Alisyn Camerota On: Surviving the News, Surviving the Teenage Years, and the Concept of Home

Summary

Podcast Summary: "Alisyn Camerota On: Surviving the News, Surviving the Teenage Years, and the Concept of Home"

Published on April 18, 2025, on "10% Happier with Dan Harris"

In this compelling episode of the "10% Happier with Dan Harris" podcast, host Dan Harris delves deep into personal and professional aspects of renowned journalist Alisyn Camerota's life. The conversation intricately weaves themes of surviving the chaotic world of news journalism, navigating the turbulent waters of teenage years, and understanding the profound concept of home. Drawing from Alisyn's memoir, Combat Love, the episode offers listeners an intimate glimpse into her resilience, insights, and transformative journey.

---

1. Introduction

Dan Harris opens the episode by highlighting the significance of the concept of home, a central theme in today's discussion with Alisyn Camerota. He introduces Alisyn as a seasoned journalist from CNN and the author of Combat Love, a memoir detailing her challenging teenage years, strained relationships with her parents, passion for punk rock, and how these experiences shaped her both professionally and as a parent.

---

2. Aversion to Breaking News

Timestamp [05:06]

The conversation kicks off with Alisyn candidly admitting her dislike for covering breaking news. This revelation resonates with Dan, a fellow journalist who shares similar sentiments.

• Dan Harris: "Tell us, why do you not like breaking news?"
• Alisyn Camerota: "[...] it makes me anxious. [...] I never felt that adrenaline rush broadcast journalists are supposed to love."

Alisyn explains that the unpredictable and high-pressure nature of breaking news exacerbates her anxiety, contrasting with the adrenaline-driven expectations of her profession.

---

3. The Allure of Broadcast Journalism for Anxious Individuals

Timestamp [07:06]

Alisyn theorizes that many anxious individuals are drawn to broadcast journalism not despite their anxiety but because they are seeking to fill an internal void.

• Alisyn Camerota: "I wanted to be seen and heard so much as a child. [...] I wasn't calculating the anxiety that would come along with breaking news."

She reflects on her childhood desire for validation and how it propelled her into a career that ironically heightened her anxiety levels.

---

4. Teenage Years and Early Independence

Timestamp [15:57]

Delving into her past, Alisyn recounts her parents' separation when she was eight, leading to a sense of relief but also emotional upheaval. Growing up during the Gen X era, she experienced a significant degree of independence, which, while fostering self-sufficiency, also led her into precarious situations.

• Alisyn Camerota: "I had a lot of freedom for an only child. [...] I made my own decisions."

Her association with the punk rock band Shrapnel during her teenage years became both a passion and a source of risky adventures, embodying the duality of independence.

---

5. The Search for Home

Timestamp [22:08]

A central theme of the conversation revolves around the elusive concept of home. Alisyn shares her journey from Shrewsbury, New Jersey, to Bellingham, Washington, and eventually back, highlighting how her sense of belonging was intricately tied to people and place.

• Alisyn Camerota: "Home is a place where you feel that you belong. [...] It's the melding of those where I get my full home hit."

She emphasizes that home is not just a physical location but a combination of environment, community, and personal connections.

---

6. Relationship with Parents and Its Impact on Parenting

Timestamp [40:46]

Alisyn discusses how her upbringing, marked by significant independence and limited parental supervision, informs her current parenting style. With two teenagers of her own, she strives to balance freedom with necessary guidance, aiming to foster self-sufficiency without compromising their safety.

• Alisyn Camerota: "I wish that my kids could have a little bit more of the freedom and self-sufficiency [...]."

She advocates for stepping back to allow children to navigate challenges, contrasting with the prevalent helicopter parenting trend.

---

7. Navigating Journalism and Personal Storytelling

Timestamp [46:13]

Transitioning to her professional life, Alisyn addresses the complexities of being a journalist who chooses to make herself part of the narrative. Traditionally, broadcast journalists are trained to remain impartial and detached, but Alisyn believes that sharing personal stories can bridge divides and humanize the news.

• Alisyn Camerota: "[...] peeling back the curtain on my own life might help people connect."

She reflects on how opening up, inspired by peers like Dan, can normalize struggles and foster a deeper connection with the audience.

