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Over the past couple of months, we've talked a lot about addiction on the show.

I certainly have a new understanding of the word largely thanks to my conversations with Russell Brand.

We tend to associate that word addiction with acute drug or alcohol misuse. But understood

more broadly, addiction can relate to a myriad of unhealthy attachments, external agents that we

seek out in search of wholeness and happiness. Often, these habits are insidious and by extension are harder to address.

They are not going to kill you, but they will keep you limping through life.

Even if you're not in acute addiction, why do we use alcohol in every social setting

from weddings to funerals, from celebrations to times of

sadness? Why do we need this external agent to lubricate our connection with one another?

For me, I've often relied on a drink as a means to address my social anxiety, to loosen me up,

to overcome an innate introversion. And now,

as I look at it more closely, I ask the question, why do I need this? Do I lack the self-esteem and

confidence to just be my authentic self? Do I constantly need to fit in, to alter who I am in order to be accepted?

These are some of the questions Ruby Warrington addresses on the show today and in her newest book,

Sober Curious. This book applies a non-dogmatic approach to sobriety, one that pokes at the roots of

what our society might refer to as

functional alcoholism. I like Ruby's approach because it's not black and white. It's just

...