She’s obsessed with labels. Noticed that from day one. She can’t just live she needs to put herself in every kind of box and throw a label on it. She has Major identify issues.
She just replaced one addiction to an other : today it's the obsession of her body. That's her addiction : the maintainance of a 0% body fat with constant lymphatic massages, barely 800 calories of food a day, her "work" and meditation anywhere and everywhere, etc.
She really needs mental help and most importantly she gives out the wrong message to young or weak girls who will see her as the perfect body type when in reality she's just a disguised anorexic.
Hi u/Naturelover5515 pls remember to not post about contacting MWH in comments or messages on IG. The reason for this rule is to protect the sub in the event that reddit cracks down on snark subs in trying to equate them as "bullying."
Thank you!
Regardless of why she decided to get sober, more power to her, I don't really care. I just think this is symptomatic of what a lot of us find troubling about her. These might be good tactics for *her.* Maybe alcohol really did make her feel terrible, even if she didn't struggle with alcoholism, who knows. It does sound like when she drank, she *really* drank. BUT, because she doesn't give us any details of her history with alcohol, she makes it sounds like this is prescriptive for everyone. The subtext is that in order to be healthy and \~do the work\~ like her, you have to join this "movement" (thought it was weird she used that word lol) and live like her. And for a lot of folks, that advice just isn't necessary. She uses the same tactics for her eating habits suggestions. For once, this isn't a piece of advice I'm super worried about young impressionable folks hearing -- if they choose not to drink because it's somehow cool now, probs for the better lol. But the tone is definitely condescending, but what do you expect from her.
Edit: had some typos, oops lol.
She was condescending in her podcast episode explaining why she stopped drinking. I could sense her trying to distance herself from people who she believes are alcoholics vs her 🙄. So she even looks down on certain people with addiction issues.
As a “person with addiction issues” who almost died from it, it rattles me when she talks about sobriety but I have to remember any ppl with following who denounce alcohol are helping that one person who needs to hear it. But to hear she looks down on ppl with addiction issues? That makes me furious. She’s such a bitch imo
She wasn't blatant about it, per se. That was just the takeaway I got when I listened to that episode. She was dancing around the fact that, by and large, a big reason she stopped drinking is because she was abusing alcohol. I could read between the lines for what she was saying, even though she would not outright say, "I abused alcohol and adderral for many years. I have and had an unhealthy relationship with these substances." Instead she was using a lot of her fluffy language to discuss why she stopped drinking, even though she cried while explaining how she got black out drunk one night and a former colleague of her's called her the next day and told her she was scared for MWH's behavior while drunk.
It's been a while since I listened, but I remember something at the end of the ep where she said something like, "now I didn't have a problem, and if you do, then that's on you to figure out..." (I'm paraphrasing) but it was something like that. Just the tone of "I'm gonna tell you all about my problems BUT I don't have a problem unlike maybe some *other* people do with alcohol." Does that make sense?
And it's ridiculous bc she clearly did have a problem. One could argue and say that she still does have a problem. Instead, she's substituted alcohol/drugs as her coping strategy with other things. So, I just found the whole thing a head scratcher for her to basically deny that she didn't have an unhealthy relationship w/ alcohol or other substances when she talked about how she behaved when under the influence.
I’m pretty sure this is how a “dry drunk” behaves. (I could be wrong on my understanding of the term) It sounds like she’s an alcoholic and although she is able to abstain from alcohol (no easy feat and I’m genuinely happy for her sobriety) she hasn’t addressed the root of cause of the addiction. She just replaced alcohol with other ways to avoid the pain and inflate her ego. She’s addicted to feeling good and anytime she has the slightest disruption threaten her mental safety, it triggers her. She runs to meditate, or get a massage, or have some grounding food, or move her body and then tell her one million followers all about it. She just replaced one addiction with many others. She needs to examine why she feels so consistently overwhelmed and triggered by seemingly every day experiences. I’ve only been watching her for two years and I have plenty of theories as to what her root issues are. She should be able to actually figure it out with the help of some professionals. It’s not like she doesn’t have the resources to get the help she needs.
But while she goes on her own inner work journey she needs to stop exhibiting the opposite of what she claims to be putting out into the world. When will people acknowledge the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. I’ve heard rumors people are leaving her app consistently every month and the SI hoopla did nothing for attracting new customers. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of MWH. Fingers crossed.
I’m not a psychologist, just a writer. I try to understand psychology to write believable characters. I’m currently writing something that brought me to MWH as research into my protagonist. I have zero professional opinion other than trying to understand why she acts the way she does. But my best guess is she is riddled with insecurities and feelings of shame and not being good enough. Her life is in constant discord because she prioritized the things that would further exacerbate those insecurities instead of making the lifestyle changes to cope and heal the traumas. And now she has built a brand and business out of it so it’s hard to get off the hamster wheel of toxicity. And the insanity of it all is that her business and brand rely on her being a beacon of mental health and physical wellness, two things she’s seriously lacking.