---

8. Surviving the News Cycle and Coping with Anxiety

Timestamp [58:12]

Alisyn offers valuable insights into managing anxiety amidst a relentless news cycle. She shares strategies that have helped her maintain mental well-being, such as limiting news consumption and engaging in simple, grounding activities like observing nature.

• Alisyn Camerota: "I lie on my bed and stare out of the window and stare at, like, a leaf gently blowing in the breeze. That's very therapeutic to me."

Her approach underscores the importance of conscious media consumption and finding personal rituals to restore balance.

---

9. Reflections on Polarization and Building Bridges

Timestamp [53:13]

Addressing the growing polarization in society, Alisyn emphasizes the role of personal stories in bridging ideological divides. She argues that shared human experiences, like struggles and triumphs, transcend political affiliations and can foster mutual understanding.

• Alisyn Camerota: "[...] talking about those things build more bridges."

Her perspective advocates for focusing on commonalities rather than differences to reduce societal tensions.

---

10. Writing Combat Love and Its Impact

Timestamp [66:32]

Alisyn shares the profound impact of writing her memoir, Combat Love. The process of documenting her past provided her with mental liberation and a deeper understanding of her journey. Despite her mother's initial resistance, the book has served as a therapeutic outlet and a time capsule of her experiences.

• Alisyn Camerota: "By writing them down, I've gotten a lot more bandwidth mentally. It's gotten out of my head and onto the paper."

The memoir not only chronicles her struggles but also serves as a beacon of resilience for readers facing similar challenges.

---

11. Personal Anecdotes and Final Thoughts

Throughout the episode, Alisyn and Dan share personal anecdotes that illustrate their experiences with anxiety and navigating high-pressure environments like television journalism. Their candid dialogue underscores the shared humanity behind public personas.

• Dan Harris: "I was having anxiety attacks while being on the air. It was a high wire act."
• Alisyn Camerota: "I have a serene place now, definitely. But I don't know that that was always my nature. I just learned through having to live through it, how to come out the other side of it."

Their conversation culminates in reflections on personal growth, the importance of authentic connections, and the ongoing journey toward mental well-being.

---

Conclusion

This episode of "10% Happier with Dan Harris" offers a rich, nuanced exploration of Alisyn Camerota's life, blending personal memoir with professional insights. Listeners gain an understanding of the intricate balance between personal struggles and the demands of journalism, the quest for a sense of home, and effective strategies for coping with anxiety in today's fast-paced world. Alisyn's transparency and resilience serve as an inspiring testament to overcoming adversity and fostering genuine human connections.

Notable Quotes:

• Alisyn Camerota [05:37]: "Nobody who's anxious should ever become a TV anchor or reporter."
• Alisyn Camerota [22:08]: "That's more of a place where you feel that you belong. It means a deep sense of cellular belonging."
• Alisyn Camerota [58:12]: "I lie on my bed and stare out of the window and stare at, like, a leaf gently blowing in the breeze. That's very therapeutic to me."
• Dan Harris [54:57]: "This is when it goes right."
• Alisyn Camerota [53:13]: "Talking about those things build more bridges."

---

About the Guests and Hosts:

• Alisyn Camerota: A distinguished journalist with over 30 years at CNN, Alisyn has recently transitioned to Substack, where she hosts the video podcast Sanity. Her memoir, Combat Love, provides a heartfelt account of her formative years and professional journey.

• Dan Harris: A veteran journalist and best-selling author, Dan Harris is the host of "10% Happier," a podcast dedicated to self-help for intelligent individuals, blending modern scientific insights with ancient wisdom.

Transcript

[Alison Camerata]

Foreign.

[Dan Harris]

