Love and Sex Addiction

Brianne Davis wrote the "Secret Life of a Hollywood Sex and Love Addict".

She is willing to share her “secret” with you. It’s relatable for those who suffer and for those who don’t.

Sex and love can be complicated. (And that’s an understatement) This conversation is an important one on the road to understanding one another.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm pretty bad. Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of

(00:20):
Pretty Messed Up on I Heart Radio. Uh, it's your
boy A J and your girl Share Bear Cheryl Bird?
What up girl? And we're back the nerd. We are back?
What is up everybody? How? First of all, how is
everyone's Valentine's Day? Was it nice? Oh? It was so romantic?

(00:42):
What do you do? Nothing? We were at the beach house.
It was Matt's birthday a few days ago, and we
um rented a beach house right in like Oxnard area.
I didn't even know. I thought Oxnard was like by
l a X. For some reason, I didn't know it
was like a beach area. Yeah, there's a whole harbor
there and everything. You're right down stream, I think, like
literally like twenty minutes from me. Oh really yeah, I

(01:06):
mean that would have been weird, you know, for me
to be like a third like a third wheel on
your Valentine's Day? Like, well, we're not. We could have
done like a double. Yeah. We went to um Saddle
Peak Lodge. Oh wait, did you move Renee? Not yet?
We keep slowly moving stuff. We just had new floors
put in. We're gonna have well, we'll be there by

(01:29):
the third week of next month somewhere that will be
fully moved in. So we're super stoked about that. Do
you know what else is really exciting? That I'm going
golfing with you guys soon. That's right. We were talking
about that, and you can't just drive the cart like
you guess guess what. The first thing I did as
soon as we confirmed, I looked up clothes, like what
do I need to wear for? Well, that's important. I

(01:53):
actually went to pages Instagram account and I was like,
oh my god, she's so cute, but I'm not wearing
this miniskirt. So not happening. Look not gonna lie. There's
been times A J and I lay out our clothes
the day before it every time we're going to play,
and my wife makes fun of me. She's like, what
do you eight? I'm like, I like to be organized,

(02:13):
and nine times out of ten, whatever I lay out,
I end up changing three times and going right back
to what I started with. Is that like is it
a golf thing? Like do you guys have fashion? Like?
Is it it is with us or mainly with A J?
And he dresses sharp. I'm not gonna lie to you
and that's why he's launching. I am launched every week

(02:38):
you launched something. Yeah, I mean you just finally picked
off your whole thing. Congratulations, by the way, thank you
my dance program, thank you. Yeah, this is gonna be fun, man.
I just can't wait to see you. Just just addressing
the ball is going to we can't wait to drive.
I can't wait for Renette experience, the Sheryl Burke drive. Well,

(03:00):
here's the thing. I have a feeling what's going to
happen is AJ is going to take it out on
you for all the torture from like Dancing with the Stars.
He's going to be the teacher and you're going to
be the student, and he's going to hit you with
a stick when your shoulders aren't where they're supposed to be,

(03:22):
when your spine angle is there is a frame in golf,
there is there is a frame. Whatever, I'm going to
have to just whack your head. Okay, that's a lot.
And we got a videotape this. Do people still say videotape?
How about that? Yeah? What do they say? What do
people say? Film it right? Just film it with your iPhone?

(03:44):
Film it with your iPhone and iPhone is really good nowadays,
you know it's true. I mean you can shoot an
entire music video. You can do it. I mean tapes
are probably doing full length feature films now with your iPhone.
I mean, they are the qualities insane. We shot that
thing for you with three iPhones. Three. That's not not
the music video, but a showcase that he did, and

(04:06):
we shot it with three um three iPhones with these
the little gimbals. And I shot my whole dance program
on an iPhone and a cannon though, But that's from
my YouTube channel. Nice. How tell us about the YouTube channel?
Tell us, Well, it's called Cheryl Brooke Uncensored. So I
talked about everything like in detail. So wait, do you

(04:29):
censor yourself with us? Mm hmm kind of really wow,
we have to change, no, But like also it's hard
to not be you know, because like there's we have
a lot going on, so it's like I can't you know,
once I start to think about something inappropriate, I just
try to keep it to myself. I think that's a
good quality. You know, sometimes maybe we should stick with that.

(04:53):
There's definitely been stuff I've said and I go gosh,
just as it's leaving my lips. I'm like, whoa that
one you should have held down to. This is why today,
you guys, I'm diamond painting because I'm going to try
and not interrupt one time during this whole show, which
is going to be like I should get a gold
star if that happens. But diamond painting. When I diamond
paint here, I'm gonna show it to you really quick.

(05:14):
When I diamond paint, I'm a great listener. All of
a sudden, it's really weird. One second, hold please, let's
this is a van go. That's awesome. That is so okay. Honestly,
I don't know much about diamond painting. What what what
does that mean? It's it doesn't take a lot of
brain power. It's literally have you ever heard of paint
by numbers? Yeah, so it's basically that. So you have

(05:37):
a legend you match. It's so it's so like juvenile
of me to do this, but it really does help
with my anxiety, and it's the only way I can
actually like if I'm in therapy, I'm diamond painting. It
sounds like a really expensive hobby. I think it's cool.

