The Pressures of Privilege

Diana Oehrli
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The Pressures of Privilege explores pressure, class, achievement, family legacy, and the responsibilities that come with advantage, through conversations with inheritors, founders, advisors, doctors, artists, writers, and people who have chosen a different path. Hosted by Swiss-American journalist and producer Diana Oehrli, the show asks how we can use what we have well: to live more fully, connect more deeply, and become better stewards of our communities.

  1. 6d ago

    Ep57 Peter Holmes à Court—How to Put Your Privilege to Work for Other People When the Career You Love Costs You Your Family

    In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Peter Holmes à Court, author of Riding with Giants, former co-owner of the South Sydney Rabbitohs alongside Russell Crowe, a media leader at Davos since 2012, and today the Chief Convener of Afrika House in Nairobi, for a conversation about what a person with a lot of opportunity owes to the people who never got the same chances. By his own account, Peter was the youngest CEO of a top 100 company in Australia when he realized that at his pace he would never see his twin boys grow up. He used to say that in a million-dollar salary, $500,000 pays for your work and $500,000 pays for your soul, and he was not prepared to hand over the second half. When his children moved to Europe, he gave up a dream job running the brand of Sydney to follow them and ended up in a French village of 11 people next door to a handmade bicycle factory. Diana, who first met Peter through a writing group in Switzerland, talks with him about what that factory taught him about excellence, why he thinks Davos leaves out the people most affected by its conversations, how he rebuilt his life in Nairobi after a train accident at his wedding, and how he uses his position as an outsider to point a spotlight at African artists and photographers. By the end of this episode, you will know: → How to decide which part of your life belongs to your soul, and why Peter left a job he loved to be present for his children and to invest in young people, whether they are his own or not. → What a handmade bicycle factory taught Peter about excellence in work, why he believes meaningful work is built into human beings, and what a spotless kitchen shows about work you do for how it feels to you. → What Peter says Davos gets wrong, how to pack a room with a real cross-section of people, and why he is proud to have helped seat a man from a refugee camp as a Davos co-chair alongside the CEO of Microsoft. → How Peter calls himself a compulsive convener and why he can handle not knowing whether three people or 42 will turn up tonight. → How helping others became part of Peter's recovery after a train accident at his wedding in Zimbabwe, and why he says there is no hierarchy of trauma. → How to use your privilege and your outsider status as a spotlight on other people's excellence, from Kenyan photographers who see their own country differently than a visiting photographer does to artists who cannot get a visa to attend shows of their own work abroad. → How Peter builds a different deal with each artist at Afrika House, from a 50-50 split to 80-20, to helping a mate for nothing so the relationship does not become exploitative. → Why he calls GDP the wrong scorecard and what he wants politicians held accountable for instead. This episode is for anyone who holds the title, the seat at the table, or the opportunity... and has started to ask quietly what it is all for. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction and Peter's Background(00:00:53) - Meeting in the Writing Group(00:03:40) - The Value of Community and Convening(00:05:53) - Writing Process and Substack vs Books(00:09:13) - Walking Away from Corporate Success for Family(00:13:41) - The Bicycle Factory in France and Meaningful Work(00:17:22) - Capitalism, Work, and Finding Flow(00:23:32) - Lessons from Davos and Missing Voices(00:29:51) - Values from Parents and Grounding Kids(00:32:33) - The Train Wreck and Move to Nairobi(00:36:30) - Lessons from France Applied to Africa House(00:39:58) - Shining a Spotlight on Others(00:41:34) - African Art, Photography, and Authentic Representation(00:49:21) - Avoiding Exploitation with Artists(00:52:34) - Rethinking GDP and Measuring What Matters(00:54:51) - Featured Artists and Their Stories(00:57:08) - Closing Remarks and Where to Find Africa House

    Ep57 Peter Holmes à Court—How to Put Your Privilege to Work for Other People When the Career You Love Costs You Your Family

