Starting at zero with AJ Daulerio

This Q&A is part of a previously-paywalled series now available to all subscribers of this newsletter. To support this work, consider becoming a paid subscriber here.

Every so often you come across a writer’s work that feels distinct from anything else that’s out there. So it was for me last year with AJ Daulerio’s newsletter, The Small Bow, and his accompanying podcast, Really Good Shares.

Both are about recovery. From drugs and alcohol, yes — AJ is a recovering addict — but also from all the other tough and heartbreaking things that humans go through, like grief, public humiliation, break-ups, debt, identity crises, and all the rest. It all feels strangely powerful coming from AJ because he’s an unlikely candidate to be offering up advice on how to be a better person.

A decade or so ago, AJ was the editor in chief of Gawker.com. If you don’t know what Gawker is, you’ve probably never lived in New York or worked in media. (Good for you on both counts!) But suffice it to say, for a while Gawker was the enfant terrible of New York media, publishing a snarky kind of take-no-prisoners journalism that punched up, down, sideways — you name it. Everyone of a certain ilk read it, no one wanted to be covered by it.

That chapter ended when AJ was a named defendant in a lawsuit that makes even the most gripping courtroom drama look tame. In short: pro wrestler Hulk Hogan sued Gawker for publishing a portion of a sex tape. It came to light later in the trial that Hogan’s stratospheric legal fees were being bankrolled by billionaire tech titan Peter Thiel, who had beef with Gawker for past coverage. Gawker lost the case, but the spectacle was neither a good look for journalism nor the U.S. legal system. If you want, you can Google and read some of the millions of words that have been written about it. But I highly recommend reading about the episode in AJ’s words here and here, or in particularly compelling podcast form here.

What’s clear from reading and talking to AJ is the enormous amount of inner work he’s done to get from there to here. It results in writing that is earnest but never corny, self searching but never self indulgent, self deprecating but also — crucially — self compassionate. If you ask me, these are all qualities the world needs a lot more of.

In our interview, we talked about going through what he called “a complete overhaul” of his value system, recovering from a career in journalism, how meditation helps him survive LA traffic, and what the rest of us can learn from recovering addicts.

Rosie: I’m not in recovery, but I think I am a recovering addict in some sense, and that’s from my addiction to external validation and achievement. It really ruled my life and my decisions for a long time. From reading your writing, I sense that maybe you feel similar — and I know from experience that journalism is a hell of a drug if what you’re chasing is external validation. 

AJ: When I moved to New York and saw the NYC media scene for the first time, I don’t know why I wanted to be a part of it so bad, but I did. I wanted those friends. I wanted to be part of those conversations that it seemed to me everyone was having, even if it turned out to be a very small group of people. 

The one thing I’ve discovered in recovery is that I don’t know how to be ambitious in the way I was when I was there … [When I worked at Gawker] there was a negative association with my name for a long period of time — and I think rightfully so — but that didn’t matter to me. I just liked being talked about so much. I didn’t care about these associations just because I was competing with every single website at that company for [Gawker Media founder Nick] Denton’s approval, who I’d always wanted to work for. 

There were things I absolutely felt rotten about doing, the choices I was making in my life personally, editorially, professionally. But even if people were talking about me like I was the worst person on earth, I was like, at least they’re talking about me. 

R: From someone who was almost like the ringleader of the media circus, you’ve really divested from that world. I’m curious to know how long it took you to untangle yourself from it.

A: Divested is a good word. I’m not 100% untangled. Absolutely not. It was such a big part of my identity. I still, honest to god, am waiting for the end of year list that says “Top Ten Newsletters of the Year” and finding that The Small Bow is on it. 

R: Do you catch yourself in that thought now? Whereas before it was probably like “being the best is a totally valid goal?”

A: Yes, I totally catch myself. And I think, “man, this is a backslide.” At the same time, I think, “okay if I still want that, at least I know that I care about what I’m doing.” And I do care about it, just in a different way. 

I had this conversation with my wife a few days ago because I was in that place of comparing myself to other people. I did my tax return for 2022 and was like, “oh my god I made less money than I did when I was 25.” And I’m doing this work that is completely gratifying and people seem to love, but it’s such a small sample size. I just think “how do I make it bigger,” “how do I 10x this” — those kind of thoughts. 

My wife stopped me and said you’re doing this work that is helping people — people write in all the time about their own recovery and tell you that. So that seems to be a good goal that you’ve accomplished and that should be the only thing that you really focus on. But there’s still that part of me that wants a National Magazine Award for the wrong reasons. I want it so I can basically tell everyone to fuck themselves. 

R: Right, like: “I did it my way and I still got a National Magazine Award.” 

A: Exactly — complete vindication of my name. But then I think “okay guess I’m turning into that asshole again,” and I have to pull myself back. I know there’s a different place for me to go now and turn to, whereas before I did not. I associate that with this new set of principles I have, this list of behaviors that I do not want to replicate or indulge. Whereas before I would do all of those things because I thought that would get me ahead. 

R: A lot of what addiction is, if not everything, is the avoidance of being with hard feelings. I think you can see that kind of behavior everywhere in our world. Obviously in substance abuse, but more subtly in overwork, buying stuff, constant travel, social media etc. So I wonder what you think of this idea that we are all, in some way, addicts who are avoiding our hard feelings. Do you think that’s helpful? 