(05:58):
I mean, I've seen some of the stuff that you've done,
and it's phenomenal, Like it's mind bottling to me. You know.
It's it's almost like um where you've seen artists where
they take let's say, skittles right and they make like
someone's face, but you can't see it close up. You
have to be far far enough back and then you

(06:20):
see it clear as a bell. But then when you
get close you're like, oh, ship, these are skittles or
M and m's or that's what that's what that stuff
looks like to me. But you're so so talented, I
might give it a try. Yeah, it's actually it's it's
very relaxing to me. It's so weird. Like one by one,
I'm putting ryin stones on a canvas basically and just glue,
just regular glue that you use and has it comes

(06:42):
with an adhesive on the canvas. Oh and do you
use tweezers? Yes? I do. Now, what if you mess
up like with something, take it off and then you
can just put it right back on and it will stay. Ye.
Speaking of hobbies, right, I do truly believe that having
that hobby it is a sense a form of meditation.

(07:07):
It truly is you're you're only thinking about what's happening
in front of you theoretically, right, Yeah, I think I
think I may have said this on the podcast before,
but there is one of my favorite lines from a
movie called it Mama, dum no no, sorry, it's from
um gosh, what's it called the Way? Were you speaking

(07:28):
a different language? Yeah? I did for a second, I
was thinking of the wrong film. But it's this. It's
this Spike Jones film about man that's really into orchids,
and at the end of the film, this journalist says,
I'm realizing now that having that one true passion whittles
the world down to a more manageable size. It is,

(07:49):
it's all my problems go away when I dimond paint.
I agree, love it, love it well, I'm going to
give it a try at some point, and I have
a really good teacher. So, um, listen, we're gonna take
a a quick break. But when we come back, we
are going to have an amazing guest on. Uh. You
guys are gonna love, love, love love her, the beautiful

(08:11):
Brian Davis. When we come back after this. All right,
you guys, we are back from break. Uh. We have
our guest here with us, right, now, um, ladies and gentlemen,

(08:32):
the beautiful Brian Davis, Hi, my dear, how are you.
I'm doing well, how are you? Hi? Guys? Good good.
Let's do a little round robin, you know that way
you can you can know who's who. Um. My name
is A J. McClean. I'm from this little band called
the Backstreet Boys. You may have heard of us, not sure,

(08:52):
we're still We're still trying. Um and uh, the beautiful
Cheryl Burke. Hello, I'm a stripper, just kidding. I'm a
professional dancer on Dancing with the Stars for sixty nine years.
And Mr h I Briann, Welcome to our podcast on RENEE.
We've been doing this. We all have one common sort

(09:17):
of denominator. We're recovery awesome my type of people. Yes, yes,
it's our platoon. So yeah, we're called pretty messed up
and we we speak very openly about our crash and
burns and what we did to piece it back together

(09:37):
one day at a time. So anytime I hear that
our guest is in the twelve step program, I'm like, yes,
we have so much to talk about. So I've been
listening to your podcast, Brianna. I love just how open
and vulnerable you are. And I think it's it's um,
it's actually opened up my eyes because I'm like everything
that you say about, you know, sex and love addiction,

(09:58):
I'm like, oh wait a second, I'm like thinking that
maybe I am a sex and love addict. That's the
thing usually is when other twelve steppers get rid of,
you know, the drugs, the alcohol, underneath it are these
core issues of fear of abandonment, fear of being law,
fear of not being worthy are getting love, and that

(10:19):
is like the underlined issue put everything on top of.
And they say in my program Sex and Love Adcicts
Anonymous that you know as that last house on the
block you want to go to, They say, like slaws,
the shack in the back, like you never want to
go to. It's like the last stop. So I mean
my husband and Iron therapy for this reason because of

(10:41):
abandonment issues that I feel sometimes jealousy and like I'm
starting to feel all these feelings. I've been sober for
two and a half years. I'm actually not in the
twelve step, but I've been intense therapy and since i
was four years old. But um, yeah, this is why
I'm like, I totally hear you, do you know, Brian,
that we what we talked about is the problem for

(11:03):
me was a piece of shit? Is um? Right? Yeah?
That's that was at my core, not that I made mistakes,
but that I am a mistake, right, And like you
just said, that has a lot of tentacles, not for
not not everybody turns to drugs and alcohol. You know,
we have people that work themselves to the bone, we

(11:24):
have people that shop themselves into oblivion. And sex love
relationships is another manifestation of these underlying I'm not good enough? Right?
Oh yeah, I mean it's that saying I'm the ship
and then I'm a piece of shit. It's like those
two pimdulums we swing. But here's the thing, guys, society

(11:46):
right now is amplifying falling in love perfectionism, swipe left,
swipe right, always looking for that person to fill you,
to love you, to be your soul mate, to be
the one. And it's all a bunch of horse ship.
And that's why, you know, being eleven years sober in
my sex and love addicts, you know, I did intense

(12:06):
therapy on top of it for eight years. I went
twice a week because I was using people to film me.
I was using a person just like an alcoholic uses
a bottle or a drug addict uses a drug to
fill me and make me feel better. And when that
person wasn't doing it anymore, I would string them along

(12:27):
discard them then you know, mash want mash, three guys
together to make me feel important, to d m some
stranger to like, you know, like all the things we
do not to feel our feelings and just to like
like feel that like I you know what I mean
totally and I feel like I was. I was full