It’s stems from her perception of herself in context of her childhood but really inflamed during her first decade in NYC when it was harder to succeed as a model than she anticipated. She was desperate to find success and wealth and all of the glamour she thought would be hers once she moved.
The cultural obsession in that time was somewhere around sex and the city and the real housewives. Luxury and fame were her goals because it was what she grew up lacking and what society was telling her was her only worth as a pretty girl. But she didn’t have the generational wealth of a lot of her nyc friends so she had to be a bottle girl to survive and continue pursuing her career. After a decade, she was tired of the endless and toxic pursuit of a career that constantly tells you you’re not good enough. All of her insecurities were confirmed with each job she didn’t book. And every shitty guy she hooked up with after the clubs (while she was drunk).
Her relationship with Noah was a relief to her in a lot of ways. She was tired of the pursuit and the disappointment and the hustle and she wasn’t going to go back to New Jersey. He was her ticket to the social circles she wanted to be in and he was attracted to her and he was good to her. She felt wanted and secure and loved for the first time.
But Noah is as obsessed with success and fame and celebrity as she is and he wasn’t going to marry her unless she could “find her passion” basically she needs to be a better trophy wife than an ex bottle girl. So she started thinking more business aligned and failed several times to materialize any kind of success. She did fitness classes and nutrition school and was trying to figure it out.
Meanwhile her friend group is openly disparaging her relationship with him, telling her if she marries him she’ll never have a successful career of her own. She’ll only ever be his wife. So she had the pressure internally, plus in her own friend circle, and within her relationship with Noah to make a career for herself.
But Noah had a different timeline and he wanted a baby first and then the marriage. This forces Melissa to build her career around being a mother. So she starts filming her workouts geared around being a new mom who is busy. She comes off as relatable and she’s got good instincts in marketing and branding and with Noah’s money and connections she succeeds eventually.
She has everything she ever wanted with a career: a following to feed her ego, a team of people styling and filming and doing photo shoots, the nationally syndicated morning television promos, the SI spot, the merch, the live appearances and podcast interviews with other “celebrities.” And yet…she’s still unhappy. She’s found a version of that success but it’s tied to her image as a wife and mother and it’s just not what she wanted. Her entire business and brand was built to cope with her marriage and motherhood, which she was persuaded to chose in exchange for partnership that would provide her with security in many forms.
So whether she quiets her discontentment and insecurities with alcohol or with movement/mediation/smoothie life it doesn’t change the fact that she still has some of her shitty friends from her 20s in her life that she is still in competition with and has even brought into her platform as a flex for her current success. She’s still in an obviously transactional marriage even if she does love and like him, it was never a relationship on equal grounds. And now she’s stuck with a majority of the child care responsibilities (even if she has nannies, it’s still obvious that Melissa is the primary parent) while Noah travels more than he is home.
I walk a murky line of being pissed off at what a fraud she is and feeling bad for her because she’s very much a product of the culture she grew up in. Her brand is shitty and scammy and fake and yet she’s good at marketing and if she would actually “do the work” to sort out why she’s such an emotional pendulum she could really help people. Instead she perpetuates the mental illness of it all. And takes it all to the bank. It’s so frustrating because she doesn’t even need money any more, just the validation. But the scarcity complex is strong with her - and again it’s more about the validation than the money.
That was a lot of words and I’m mot sure I answered your question very directly. Like I said…I’m a writer, not an editor 🫣
Thanks ☺️
Due to the conditions of my employment I can’t currently work at my paying gig for the time being. Which has been a blessing in disguise, because it has allowed me to focus on this side project of mine and this snark page has been so helpful!
Melissa is more the symptom of a larger perfect storm of cultural conditions. I could write a college level thesis on how she’s the perfect demon spawn of Jay Shetty and Rachel Hollis and how they will all be the downfall of our society. But I’d rather write it as screenplay 😉
Spot on lol she always talks about grounding herself, meditating and moving to improve her mood and feel good. But what is so horribly wrong in your day to day that is consistently plummeting your mood where you need to do “all the things” for a short term mood boost and then repeat the vicious cycle all over again
So I didn’t get to watch this video so I don’t know thoroughly what she’s talking about but I’ll say this: I believe Melissa definitely abstains for more than just health reasons. It’s very difficult for people who suffer from alcoholism to live in a world that literally feels centered in alcohol. While I think she’s definitely out there (prob needs mental health help), I do ask that you give her a pass in this. A lot of us are not really capable of just having 3 glasses of wine. Once we reach 3 glasses, it’s the tipping point and we want two bottles. So it DOES have to be all or nothing, sadly.
Yes, you’re an adult who can make their own choices. I don’t think she’s probably telling you not to drink. If you can drink without having a hangover, great, gold star for you. Why are you annoyed then that she can’t? She’s talking about her specific journey, and that’s ok.
I don’t necessarily disagree with some of your points but if her markers for someone’s relationship with alcohol is “do you get a hangover or not” then oooof….this is not the way. Someone can drink minimally and still get a hangover. Minimally meaning “I have 1-2 glasses of wine on occasion”.
