Healing Beyond Addiction: A Conversation with Dave Meltzer

What happens when two people with extensive recovery journeys sit down to talk about what they're still struggling with? Magic, vulnerability, and profound wisdom emerge.

Dr. Samantha Harte welcomes Dave Meltzer – successful entrepreneur, sought-after keynote speaker, author, and as she describes him, "an amazing human" – for a raw conversation that quickly moves beyond the expected topics into deeply personal territory. Despite 16 years of sobriety and all the external markers of success, both open up about their ongoing internal work with disarming honesty.

The discussion moves seamlessly between profound topics: the dangers of unhealthy codependency in recovery, the armor we build around our hearts even in loving relationships, and the poisonous nature of guilt and shame. Hart vulnerably shares her current work on disentangling from unhealthy patterns stemming from "mother hunger" while navigating a 22-year marriage rich with both love and betrayal. Meltzer offers his perspective on responding to our natural protective reactions rather than being controlled by them.

Perhaps most moving is Harte's revelation about her evolving grief journey after losing her sister to a drug overdose three years ago. She describes how she's finally reaching a place where she can look for spiritual connection with her sister – something unimaginable to her even six months earlier. This leads to a fascinating exploration of spirituality, with Meltzer sharing his concept of "best option faith" and Harte contemplating the relationship between intuition, highest self, and God.

Whether you're in recovery or simply interested in personal growth, this conversation demonstrates that healing is never "done" – it's a continuous unfolding that reveals new layers of awareness, connection, and meaning throughout our lives. Join these two authentic souls as they model what it means to keep showing up for your own growth while helping others with theirs.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Dave Meltzer Interview
• 1:42 Dave and Samantha's Heartfelt Conversation
• 4:37 Overcoming Codependency and Marriage Struggles
• 10:26 Defeating Guilt and Shame
• 17:50 Finding Meaning After Loss
• 23:08 The Nature of God and Self
• 25:48 Song: Breaking the Circuit

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome back to the truth about addiction.

Speaker 1: 0:03

Today is a different type of episode because I had the privilege of doing a 20 minute interview with Dave Meltzer, and if you don't know who he is, you've got to look him up. He is an unbelievably successful entrepreneur, a very regarded and sought after keynote speaker and an author, and he's also an amazing human. I had no idea during the interview what we would actually discuss. I thought it would be about my work, which to some extent it is, and my book about my work, which to some extent it is, and my book. But we really also talked about spirituality and the things that we are still working through currently, with all the time we've had in personal development, therapy, et cetera, and there's some tearful moments and extremely vulnerable and honest moments. So I know you guys are going to get a lot out of this. If this podcast is helpful to you, please leave a review like subscribe, share it with somebody you love, and I'm just going to keep putting my work out in the world and help as many people as I can. So enjoy the episode.

Speaker 4: 1:42

For our next interview. Not only will David be guiding this once again for the playbook, but we have Dr Samantha Hart that will be joining us. She is a best-selling author, a speaker, and she is the founder of Strong Heart Fitness, which is a studio here in Santa Monica and in the LA area. So, of course, not only can you get your mind and your body healthy, but also lead with your heart. So please put your hands together, not only for David as we welcome him back to the stage, but, of course, to the lovely Dr Samantha Hart.

Speaker 5: 2:21

Big shout out to Leah Notarian.

Speaker 2: 2:23

He's here If any of you want to say hi, hi is this thing on?

Speaker 5: 2:36

is this on? Is this on? All right? All right, let me just do a little, uh, intro for the content side and then we'll get into it. This is one of my favorite people, one of my newer friends, who co-hosts some tv shows with me. Sarah stages with me and constantly elevates me with her energy, her smile and her beauty. I adore her. Here we go. Welcome to the playbook. I'm david melzer. We're here at the sirius xm studios in los angeles and the doctor is in the house. She is a blessing to all. Uh, we appreciate samantha heart because of her heart, but the heart is connected to so many other things. Samantha heart, dr samantha heart, welcome to the playbook it's so good to be here.

Speaker 5: 3:20

I love seeing you I know this is cool. I'm not sure this has happened too many times. We have so conversations, so many different ways that we integrate and help people, but for me, there's an energy about you that goes beyond the trauma, the struggle, the lessons that you help people with by being vulnerable and sharing your own and we share very similar lessons, um, and you're very transparent and vulnerable about your personal journey. Um, I want to start with being able to help people. When we suffer ourselves, it's easy to get lost in helping other people and we get into this thing about. Well, you know, I'm a recovering addict for 16 years, so I'm completely healed. So now I'm going to focus in on everybody else, helping them.