(12:48):
on um. It was like codependency. But I don't know
if that's what that is, right, No, it'sdency. But there's
also me. I have never thought that I would be
a sex addict or love att listen. I never thought
I was a sex attict. Two when my sponsor told
me eleven I mean, my therapist told me eleven years ago,
she goes, You're a sex and love attict, and I'm like,

(13:09):
what are you talking about. I've never had a one
night stand. I've barely had you know, partners my whole life.
Like if you counted, it's in my book, you can
find out how many but for my age, I haven't
had a lot. So when she was telling me all
these things, she was like, you use people to make
you feel important, and that is not okay. So I

(13:31):
used my boyfriend at the time to fix it to
being meshed with me, to give me joy, to make
me have butterflies. And the moment he stopped doing that,
I was like, I need to find somebody else. I
need to I need to like I need to fill that.
It's interesting, you know. I um side note. You know
years ago, uh, a friend of mine was like, meet

(13:55):
me at this meeting, you know, and then we'll have
coffee afterwards. I went to the wrong room. I sat down,
and it was and it ended up being an a
s l A meeting and I'm like wait uh. But
then I paused and I was like, you know what,
I'm gonna sit this one out and just or not out,
but I'm you know, hang out and just see where

(14:16):
this goes. By the end of that, I was like, okay, Wow,
that is me. Um. You know. I was the kind
of person that the minute I got and Renee can
back me up on this, the minute I got involved
in a relationship, literally the first thing I would do
is ask her every detail, detail down to penis size,

(14:37):
everything of all the men that she dated before me,
so that I would have a wall up immediately to
not get too attached. Yeah, so, because I already knew
I was a piece of ship in my mind. So
whatever I can do to put up that wall to
not get too close so that if I need to bail,

(15:00):
I don't feel so bad, even though I still felt
crappy after I would bail. But I would do that
with every single relationship, including my now wife. But we've
worked through that and I've come to a much better understanding.
But what is that is that? Is that bring up?
What type of feelings did that bring up for you?
I mean, you know it was it was a variety

(15:22):
of feelings because it was obviously that piece of shit
is um, but I was also still looking for that
external validation. So you know, I was the kind of
person that if things were going great, I need to
mess them up so that I can fix them. So
I so I think I'm going to feel better about
myself in the end, when really I'm just digging a deeper, deeper,

(15:45):
deeper hole. I love the drama. I would just purposefully drama. Yeah,
well that's what society tells us. I mean, if you
really think about it, they say love needs to be dramatic,
that they need to like I remember seeing this first
movie that really affected me. I saw Romeo and Juliet
a really young age, and I remember thinking, wow, the
main guy had to have a great ass, because the

(16:08):
main character had an amazing ass. And then at the end,
one or two people had to be willing to drink
poison or die for it to mean true love. So
we have this warped sense of what a relationship looks like,
what a stable, healthy relationship looks like. Nobody talks about
paying the bills, taking out you know, the trash, picking

(16:28):
up the dog poop. It's all about like, film me,
feel me, make me feel that high, and as soon
as it's gone, we, especially as addicts, don't want to
feel anything other than for you, like I'm not and
feeling my feelings no, thank you totally and nice guys
were so boring to me. And speaking of speaking of movies,

(16:48):
I was I grew up watching Pretty Woman, probably not
the best movie like, but then I start to now
I'm like, okay, this is why I'm so I was
so insecure. Like I recently converted my mom's VHS tapes
and I saw me as a little girl, and it
was so surreal, and it was like I was constantly
looking for validation always. Do you know, Brian, what you

(17:11):
were saying is you're right. Uh. Society teaches us, molds us,
makes us think that if you want to be happy,
you're going to need something outside of yourself. Right. It
could be the car, It could be the song that
says I will die without you, could be the movies
that like you just mentioned, um Romeo and Juliet. You

(17:34):
know it's funny to me is that we are geared
to fail at relationships, were molded to fail, right, We're
not good enough. And so I know for myself when
I was not in recovery, I didn't get into relationships.
I took people hostage, right, and it wasn't enough for

(17:56):
them to like me. It wasn't enough for them to
love me. They had to worship me. But the whole
time I'm waiting, I would not allow myself to be
in the relationship like a j was saying, because I
was convinced the minute you do know me, you're gonna
leave me. So I would end up leaving before they
had a chance to leave, right, And all that comes

(18:18):
down to this same thing that we need to heal from,
which is feeling like we're not good enough, you know,
whether it's food addiction, whether it's drug addiction, whether it's sex,
love and relationships. It's the underlying thing I know for myself,
until I was able to do the work that we're
lucky enough to do to get rid of all this mythology,

(18:40):
all this crap that kept me thinking I was a mistake.
One of our sayings we love to say, is I
made a mistake. I'm not a mistake, right, because now
today I don't drink people like you mentioned it, right,
I don't drink them anymore. If it's just a nice friendship,
nice relations and ship, it isn't this constant trying to

(19:02):
get them to think a certain way about me. It's
a manipulation of people were always trying to for me.
My addiction to sex and love wasn't about this sex.
It was about control and power over somebody else because
I internally felt so powerless, so out of control, especially
growing up doing that why stuff we have to do,