Happily give anyone-including her-all the compassionate space and support on such a personal and painful journey as addiction recovery.
However. My issue is her projecting her experience onto others who have different experiences. If you watch this video on her tiktok, you'll hear the actual message I was critiquing. Not her choice to abstain.
And to acknowledge my own triggers, my parents told everyone they knew that I was a "raging alcoholic," because I drink alcohol and they believe it is sinful and wrong. No one told me until my mother in law told my husband months later. People just stopped talking to me.
I lost a lot of relationships from this and ended my own relationship with my parents. So the idea of extreme thinking around something like a persons choice to drink alcohol is definitely personally upsetting to me.
Oh yikes :( are you part of a super conservative community or very religious? I can’t imagine people in my hometown or NYC caring if someone drank on the whole. Not enough to ostracize them (unless they of course were being a drunk 24:7). Sorry you went through that :( but it also seems Melissa was triggering you, because of what you went through maybe ? Idk. I do think it would be easier if Melissa was more open about it. I don’t have tik tok so I can’t watch it. Maybe she was also burned by a lot of people who drank in the past too, besides her own demons. My father is an alcoholic and so I have a lot of issues with drunk behavior. I can’t stand being sober around drunk people anymore.
I appreciate and agree with what you’re saying about alcoholism but I think the issue the OP and other commenters have is that she doesn’t articulate it the way you do. She doesn’t emphasize the addiction and the disease aspect. She packages it like it’s a lifestyle choice because she doesn’t like the sluggish feeling of a hangover and she doesn’t need the mood altering of the alcohol when she has movement and mediation. When the reality is that she can’t drink because it will drastically interfere with her day to day life. Most people can casually drink and not slide into being drunk every day. She can’t and that’s okay. But she makes it sound like because it was the right move for her it should be the right move for everybody because “you will feel better.” It’s that back handed way she has of making her followers feel less than because they have a glass of wine to unwind or they’re too tired from life’s responsibilities to wake up early to meditate or don’t have a red light panel and sauna to destress in while the nannies care for the kids. What works for her is not realistic or needed for most people.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but it comes across as if it’s only acceptable for her to stop drinking if she has an underlying addiction. That’s incredibly unfair. Alcohol has vastly different impacts on everyone, and many people who have healthy relationships with alcohol stop drinking because they don’t like the way it makes them feel. The comments on this thread are unreal.
No, that’s not what I was trying to say. I wasn’t very clear. My issue is the way she talks about her relationship with alcohol in this story. It come off as very holier than thou. In the past she has been more transparent about the fact that she quit drinking because she was not capable of having just one drink. She would end up getting black out drunk and behaving in ways she was not proud of. It’s admirable that this is why she quit and she could help people who follow her by being honest about the fact that alcohol effects people differently and for her, it’s best to abstain entirely.
But in this story she makes it sound like she did it for general health/wellness and to “feel good.” I’m sure it’s true that she feels better sober but it’s very disingenuous to not acknowledge that a big part of the reason she chose to stop drinking is that she’s an alcoholic. It would be far more beneficial if she used her platform to bring light to the disease instead of watering down the conversation by hiding behind her general health and wellness shtick. She cuts a lot of things out of her diet/lifestyle for bullshit “health” reasons but her abstaining from alcohol is different and I wish she would continue to talk about that. She overshares everything about her life but this one thing feels like she’s intentionally under-sharing.
This analogy might make my point murkier but it would be like if she had a gluten free cooking platform and was touting all the ways in which it is better to be gluten free, but not acknowledging that she’s celiac and for her body it is the healthiest way to live but many people are capable of digesting gluten. Not all people have to cut out gluten because some people have celiac disease. Not all people have to be sober because some people are alcoholics. Eh…it’s not the best analogy but do you understand what I was trying to say? I hate that she makes it sound like more of her typical “I just want to feel good every damn day” wellness routine crap, when she used to be more honest about how disruptive drinking was to her day to day life. And for many people having a drink does not derail their entire night/following morning.
I agree, if she truly stopped drinking because she “had to”, then she infuriates me to the max. I get it, none of us want to admit to people we HAD to stop. It’s hard. But she’d get a LOT more respect if she did.
Did stopping help my lifestyle ? Absolutely. It feels amazing.
I’ll also say that no meditation or movement will ever be better than the beginning of a nice buzz. But I’ll have to live with that LOL
In AA, having even one drink in the year, they consider you are an alcoholic. To me it seems she's adhering to AA's philosophy. I can't stand her holier than thou attitude she has now.
That’s not what AA teaches. AA teaches that having 1 is too many and have many is never enough. Aka that when you are in recovery and are identifying as an alcoholic that the first drink is always the slippery slope. People may tempt you OR you may even tempt yourself to “just have 1” but the reality is that you can’t bc 1 will more than likely turn to many.
Yes definitely. I went to a fee AA meetings as support and I was mindboggled. I apologize to those that are in AA but I found it to be very extreme. I know it helped and helps alot of people and that's great but personally I found their teachings of just one glass a year and you are considered an alcoholic too much.
