Food, Addiction and Recovery with Liv PennelleFood, Addiction and Recovery with Liv Pennelle
Katherine Arati Maas
Host Katherine Arati Moss talks with Liv Pennelli about her experience of addiction, sobriety, and the complex role food plays in her life. Their conversation touches on emotional eating, holistic recovery tools, and the importance of honesty and community for women in recovery.
0:00•24 May 2016
Food, Feelings and Sobriety: Liv Pennelli on Recovery and Eating
Episode Overview
- Food can act as an early and powerful way to change feelings, often long before drugs or alcohol enter the picture.
- Recovery is rarely linear; growth around food, feelings, and sobriety tends to come with setbacks and gradual progress.
- Daily practices such as writing, meetings, connection with other women, exercise, and yoga help build emotional stability.
- Working with a nutrition coach highlighted that mental, creative, and spiritual fulfilment reduced the urge to binge.
- Mindful questions like "Am I hungry?" and "Will this nourish me?" support a more balanced and compassionate approach to eating.
“Food was the very first thing that I learned could change the way that I feel.”
How do people find strength in their journey to sobriety? This conversation between host Katherine Arati Moss and guest Liv Pennelli shines a light on the messy, very human overlap between addiction, food, and recovery. Liv shares how food was her "very first" substance: "Food was the very first thing that I learned could change the way that I feel." She talks about growing up feeling disconnected, using food to escape, and later moving into drug and alcohol addiction.
Sobriety in 2012 brought a new surprise – once the substances were gone, her relationship with food came sharply into focus. You’ll hear Liv describe recovery as a constantly shifting mind–body–spirit process, rather than a straight line. She jokes about expecting to be "fixed" in recovery, then realising growth is "a squiggly line" with plenty of setbacks, especially around food and hormones.
Writing, 12-step fellowship, strong female friendships, and daily practices like exercise and yoga have all become part of her toolkit. The episode digs into emotional eating and why food feels so complicated for many women in recovery. Liv talks about working for a year with a nutrition coach, learning to ask, "Am I hungry? Is this food going to nourish me?" and seeing how being mentally and creatively fulfilled reduces the urge to binge.
Her approach to food is practical rather than faddy: plenty of protein, complex carbs, vegetables, water, and a lot of self-honesty. There’s plenty of humour, too – from her "Tina Turner moments" of sudden clarity to describing her inner drama in the supermarket bread aisle. At the heart of it all is one clear message: you’re not broken for struggling with food in recovery, and you’re far from alone.
Could your own relationship with food be trying to tell you something about what you really need?
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