While many people were wringing their hands over the controversial ad in which Sydney Sweeney is said to have “great jeans,” American Eagle Outfitters CEO Jay Schottenstein is applauding.
“The fall season is off to a positive start,” he wrote in an earnings release statement. “Fueled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.”
Detractors of Sweeney’s ad accuse it of promoting eugenics (the idea of breeding a “superior” human race) by playing on the word “genes,” equating blonde hair and blue eyes with superiority.
The Travis Kelce ad, on the other hand, was a fairly straightforward introduction to a collection you can see here.
While the company’s total net revenue $1.28 billion was down 1% from last year, Sweeney’s jean collaborations “sold out within a week,” CNN reports.
During the earnings call, Chief Marketing Officer Craig Brommers declared that the Sweeney campaign “is a winner, and in just six weeks, the campaign has generated unprecedented new customer acquisition.”
American Eagle’s Executive Creative Director, Jennifer Foyle, added that combined, the Sweeney and Kelce campaigns have “generated a staggering 40 billion impressions.”
The retailer’s stock spiked 25% in after-hours trading after the call.
In less rah-rah news, CNN reports that American Eagle expects tariff impacts to be $20 million in the third quarter and $40 million to $50 million in Q4. They said they utilize price increases to mitigate the impact on their bottom line.
While many people were wringing their hands over the controversial ad in which Sydney Sweeney is said to have “great jeans,” American Eagle Outfitters CEO Jay Schottenstein is applauding.
“The fall season is off to a positive start,” he wrote in an earnings release statement. “Fueled by stronger product offerings and the success of recent marketing campaigns with Sydney Sweeney and Travis Kelce, we have seen an uptick in customer awareness, engagement and comparable sales.”
United Airlines on Thursday rushed to cash in on rival Spirit Airlines’ financial troubles, beefing up its footprint in the bankrupt discount carrier’s main markets, including Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Las Vegas, as Frontier Group announced new routes to Latin America and the Caribbean.
Florida-based Spirit Airlines, which filed for its second bankruptcy protection last week, has been shrinking its operations and retreating from a number of markets, which has opened up an opportunity for rivals.
The company said it has discontinued service to 11 US cities, including Portland, Oregon, and San Diego, and no longer plans to launch service to Macon, Georgia, which was scheduled to start in mid-October.
United said it will fly larger aircraft between Chicago and New York LaGuardia to help customers outside of its hubs connect to the newly added flights. REUTERS
“As part of our efforts to transform our business and position Spirit for long-term success, we are adjusting our network to focus on our strongest performing markets,” a company spokesperson said in a statement.
United will start selling tickets on Thursday for new flights to 15 cities where Spirit operates.
The Chicago-based airline said it will fly larger aircraft between Chicago and New York LaGuardia to help customers outside of its hubs connect to the newly added flights.
“If Spirit suddenly goes out of business, it will be incredibly disruptive, so we’re adding these flights to give their customers other options if they want or need them,” said Patrick Quayle, United’s senior vice president of global network planning and alliances.
Spirit Airlines has been shrinking its operations and retreating from a number of markets, which has opened up an opportunity for rivals. REUTERS
Frontier introduced 20 new flights to Spirit’s strongholds in late August. On Thursday, the low-cost carrier announced 22 more routes, increasing its service in the US, the Caribbean, and Latin America, including launching service to the Turks and Caicos.
“We expect these carriers to continue to see a sizable benefit from Spirit’s retrenchment, despite having less total overlap,” TD Cowen analyst Tom Fitzgerald wrote in a note this week.
If you had any doubts about the true agenda of the “pro-Palestine” movement, just consider last weekend’s annual People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit.
It was a gathering of martyrdom fetishists, Hamas supporters and antisemites, all bathing in an atmosphere of hate, rage and despair as they condemned Israel but reserved their deepest scorn for the United States.