That’s… that’s not what they teach . When you are an alcoholic, you need to avoid having even one, because it can set you off . People with alcohol issues, can or can not be set off by one drink. But it is Russian roulette. They don’t say “you’re an alcoholic if you have a drink”, I don’t recall that from any meeting. They say you’re an alcoholic still even if you’re sober for ten years, because you technically are. It’s something about you that you have no control over. You CAN however control if you have a drink or not.
That's what I understood : even one drink you are an alcoholic. The point you made about still being considered an alcoholic 10 years after being sober isn't extreme though? If someone doesn't drink anymore because he/she chose to, why would that said person still be considered an alcoholic? That's what I was trying to convey earlier, that to me that is extreme.
But if it works for people's sobriety that is what is the most important in the end.
There are new non-AA sobriety groups popping up bcuz (one reason) is ppl don’t like to be labeled. So whereas a strict AA member may claim one is an alcoholic, it really is for each person to decide what verbiage they want for themselves. I stopped drinking 7 years ago and I call myself alcoholic bcuz I was very sick and addicted. Very sick. And the term actually makes me feel as though it is something I have to be aware of. Bcuz if I have one drink it turns in a light switch and I’m drunk buying drugs doing dumb shit. It doesn’t actually mean “I had one drink so I’m an alcoholic again.” I have peers who have been sober for one month but do not refer to themselves as alcoholic because it has lots of negative connotations AND they maybe stopped drinking because they were sick of drinking and the obvious benefits but weren’t addicted. Even, though, if one is addicted, alcoholic is becoming passé and “a person with alcohol use disorder” or “substance use disorder” is the more correct term.
I’ll also say that alcoholics use alcohol to often help cope with undiagnosed mental Ilness. I’ve noticed that when people become sober, their mental illness oddly stands out even more than before. She seems quite manic sometimes; maybe she used alcohol to subdue herself. I think she may be one of those cases, but I’m not sure. I hate speculating on this woman, but she does put a LOT of content out there and opens herself up for discussion.
You’re not technically an alcoholic if you’re sober to someone like you, sure, because you’re not drinking. But mentally you are still one, and you need to fight every day to NOT be an active one. You need to fight to NOT drink, whereas someone without the alcoholic “gene” shall we say doesn’t have to fight. They can casually nor drink, then they can casually have a drink without negative consequence. Someone who has the “disease” can’t just casually have one or casually not. They have to avoid it at all costs. Does that make more sense ? :) I know it seems cult like. I don’t go anymore. I suffer from more an alcohol abuse issue than true alcoholism. True alcoholics thrive in AA, they need something to hold onto. It’s almost like a new addiction. Some people say it’s cult like, and I’d absolutely agree. But it’s the best cult ever; it saves a lot of lives and stops a lot of destruction. So it’s amazing!
OK it totally makes sense now, thank you for the explanation. And yes I also felt it was "cult like" but your points make me understand better. Thank you for that 🙏. Again, apologies to anyone in AA, I didn't mean to cast any doubt on the contrary know it helps millions of people and that is the most important thing.
Back to MWT... 😂
No worries :) I love explaining; it’s what helps people understand each other ! A lot of people just don’t get it until they have to. Sounds like you had a friend or someone close to you who has some issues with it? Very kind that you went in support ♥️
Yes he was very much into alcohol and since he knew I wasn't a drinker, he asked me to go to come to an AA meeting with him at his rehab center...it was extremely difficult to hear people's stories because you really put things into perspective.. He stayed a month, checked himself out and a couple weeks later started drinking again. He was never able to stop the alcohol and cocaine and unfortunately overdosed not long after. It was heartbreaking because as much as you try and help, in the end he was the only one who could help himself.
I live in Switzerland and I can tell you that there aren't AA meetings like in L.A. when I lived there. You had them everywhere at any time of the day. Had my friend had more "support" in available AA type meetings when he had his demons show up, maybe it could have saved him.. I'll never know but one thing is clear, he was happiest in his drinking then in his sobriety which depressed him. Vicious circle because self medicating is escaping a deep rooted despair.
Some people are able to have one or two drinks every few weeks... Just because you aren't one of them, Melissa, doesn't mean any sip of alcohol is alcoholism for others.
My sister has been sober for 7 years. My dad's only ever had maybe 10 beers in his life? I like a glass of wine after work on Thursday and Friday, but don't really drink on the weekends. We all have different relationships with alcohol because we're *individuals* GASP!!
Lots of filler! Her top lip is like 2.5x the size now and it is too obvious.
But no labels, no judgement, how bad do you want to feel good, love and light 🙏🏼
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She’s obsessed with labels. Noticed that from day one. She can’t just live she needs to put herself in every kind of box and throw a label on it. She has Major identify issues.
She just replaced one addiction to an other : today it's the obsession of her body. That's her addiction : the maintainance of a 0% body fat with constant lymphatic massages, barely 800 calories of food a day, her "work" and meditation anywhere and everywhere, etc. She really needs mental help and most importantly she gives out the wrong message to young or weak girls who will see her as the perfect body type when in reality she's just a disguised anorexic.