  2. Oct 18

    Ep56 Dr. Jud Brewer—How to Stop Anxiety From Running Your Life Even When Control Has Stopped Working

    In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Dr. Jud Brewer, a psychiatrist and brain scientist who runs research at the Mindfulness Center at Brown University and wrote the New York Times bestseller Unwinding Anxiety, for a conversation about why money and control fail to quiet an anxious mind. Dr. Brewer's lab began with smoking, then moved to eating, and found that anxiety was driving the eating. A suggestion from the 1980s that anxiety runs like a habit became the foundation of a new program. In a randomized controlled trial with people who have generalized anxiety disorder, it produced a 67% reduction in anxiety, compared with 14% for people who received medication and psychotherapy. He has treated billionaires, and he says their anxiety works exactly like anyone else's. Only the subject of the worry changes. Diana, drawing on her own experience of how control can become its own addiction, talks with Dr. Brewer about willpower, grit, unearned guilt, raising children in privileged families, and Your Life the Game, the game he is building to teach teenagers curiosity and kindness. They also touch on Mindshift Recovery, the free program he co-founded for people breaking addictive habits. By the end of this episode, you will know... → How anxiety forms a habit loop in which the feeling triggers worrying, which hands you an illusion of control, and how to map your own loop with one question: what am I getting from this? → Why there is no evidence that any amount of anxiety improves performance, and how a 1908 study of Japanese dancing mice grew into a myth that still shapes how people think about stress. → Why Dr. Brewer says there is no neural evidence for willpower, and what is actually driving the habits you credit to discipline. → How to meet a craving or a wave of worry with curiosity, and why the longest craving any patient has timed in Dr. Brewer's clinic lasted 13 minutes. → What distress tolerance is, why Dr. Brewer says it has more science behind it than grit, and how Diana learned to sit with unearned guilt and then do the right thing anyway. → Why wealth cannot buy a way out of your relationship with yourself, and what Dr. Brewer has seen in his billionaire patients. → Why protecting children from discomfort can leave them less prepared, and how Dr. Brewer's lab practices leaning into discomfort with a weekly hill workout. → How to stay balanced when someone you love is suffering, so you can help without turning their pain into your own distress. This episode is for anyone who has quietly believed that enough money or enough control would finally settle the worry... and has never been shown what to do when it doesn't. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Dr. Jud Brewer(00:02:13) - From Stressed Med Student to Mindfulness Researcher(00:03:17) - Discovering Anxiety as a Habit(00:05:25) - Debunking the Myth of Optimal Anxiety(00:08:20) - Brain Science of Craving and the Self-Referential Network(00:09:37) - The Worry Loop and Illusion of Control(00:11:29) - Why Willpower Doesn't Really Exist(00:14:12) - Habit Formation and Bigger Better Offers(00:15:47) - Debunking Grit and Understanding Distress Tolerance(00:18:42) - Sitting with Guilt and Difficult Emotions(00:21:52) - Privilege, Wealth, and Anxiety(00:23:47) - Protecting Kids from Discomfort vs Building Resilience(00:25:04) - Training Distress Tolerance and Equanimity(00:27:27) - Supporting Loved Ones Through Suffering(00:30:19) - Anxiety in Young People and Social Media(00:32:43) - Building 'Your Life' Game for Teens(00:34:52) - Advice for Parents of Anxious Kids(00:36:10) - Grief, Anxiety, and Coping Habits(00:37:36) - The Bigger Better Offer Explained Further(00:39:25) - Timing Cravings and Leaning In(00:42:15) - Self-Reliance vs External Support in Recovery(00:43:38) - Mind Shift Recovery Meetings and App(00:45:52) - Glucose, Cortisol, and Stress Experiment(00:47:40) - Closing Thoughts and Where to Find Dr. Jud

    Ep56 Dr. Jud Brewer—How to Stop Anxiety From Running Your Life Even When Control Has Stopped Working

  3. Oct 11

    Ep55 Mark Drax—How to Stop Believing You Are a Monster When an Abusive Childhood Taught You to Hate Yourself