The focus was a kind of patriotism and love of country — for Palestine. No American flags were in sight, though a prominent “Glory to Our Martyrs” banner kept everyone mindful of their ultimate duty to the cause.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) used her favorite “M-word” to whoops and applause, telling the crowd, “I wanna say to every genocide enabler, look at this room, motherf—ers, we ain’t going anywhere!”
America, explained the potty-mouthed pol, was built on “slavery, genocide, rape and oppression.”
Among her big ideas: “Keep AIPAC out of US politics!” — though the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is an American organization funded entirely by Americans; the lobbyists and “activists” relying on foreign funding and anti-American priorities would be AIPAC’s critics.
Aisha Nizar of the Palestinian Youth Movement called for interrupting the “supply chains of death that we can intervene in and must intervene in” to disrupt, for example, the construction of F-35 combat planes.
Nidal Jboor, an MD who spoke of his dedication to life and love, also insisted that “Jewish supremacists” be “taken out, neutralized.” Jewish supremacists? “We know who they are,” the loving doctor assured the crowd.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia University protest organizer, explained that Hamas — the rapist child-burners and rabid Islamists, though of course he didn’t spell that out — is the model for action against the worldwide “Zionist genocidal project.”
Another star of the lunatic left, podcaster Hasan Piker, urged the crowd to motivate themselves through “spite for the worst people in the world, like Michael Rappaport and Amy Schumer.”
If resenting the social media posts of a couple of C-list actor/comedians is how you fire up your base, either your cause is off-center or your followers are emotionally unstable.
In all, the People’s Conference for Palestine wasn’t much different in tone than what the “River to the sea” gang offers on any given day — except that so much unhinged rage, gathered in one room, nicely exposed what a toxic stream of filth this movement truly is.
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House Oversight Committee ranking member Stephen Lynch (D-MA) said that when Speaker Mike Johnson met with Epstein victims, his remarks about wanting justice amounted to a lie.
Transcript from CNN News Central:
LYNCH: “If Speaker Johnson wanted transparency and wanted to make progress here, you know, he would allow that discharge petition to succeed and we would get the documents that we’ve been asking for. It is unbelievable that 10 minutes, 10 minutes after he assured those victims that we would leave no stone unturned to get them justice, 10 minutes later, he was in front of the press saying, we’re not going to allow the records to be revealed.”
BOLDUAN: “Do you think he — do you think the Speaker lied to the victims behind closed doors?”
LYNCH: “It amounts to that, right […] Some of these women are looking for their own files on what the government had on them. So he’s telling them that they’re going to get transparency and then steps outside, you know, several minutes later and says, you know, that’s moot, we don’t need to get at that. We don’t need to have that information. There is a direct contradiction in both those statements.”
Clip of Rep. Lynch:
Mike Johnson tells Epstein victims that Republicans will do everything to seek justice, but 10 minutes later, Johnson goes in front of the cameras and announces that the Epstein files won’t be released.
Most of what was released on Tuesday night by House Oversight Committee chair James Comer was information that was already in the public record, and duplicate pages to make the document dump look bigger.
Apple’s iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Pro will feature faster chips with some models getting more RAM than ever before, according to a last-minute analyst report.
iPhone 17 Pro – Image Credit: AppleInsider
With Apple set to announce a raft of new iPhones at its “Awe Dropping” event on September 9, Trendforce analysts have had their say on what we should expect. And while the rumors largely match up with previous reports, it’s another indication of big things to come.
The report suggests that Apple will give the upcoming iPhone 17 and iPhone 17 Air a new A19 chip, while those buying an iPhone 17 Pro or iPhone 17 Pro Max will get the more capable A19 Pro.
Welcome to Eye on AI! In this edition...entry-level job loss due to AI breeds uncertainty…OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1 billion – and one of its top executives changes roles…French AI startup Mistral is reportedly finalizing new funding round at $14 billion valuation…is Amazon getting into the AI agent game?
Life has always been uncertain, but for generations, young college grads could count on one thing: an entry-level job. It wasn’t glamorous—maybe you fetched coffee, made photocopies, or slogged through low-level tasks for little pay—but it gave you a foothold, the first rung of whatever ladder you hoped to climb.