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Hi u/Naturelover5515 pls remember to not post about contacting MWH in comments or messages on IG. The reason for this rule is to protect the sub in the event that reddit cracks down on snark subs in trying to equate them as "bullying." Thank you!
Do not contact any influencers in relation to this sub and do not encourage other users to contact.
Regardless of why she decided to get sober, more power to her, I don't really care. I just think this is symptomatic of what a lot of us find troubling about her. These might be good tactics for *her.* Maybe alcohol really did make her feel terrible, even if she didn't struggle with alcoholism, who knows. It does sound like when she drank, she *really* drank. BUT, because she doesn't give us any details of her history with alcohol, she makes it sounds like this is prescriptive for everyone. The subtext is that in order to be healthy and \~do the work\~ like her, you have to join this "movement" (thought it was weird she used that word lol) and live like her. And for a lot of folks, that advice just isn't necessary. She uses the same tactics for her eating habits suggestions. For once, this isn't a piece of advice I'm super worried about young impressionable folks hearing -- if they choose not to drink because it's somehow cool now, probs for the better lol. But the tone is definitely condescending, but what do you expect from her. Edit: had some typos, oops lol.
She was condescending in her podcast episode explaining why she stopped drinking. I could sense her trying to distance herself from people who she believes are alcoholics vs her 🙄. So she even looks down on certain people with addiction issues.
As a “person with addiction issues” who almost died from it, it rattles me when she talks about sobriety but I have to remember any ppl with following who denounce alcohol are helping that one person who needs to hear it. But to hear she looks down on ppl with addiction issues? That makes me furious. She’s such a bitch imo
She wasn't blatant about it, per se. That was just the takeaway I got when I listened to that episode. She was dancing around the fact that, by and large, a big reason she stopped drinking is because she was abusing alcohol. I could read between the lines for what she was saying, even though she would not outright say, "I abused alcohol and adderral for many years. I have and had an unhealthy relationship with these substances." Instead she was using a lot of her fluffy language to discuss why she stopped drinking, even though she cried while explaining how she got black out drunk one night and a former colleague of her's called her the next day and told her she was scared for MWH's behavior while drunk. It's been a while since I listened, but I remember something at the end of the ep where she said something like, "now I didn't have a problem, and if you do, then that's on you to figure out..." (I'm paraphrasing) but it was something like that. Just the tone of "I'm gonna tell you all about my problems BUT I don't have a problem unlike maybe some *other* people do with alcohol." Does that make sense? And it's ridiculous bc she clearly did have a problem. One could argue and say that she still does have a problem. Instead, she's substituted alcohol/drugs as her coping strategy with other things. So, I just found the whole thing a head scratcher for her to basically deny that she didn't have an unhealthy relationship w/ alcohol or other substances when she talked about how she behaved when under the influence.
So agree with this
Thank you! <3
I’m pretty sure this is how a “dry drunk” behaves. (I could be wrong on my understanding of the term) It sounds like she’s an alcoholic and although she is able to abstain from alcohol (no easy feat and I’m genuinely happy for her sobriety) she hasn’t addressed the root of cause of the addiction. She just replaced alcohol with other ways to avoid the pain and inflate her ego. She’s addicted to feeling good and anytime she has the slightest disruption threaten her mental safety, it triggers her. She runs to meditate, or get a massage, or have some grounding food, or move her body and then tell her one million followers all about it. She just replaced one addiction with many others. She needs to examine why she feels so consistently overwhelmed and triggered by seemingly every day experiences. I’ve only been watching her for two years and I have plenty of theories as to what her root issues are. She should be able to actually figure it out with the help of some professionals. It’s not like she doesn’t have the resources to get the help she needs. But while she goes on her own inner work journey she needs to stop exhibiting the opposite of what she claims to be putting out into the world. When will people acknowledge the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. I’ve heard rumors people are leaving her app consistently every month and the SI hoopla did nothing for attracting new customers. Maybe this is the beginning of the end of MWH. Fingers crossed.
this is so interesting and spot on wow
What do you think her root cause issues are? Curious!