Speaker 5: 4:19

But we're never done with struggle. I always say don't waste the struggle. Done with struggle, I always say don't waste the struggle, don't think it's over, don't waste it. So if I tell you, dr Samantha Hart, you're a recovering addict for 16 years, your life is so much better than it used to be. What do you struggle most with today? Or do you deny it and put it on other people just to help their struggles?

Speaker 1: 4:42

I mean, this is a huge question.

Speaker 5: 4:44

I start fast, because we don't have that much time.

Speaker 1: 4:46

Well, I love that and you know, one of the things that I've had to recover from is unhealthy codependency. So it's a really interesting question because part of the 12-step framework and most spiritual frameworks is being of service and there is something to say for helping somebody else to get out of self. When self is not highest self, when self is your controller or your procrastinator or your fear mind, right, there's something to be said for that. But if you have a history of unhealthy codependency, which I very much come from, it can be dangerous to serve others from an empty well from it can be dangerous to serve others from an empty well. And so some of the work internal work in the last several years has been disentangling myself from unhealthy codependency, which really I understand now came from mother hunger, and there's a book with that title. You know this sense that my mom was mentally ill and never quite there, and if I could just shapeshift who I was, what I said, how I behaved, then maybe she would stay. And it's very dangerous to try to repair a rupture from childhood that we can't repair as opposed to actually grieving it, and then grieving leads to a place where you can actually cultivate the healthy relationships that are reciprocal, that we're actually really longing for, instead of staying in the cycle of dysfunction. So I've definitely been doing work on that and then I've also been doing work around really new work, by the way.

Speaker 1: 6:17

So everything I'm sharing is like fresh off the boat, because I think mentors have mentors who have mentors right. So Dave is one of them and then I have another mentor and my marriage is deep and complicated and rich with love and rich with betrayal, and we've been together for 22 years you could do the math sober for 16, right. So a lot of the dysfunction happened on the front end and it bled into the marriage and even still, you know, two kids later, big house in the suburbs, financially stable all these beautiful things. Later there's an armor, very insidious, subtle armor. That's around my heart. We were together as a family on Sunday, my husband and my two kids, and he gave me this look that was really disarming. He just looked at me with those eyes of God I love you, my husband and my two kids. And he gave me this look. It was really disarming. He just looked at me with those eyes of God.

Speaker 1: 7:09

I love you, you know, and I look at him like that sometimes too right, and later in the day I said what would it take for the way that you just looked at me to be the norm, right, not to be the exception, but to be the rule? And he was like honestly, sam, that's always how I think of you. So when I'm not acting that way, I'm kind of reacting to where you are, which at first made me really sad, and there is a little bit of sadness to that. Am I still guarded? And I think there's a room to work on that? And the other part of that is God damn it. Are you saying I have more work to do? Oh, you know that part. And I'm like OK, girl, you know, buckle up, because yes, you do, yes, you do Right. Anything you resist persists. So that's where I'm at in my current state of healing.

Speaker 5: 7:59

And everyone's in their current state of healing. Yeah. I joke around with my team and I said don't ever worry because economically or business-wise, if things ever slow down, cancel. I'll just start a business branding myself as an expert in mommy issues, and everybody in the world would be like dave belcher's, my man I got a need, uh, which is so funny.

Speaker 5: 8:22

Um, but marriage is a really interesting thing because I share that experience with you as well and have been. It's hard because of guilt, of just being a shit, because of doing the wrong thing, surrounding ourselves with the wrong people with good intentions, like in my heart. Like I listened to stories, we took out my wife's friend and she's like, yeah, when I met Dave Meltzer, I didn't really like. You know, I love Dave. She starts with now. I didn't really like him before. And so my other friend was there who had never met her and said, like why how could you not like Dave? Because he's only known me for the last 10 years? Right, that dave is easy to like? It's like, well, number one, he was obnoxious. Here's what happened he was, you know, over, drank all the time and he was rude to everybody and jumped in his porsche and drove drunk and you know all these things and I'm sitting there listening to it and everything she said was absolutely true.

