All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation

“It wasn’t that I could see her in those long-ago visitations—she was not some spectral Victorian ghost bride—but I could feel her unmistakable presence, and I could distinctly hear her voice, speaking straight into my consciousness. The clarity of communication between us had been extraordinary back then, right after she died.”

Gilbert begins her work with the intriguing story of communicating with her deceased partner’s presence after her death. This memory speaks to the close bond between Gilbert and Rayya and introduces Gilbert’s spiritualism, which will become an important part of her memoir.

“And who has not reached for substances, people, behaviors, or distractions that offer temporary respite from the built-in discomforts of existence itself? What we commonly call an ‘addict,’ I believe, is just an exaggerated version of all of us—just a person so desperately in search of relief from the sting of life that they will use anything (or anyone) to soothe it. This book is about that search for relief, and how wild and depraved it can make us become.”

Gilbert portrays addiction as an “exaggerated version” of everyday habits as people seek comfort and distraction from life’s problems. This passage asks the reader to see addiction as contiguous with universal aspects of human experience. The rhetorical question—“who has not reached […]” emphasizes the universal need for some means of escape from “the built-in discomforts of existence itself.

“Because here’s what happens when you give a lot of money to a crazy codependent person: They do crazy codependent things with it. When those big, fat Eat Pray Love royalty checks started rolling in, my distorted thinking informed me that I was undeserving of all this abundance: Why was I so blessed when others still struggled?…Codependents have terribly low self-esteem, you see, and we don’t know how to take care of ourselves. We also have a need to take responsibility for other people, because we live in certainty that nobody else out there can take care of themselves, either—or, at least, not without our constant and anxious interference.”

Gilbert explains her codependent tendencies and how they motivated her to give away so much money. In hindsight, she recognizes that this generosity was a way of helping her feel worthy and in control. By reflecting on her compulsive generous, Gilbert highlights the theme of Sex and Romance as Addictive Behaviors.