(19:23):
you know, look back at the why. And I talk
about that a lot, like and let it burn, like
walk through the fire and let that ship burn. And
that is what you have to do. And the thing is,
with every all these young kids, all this like access
to porn, all this desensitizing sexually, we are looking at

(19:44):
an epidemic that is about to move in because intimacy
with two people right now is so messed up in
everybody's mind. And you know, people don't even know what
that is. So for those of I guess people, I'm
hoping kids are listening to this. But what's the difference
between sex and love addiction? What is sex and love addiction? Okay,

(20:07):
so here's how I easily explain it. Sex addiction is
where you're more addicted to the act between two people.
You're addicted to like the masturbation, the porn, you know, massage, parlors.
The sexual act is what gives you the high. Then
the love side is relationships, picking that unavailable person to

(20:28):
get them to love you so then you feel worthy.
But then if they don't love you, it just amplifies
your unworthiness. And it's you know, going after unavailable people,
going after multiple people, having multiple relationships. So it's usually
people are a combination of both. And what lies on
the other side of that is, if you're of intimacy,

(20:52):
you think of sex. Addict likes intimacy. No it No,
they don't. They're afraid of intimacy. A love addicts afraid
of intimacy because they would into an unavailable person if
they were available themselves. So that's how I described both
of those things. It's interesting because myself and Renee are
both fathers. We both have girls, which is I've I've

(21:15):
said it's a blessing and a curse, not really a curse,
but you get what I mean. Yes, I totally I
didn't want a girl. I have a boy, so I'm
so happy I didn't get a girl. You know, my
my one of my childhood best best friends, you know,
the day that my that my oldest daughter was born,
like literally hours after she was born, he said. These

(21:38):
were his exact words to me. He said, Look, I'm
really happy for you that you have a beautiful baby girl.
But with a boy, you only have to worry about
one penis. With a girl you have to worry about countless.
And I'm like, why would you say that to a
new father? Three hours after she's born. But it's it's interesting,

(21:59):
you know, navigating young girls. I'm just only speaking about
young girls. Um, navigating in this current messed up society
where you know, everything is flawed, the way that people
are perceived in a or like over romanticized way that

(22:22):
isn't realistic. Um. And you know, again feeling like you
have to look a certain way, you have to act
a certain way, you have to dress a certain way. Um.
You know, my my wife and I try to do
the best we can at explaining to both of my girls.
You know, you do you it don't don't have to

(22:45):
be like a certain sex symbol to get the boys attention.
My oldest daughter has a crush on a boy at
dance who's a couple of years older than her. My
brain is already exploding. It's it's hot, hot, danger zone
for me. But you know, she's she's very timid, and
she's very loving and very nurturing. And I do believe

(23:07):
a lot of that stems from the parents. Um. You know.
And so that leads me to what was it for
you that made you realize that you have this problem,
that you have this addiction? Like was there a turning
point in your life, a bottom or what what? What

(23:29):
was it for you? Well? What was it for me?
And the secret life of a Hollywood sex and a
lot of attic. My book starts at my bottom, And
it looked like this where I was confronted with these
two guys I was dating and I didn't know, you
know that that gray area where you're like, I'm dating
this person, but then I might be dating this person.
I might be dating this person. So that was my moment,

(23:52):
and that I was very young when that happened, and
I realized looking at these two people that I didn't
really care about both of them, but at the same
time I loved both of them. It was the strangest feeling.
So I thought at the time, I was like, I'm
just going to break up with both of them, and
I thought that period of my life is over right.

(24:13):
So I was younger, But when I got into my
twenties and I was dating a guy and we were
living together, and he was like a guy really liked
and if we weren't together, I'd want to be his friend,
Like I had that thing, like I loved him as
much as I could love somebody. And what happened was
a mentor of mine died, and two days later, I

(24:33):
found myself on location shooting a movie. You know where
we all have those showmances or you know in the industry.
You go someplace, you have an affair or whatever, and
it's okay. They say it's okay. But I I almost
blew up my relationship over this person I just met
that I didn't even like, Like he was rude to waiters,

(24:57):
you know. But I found myself that right like you're
You're like, why am I getting turned on by this
person I don't even like? And I have this guy
at home that I care about, but I'm about to
blow it up? And I was sitting in my hotel
room in the dark, and I said, am I going
to be doing this the rest in my life? Am
I going to be always looking for something outside of myself?

(25:18):
And I called my friend. She hooked me up with
her therapists, and the therapist said two things. Well, she
said I was a sex and love addict and already
told you guys that. But before she said that, she
looked at me and she said, you wear the mask
of another one of my clients that's a high class prostitute.
And I was like, she said, you're you're wearing a

(25:38):
mask on top of a mask, and your job as
you wear masks. And I got in my car driving
down the one oh one bawling my eyes out. I
called my boyfriend and I said, she's I'm a sex
love addict and so that was the first time you
heard about I've never heard about it. And I yacht home.