Now there are signs that, in some industries, that “sure thing” is slipping away. A new paper from Stanford University’s Digital Economy Lab drew wide attention last week: it found that since late 2022, early-career workers aged 22 to 25 in jobs most exposed to AI automation—like software development and customer service—have seen steep relative declines in employment. The researchers tested other possible explanations, from pandemic-related education setbacks to economy-wide factors like rising interest rates, but concluded that the rise of generative AI was the most likely driver, while noting more data is needed to prove a direct causal link.
There is also a new Harvard study which also found that the release of ChatGPT in November 2022 marked a turning point in the labor market From 2015 through mid-2022, hiring was on the rise for both junior and senior roles. But beginning in 2022, entry-level employment stalled and then slipped into decline. According to the study, headcount for early-career roles at AI-adopting firms has fallen 7.7% over six quarters since early 2023. The study also found that senior staff, were largely spared. Employment for more experienced workers has continued its steady climb since 2015, avoiding the downturn hitting their younger colleagues.
A third study, carried out by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, did not look at whether younger and older workers were affected differently, but it did examine the link between occupations that had adopted AI most intensively and job losses and found a distinct correlation. The impacts were greatest in occupations that used mathematics and computing intensively, such as software development, and much less in blue collar work and fields such as healthcare that were less prone to being automated with AI.
As my colleague Jeremy Kahn said in Tuesday’s Eye on AI, none of these studies disentangle the effects of AI from the possible effects of the unwinding of the tech hiring boom that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, he explained, “many large companies bulked up their software development and IT departments. Major tech firms such as Google, Meta, and Microsoft hired tens of thousands of new employees, sometimes hiring people before there was even any work for them to do just in order to prevent rivals from snapping up the same coders. Then, when the pandemic ended and it was clear that some ideas, such as Meta’s pivot to the metaverse, were not going to pan out, these same companies laid off tens of thousands of workers.”
Whatever the reasons, the prospect of post-college unemployment is an uncomfortable place to be—especially for students who thought they could count on steady pipelines into fields like IT or consulting. PwC, for instance, says it plans to recruit a third fewer grads by 2028. Uncertainty, in turn, tends to spread, breeding anxiety—which explains surveys like a recent one that found that 60% said they felt pessimistic about their career prospects.
Some may tell young people to pivot, persist, or simply pray. But we can’t afford complacency. Society will need these workers one way or another, and that means building real pathways into today’s jobs—and tomorrow’s. What’s happening on the ground to guarantee young people are both prepared for—and included in—the future of work? Opportunity has to exist, even in the face of uncertainty.
OpenAI acquires Statsig for $1.1 billion – plus executive moves. OpenAI has snapped up product development startup Statsig in a $1.1 billion deal, according to CNBC—the latest move in its acquisition streak following the purchase of Jony Ive’s hardware venture, io. As part of the deal, Statsig CEO Vijaye Raji will join OpenAI as chief technologist for its applications unit, reporting to Fidji Simo, the former Instacart CEO appointed in May to lead OpenAI’s applications business. In addition, OpenAI’s chief product officer, Kevin Weil, announced in a post on LinkedIn that he will become VP of a new group called OpenAI for Science, “to build the next great scientific instrument: an AI-powered platform that accelerates scientific discovery.” Weil said he will work closely with Sebastien Bubeck, an OpenAI researcher and the former VP of AI and Distinguished Scientist at Microsoft.
French AI startup Mistral reportedly finalizing new funding round at $14 billion valuation.Bloombergreported that Mistral, the French AI startup founded by former Meta and DeepMind researchers, is finalizing a new funding round that will value the company at $14 billion. Mistral, an OpenAI rival, develops open-source language models, a chatbot tailored to European users called Le Chat, and other AI services for enterprise companies. In March, I interviewed CEO Arthur Mensch, who denied reports the Paris-based startup is planning an IPO but highlighted its growth and a renewed focus on open-source AI to compete with China’s DeepSeek. Many argue Mistral is benefitting from not just the capabilities of its models, but also from geopolitical tailwinds. European countries, and France in particular, are increasingly talking about the need for “sovereign AI” that would enable them to escape dependency on U.S. or Chinese AI systems.