Speaker 1: 9:32

And I just I'm sad. Yeah, you know it's interesting. We're talking about this because at the root of my suffering many, many years ago in sobriety, by the way, I was five years sober was this unrelenting guilt and shame, and I couldn't make sense of why my marriage was falling apart. You know, I knew he was still angry for what happened, but we moved forward and we got married anyway. And can't you just forgive me? Look at me making a living amends, being a completely different human, and the guilt and shame of who I used to be was clouding my vision for what I deserved, which was actually not that marriage at the time. It was not a good marriage.

Speaker 1: 10:10

And going through the 12-step framework, which is what changed my life in this modern, fresh way, which is eventually what my book became about, allowed me to make an amends to myself for the first time. And really, go wait a minute. If I'm allowed to forgive myself for what I did, if I'd made a bunch of bad choices, really go wait a minute. If I'm allowed to forgive myself for what I did, if I'd made a bunch of bad choices, but I'm not a bad person, then what does it look like? What does it feel like. What does it sound like between my ears to be a woman who does love and forgive herself, who believes that she's worthy of a fulfilling marriage?

Speaker 1: 10:38

And that meant that I had to completely start interrupting the critical self-talk and shifted into compassionate self-talk, not in some fluffy way that you read on the internet of like a random positive affirmation that means nothing to you, in a way that was birthed from what felt most resonant to me, and so I can safely say, from the work I did then, that guilt and shame today almost never corrodes the cells of my being, almost never corrodes the cells of my being, because I do think it is the most poisonous, dangerous thing to our spirits, addict or not, by the way, I have seen it blow the light out of so many people's eyes that I love and I am not interested in dropping to that frequency. But there are other things, like self-righteous indignation, self-pity. Haven't I suffered enough? Can't I just spend the money he's making after what he did, after losing my dad, after losing my sister? Can't I just Now? That shit gets me into trouble, but not guilt and shame.

Speaker 5: 11:39

Yeah, and shame doesn't for me, but guilt it's, you know, for me, for me difficult, but for me it's interesting because that's a reaction to me and it's an instant and obvious, whether it's guilt, shame, blame, justification, worry, frustration, anger, separation, inferiority, superiority, those are reactions that I believe that are there as a human experience to protect me. So it comes in different forms, whether yours is the need to be right, mine's the need to be offended, yours is the need to feel shameful, mine's the need to be guilty. Whatever it may be, I've taken the spot that it's always there and I'm just going to spend minutes and moments into it, and so one of the things I coach people on is the response to the reaction.

Speaker 1: 12:28

Yes.

Speaker 5: 12:29

And I think it's a very, very valuable tool to be able to utilize wisdom and faith to respond to the natural, biochemical, bioanatomical ego that is there to protect you. Yes, ego that is there to protect you, yes, and I find that, even within the 12 steps, even within different recovery programs, therapies, personal development, gurus, that they spend so much time trying to figure out what the heck you're afraid of and the trauma and all of this and they're missing the point in my opinion.

Speaker 5: 13:01

I found it much more pragmatically practical in the human experience to live to your potential, to just focus in on when I'm interfering with my best self. How am I supposed to respond? Yep and so I want to turn that on to you to get your advice. When you react with your in your righteousness or whatever else dis-ease you put into your own reaction, how have you learned to respond to the natural anatomical chemical reaction that we have to fear trauma?

Speaker 1: 13:40

I didn't know at the time of doing the 12-step framework the way I did on my marriage, that there was something extremely therapeutic in that framework. And I don't know if you guys have heard of IFS I'm not a psychologist, right Internal Family Systems but it is a psychological framework that says we have an internal family inside of each of us that's made up of parts, of parts, and essentially when I separated myself in the amends process from my critical part, I suddenly saw this family of parts inside of me. And so when I am reactive, I mean the biggest flex is preemptively feeling it rev up inside of me and going I'm about to act out on this protector part. How do I course correct right now? What are some ways to regulate? Give myself some space, go into the bathroom and lock the door, ground myself outside in nature, go on a walk, all of that.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Sometimes it happens in the aftermath, right? Sometimes I do the reaction and then I have enough personal development to self-reflect and go what was that that like? What part of me just felt that it needed to protect herself, defend herself from some some place of lack, and then can I put words to that so that I can explain it to the person I hurt, or to myself, or to both, and have compassion for it, and then take radical responsibility in the moment for what I'm willing to do differently. So that's what I? Yeah, I mean, it's very similar, you know I think it is.