(26:01):
He printed up all the meetings in l A and
he highlighted all the ones I could go to, and yeah,
and I stepped into the meeting that night, seven thirty
at night in the Deep Valley and there was you know,
at the horrible church, florescent room that's just like hell,

(26:21):
like you don't want to be. And I didn't believe
in God. So stepping into church was like, so I sculled.
I go in and there's forty people, all walks of
life as you know, like a list celebrity to the janitor,
like every ethnicity. And I sit down and every single
person started talking and they each had a little part

(26:43):
of my story and it was my turn to say, Hi,
I'm Brianne. I'm a sex and love addict. And I
started hysterically crying. And I have to say this. I
wasn't crying because I was upset to be there. I
was crying because the first time in my life, I
didn't feel alone and I didn't feel broken like I

(27:03):
always thought. I was one of those persons people that
could never connect, could never fully commit, didn't want to
get married. And here's the last thing I have to
say is I'm with the same man I was eleven
years ago. We've been together sixteen years. He didn't I
didn't go through the program and find the perfect partner
like I went through the program and found myself. And

(27:27):
I can say to this day, he could leave me.
My husband can leave me, and I'm going to be okay.
I would be sad, but he doesn't cremate me at all.
You just said it. You just said it. I tell people,
I tell people the difference today with me in a
relationship is God forbid. Knock on wood. My wife took

(27:47):
a Plaine trip and it went down and and she died.
I would be devastated, devastated. But if she were to
cheat on me, I would be okay, fine, you know,
like if she just broke up, it would be like, Okay,
it didn't work out. So I love that you said that.
I love that you said you found yourself, because if

(28:08):
you can't find yourself, you can't be in a relate
a successful relationship in my opinion, And those tears that
you were talking about really moved me because we've seen it,
we've done it. Where you feel that your home. Yeah, right,
that moment you feel that you're home, you're like, oh,
I'm not crazy, I just need to work on certain things. Yeah,

(28:28):
I just didn't have the tools. Yeah, it really hit
me like I just didn't get the tools. My parents
didn't know how to give me the tools, just like
their parents didn't know how to give them totally and
so on and so on. So it really let me
let go of that shame, let go of all the
people I heard, really look at myself, look at my
character defects twenty two of them, twenty two, and just

(28:53):
like like that, swallow me whole and it and it's
just been the best thing I've ever done for myself
and no one can take it away from me. Is
your husband in any kind of program at all? Yeah,
that's what I was gonna say. My husband is thirty
two years sober in a a and a decade sober
in d A. So this is like a sober family,

(29:17):
Like we're like the sober fat You know, people, people
don't listening to your story. A lot of people don't
understand or can appreciate the addiction of validation right like
people can understand right now, alcoholic starts shaking, he needs
to drink alcohol, you know, heroin addict starts to go

(29:37):
through withdrawals. But that absolute need to feel relief is
as strong in in sex, love and relationship. Like you
were saying, you were saying it wasn't like you consciously
we're trying to find validation from this other guy, but
you realize I have the guy of my dreams. I

(30:00):
get here, I am doing something that's against my own will,
against my own so it could be super Addiction is addiction,
that's the thing, and and and it will take you down,
whether it's gambling, no matter what it is. My question
for you as hold is Davis. Oh, he's almost three

(30:21):
years old. Three years old, So let me ask you then,
knowing what you know now, what are the things that
you will make sure he gets at a young age,
Make sure he understands doesn't go down the wrong paths
that our parents took us down. God blessed them doing
the best they could. Well. I love that you talk

(30:41):
about It's called like approval addiction. We are always looking
for approval outside of ourselves. And I have to say
one thing before I answer your question. Is there was
this moment when I was getting my six month chip
and I was in this meeting and recovering Heroin. I
came in and he said, I can quit Heroin, but
I can't quit her. And when he said that, like

(31:04):
chills went up my body and I knew that I'm
going to have this the rest of my life, Like
this is just in my d n A that I
want to get outside of myself always. So that day
I made a promise, like because a lot of sex
and love addicts you get recovery and they get in
a marriage and they leave the meeting. You know, they
leave and they don't come back. It's really hard to

(31:26):
get recovery in our pro this program too, it's like
really really hard, especially for women. And um, I made
a promise, like I show up. I go to nine
meetings a week. Guys. Today I go to more meetings
a week than I went when I first started. I
go every morning when I'm feeding Davis before the day begins. Um.

(31:49):
I talked to him about the meetings. We say the
serenity prayer, my husband and I to him. We talk
about God in a healthy way, not in an almighty,
you know way. And here's a beautiful thing that happened yesterday.
I don't know if you guys got stuck watching the
Mickey Mouse Club that Hot Dog dance if you remember it,

(32:09):
Like at the end of Mickey Mouse. Sometimes all the
characters are there for the dance and sometimes there's just
you know, the main five characters. And if you're a mom,
you'll understand. But he looked at me and he said,
where where's Goofy, Where's um Clara Bell? Like he started
naming all the characters that weren't there. And I looked

(32:31):
at him and I said, not everybody's gonna be invited
to the party. Some days people aren't going to invite
you to the party. Some some days people aren't gonna
like you. And that's okay, and that, yeah, no one
taught me that, Like, no one taught me that not
everybody's gonna like me. And I'm not always going to
be invited. And I think as parents. That's the first

(32:53):
thing I could teach my child is at a very
young age, it's okay, you're not going to be invited
to everything, and that's okay. And then also not a
meshing with my child, not emotionally a meshing with my child,
which happened to me with my father where he put
me on a pedestal, but then he used me to
emotionally fill him, which is like a whole other conversation,

(33:14):
but totally but but my son, I don't want him
to ever fix mama. I don't want my son to
feel responsible for my feelings. And and if he's upset,
I allow him to cry. And I think young boys,
we don't allow them to have their feelings. And lots
of my fellows in the program, my male fellows weren't