Is Amazon getting into the AI agent game? Amazon, which far better known for its AWS cloud computing division than for big moves in enterprise software, is testing new agentic, AI-powered workspace software called Quick Suite, according to internal documents viewed by Business Insider. Quick Suite empowers “every business user to make better decisions, faster, and act on them swiftly by unifying Al agents for business insights, deep research, and automation into a single experience,” said one of the confidential documents. According to the reporting, several companies have been given a private preview of the new technology, and Amazon recently sent out invitations for an internal beta test, which said: “With over 40% of business users expected to adopt Al-enhanced work environments soon, AWS is positioned to lead this shift by providing integrated solutions that help organizations — including our own — effectively deploy and scale Al agents in the workplace.”
AI CALENDAR
Sept. 8-10: Fortune Brainstorm Tech, Park City, Utah. Apply to attend here.
Oct. 6-10: World AI Week, Amsterdam
Oct. 21-22: TedAI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
Dec. 2-7: NeurIPS, San Diego
Dec. 8-9: Fortune Brainstorm AI San Francisco. Apply to attend here.
EYE ON AI NUMBERS
30%
That’s the share of workers who say they’re comfortable with AI acting as their boss, according to recent research from enterprise software company Workday.
While 75% of employees say they’re fine teaming up with AI agents, only 30% draw the line at being managed by one. The survey highlights a clear tension: adoption is surging—82% of organizations are expanding their use of AI agents—but trust remains uneven.
“We’re entering a new era of work where AI can be an incredible partner, and a complement to human judgement, leadership, and empathy,” said Kathy Pham, vice president of AI at Workday. “Building trust means being intentional in how AI is used and keeping people at the center of every decision.”
Successful investor Jim Mellon is always a voice worth listening to. Recently, he appeared on The Master Investor Podcast, where he made some interesting points about the stock market. Let’s take a look at a couple of them.
AI bubble
The first thing worth mentioning is that Mellon isn’t buying hype around artificial intelligence (AI) stocks. He thinks the AI boom is essentially a bubble that’s destined to pop, saying that the “great bust…will inevitably come in AI in the relatively near future. We don’t know when, but sure enough, there will be a bust“.
He’s also bearish on Magnificent 7 stocks, pointing out that basically every single financial institution and many retail investors already hold them. They make up a big chunk of the S&P 500. Who, he asks, are “the marginal extra buyers” when everyone already owns the stocks?
To my mind though, this was true six months ago. Yet shares of Nvidia and Microsoft are up 47% and 30%, respectively, while Alphabet popped 9% yesterday (3 September) to hit a record high. Clearly, there are still enough buyers around to keep cash flowing into these names.
However, I feel he makes a good point when he says that most cloud giants are essentially doing the same thing. They’re all building AI data centres, packed mainly with Nvidia chips, to pump out similar AI models. Mellon likens this to railroads in the 1850s, where most shareholders in rail companies didn’t do very well.
I do think there’s a risk of ‘commoditisation’ for AI start-ups, meaning they’re all producing very similar products. And that’s why I think the latest valuations of OpenAI and Anthropic — $500bn and $183bn, respectively — look crazy. This part of the AI market is a bubble waiting to pop, in my opinion.
However, I don’t think the likes of Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN) and Alphabet are at insane levels. They already have very large profits to back up their valuations.
Robotics revolution
In the podcast episode, Mellon said he’s uber-bullish on humanoid robotics: “We will have more robots on the planet by 2050 than there are human beings, many more, and they will be doing everything.”
At first glance, this world in 25 years would appear to suit Nvidia. Humanoids need huge computing power for vision, movement, and decision-making. Billions of robots would mean surging demand for Nvidia’s AI chips/robotics platforms, unless Chinese competition intensifies.