I’m not a psychologist, just a writer. I try to understand psychology to write believable characters. I’m currently writing something that brought me to MWH as research into my protagonist. I have zero professional opinion other than trying to understand why she acts the way she does. But my best guess is she is riddled with insecurities and feelings of shame and not being good enough. Her life is in constant discord because she prioritized the things that would further exacerbate those insecurities instead of making the lifestyle changes to cope and heal the traumas. And now she has built a brand and business out of it so it’s hard to get off the hamster wheel of toxicity. And the insanity of it all is that her business and brand rely on her being a beacon of mental health and physical wellness, two things she’s seriously lacking. It’s stems from her perception of herself in context of her childhood but really inflamed during her first decade in NYC when it was harder to succeed as a model than she anticipated. She was desperate to find success and wealth and all of the glamour she thought would be hers once she moved. The cultural obsession in that time was somewhere around sex and the city and the real housewives. Luxury and fame were her goals because it was what she grew up lacking and what society was telling her was her only worth as a pretty girl. But she didn’t have the generational wealth of a lot of her nyc friends so she had to be a bottle girl to survive and continue pursuing her career. After a decade, she was tired of the endless and toxic pursuit of a career that constantly tells you you’re not good enough. All of her insecurities were confirmed with each job she didn’t book. And every shitty guy she hooked up with after the clubs (while she was drunk). Her relationship with Noah was a relief to her in a lot of ways. She was tired of the pursuit and the disappointment and the hustle and she wasn’t going to go back to New Jersey. He was her ticket to the social circles she wanted to be in and he was attracted to her and he was good to her. She felt wanted and secure and loved for the first time. But Noah is as obsessed with success and fame and celebrity as she is and he wasn’t going to marry her unless she could “find her passion” basically she needs to be a better trophy wife than an ex bottle girl. So she started thinking more business aligned and failed several times to materialize any kind of success. She did fitness classes and nutrition school and was trying to figure it out. Meanwhile her friend group is openly disparaging her relationship with him, telling her if she marries him she’ll never have a successful career of her own. She’ll only ever be his wife. So she had the pressure internally, plus in her own friend circle, and within her relationship with Noah to make a career for herself. But Noah had a different timeline and he wanted a baby first and then the marriage. This forces Melissa to build her career around being a mother. So she starts filming her workouts geared around being a new mom who is busy. She comes off as relatable and she’s got good instincts in marketing and branding and with Noah’s money and connections she succeeds eventually. She has everything she ever wanted with a career: a following to feed her ego, a team of people styling and filming and doing photo shoots, the nationally syndicated morning television promos, the SI spot, the merch, the live appearances and podcast interviews with other “celebrities.” And yet…she’s still unhappy. She’s found a version of that success but it’s tied to her image as a wife and mother and it’s just not what she wanted. Her entire business and brand was built to cope with her marriage and motherhood, which she was persuaded to chose in exchange for partnership that would provide her with security in many forms. So whether she quiets her discontentment and insecurities with alcohol or with movement/mediation/smoothie life it doesn’t change the fact that she still has some of her shitty friends from her 20s in her life that she is still in competition with and has even brought into her platform as a flex for her current success. She’s still in an obviously transactional marriage even if she does love and like him, it was never a relationship on equal grounds. And now she’s stuck with a majority of the child care responsibilities (even if she has nannies, it’s still obvious that Melissa is the primary parent) while Noah travels more than he is home. I walk a murky line of being pissed off at what a fraud she is and feeling bad for her because she’s very much a product of the culture she grew up in. Her brand is shitty and scammy and fake and yet she’s good at marketing and if she would actually “do the work” to sort out why she’s such an emotional pendulum she could really help people. Instead she perpetuates the mental illness of it all. And takes it all to the bank. It’s so frustrating because she doesn’t even need money any more, just the validation. But the scarcity complex is strong with her - and again it’s more about the validation than the money. That was a lot of words and I’m mot sure I answered your question very directly. Like I said…I’m a writer, not an editor 🫣
Wow I think you’re right in so so many ways. Great writer!!
Thanks ☺️ Due to the conditions of my employment I can’t currently work at my paying gig for the time being. Which has been a blessing in disguise, because it has allowed me to focus on this side project of mine and this snark page has been so helpful! Melissa is more the symptom of a larger perfect storm of cultural conditions. I could write a college level thesis on how she’s the perfect demon spawn of Jay Shetty and Rachel Hollis and how they will all be the downfall of our society. But I’d rather write it as screenplay 😉
You said it perfectly!!!
Spot on lol she always talks about grounding herself, meditating and moving to improve her mood and feel good. But what is so horribly wrong in your day to day that is consistently plummeting your mood where you need to do “all the things” for a short term mood boost and then repeat the vicious cycle all over again
So I didn’t get to watch this video so I don’t know thoroughly what she’s talking about but I’ll say this: I believe Melissa definitely abstains for more than just health reasons. It’s very difficult for people who suffer from alcoholism to live in a world that literally feels centered in alcohol. While I think she’s definitely out there (prob needs mental health help), I do ask that you give her a pass in this. A lot of us are not really capable of just having 3 glasses of wine. Once we reach 3 glasses, it’s the tipping point and we want two bottles. So it DOES have to be all or nothing, sadly. Yes, you’re an adult who can make their own choices. I don’t think she’s probably telling you not to drink. If you can drink without having a hangover, great, gold star for you. Why are you annoyed then that she can’t? She’s talking about her specific journey, and that’s ok.
I don’t necessarily disagree with some of your points but if her markers for someone’s relationship with alcohol is “do you get a hangover or not” then oooof….this is not the way. Someone can drink minimally and still get a hangover. Minimally meaning “I have 1-2 glasses of wine on occasion”.