Speaker 1: 15:08

Yeah.

Speaker 5: 15:09

And within the context of radical responsibility, is the core of being a human being, which is lessons. So one of the frameworks to help with what we struggle with still today, even though we are blessed to be able to help so many other people and write about it, do videos and interviews and TV shows and all the cool shit about it to me is to remind everybody that while we are here, for the sake of what and it falls within accountability or radical responsibility that if you and your perception in this forgiveness, accountability, whatever it is, remind yourself what am I supposed to learn from this? Because there's two little nuances. If you even study Sanskrit or the rules of being human, of course it says one of the rules of being human is getting a human body.

Speaker 5: 16:01

We're here to learn lessons. Lessons will keep on coming until we learn them, but the lessons of human experience that are most interesting to me and most helpful for me and others is you will forget every lesson there ever was. Second, but you have the power to remind, remember and recollect every lesson there ever was. And that led me to the understanding that every problem, the struggle that I get to experience, the solution's already there. It's just a lapse of time before I'm aware.

Speaker 5: 16:42

And that's where time became so for for me, important, because I wanted to shorten that distance or resistance. I wanted to use time not to spend interfering with my best self or helping others as well, but to be able to shorten that distance so I could live at ease and truly experience faith for you in that explanation.

Speaker 5: 17:03

I know there's nuances of that, but I'm curious in the realm of time, do you at all believe that it's just a matter of time until we're aware of the lesson and we actually are forgetting every lesson and remembering all the lessons that ever?

Speaker 1: 17:20

were. I mean, that's such a deep consideration. It's very philosophical what you're saying and there's a lot that comes up for me, you know. So something you guys should know, just because it's a huge part of my story it's why I wrote my book, at least in the beginning. It's why I wrote it is that I lost my sister three years ago to a drug overdose and prior to that I was just a practicing clinician doing physical therapy, you know, whole body, whole person, very high quality care, but missing the spiritual side of wellness. And that prompted this whole journey that I'm on sitting on stages with people like Dave Meltzer now, which is unbelievable.

Speaker 1: 17:54

And I will say that that was one of those things like, if that happens, all bets are off in terms of any type of spiritual development, growth, because whatever God is out there, whatever that is for me, there's no way that that God would allow that thing to happen. I think we all have that like this conditional sense of you know, yes, it's all happening for me and not to me, and at some point, when the intensity of the our suffering lessens and enough time goes by, can we all see it that way. Yes, but there's this condition in the back somewhere of like, but not if not, if that happens, not if that happens and I don't know if I'm free from that, by the way, because where I'm at today, you know it's interesting. We're talking about this today because maybe even six months ago, with the loss of my sister, there was this. I could only go so far in thinking about it and even in trying to remember something good and happy and joyful was too hard because it reminded me of the loss and the loss was too hard to feel, so I shut it down.

Speaker 1: 19:07

And now it's been three years and I'm looking now for signs. I'm looking for my sister. I'm looking to have a connection with her from some other realm. I'm looking to collapse time and space in a way that was unimaginable, unimaginable to me a few months ago. Because maybe she's everywhere and maybe I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be in my divine assignment here on earth, because I never felt in that clinic like I was quite where I was supposed to be. Because she's not here.

Speaker 1: 19:43

And does that have to mean that she died so I could live? No, Can these multiple realities exist at the same time? I'm only now trying to lean in. Now. Is there a way to shift the time continuum and get into a space like this, right when grief strikes, and say I have no idea why this is unimaginable pain, but I know it's good. I know it's good, I don't know. I don't know. I hope I can get there because I know this is not the last hurt I'm going to experience. I don't know if that answers your question, but it's a big, big question.

Speaker 5: 20:20

No, it does. And it's interesting in the idea of at what realm are you capable of the revelation? And so what you explained to me, or what I heard, is I'm in the process of the revelation. And so what you explained to me, or what I heard, is I'm in the process of the revelation of, for the sake of what did my sister pass? And in this understanding, or contextual understanding, of time, I believe faith exists, and you talked about this multiverse or the infinite amount of time and multiple lifetimes, but it doesn't stop the suffering. In this lifetime, and in multiple occasions in my life, I felt punished, um, sometimes still today, but it's time, in my belief, of this idea of best option, and I want to finish with this meaning that we give our own lives in the perspective you had. You have this. People think life happens to them. Then there's these optimists that I used to live in.