(33:36):
allowed to have their feelings, were too a mesh with
their mother, saw porn way too early. So these are
the things I'm really focusing on raising his son. And
also to be kind and that women are equal to them,
all those things, because I want to raise a son
that is responsible for his emotions, that don't use other people,

(33:57):
that is his person, and vulnerability just unable. That's amazing
that's great. Where I mean vulnerability in general, right, like
we're just we I was taught that it was a
weak thing to have, like don't cry, don't show your
you know, don't show your cards. And you know, I
come from an Asian culture. My mom's Filipino, and you
know that alone, you know, it's just they're not And

(34:19):
she even says this when we went to therapy a
few years ago. It was like having to express feelings
or just learning how to hug somebody instead of a
good old pat like you know, you want to feel.
And I would always gravitate towards like my friend's mom's
because I wanted that, like my mom was. Yeah, so
I'm learning like im and I'm just learning this now
and I'm thirty almost thirty seven years old. So yeah,

(34:42):
my mom wasn't maternal either, like she did, wasn't a
maternal She was very hard, so I became very hard. Sorry,
a J you were talking, I cut you off. Sorry.
Like a lot of people, I think find it interesting that,
you know, when I say that I'm a I'm an
insecure person and yet I do what I do for
a living, They're like, that doesn't make any sense. We've

(35:02):
seen you on stage, we see how you are. You're
great with people. How does that make sense? But again
it goes back to you know, for me, I didn't
have a father figure. You know. I grew up with
my mom and my grandparents. I grew up in musical theater.
I was surrounded by predominantly women and gay men. Like

(35:24):
that's what I was surrounded with my entire life growing up.
Excuse me, so I would you know, I automatically growing
up put women up on a pedali and like that was.
That was just the kind of person that I was.
And I still respect women to the utmost um. And
any man friend of mine that is the opposite and

(35:46):
treats women poorly, they are no longer part of my life.
That is. That's just gross to me, especially being a
father with two girls. You know, my dad eyes are
always watching, you know, how how boy is treat my girls,
and just just in general, you know. But I think
it's great the way that you are approaching raising your son,

(36:08):
because I I know that Reneed does the same thing
with his daughter as I do with my two daughters,
you know, and it's it is very important, you know,
because yeah, if you can't start by loving yourself first. Um.
And you as a parent can learn to separate a
little bit and allow your child to kind of come

(36:31):
into their own and not manipulate the situation and not
talk down to them, but talk on their level. Make
yourself approachable. I think that's very important, especially in in
like today's standards. You know a lot I've because I've
seen a lot of parents at my daughter's dance school
or at my daughter's school, and just the interaction there's

(36:54):
such a detachment, um, and where I'm the opposite, Like
I'm trying to be as relatable with my kids as possible. Um.
You know, whether it's watching every princess movie ever made,
or you know, being just supportive. If my daughter wants
to be a singer or be a dancer, or be
a vet, whatever doesn't matter, I'm gonna be there to

(37:16):
be very supportive. Do you know? I think that Brian.
You you mentioned the society we're living in now, and
I truly, honest to God believe that this young generation
has the deck stacked against them with with social media,
with the likes, with the followers, with where where like

(37:38):
they become obsessed with that, and I can't help but think, oh,
you poor thing. Yeah. Can you imagine if we had that,
I would have been a maniac Like I would have
been out of control in today. But here's the beautiful thing.
I have to say this. Eleven years ago when I
got in the program, I was the youngest person. Now

(38:00):
I have there's nineteen year olds, there's twenty year olds
coming in because they're hitting a wall faster. They're seeing
that they are so disconnected from each other. And that
is what gives me hope, because more and more young
people are coming in and saying I don't know what's
wrong with me, like I keep picking this person, or
I'm feeling like suicidal and I'm so depressed, and you know,

(38:24):
and and they're really stepping into trying to figure it
out faster than our generation is. When you look at
what's happening right now with this pandemic, right everyone's stuck
at home. So it's kind of one side of the
coin of the other. Either people are now having to
look inward and realizing, oh shit, maybe there there's something

(38:48):
here that needs to be looked at, that needs to
be taken care of, or others are just getting into
the bad thing I mean, I also think that our
generation has been very open like lately, especially about mental health.
I think the awareness has been more of us something
that is allowed to talk about, like you're not really

(39:09):
trying to cover it or feeling shame shameful because of
a certain feeling you may have. You've got people like
Burnet Brown and all these people, you know, openly studying
just about vulnerability in itself, you know, and like it's
cool now to meditate on mainstream, to be into some
form of recovery, spiritual or the spiritual path. We we

(39:32):
joke here, Brianne, we say we're either on the spiritual
path or the psychopath and anyone in twelve Steps knows that.
So we have to do everything we can. You know,
with my daughter, she loves to draw, and and we
we let her have an in She's only nine. Maybe

(39:53):
I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but
we let her have an Instagram. She's not allowed to
show her face, She's only allowed to show her art, right,
but I can see that, um if we have to
be very careful to make sure that she understands she's
lovable with or without even her art, right And and

