Time now for a refresher from my Dr Laura Call of the Day Archives and remember you two can participate

on my live radio program heard weekdays from 2 to 5 p.m. Eastern time on Serious XM Triumph 1111.

Andrew, welcome to the program.

Hi, Dr. Laura.

First of all, I just want to thank you so much for being one of the few wise

voices we have left in our culture today.

I'm a little nervous, so I apologize, but I'll get right to the point. So I'm 40 years old and starting in my late early teens and pretty much all the way up until now I've spent most of my life obsessed with my body image and weight and I've never been obese but there were times that I have been overweight and over the years I was involved with eating disorders.

But the biggest regret I have as I'm getting older

is that I feel like I've denied myself

so many experiences of life

because I've had such a low self-image surrounding my body and for example I've never been in a relationship and as ridiculous as this sounds I even put off going to college for several years because of this issue.

There was also a period of time where I was a heavy drinker and very promiscuous,

but I've managed to stop that behavior and I'm working on my sobriety right now.

And now as I've gotten older, as I mentioned, I've realized how much time I've wasted and the logical

part of me sees how ridiculous this is because of

course you know these these kinds of things you know body image and that kind of

thing doesn't matter in the long run but I feel like I'm trapped in this mindset because this

is pretty much all I've known if that makes sense and I just I want to be happy I'm

tired of living like this and I've been in therapy a few times but it didn't really help me because I didn't feel like they told me anything I already knew.

And so, and I have so much respect for you

and I know that you can put a,

you know, you often put a different,

...