    In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Mark Drax, an ICF-certified addiction recovery coach and a disciple of Dr. Gabor Maté, for a conversation about what happens when a boy from a secure home, with private schools and every advantage on paper, grows into a man who spends decades hiding. Mark was never into drink or drugs. At six foot eight, with white hair pulled into a ponytail, he walked into his first treatment center in 2004 and was told to stop and be a good boy. It took years of searching and the right therapist to find what sat underneath: an addiction to secrecy and rage that began with a nanny who beat him for the first four years of his life, beyond his parents' knowledge, long before he was sent away to boarding school at eight. Diana, who met Mark about 10 years ago at addiction conferences in London and Cape Cod, walks with Mark through the night in September 2018 when a chaplain stayed with him and the work of building a life with nothing left to hide. By the end of this episode, you will know... → Why addiction so often has little to do with the substance or the behavior, and how to ask what problem it is solving, using the question Mark puts to every client: why? → How to tell whether a habit has become a problem, using Mark's test of stopping for a week, then three weeks, and noticing the irritability and frustration that surface. → Why a child who is hurt by the adults responsible for his safety decides that he himself must be bad, and how that belief grows into the monster so many adults think they carry. → How to tell your therapist the whole truth, and what it cost Mark to spend years telling his therapist only what he thought she wanted to hear. → How to respond to a child's curiosity, from the spilled apples in the supermarket to the wire hanger near a power socket, so the child learns he is lovable. → Why the fear of asking for help gets built in childhood, and what Gabor Maté's question, "When all this was happening to you, who did you tell?" reveals about a generation of children who tell no one. → How to make peace with parents who gave only what they were taught to give, so you can miss them and love them without guilt or shame. → What it feels like to stand in front of a room with nothing to hide, and why Mark says the truth sets a person free. This episode is for anyone who has spent years believing something monstrous lives inside them... and has never once been asked what happened first. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Mark Drax(00:01:55) - Discovering Sex Addiction and Early Treatment(00:04:26) - Roots of Trauma: The Nanny and Ayahuasca Revelations(00:06:18) - Boarding School Horrors(00:10:29) - From Victim to Bully: Teen Years and Rage(00:12:25) - Father's Coldness and Internalized Shame(00:15:08) - The Night at Beachy Head Cliff(00:19:21) - Saved by the Chaplain and Policeman(00:22:04) - Recovery, Therapy, and Telling the Truth(00:24:34) - What He Wished His Father Had Asked(00:26:49) - Gabor Mate's Lesson: Who Did You Tell?(00:30:27) - Teaching Children Safety and Curiosity(00:34:19) - Finding Peace with Parents After Their Deaths(00:37:09) - University in Australia and Career Path(00:39:45) - Becoming a Coach: Filling the Aftercare Gap(00:43:56) - Defining and Recognizing Sex Addiction(00:46:48) - The Cycle of Secrecy, Betrayal, and Shame(00:50:20) - Living in Truth and Finding Peace(00:53:27) - Meeting Yvette and Finding Love(00:56:28) - Message to His Younger Self(00:58:45) - Clifftalk, the Upcoming Book, and Closing Thoughts

    Ep55 Mark Drax—How to Stop Believing You Are a Monster When an Abusive Childhood Taught You to Hate Yourself

  4. Oct 5

    Ep54 Tammy Buss—How to Hand Down a Family Business When Everyone Is Quietly Assuming a Different Plan