However, I also think Amazon stands to gain massively from this revolution. With over 1m robots deployed, Amazon’s robotic workforce is nearly matching its human staff of roughly 1.5m. Millions more advanced bots would mean faster picking, packing and shipping, with lower labour costs.
Meanwhile, autonomous delivery vans and last-mile robots – both of which Amazon is heavily investing in – could cut costs further. The end result may be noticeably higher profit margins.
Because, as Mellon says, robots “are able to work 24 hours a day, don’t pay National Insurance, not yet anyway, although they may do in the future, don’t complain and are non-unionised.”
Of course, there’s more to Amazon than just robots. It’s facing near-term uncertainty with tariffs, which could lead to higher prices and a slowdown in its core e-commerce operation.
But trading on a reasonable forward price-to-earnings ratio of 32, I think the stock is worth considering for long-term investors.
The NFL is a quarterback-driven league, but it’s a quarterback hunter who made the most dramatic offseason splash.
All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons, traded from the Dallas to Green Bay, should command a big share of the spotlight as the NFL kicks off the 2025 season this weekend with a slew of intriguing matchups, including Parson’s Packers playing host to the Detroit Lions, who have gone from league laughingstock to vogue Super Bowl pick.
Cowboys fans are still agonizing over the Parsons trade, even though their team got two first-round draft picks and Pro Bowl defensive lineman Kenny Clark in the deal, and shellshocked quarterback Dak Prescott responded to the news with a Texas-sized understatement: “I’m not going to say we’re better.”
No time to lament now, as Dallas faces Super Bowl champion Philadelphia on Thursday night in the annual kickoff opener. It’s one of eight divisional matchups in Week 1, with another being the Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs squaring off Friday night in São Paulo, Brazil. That’s the first of seven international games this season, the most ever for the NFL. Gone are the days when the league simply staged a few games in London. This season also features games in Germany, Ireland, Spain and, for the second consecutive year, Brazil.
Not only do the Chargers open with the defending AFC champions, but they will play three consecutive AFC West games in the first three weeks — at Las Vegas in Week 2, and home against Denver in Week 3. It’s a rollicking ramp-up in a division of Mount Rushmore-type head coaches — Andy Reid of Kansas City, Sean Payton of Denver, Pete Carroll of Las Vegas and Jim Harbaugh of the Chargers.
The Rams, meanwhile, open at home Sunday against the Houston Texans, the team that nine months ago delivered an opening-round knockout of the Chargers in the playoffs.
The most pressing issue for the Rams? The health status of quarterback Matthew Stafford, who missed much of summer practices with back problems.
The 37-year-old quarterback recently told reporters he’s doing whatever he can to ensure he’s ready to play.
“Done a ton of research just trying to help myself out,” Stafford said.
Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford is looking to stay healthy after missing most of training camp with a back issue.
(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)
As usual, quarterbacks will be a focal point again this season, with Aaron Rodgers now in Pittsburgh, Sam Darnold in Seattle and two more familiar players taking snaps for the New York teams, Justin Fields with the Jets and Russell Wilson with the Giants.
Pittsburgh opens at the Jets, meaning Rodgers returns to the place he called home the past two seasons. He downplayed that reunion recently in a conversation with Mad Dog Sports Radio’s Adam Schein, saying, “A lot has changed over there, coaching staff‑wise, player‑wise. Obviously, I have friendships over there, but it’s one game out of 17.”
Then there are the sophomore quarterbacks, if you will, including rising second-year stars Jayden Daniels in Washington, Bo Nix in Denver, Michael Penix in Atlanta and Drake Maye in New England. In Minnesota, former Michigan standout J.J. McCarthy assumes the helm after sitting out his rookie season with a knee injury.
Mike Vrabel returns to coach New England, where he was a defensive star with the Patriots, and Ben Johnson takes over in Chicago after helping draw up so much success for Jared Goff and the Lions as Detroit’s offensive coordinator. The Bears play host to Minnesota in the first Monday night game of the season.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes looks to pass during a preseason game against the Chicago Bears on Aug. 22.