(40:15):
I was a slow learner. I went to lots of rehabs,
and the one thing everyone in rehab had in common.
I was fortunate enough to go to the she she
ones right, So I would meet people from around the world,
from very affluent families, and they all have the same
thing in common. They never felt loved, they never felt

(40:36):
they were worthy. They would tell me stories. Oh yeah,
my my dad would get me a brand new Mercedes
for my birthday. But my mom and dad were in
the Swiss Alp scheme on my birthday, right, And that
starts to that starts to ingrain that thought in you,
that like I'm not good enough for their time, And

(40:58):
I think that's important as a parent. I mean, yes,
making time for your children. But here's the really like
line that I've been studying and why I came out
as a sex and love attict. Like I never wanted
to come out. I never wanted to write a book.
I never why would I put myself out there? But
I hit ten years of recovery and I was like,
oh my god, all these people need help, especially women,

(41:20):
because women there's like more shame about being a sex
and love addict. I I feel, or I see but
one of them is for the younger generation. I had
so many younger generations reaching out to me and saying,
you know, my parents aren't there. But then I also
saw where your parents, you're two en meshed also in
your child's life. When you don't have your own sense

(41:42):
of self as a parent, where you lose yourself in
your children, that is very dangerous. It's very dangerous, especially
you know, for dads and daughter relationship, for you know,
mothers and sons. That can really mess up a child
because when you become your parents everything, they're not their

(42:03):
own individual anymore. Is the same with dogs, because I
feel like I'm like that with my dog. It's different,
it's different. You can do that with your dog. My
therapist that I can hug my dog and be obsessed
with him as much as I want. I'm just not
allowed to do that with my son. We're fortunate, right,
We're very fortunate to be in a program that has

(42:23):
given us the tools to love ourselves and in turns
not have to live vicariously through our kids. Right or
impose or maybe I'm suffering from perfectionism because of low
self esteem, and then I try to impose that onto
the kids, right, you need to be perfect, And then
all of a sudden, I'm now fostering the same you know,

(42:47):
group of character defects that my parents passed along to me.
But I always say that perfectionism, who defines perfect? What
is that really helps me? Be? Like, just because it's
something in me feels like it needs to be perfect,
doesn't mean it's my son's perfect, my husband's perfectionism. So
that really helps me let go of like my own perfectionism. Right.

(43:12):
But the one thing that really has helped my husband
and I being both sober and very active in our
recovery and therapy and all that stuff is when we
have a solid relationship and we show love to each
other and it and he gets to watch that healthy
relationship is I feel I can literally look over at

(43:36):
him and his face there's like this pure innocence and
he's seeing his parents love each other and I never
saw that. Instead, I was like in school, trying to
get people to like me young, you know, getting those likes.
I think if we model what a healthy relationship is
for our kid, hopefully we won't mess him up as
much as we were messed up. But hey, I'm human,

(43:58):
I'm flawed, I'm an addict something. I wouldn't be here.
You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for all of that, right, Like, seriously,
tell people what you want them to know about both
your book and your podcast. Just let people know what
you want them to know about them. Okay, thank you. Um. Yeah,

(44:20):
So I just wrote a book at hit bestseller on
in the first weekend, which was that's amazing, yeah, because
it just came out, right, Yeah, it just came out.
And I never wanted to write a book, Like I said,
I have a d h D. I'm dyslexic, like not interested.
I'm an actor. Give me the lines and I'll say them.
But I just had this overwhelming thing feeling I had

(44:41):
to share sex and love addiction with the world. That
wasn't clinical, that was an academic. So I wrote this book.
My husband forced me, let's just say, he like kept
pushing me to do it, and I wanted to entertain
people and take him on this journey with this character
roxand that's based on my life and the first year

(45:01):
of recovery. Why she's a Hollywood actress and we get
to see that she finds these ten rules that she
learns to live by in our first year of recovery
and sex and love addiction, and I wanted to entertain
people but also educate them on this disease. And then
with the podcast it's called Secret Life, I go on
and my whole tagline is tell me your secrets. I'll

(45:22):
tell you mine. And people come on, well known people
to anonymous. They tell me their deepest, darkest secrets. We
had a woman what Olivia mun was on. Yeah, Olivia
was just on. Janna Kramer is on. I have a
lot of people coming on. But then I have, you know,
a stranger from New York that reached out to me.
She shot herself and with a shotgun because she couldn't

(45:44):
reach her perfectionism, and she survived. And she took me
through the whole thing. Or using abortions as birth control,
eating disorders for men, you know, going and being in
a sail asylum because you're about to kill yourself. We
have all walks of life, every kind of secret you
can imagine. We've just released our thirty six episode and
we have eighty nine episodes still already recorded. So my

(46:08):
whole point is to be of service right now, to
be of service outside myself it's not about me, it's
not about my guests. It's about the people that have
They're the voiceless, right, that are still suffering, that feel
like they're alone, or that just don't know. Like honestly,
you've I've You've just educated me so much about love
and sex addiction and just to bring awareness. Um, it

(46:29):
takes a lot of strength. So thank you for your work.
And I want to say I do want to say
if you are suffering now there, this is really important
to me. There's forty questions online going sex and love
addicts anonymous self diagnosed forty questions and if they say
if you get more than five yes, is you might
have this problem. And that really helps me and helps
other people, you know, see if they have this disease. Well,