A: I don’t like to think of people that way, because then it comes from a prescriptive place for me and it’s the opposite of what I’m trying to do: I gotta focus on myself and put good things into the world and be a better person and I hope for the best for everyone else. It’s a very inside job for me, and I try to — what we call in the biz — be of service to as many people as I can. That makes me feel good and that gives me all of those feelings that I sought before in drugs and alcohol.

I think that everyone can find some space to get better at working through some of those bad feelings in a different way. Everyone is capable of that but it’s not a requirement to be a good human. But I needed a complete overhaul, I really did. I’m almost shocked and appalled at some of the decisions I was making a decade ago that were so natural to me. My instincts were so off, my intuition was so off, and I thought those were my best assets.

[Editor’s note: It was in the midst of the chaos of the Gawker trial that AJ decided to get sober, a decision that, he wrote, left him feeling like he’d “had reconstructive knee surgery and then two weeks later decided to join a roller derby league.”]

A: When I was coming out of the lawsuit, I thought I needed to get back all those things I thought I lost. And yet it turned out everything I lost was the exact stuff I needed to let go of. But once you do that you’re basically starting at zero, and that’s kind of where all this work begins. 

R: You wrote in a recent piece about how media people who still want to tell your Gawker story are always casting you in a similar way. You wrote, “I’m either a villain or a victim but I don’t think I’m either of those things anymore. I’m okay. I don’t think [the journalist] was capable of believing that. He wanted me angry enough to tell my story.” 

I was struck by that because the journalist’s brain is so driven by a need to present what they think is right and correct, and convincing sources to help in that effort, even if it’s not in their best interest. So I wonder why you don’t feel the need to prove that anymore. What makes you “okay” these days? You’ve spoken about your meditation practice and I wonder if it has anything to do with that.

A: I’m sure it does. Meditation has this cumulative effect over time, where it gives you one second of pause that you gain for every year you meditate consistently. I’m inching towards a three to four second pause now. I really began to see the results when I was driving around LA and was able to choose to not honk my horn in traffic. In thinking, “Oh, this can take care of itself, I don’t need to add to it.”

[On journalism’s sense of right and wrong]: I really feel like you cannot be an effective journalist — even in the reputable New York Times sense — if you’re not going to upset somebody when you’re talking about the truth. It’s impossible. 

I remember when I was working at a weekly newspaper for a small town, there was a house fire and the small child was killed. This one guy that I worked with door-knocked the family and went and got a quote from the grieving mother, and when he got back to the office everybody celebrated him for doing that. Thinking on the other side of that, I’m just like, what a fucking ghoulish thing to do. The part of me that thought that was admirable is gone.  

R: Sometimes when I was a reporter, I would feel this impulse to protect my sources from the circus of it. Which in one way made me a bad journalist because I was putting the source before the reader. But as a person, it always felt like the right thing to do. 

A: I think that’s great. If you said that at any journalism school, they’d boo you out of the room. But I think that is the proper human emotion to have. That’s gonna serve you a lot better in the long term than whatever sort of manipulation you’re going to use to get a better story. 

R: I started this newsletter project because I felt like none of the writing about climate I was reading addressed what’s going on inside of people that keeps them hooked on these bad value systems. These behaviors that are simultaneously bad for us and bad for the world. And I think we can all learn from people in recovery because they have to do an excavation of self to find out what’s driving them to act in ways that aren’t serving them. It’s not optional, it’s survival. 

You know, carbon credits and renewable energy and all these things we associate with the climate movement are great, but I don’t think it will be enough if we don’t also change the value system that underpins our actions. Do you see that connection? Does it feel too high minded to you? 

A: If you asked me 10 years ago what a value system was, I probably couldn’t tell you. But now I at least have a clue. I remember I was listening to a Marc Maron podcast and the actor Woody Harrelson was talking about how Greta Thunberg had changed his life. For whatever reason, that clicked with me. I had been a guy who historically had lived off of bologna sandwiches and meat for 90% of my diet. In order to kind of really make some sort of substantial change for this sort of problem, I decided I’m going to not eat meat anymore. 

That was a huge sacrifice for me, but at the same time it’s so small. But those are the sorts of decisions that people have to make at some point, and those are the kinds of decisions I made when I stopped using alcohol and drugs. That decision to not eat meat wouldn’t have been possible if I hadn’t done all this other recovery work. 

R: Yes, and going back to that idea of leaving behind old AJ because you realized you didn’t need everything that he had anymore. I think similarly when we frame these things as sacrifices, we get it wrong. Living in a way that’s slower, more realistic, more humble, is better for the planet and us. It’s actually not a huge sacrifice to divest from a life and value system that is bad for you.

A: Absolutely, but I guess we do sound high minded now. But personally I just know that I feel better now than I did before when I started to make some decisions that are less selfish and are not participating in all the bad parts of the world. 

R: Where are you finding meaning these days? 

A: I think more than anything I’ve realized that I quit a lot in my life. I’m learning that there’s a lot of meaning in that space between that feeling of wanting to quit and that future that I feel like is going to be ruinous. There’s meaning in whatever fear is in that space, whatever fear is causing me to quit. There’s actual strength in that moment where I have to go the opposite direction of what my instinct is. I shouldn’t pull away, whether it’s running five miles, having an uncomfortable conversation I may not want to have, hugging people when they’re sad. The things that used to make me very uncomfortable for selfish reasons, I now try to overcome that by staying put. 

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