(Ed Zurga / Associated Press)
Every season, either records are broken or players move up the charts. Some to watch include Kansas City’s Patrick Mahomes, who needs five touchdown passes to reach 250 in the fewest games, and career completions by Rodgers, who likely will move into the top five in the first month of the season. Keep an eye on Jacksonville kicker Cam Little, who made a 70-yard field goal in a preseason game; the record long is 66 yards by Justin Tucker in a 2021 game.
Also in 2021, Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt got to quarterbacks 22½ times to tie the single-season sack record set by Michael Strahan 20 years earlier. Could that mark fall this season? Watt is still around, as are elite pass rushers such as Aidan Hutchinson of Detroit, Myles Garrett of Cleveland and Jared Verse of the Rams.
Oh, and a new guy in Green Bay.
“I didn’t think I’d be traded,” said Parsons, who collected 52½ sacks in four seasons with the Cowboys. He said he’s determined to prove the Packers “were right about me.”
Greyson Chance has turned his solemn eyes into bright and vivid colors by launching the very limited-edition collectible figurine named ‘Lil G,’ something that would only be available to people visiting the Gold Tour all over the country. The singer declared it to be his “magnum opus”; he did it with the best of designers and it even had touches of 24-carat gold! Put so thinly, the very limited availability has, of course, stirred quite the frenzy in the masses of worldwide fans.
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Greyson Chance has yet again given his fans a new object to obsess over, and it is not quite music to speak of. The singer shared on Instagram his “magnum opus,” i.e., a highly meticulous collectible, ‘Lil G.’ Chance narrates in his post’s video that he worked with “the world’s best designers, architects and craftsmen” to birth this figure. It has details like spiky hair and a 24-karat chain of gold: Think of it as a little fancy version of the artist himself.
The ‘Lil G’ would be a big catch if it were available for release to be sold generally. In fact, no person can get it online, nor shall one find its little’ form on any regular shelves in any store anywhere. It is only by coming up to Chance’s Gold Tour that one may get a hold of an ‘Lil G.’ “You can only get Lil G exclusively on the gold tour,” he states firmly in the video. “So if you don’t have a ticket yet… you better get one!”
The announcement simply captioned “ok everyone say hi to my little prince” quickly gathered responses from fans all over the world-many were thrilled, some downright desperate.
An admirer from the Philippines wrote, “Aww so cute!! I love you Greyson!! How wonderful! ✨✨ What a sentiment!.” The comments could really tell an upbeat crowd as a few came in the waffles’ native language, then were translated, all screaming out in love and urgency.
For those who somehow ended up missing out on joining the tour, it felt like hell. “NOOOO i don’t own a passport pls ill do anything for him 😭,” one cried out, emphasizing the practically real barrier to travel for most supporters. “I want one! I need one! But you never come here,” another wench cried, expressing frustration about tour sites.
These collectibles also sparked comments about the style. “The Versace chain, the McQueen boots, and the simple Prada tank. Love what you did with this,” remarked the thoughtful fan appreciating the high-fashion references in the design. Chance replied, adding personality to the launch, “he’s a humble boy!!.”
This buzz could hardly be asked without a few pragmatic questions such as “WILL IT BE AVAILABLE FOR THE REST OF THE WORLD NEXT YEAR TOO OR ONLY FOR THIS PART OF THE TOUR?” asked eagerly, hoping for a general release. “Is there any way you can put them on your website merch store as well too?😍🥹😍🥹😍🥹,” asked another. No announcement has yet come from Chance regarding this wider release.
Some compared ‘Lil G’ to other famous collectibles. “Way better than a labubu,” one commented, citing a famous toy brand to tilt the comparison in favor of Chance’s creation.