(46:53):
I was gonna say that. And we are living in
a nutty times. We cannot agree, right that never in
my wildest dreams that I think we would be locked
down and what we're experiencing. And you're absolutely right. It's
kind of in terms of mental health problems, this time
is kind of a super spreader, right, It's kind of

(47:15):
like really bringing it to the foreground with a lot
of people. So I want to thank you for being
out there with this because it is You're absolutely right,
there's a stigma, but that stigma will go away the
more of us that continue to talk about these things.
Sometimes people say to us, you know, wow, you guys

(47:36):
are so open about your disasters, and it's like, well,
but we're here and we live to tell about it
and maybe hoping to share what we're doing will help you.
And it's amazing how many people through Instagram social media
have reached down said they they're not giving sobriety a shot,
you know, And we can't change the world altogether, but

(47:58):
in in our small way, all of us by doing
things like this, we're actually bringing a little bit of
light to this nutty times. There's a really good ripple
effect it does. Yes, so honest to God, thank you
so much, Thank you, thank you so much. On the show. Um,

(48:21):
definitely gonna start doing a little bit more inner work
after this on myself. I'm gonna take that quiz. Please
let me know, let me know your number. I'm pretty
sure I already know I'm gonna be at least eighteen.
You know, Hey, I'll tell you my number. It's in
the book. But I'm gonna reveal it right now. I've
got thirty eight out of forty, so I'm sure maybe

(48:45):
close to that. I'm gonna say, probably me, but yeah,
I'll definitely let you know if that's the case for sure. Okay,
thank thank you so much for coming on the congratulations. Congratulations.
Can we get can we get your book on audible? Yeah,
well we're doing in audible right now, so I was

(49:05):
looking for it a couple of weeks. But yeah, okay, cool,
thank you, thanks, thank you. She's awesome's great, you guys crazy.

(49:26):
I kept saying I wanted to say a joke, and
I said, don't say. We should have taken the quiz
before we had her on. Thank god I didn't say that.
The joke, what was the joke? The joke is, uh,
do you know what they do? You know what they
say in Masturbator's anonymous? What just let go? Oh? Are

(49:48):
you going to open the show with that? That's actually clever.
You probably would find it funny though. Yeah, well, you guys,
I definitely on behalf of all of us. Want to
thank our guest Brand Davis. Um. We all are going
to take that test. We merge everyone out there that
maybe curious or wondering if you are a sex and

(50:11):
love addict test and uh email us, let us know
what your results are, let us know, and you know
if you are uh, you obviously know that that there
is a safe place to go get help and uh
to reach out to our or you know, go to
the website for sex love, sex and love addiction and

(50:33):
reach out. So I'm curious to see if all three
of us where we're at. What that I mean? I
could just tell you I am right now, I'll just
tell let's give it, But I want to know the
actual number out of the forty question she could have
written the test, I'm gonna get like forty five out
of forty. You're like, wait a second? Was an extra credit? Yes,
I'm forty one. Thank you very much. That's awesome. It's awesome.

(50:57):
I really enjoyed. Yeah, she is very you could tell,
like she's knowledgeable, she's so educated. And for an attractive
woman in Hollywood to put herself out there as an actor, yeah,
because this look, let's be honest, Hollywood is a sort
of cesspool for debauchery and all addictions and everything. And

(51:21):
for her to put herself out there like this is
very brave. It you read her article from the Huffington's
Post that was like that was really intense that like
it affected me almost, Wow, it almost affected it almost.
But as I am a love addict, I wonder I
wonder one thing, why does it have to be under
the same roof, Like why can't it be two separate

(51:44):
because like for me, that was two separate things. Sex
addict and love addict? What they come from the same place.
It's still dealing with people. You know that people are
the drug? Or is the drug? Or or is it
for English? Is you is is? You know? It's yeah,

(52:05):
I mean it's it's all cut from the same cloth,
you know. I mean but like she did say, you
know addictions, addiction, you know, I mean it is it
is that umbrella where it just all falls into the
same different manifestation. Yeah, I mean I'm gonna have you know,
if you're in o A, you replace food, you know,

(52:26):
booze with food, and if you're in a AU you
know s l A whatever it is. Can someone Can
someone be addicted to boy bands? Yeah? They have boyband anonymous.
Yeah it's b A B B A back Street Boys
Anonymous And the next podcast you gotta tell the story
about your neighbor over there near Griffin. But no, yeah,

(52:49):
on the so on the on the next show, I'm
gonna I'm without naming names. I'm going to get some
revenge on my previous neighbor when I lived in Hollywood,
who was an absolute nightmare. I didn't know this story.
He told it to me the other day. I'll say
next week, yeah, it's ridiculous, like you can't make this

(53:12):
ship up. I promise you that there's gonna be lots
of reveals next week because thank you, guys for we're
going golfing. Guys, we're gonna go golfing. You gotta announce
that going golfing. Holy crap, we're gonna film it. You
guys will get to see share bears golf swing. Something
tells me she's gonna a she's gonna hit the ball

(53:35):
really well and be she's gonna get hooked. Like immediately,
I'm telling you, I'm gonna airball it. I don't even
know if that's such a thing in golf, but like
I'm gonna miss the golf ball. I just know it.
They call that wafting, like you just kind of that
sounds like it's the same thing. Um, make sure you
guys go hit that subscribe button and thank you for

(53:56):
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