Speaker 5: 21:22

You know, things happen for me and then I transcended into, things happen through me which makes me part of the infinite. And in, in this journey or realm, comes this best option faith. People ask me do you believe in God? And I said, well, it depends on what you mean by that.

Speaker 5: 21:42

but I'll tell you what I do believe and if you can give me a better option, I'll take it, because anything that human beings aren't capable of knowing, then I want to just take the best option according to where I want to be, or better so in a simple form, my god is all-powerful, all-knowing, omniscient, infinite in everything intelligence, inspiration, intuition and energy and loves me, protects me, promotes me, perfects me more than my mom, and I put that out to all of you, as I have millions of people. Give me something better, give me a better option, and I will call it my God. Give me something better than that. I'm all in. I love life.

Speaker 5: 22:36

So someone says how can you believe in God and think there's more than one lifetime? How can you believe that, david? I'm like hmm well, nobody can prove it and I love life. So my best option in this life is believe I get millions of them and until you can show me otherwise, I'm all in. Or you can give me a better option than believing in an infinite amount of lifetimes, because I love life and I love lifetimes and I want to learn more. And so these are simple powers of meaning. So, as I finish up, what is the meaning of your past that doesn't cast a shadow on your future? Knowing that you give meaning to everything, you see, mine's a best option, meaning I'm a toptimist combined into a pragmatist.

Speaker 5: 23:22

I'm a metaphysical being that is anal, retentive, OCD time freak who loves the infinite weird combination. What meaning do you give it?

Speaker 1: 23:34

This is what's coming to mind for me.

Speaker 1: 23:35

I was coaching someone the other day and I always thought, up until very recently, that my understanding of God, at least every 24 hours for the most part with the exception of the very strange and serendipitous things that you know we cannot explain was the connection to highest self, intuitive self, which I could finally hear and cultivate a relationship with when I cleared my shame in that amends process, and I've been building that relationship ever since. It's the guidepost for my entire life. However, when I was coaching this client, I said imagine the next hard situation that you're entering, next hard situation that you're entering that in one hand is your highest self and in the other is God, and you're just walking in together and see how it goes from there. And then I thought, wow, that must mean that I think God is separate from intuition. But I used to say, like, the whisper of my intuition is God. So then, if they're separate, is God? And so then I realized this is also. You guys are getting fresh insights like right off the boat. You're welcome.

Speaker 5: 24:40

Not in her book, oh my.

Speaker 1: 24:41

God, this is probably book number two. You guys that perhaps?

Speaker 5: 24:45

Hear to hear of prayers, not the playbook.

Speaker 1: 24:47

Right. If we strip everything away from who we are, all of our things, all of our hurts, all of our traumas, all of the things that make us judge each other and ourselves, and we just get down to our essence, there is that peace of God in all of us, I believe, and if I pulled out the highest version of me and the highest version of you and the highest version of everybody in this room and I smash that energy together, that's God and that's different than just me and my essence, and I want to take that everywhere.

Speaker 5: 25:27

To everyone the incredible Dr Samantha Hart. Thank you. Heart and soul of the playbook. Thanks for joining me.

Speaker 2: 25:34

I'm Thank you, heart and soul of the playbook, thanks for joining me.

Speaker 5: 25:35

I'm David Meltzer.

Speaker 3: 25:48

Come on, inspiration call. I turn my back and hit my head against the wall. Don't need a crucifix to take me to my knees, whipping my mistakes to jump over the grief. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, sick and tired of the voice inside my head Never good enough, it's leaving me for dead. But perfection's just a game of make-believe. Hey, gotta break the pattern, find a new reprieve. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it all.

Speaker 3: 26:40

I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I gotta let this slide. I can be brave and afraid at the same time. Practice self-compassion, start to calm my mind, taking tiny steps to loving all of me. Just the process, cause it's gonna set me free. Breaking the circuit, making it worth it. Oh, I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got the, the life. Gotta gotta gotta break it, or fake it till we make it. Gotta gotta gotta break it. Come on, one, two, three. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no deep inside. I got left alive. I am ready to make a change. I am bigger than my pain. There's no, deep inside I got left alive.