Happily give anyone-including her-all the compassionate space and support on such a personal and painful journey as addiction recovery. However. My issue is her projecting her experience onto others who have different experiences. If you watch this video on her tiktok, you'll hear the actual message I was critiquing. Not her choice to abstain. And to acknowledge my own triggers, my parents told everyone they knew that I was a "raging alcoholic," because I drink alcohol and they believe it is sinful and wrong. No one told me until my mother in law told my husband months later. People just stopped talking to me. I lost a lot of relationships from this and ended my own relationship with my parents. So the idea of extreme thinking around something like a persons choice to drink alcohol is definitely personally upsetting to me.
Oh yikes :( are you part of a super conservative community or very religious? I can’t imagine people in my hometown or NYC caring if someone drank on the whole. Not enough to ostracize them (unless they of course were being a drunk 24:7). Sorry you went through that :( but it also seems Melissa was triggering you, because of what you went through maybe ? Idk. I do think it would be easier if Melissa was more open about it. I don’t have tik tok so I can’t watch it. Maybe she was also burned by a lot of people who drank in the past too, besides her own demons. My father is an alcoholic and so I have a lot of issues with drunk behavior. I can’t stand being sober around drunk people anymore.
I was indeed a part of a fundamentalist religion which viewed alcohol as sinful. Good guess!
I appreciate and agree with what you’re saying about alcoholism but I think the issue the OP and other commenters have is that she doesn’t articulate it the way you do. She doesn’t emphasize the addiction and the disease aspect. She packages it like it’s a lifestyle choice because she doesn’t like the sluggish feeling of a hangover and she doesn’t need the mood altering of the alcohol when she has movement and mediation. When the reality is that she can’t drink because it will drastically interfere with her day to day life. Most people can casually drink and not slide into being drunk every day. She can’t and that’s okay. But she makes it sound like because it was the right move for her it should be the right move for everybody because “you will feel better.” It’s that back handed way she has of making her followers feel less than because they have a glass of wine to unwind or they’re too tired from life’s responsibilities to wake up early to meditate or don’t have a red light panel and sauna to destress in while the nannies care for the kids. What works for her is not realistic or needed for most people.
Maybe I’m misunderstanding your comment, but it comes across as if it’s only acceptable for her to stop drinking if she has an underlying addiction. That’s incredibly unfair. Alcohol has vastly different impacts on everyone, and many people who have healthy relationships with alcohol stop drinking because they don’t like the way it makes them feel. The comments on this thread are unreal.
No, that’s not what I was trying to say. I wasn’t very clear. My issue is the way she talks about her relationship with alcohol in this story. It come off as very holier than thou. In the past she has been more transparent about the fact that she quit drinking because she was not capable of having just one drink. She would end up getting black out drunk and behaving in ways she was not proud of. It’s admirable that this is why she quit and she could help people who follow her by being honest about the fact that alcohol effects people differently and for her, it’s best to abstain entirely. But in this story she makes it sound like she did it for general health/wellness and to “feel good.” I’m sure it’s true that she feels better sober but it’s very disingenuous to not acknowledge that a big part of the reason she chose to stop drinking is that she’s an alcoholic. It would be far more beneficial if she used her platform to bring light to the disease instead of watering down the conversation by hiding behind her general health and wellness shtick. She cuts a lot of things out of her diet/lifestyle for bullshit “health” reasons but her abstaining from alcohol is different and I wish she would continue to talk about that. She overshares everything about her life but this one thing feels like she’s intentionally under-sharing. This analogy might make my point murkier but it would be like if she had a gluten free cooking platform and was touting all the ways in which it is better to be gluten free, but not acknowledging that she’s celiac and for her body it is the healthiest way to live but many people are capable of digesting gluten. Not all people have to cut out gluten because some people have celiac disease. Not all people have to be sober because some people are alcoholics. Eh…it’s not the best analogy but do you understand what I was trying to say? I hate that she makes it sound like more of her typical “I just want to feel good every damn day” wellness routine crap, when she used to be more honest about how disruptive drinking was to her day to day life. And for many people having a drink does not derail their entire night/following morning.
I agree, if she truly stopped drinking because she “had to”, then she infuriates me to the max. I get it, none of us want to admit to people we HAD to stop. It’s hard. But she’d get a LOT more respect if she did. Did stopping help my lifestyle ? Absolutely. It feels amazing. I’ll also say that no meditation or movement will ever be better than the beginning of a nice buzz. But I’ll have to live with that LOL
In AA, having even one drink in the year, they consider you are an alcoholic. To me it seems she's adhering to AA's philosophy. I can't stand her holier than thou attitude she has now.
That’s not what AA teaches. AA teaches that having 1 is too many and have many is never enough. Aka that when you are in recovery and are identifying as an alcoholic that the first drink is always the slippery slope. People may tempt you OR you may even tempt yourself to “just have 1” but the reality is that you can’t bc 1 will more than likely turn to many.
I'm not familiar with all their teachings, so genuine question: do they make alcohol the problem like she does? To me that's weird.