    In this episode of The Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Tammy Buss, founder of BlueRoots and a family enterprise advisor, for a conversation about what happens to a family when a business gets handed down and the hard conversations never get had. Tammy spent more than 30 years building her own business in financial services, then lived through her own succession, selling parts of it to an employee, a third party, and one of her sons. She thought the first podcast she recorded with her husband and sons went well. They told her afterward that she had never said any of it out loud. For the last 10 years she has worked full-time as a family enterprise advisor, helping families say what they have been assuming. She is also the author of Passing Down Your Success and Dream It, Build It, and Pass It On. Diana, drawing on her background as a Mayo Clinic-trained coach and her own lived experience with a family trust that reached its liquidation date after trust between family members had worn thin, walks with Tammy through the three-circle model and the assumptions that cost families the most. By the end of this episode, you will know... → How to use the three-circle model of family, ownership, and business to work out which of the seven positions you and each relative occupy, and why knowing which hat someone is wearing changes how you answer their question. → How to separate a business perk from a family perk, using Tammy's example of the sales role that comes with a car and the sibling who wants one too. → Why assumptions are the biggest cost in a family business, and how Tammy interviews each family member separately to surface what everyone believes before anyone sits at the same table. → How to answer the question "When should the family have known?" when an owner brings in an outside partner and a child working in the business feels blindsided. → How to run a first family meeting: send an agenda in advance so no one braces for bad news, list everything the family owns (the cottage included), and let the family choose where to start. → Why founders struggle to walk away even when they know it is time, and what Tammy asks them to picture five years from now. → How a family can let one branch take its share while another carries the business forward, and why the feuding often begins years later when the outcomes look very different. → Why you can keep a business in the family without running it yourself, and what Tammy means by keeping the golden goose and having someone else farm it This episode is for anyone who inherited a family enterprise or stands to, and has quietly wondered how much of what everyone believes about who gets what and who leads was ever actually said out loud. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Tammy Buss and Pressures of Privilege(00:01:16) - Tammy's Journey as a Family Business Survivor(00:06:27) - How Family Enterprise Advisors Help Facilitate Conversations(00:10:28) - Understanding the Three Circle Model(00:20:30) - Trusts, Ownership, and Complex Family Structures(00:23:53) - Assumptions and the Avoided Conversations Families Need(00:29:39) - Values, Legacy, and Family History(00:31:38) - Entitlement vs. Lack of Opportunity in Next Gen(00:35:47) - Trust, Liquidation, and Family Feuds(00:39:16) - Why Founders Struggle to Let Go(00:42:33) - What Successful Family Transitions Look Like(00:43:42) - First Steps for Families Facing Transition(00:46:09) - Closing Thoughts and How to Reach Tammy

    Ep54 Tammy Buss—How to Hand Down a Family Business When Everyone Is Quietly Assuming a Different Plan

  5. Sep 30

    The Consumer and the Steward

    In this solo episode of The Pressures of Privilege, the third in her stewardship series, host Diana Oehrli returns to a February night in 2012 in the Swiss Alps, when snow kept piling up outside her chalet in Gstaad, her phone stayed silent, and an iced-over windshield made the two-hour drive to Geneva almost impossible to see through. Diana was in the middle of a painful breakup, barely sleeping, and trying to get one person to love her back. She had just read Belle Burden's Strangers, and Burden's account of rejection and hollowness took her straight back to that drive. Diana shares a story that has mostly stayed private until now, along with what she took from Burden's choice to turn her pain into contribution. Drawing on her own lived experience of how little money protects you from heartbreak, Diana draws the line between two ways of asking the same life question: the consumer asks, "What am I going to get?" and the steward asks, "What can I do with what I have?" By the end of this episode, you will know: → How to recognize when your whole focus has collapsed around getting something from another person, such as reassurance or validation, and why Diana calls that the consumer's question. → How to ask the steward's question, "What can I do with what I have?" when pain has narrowed your world down to who left and who loves you. → Why Belle Burden's pro bono legal work for immigrants fleeing violence is stewardship in Diana's eyes, and why judging a wealthy person's pain by her balance sheet leaves the pain unseen. → How to move from asking who is going to love you to asking who you could love, starting with the people already in your life. → Why the writing Diana did at the Geneva Writers Conference began her journey back to herself, and how putting your own story into words can be a first step for you. → What Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Tara Swart said at the Oxford Transformed Trauma Conference when someone asked how you can love yourself when no one loved you, from journaling and gratitude to a loving community and the risk they say you have to take. This episode is for anyone who has quietly wondered who has sympathy for the pain of someone who seems to have it all... and what to do with the love they still have to give. If you are struggling with thoughts of suicide or self-harm, you're not alone. In the U.S. call or text 988. In the U.K., call Samaritans free on 116-123. Chapters (00:00:06) - Reading Strangers and the memory it triggers(00:00:34) - The Gstaad drop-off and the frozen call(00:02:58) - The call to Fritz and the harsh rejection(00:04:02) - The other woman and suspicions(00:06:01) - Driving through the Alps, memories and despair(00:07:40) - The gas station and windshield fluid struggle(00:08:31) - Highway pileup and thoughts of giving up(00:09:04) - Calling Marianne and finding a reason to live(00:10:15) - Arriving in Geneva and small kindnesses(00:11:13) - Reflections on Strangers, wealth, and empathy(00:12:49) - The consumer versus the steward(00:13:27) - Learning you are love, and closing thoughts

