist Amy Alcon, among others. I know Dresner well, because I’m lucky, and now you will know her too, if you are worthy. The first classic quote we get from her is “You can’t be full of dick and full of sadness. Be sad after, when they don’t call you again, but you can’t be sad during it.” I think I will get that stitched into a pillow.

We delve into “daddy issues,” and where hers came from, if she has any. Amy discusses vulnerability and the line between that and just being a drama queen, and we segue into how she developed a sex addiction after her marriage ended, but also (paradoxically) came into her own sexually. She owns her mistakes, her peccadillos, and we discuss what makes us get attached to men, as opposed to "just sex." Dresner talks about the most annoying thing men and women do, then shares about being sentenced to “community labor” because of that little “knife incident” and that time she ran into an ex while sweeping the streets with other felons. At some point when we’re talking about her seizures and Yerba Matte habit (it's a tea, people) I admit that sometimes I worry about her, which is apparently a common reaction from her Alanon friends who need to “stay in their lane.” Amy gets so real and deep about accepting people, no matter what their path, I’m reminded again why I love her. It took a bunch of dick jokes, but we get to the beautiful empathic, vulnerable core of being alive. Also, of all the different kinds of therapy (we’ve both had shit tons) what helped us the most? We finish off about amongst other things, shame vs. restraint, Tinder in Brooklyn, having overwhelming emotions and why “damaged people” are dangerous. Strap in, it’s going to be a bumpy night.