I’ll fess up. Over breakfast, social media and my iPhone newsfeed sing their siren songs while I’m sipping my tea. More than I like to admit, I have been seduced by both. Finally, for the last few years, I learned to put down my phone and eat mindfully. No scrolling online news or social media over breakfast for me for years. Then January 20, 2025 came. 

My need to know what new horror was going to hit me — all of us — at warp speed got the better of me. I scrolled. I ate. I scrolled. I cried over the millions of Americans who have fought and many who have died for our freedom. I screamed why and knew I would never get an answer or understand why so many people were willing to sacrifice their liberties. I scrolled. My pulse raced. My stomach churned. I wondered how many cookies I would have to eat to stop feeling this pain. I considered places to run away. 

Then I remembered my iPhone wasn’t a super-villain. I flipped through my apps, clicked and brought up one of my audiobooks. I hit play, and for the twenty-five minutes it takes me to munch my cereal, fruit and almond milk yogurt, I listened to a book. Twenty-five minutes usually gets me through a chapter or two. 

Words and stories — an audiobook, podcast, recording of a reading or lecture on almost any topic — are my non-addictive anti-depressant/anti-anxiety drug of choice. Maybe it’s because my mother read me to sleep when I was young and I continued to read myself to sleep for the rest of my life. Whatever. A good story well-told draws me in and my mind does not wander. I cannot escape. It is my Xanax.

After my morning chapter is done, do I think about making myself a second and third cup of tea and spending the whole day at my kitchen table escaping into some fiction? You bet. Listening to stories is habit-forming, and right now it’s life-saving. It’s my daily elixir for escaping what I can’t control — if only for a few minutes — and finding the strength to hope and fight on.