    The Consumer and the Steward

  6. Sep 27

    Ep53 Dr. Lindsay Emmerson—How to Stop Chasing Perfect Parenting

    In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Dr. Lindsay Emmerson, a psychologist and mother of four who has spent her career turning decades of parenting research into tools that hold up in the middle of a real meltdown, not just on a whiteboard. Lindsay's research points to something most parents have never been told: getting it right about half the time is enough to raise a child who turns out great. She walks through the four parenting styles psychologists actually study, why the pendulum swung from strict households to permissive ones and back again, and why only one of the four, not the other three, is genuinely linked to bad outcomes. Diana, drawing on her own years raising two kids as a working single mother in a Swiss mountain village and the guilt she still carries over a garbage bag full of Playmobil, walks with Lindsay through the research, the mom rage nobody wants to admit to, and the small shifts that change a family's whole dynamic. By the end of this episode, you will know... → How to use Lindsay's 50 percent rule to measure your own parenting instead of an impossible standard, and why the research says warmth and consistency about half the time still produce the same secure, thriving kids. → How to tell the difference between authoritarian, permissive, authoritative, and neglectful parenting, and why only the last one is the one that actually damages a child. → How to use the scaffolding method, laundry included, to hand your child real independence one rung at a time instead of doing it for them or expecting it all at once. → Why the after-school meltdown you dread is proof of a secure attachment bond, not proof that you are doing something wrong. → How to build a chore routine your kids will actually stick with, and why doing them together beats assigning them and hoping. → How to praise effort instead of traits without abandoning the plain, ordinary good job or saying you're smart, and how Carl Rogers' idea of unconditional positive regard separates a hard moment from your child's worth. → What the research on daycare, nannies, and working parents actually says about attachment, and where the real risk line sits. → Why “mom rage” caught Lindsay by surprise even with a psychology degree, and what she now tells parents caught in the yell-then-apologize cycle. This episode is for anyone who has stood in a wrecked living room, a garbage bag of toys in hand, wondering if today was the day they finally proved they weren't cut out for this... Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Dr. Lindsay Emerson(00:01:28) - Where Parenting Pressure Comes From(00:03:07) - Social Media and Parenting Comparisons(00:04:35) - Generational Shifts: Authoritarian to Permissive(00:06:38) - Authoritative Parenting: Warmth Plus Structure(00:08:00) - Personal Story: Swiss Alps Parenting and Chores(00:10:10) - Teaching Responsibility and the Loving Authority(00:12:29) - Chore Strategies for Kids(00:13:43) - Scaffolding and Zones of Proximal Development(00:17:09) - Balancing Work and Chore Time(00:19:45) - Diana's Personal Story: School and Loss of Lunch Ritual(00:20:49) - After-School Restraint Collapse(00:22:05) - Surprises of Parenting and Losing Your Temper(00:25:08) - Normalizing Parental Anger and Yelling(00:26:15) - Secure Attachment Bonds Explained(00:29:09) - What Parents Overemphasize vs What Matters(00:30:12) - Working Parents, Nannies, and Daycare(00:32:13) - Diana's Childhood Nanny Story(00:34:56) - The 80/20 Positive-Negative Interaction Ratio(00:37:04) - Praising Effort vs Praising Traits(00:39:09) - Unconditional Positive Regard(00:41:04) - Working with Older Kids and the Five Cs(00:42:20) - Dealing with Mean Girls and Peer Pressure(00:44:12) - Hobbies, Downtime, and Overscheduling Kids(00:45:55) - Playmobil Chaos and Reaching Your Limit(00:46:32) - Reassurance for Parents Who Feel They're Failing(00:49:04) - Where to Find Dr. Lindsay Emerson(00:49:43) - Closing Thoughts and Outro