What a lovely surprise for the ones who’ll be there! One of the lucky ones already wrote, “good thing i’m going then 😌,” in anticipation of the exclusive merch. Another one checked in with, “yes lemme get one!!! see you in manila ❤️”.
Beneath it all, there were truly genuine feelings for Chance himself. One fan shared, “You are so adorable and you music makes me so happy your voice is absolutely beautiful,” underlining the fact that beneath this product launch is a genuine artist-fan relationship.
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Greyson Chance’s ‘Lil G’ tackles far beyond a collectible pack-a-punch into a strategic and fan-centric attempt that bind together art, accessibility, and exclusivity. It leaves some wanting for more, but it surely makes the Gold Tour that much more desirable.
In 2000, Elizabeth Gilbert, a successful magazine writer and author of short stories who would go on to even greater acclaim with the publication of “Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia” six years later, went to get her hair cut by Rayya Elias and ended up meeting her best friend. The two spent years as close friends — through Gilbert’s two marriages to men, adaptation of her memoir into a movie starring Julia Roberts and subsequent books — before Elias’ 2016 terminal pancreatic and liver cancer diagnosis made Gilbert realize she was in love with her. They had a short but tumultuous relationship, battling each other over substance abuse issues as Elias’ cancer progressed. When Elias died, Gilbert realized she was suffering from an addiction too: one to sex and love.
Shelf Help is a wellness column where we interview researchers, thinkers and writers about their latest books — all with the aim of learning how to live a more complete life.
After that death, Gilbert set off on a journey of recovery that included a romance with Simon MacArthur, a longtime friend of Elias. Gilbert’s latest memoir, “All the Way to the River: Love, Loss, and Liberation,” is her account of how devastating heartbreak helped her come to terms with her addiction and set her on a path toward healing.
The Times spoke with Gilbert about how to recognize signs of sex and love addiction in ourselves and how to learn to be OK on our own. Now cleared for romance, the author has a sober dating plan intended to create boundaries and avoid jumping into another relationship too quickly. “The better care I take of myself, the less stressful the world feels,” Gilbert says, “and whatever energy is left over, I pour into my work, my friends and my community.”
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
What were some warning signs for you that you had a problem with sex and love?
Intimate relationships have been a cause of pain and struggle for me from my early teens until I finally found the help I needed at age 50. For 35 years, I used my romantic and sexual partners the way other folks use drugs. I was constantly looking outside myself for both stimulation and sedation. I found partners I could get high on, and other partners who would calm me down. I was constantly overlapping relationships, always either running away from someone or toward someone else. I was never able to settle my nervous system, find contentment with anyone or take care of my interior life. Though I knew my behaviors were harmful to myself and others, I could not stop compulsively repeating the same patterns. It was exhausting, shame-inducing and, as I’ve heard sex and love addiction described, about as satisfying as hijacking a revolving door.
How did the discovery that you were a sex and love addict change your worldview?
There was relief in finally being able to name the thing: “Ah! So that’s what’s wrong with me!” It was soothing to sit in a room with other people who behaved in many of the same ways I did. People told the truth about behaviors I’d always tried to hide, and being able to talk about these behaviors released so much of my shame and gave me a safe community in which to heal.
“For 35 years, I used my romantic and sexual partners the way other folks use drugs,” Elizabeth Gilbert says.
(Deborah Lopez)
Through recovery, what have you learned about how to build healthier relationships?
The goal of my recovery is to end up in a healthy and sustainable relationship with myself. I’d always looked outside myself for a partner who could rescue me. Over the last six years of recovery, I’ve learned how to take full accountability for my own life, how to self-soothe, and how to become securely attached to myself. I now trust that there is a sober, sane, emotionally stable, well-resourced and compassionate adult woman at the wheel of my life. It is now inconsequential to me whether I ever end up in a romantic relationship again; I have a reliable life partner, and it’s myself.
You write about being “lost in the endless search for connection.” Does this search feel over to you, and what do you do with the extra energy and love you have to give?