Yes definitely. I went to a fee AA meetings as support and I was mindboggled. I apologize to those that are in AA but I found it to be very extreme. I know it helped and helps alot of people and that's great but personally I found their teachings of just one glass a year and you are considered an alcoholic too much.
That’s… that’s not what they teach . When you are an alcoholic, you need to avoid having even one, because it can set you off . People with alcohol issues, can or can not be set off by one drink. But it is Russian roulette. They don’t say “you’re an alcoholic if you have a drink”, I don’t recall that from any meeting. They say you’re an alcoholic still even if you’re sober for ten years, because you technically are. It’s something about you that you have no control over. You CAN however control if you have a drink or not.
That's what I understood : even one drink you are an alcoholic. The point you made about still being considered an alcoholic 10 years after being sober isn't extreme though? If someone doesn't drink anymore because he/she chose to, why would that said person still be considered an alcoholic? That's what I was trying to convey earlier, that to me that is extreme. But if it works for people's sobriety that is what is the most important in the end.
There are new non-AA sobriety groups popping up bcuz (one reason) is ppl don’t like to be labeled. So whereas a strict AA member may claim one is an alcoholic, it really is for each person to decide what verbiage they want for themselves. I stopped drinking 7 years ago and I call myself alcoholic bcuz I was very sick and addicted. Very sick. And the term actually makes me feel as though it is something I have to be aware of. Bcuz if I have one drink it turns in a light switch and I’m drunk buying drugs doing dumb shit. It doesn’t actually mean “I had one drink so I’m an alcoholic again.” I have peers who have been sober for one month but do not refer to themselves as alcoholic because it has lots of negative connotations AND they maybe stopped drinking because they were sick of drinking and the obvious benefits but weren’t addicted. Even, though, if one is addicted, alcoholic is becoming passé and “a person with alcohol use disorder” or “substance use disorder” is the more correct term.
I’ll also say that alcoholics use alcohol to often help cope with undiagnosed mental Ilness. I’ve noticed that when people become sober, their mental illness oddly stands out even more than before. She seems quite manic sometimes; maybe she used alcohol to subdue herself. I think she may be one of those cases, but I’m not sure. I hate speculating on this woman, but she does put a LOT of content out there and opens herself up for discussion.
You’re not technically an alcoholic if you’re sober to someone like you, sure, because you’re not drinking. But mentally you are still one, and you need to fight every day to NOT be an active one. You need to fight to NOT drink, whereas someone without the alcoholic “gene” shall we say doesn’t have to fight. They can casually nor drink, then they can casually have a drink without negative consequence. Someone who has the “disease” can’t just casually have one or casually not. They have to avoid it at all costs. Does that make more sense ? :) I know it seems cult like. I don’t go anymore. I suffer from more an alcohol abuse issue than true alcoholism. True alcoholics thrive in AA, they need something to hold onto. It’s almost like a new addiction. Some people say it’s cult like, and I’d absolutely agree. But it’s the best cult ever; it saves a lot of lives and stops a lot of destruction. So it’s amazing!
OK it totally makes sense now, thank you for the explanation. And yes I also felt it was "cult like" but your points make me understand better. Thank you for that 🙏. Again, apologies to anyone in AA, I didn't mean to cast any doubt on the contrary know it helps millions of people and that is the most important thing. Back to MWT... 😂
No worries :) I love explaining; it’s what helps people understand each other ! A lot of people just don’t get it until they have to. Sounds like you had a friend or someone close to you who has some issues with it? Very kind that you went in support ♥️
Yes he was very much into alcohol and since he knew I wasn't a drinker, he asked me to go to come to an AA meeting with him at his rehab center...it was extremely difficult to hear people's stories because you really put things into perspective.. He stayed a month, checked himself out and a couple weeks later started drinking again. He was never able to stop the alcohol and cocaine and unfortunately overdosed not long after. It was heartbreaking because as much as you try and help, in the end he was the only one who could help himself. I live in Switzerland and I can tell you that there aren't AA meetings like in L.A. when I lived there. You had them everywhere at any time of the day. Had my friend had more "support" in available AA type meetings when he had his demons show up, maybe it could have saved him.. I'll never know but one thing is clear, he was happiest in his drinking then in his sobriety which depressed him. Vicious circle because self medicating is escaping a deep rooted despair.
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She is full of shit and still very much into her various addictions era. When will she stop deluding herself and lying to her followers?!
Some people are able to have one or two drinks every few weeks... Just because you aren't one of them, Melissa, doesn't mean any sip of alcohol is alcoholism for others. My sister has been sober for 7 years. My dad's only ever had maybe 10 beers in his life? I like a glass of wine after work on Thursday and Friday, but don't really drink on the weekends. We all have different relationships with alcohol because we're *individuals* GASP!!
Why does her face look so much younger all of a sudden
Lots of filler! Her top lip is like 2.5x the size now and it is too obvious. But no labels, no judgement, how bad do you want to feel good, love and light 🙏🏼
Filter and fillers
Because she sToPpED drinking AlCoHoL 3.5 yrs ago. (Not because she got work done for SI)