    Ep53 Dr. Lindsay Emmerson—How to Stop Chasing Perfect Parenting

  7. Sep 20

    Ep52 Sara Vetter—How to Heal Your Relationship With Money When Having Plenty Still Feels Like Not Enough

    In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Sara Vetter, CEO of the Soul of Money Institute and a longtime work partner of Lynne Twist, author of The Soul of Money, for a conversation about what it takes to feel at home with yourself when a full bank account has never been able to do that for you. Sara grew up in a big Italian ranching family in Central California that farmed almonds and had lots of land. The money belonged to her mother, who held all the power in the house, and it was never discussed. Everything was about appearances. She later married into more wealth and built a beautiful life in Silicon Valley, and the more she had, the less she felt like enough. When her marriage ended, she went looking for what sat underneath the money. That search led her to Lynne Twist, who became her work partner for the next 18 years, and eventually to more than 50 trips into the Amazon rainforest with the Pachamama Alliance. Diana, drawing on her background as a Mayo Clinic-trained coach and her own lived experience navigating the hidden costs of a privileged life, walks with Sara through her money story and her body story and through what Indigenous leaders in the Amazon showed her about wealth held in community. By the end of this episode, you will know... → How to trace your own money story back to the unspoken rules of the home you grew up in, and why Sara says almost everyone, at every income level, carries some version of not enough. → How to spot the three toxic myths about money in your own thinking (there's not enough, more is better, and that's just the way it is), and why the third one keeps so many people of wealth resigned and quiet. → How to ask for money, whether for your own coaching work or a cause you care about, by treating it as enrolling someone in something that will benefit them, and why a no can still hold a gift. → How to examine the story you tell yourself when one partner brought the money and the other did not, and what a partner contributes beyond a dollar sign. → What Indigenous leaders in the Amazon taught Sara about money, including how they make decisions as a community and why they have no hierarchy around it. → What it means to lead from the body, and how Sara moved from performing to being in front of a room. → Why working through your money story in a group teaches you things that private reflection can't, and what happens when you hear that someone else is going through it too. → Why Sara points to Dolly Parton when asked what happens when the power of love replaces the love of power. This episode is for anyone who has stood inside a life full of beautiful things and quietly wondered why the feeling of enough never arrives. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Sarah Vetter and Pressures of Privilege(00:02:11) - Sarah's Childhood Money Story and Wealthy Upbringing(00:04:01) - Marriage, Emptiness, and the Dark Night of the Soul(00:06:10) - Healing and Meeting Lynn Twist(00:08:25) - Transformed Relationship with Money and Contentment(00:09:45) - Rethinking Judgments About Wealth and Villainizing Money(00:13:30) - The Soul of Money and the Three Toxic Myths(00:16:20) - Money as a Mirror: Enrolling vs Selling(00:18:38) - Overcoming Fear of Asking and the Value of 'No'(00:20:13) - Everyone's Not-Enoughness and Unique Money Stories(00:22:18) - Money, Power, and Relationship Dynamics(00:25:09) - Lessons from the Amazon and Indigenous Communities(00:30:17) - Community, Trust, and Transformation in the Amazon(00:31:57) - Embodiment: Leading from the Body, Not Just the Mind(00:35:39) - Play, Joy, and Humor as Vital Life Tools(00:37:00) - Programs, Circles, and the Power of Community(00:40:18) - Love Over Power: The Dolly Parton Example(00:42:05) - Living Fully Expressed and Closing Resources