It takes an immense amount of love and energy to keep one human being (myself) thriving. For years, my codependency and enmeshment kept me focused on making sure all my partner’s needs were met, so that, ideally, they might take care of me. It’s inefficient and exhausting to pour all your love and resources into one person, with the hopes they might someday give you some of it back. Now, I’m learning how to pour that love, energy, and care directly into myself, which is so much more gratifying. My creativity is thriving, my friendships are richer than ever, I’ve been traveling more, and showing up in the world as a whole and contented person. The better care I take of myself, the less stressful the world feels, and whatever energy is left over, I pour into my work, my friends and my community.
How is sex and love addiction similar to and different from other types of addiction?
A good description for addiction is “false worship” — making something or somebody into your God and sacrificing everything to it. Our culture teaches us that disappearing into another person’s heart is what “love” means, and women, especially, are taught not only to seek this kind of extreme attachment, but that they are worthless without it. At the beginning of my recovery, I was asked, “What is this behavior costing you? Why don’t you believe that you can take care of yourself? And why don’t you believe that they can take care of themselves?” Those questions helped me see the level of my addiction. Historically, I have always needed to be with somebody whom I believed I could not live without, or somebody whom I believed could not live without me. I’d throw away any sense of balance, reason and integrity, all so I could give my all to somebody. As with all types of addictions, I was trying to escape the pain of my reality. The high always works till it doesn’t — then comes the suffering. This kind of mad attraction, attention and abandon comes to a screeching halt when one of the parties changes their mind and starts to pull away. Then comes the withdrawal process, which feels like death. That’s not an exaggeration: the closest I have ever come to both suicide and murder was because of my addiction to another person. I wish I could say this extreme level of disorder and violence is uncommon, but people kill themselves and each other every day because of relationship fixation and obsession. People routinely lose everything (their health, serenity, jobs, money, and families) because of romantic devastation and dysfunction — and still, they have trouble walking away.
(Maggie Chiang / For The Times)
You have now been cleared by your sponsor as “ready to date.” What will that process look like for you?
As part of my recovery, I have a “sober dating plan” intended to create boundaries and brakes around getting to know someone. The plan includes such items as “no weeklong first dates.” Knowing how capable I am of throwing myself into another human being, I’m not in a hurry to go out there and discover if I can survive another relationship. Having had 35 years of relationship drama, it’s been beautiful for me to learn how to find serenity in solitude, and I don’t want to risk throwing away all the gains I’ve made. But should I ever want a partnership, there is a plan in place to keep me as sane and sober as possible through that union.
How do we know when we are depending on someone else too much, and how can we become more emotionally dependent on ourselves?
The first step of all 12-step programs reads, “We came to believe we were powerless over (fill-in-the-blank person, substance or behavior) and that our lives had become unmanageable.” Ask yourself: Has your life become unmanageable? If the answer is yes, you might be in some sort of addiction/dependency crisis. If you come from a background that was dysfunctional, neglectful or abusive, “unmanageable” might just feel like home to you, and it may be difficult to imagine that there could be a simpler, happier way to live. I have learned it’s not necessary to live a life of nonstop unmanageability. No matter how chaotic my history, I can learn how to safeguard my serenity so I don’t have to drag people into my drama anymore or leap headlong into theirs. Moving forward, my emotional labor is to make sure that I remain full — full of creativity, joy, faith, emotional health, esteem, curiosity, rest, courage and the vibrancy of life itself. It’s also my job to hold the belief that others can resource this same inherent fullness within themselves, without requiring me to empty my life into theirs, as proof of love. My ultimate purpose is to be of loving service to the world, and I cannot be that if I have emptied my life into someone else’s.
TAKEAWAYS
From “All the Way to the River”
What do you say to people who believe they’ll never be happy if they don’t find someone with whom to share their life?
I would say the same thing my own higher power said to me in a meditation once: “Honey, why would we have designed the system in such a way as to guarantee your endless misery? Can’t you see that we designed you in such a way that everything you are searching for outside of you exists within you? Call off the search, sweetheart. You contain everything you need.”