    Ep52 Sara Vetter—How to Heal Your Relationship With Money When Having Plenty Still Feels Like Not Enough

  8. Sep 13

    Ep51 Dr. Louise Stanger—Keep Falling Up: Addiction, the Myth of Rock Bottom, and How to Help Someone You Love Before It's Too Late

    What actually happens inside a family when someone is drowning in addiction... and everyone around them is quietly drowning too? In this episode of Pressures of Privilege, host Diana Oehrli sits down with Dr. Louise Stanger, who is a nationally recognized interventionist, licensed clinical social worker, founder of All About Interventions, and author of six books, including her most recent, Trauma Is Your Superpower. Named Interventionist of the Year by Harvard-affiliate McLean Hospital in 2024, Dr. Stanger has spent over 40 years working with families at their most vulnerable. She has also lived through six sudden deaths of her own, navigated loss in ways that would break most people, and emerged with a philosophy built not on theory but on hard-won truth: keep falling up. Diana doesn't come to this conversation as a passive interviewer. She brings her own lived experience with love addiction, unprocessed childhood grief, and the particular silence that wealth and privilege tend to demand. That shared honesty makes this exchange something rare. What listeners will learn from this episode is genuinely practical. Dr. Stanger dismantles the dangerous myth that someone must hit rock bottom before help is possible - and explains what to do instead of waiting. She walks through her invitational approach to intervention, including how to prepare the people in the room, how to write a letter built around heart, hurt, and hope, and how to gently break through what she calls the honeycomb of denial without confrontation or ultimatums. She also speaks plainly about how privilege quietly enables addiction—not through cruelty, but through the very resources that allow consequences to disappear before they land. Diana and Dr. Stanger explore how unprocessed grief becomes one of the most overlooked gateways to compulsive behavior, why over-diagnosis can obscure rather than clarify what's really happening, and how to choose a treatment center based on something far more important than price or reputation. And for anyone who has been sitting on the fence, unsure whether to say something or do something or make one uncomfortable phone call on behalf of someone they love... Dr. Stanger makes it very clear what courage actually costs compared to what silence does. Chapters (00:00:00) - Introduction to Dr. Louise Stanger(00:01:55) - What Interventions Really Are(00:03:22) - Rock Bottom, Denial, and Codependency(00:08:07) - How Interventions Work in Practice(00:11:30) - Breaking the Honeycomb of Denial(00:14:20) - Choosing Treatment Facilities and Relapse(00:15:57) - Diana's Own Recovery Story(00:17:53) - Wealth, Isolation, and Asking for Help(00:21:20) - Finding Courage and Hope(00:22:57) - Diana's Childhood Abandonment Story(00:26:28) - Grief, Trauma, and Healing(00:28:03) - Diagnosis vs. Describing Behavior(00:30:02) - Keep Falling Up Philosophy(00:31:47) - Louise's Career and Continued Growth(00:35:13) - Today's Addiction Landscape and Digital Addiction(00:36:39) - Taking the First Brave Step(00:39:05) - Choosing the Right Treatment Center(00:43:32) - Closing Thoughts and Outro

    Ep51 Dr. Louise Stanger—Keep Falling Up: Addiction, the Myth of Rock Bottom, and How to Help Someone You Love Before It's Too Late
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Ratings & Reviews

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out of 5
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About

The Pressures of Privilege explores pressure, class, achievement, family legacy, and the responsibilities that come with advantage, through conversations with inheritors, founders, advisors, doctors, artists, writers, and people who have chosen a different path. Hosted by Swiss-American journalist and producer Diana Oehrli, the show asks how we can use what we have well: to live more fully, connect more deeply, and become better stewards of our communities.

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