It'S the 10% Happier podcast. I'm Dan Harris. Hello, my fellow suffering beings. How we doing recently, right here on the show, in fact, I heard my wife, who was co interviewing some guests with me, talk about how over the course of our marriage, she has finally gotten comfortable with the fact that she represents home for me, her husband, which I thought was astute, not only because it's true, but also because it's something I had never articulated to myself. Anyway, I bring this up because the concept of home is a key part of today's conversation. My guest is Alison Camerata, who you might know from cnn, where she worked for many years. She recently wrote a very personal memoir called Combat Love, which is about her turbulent teenage years, her rocky relationship with her parents, her love of punk rock, and specifically one punk rock band, and how all of that actually helped prepare her not only for a life in TV news, but also for a life as a parent. In this conversation, we talk about our mutual distaste for covering breaking news, how her turbulent teenage years helped her prepare for many aspects of the chaos of adulthood, what the concept of home actually means, how her childhood informed her own parenting style, the delicate balance between giving your children too little or too much freedom, what it means for a journalist to make themselves the center of a story, how to survive the news these days, how to cope with anxiety as it relates to media consumption, and much more. Just to say before we dive in, we actually recorded this about a year ago, so there are some mentions of a future impending election. We all know the outcome. There are some mentions of the press tour for her book, which has now wound down. And I also referenced the 10th anniversary of my first book. All of those events are now behind us. I think you'll enjoy this. Anyway, we'll get started with Alison Camerata right after this. I have a strangely busy travel schedule coming up in the next couple of months, but the thing that I'm really looking forward to, the bright spot on my calendar is in a few weeks I'm going to Montauk, which is one of my favorite places in the world. It's on the eastern tip of Long Island. It's primarily known as a summer spot, but it's actually beautiful year round. I'm going to Montauk with 1, 2, 3, 4, at least four families that are close friends of ours. They all have children who get along really well with my child. And we'll all be staying not at hotels, but in houses. I love being in a big house with lots of other people. It is so much more personal and intimate than staying in a hotel with other families. With many of these families, we've gone to places like Florida and gotten Airbnbs together. Being able to stay together in a beautiful place is so much fun and again, so much more intimate. And here's the cool thing. If you're going to be traveling soon, you might actually be sitting on an Airbnb gold mine. You might be able to put your own residence up on Airbnb so you can actually earn money while you're taking a vacation. I'm a huge fan of Airbnb. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how [e-mail] host this show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can feel like a pretty big investment of time and money, but in my experience, it is definitely worth it. I say this as somebody who's had therapy on and off for several decades, including when I was a child and who is now part of a family where we spend a decent amount on therapy, but it is really worth it. It is incredibly helpful for, for my relationships, for the people in my family and their mental health. You can look at this in terms of the raw numbers here. Traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to 250 bucks a session, which definitely adds up quickly. But BetterHelp online therapy helps you save on average up to 50% per session. So with BetterHelp, you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and time. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. It really is kind of a human right. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it. And now it's within reach. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus, you can switch therapists anytime. Your well being is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp h lp.com happier Allison Camerata, welcome to the show.

[Alison Camerata]

Thank you, Dan. It's such a pleasure to be with you.

[Dan Harris]

Likewise. This is probably not the most germane place to start the interview, but I can't help it that you start the book by making this confession that you don't like breaking news. And I felt very seen in that moment. I Like you. Well, you still are a broadcast journalist. I was for 30 years. And maybe there were times when I liked breaking news, but I'm not sure I ever did. And so I don't know if I've ever even admitted that publicly. So tell us, why do you not like breaking news?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, it's funny that you've never admitted it publicly because I felt ashamed as well to admit it publicly. Like for broadcast journalists, we're supposed to be newshounds. We're supposed to have this adrenaline rush and love breaking news and have our bag packed at all times. And I never felt that way. And I think it's anxiety, you know, if we're just going to jump in there, it makes me anxious. And Dan, in listening to your so many of your podcasts and in knowing you a little bit as I do, I think that it's funny how many anxious people choose broadcast journalism because they're completely, you know, counterintuitive. Nobody who's anxious should ever become a TV anchor or reporter. I mean, it just is so anxiety provoking, you know, that breaking news, something horrible is happening somewhere. I have to grab a bag. I'm not going home. I'm running to the airport, I'm getting on a plane. It always made me feel like maybe I'm not coming home. You know, there was always some horrible terror attack or something that I was flying off to. And that made me think about my own mortality. And I don't know why, you know, people who tend towards anxiety even were attracted to this business. But it's very strange that you and I, I listened to conversation with Elizabeth Vargas that we ended up because it's made for people who know how to manage that level of anxiety.

[Dan Harris]

Do you have any theory about why so many anxious people do what we do?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, my theory is that it has nothing to do with our anxiety. It has to do with that other void, gaping hole that we're filling. I mean, I'll just speak for myself. I know that it was because I wanted to be seen and heard so much as a child. I so wanted validation. I so thought that being on TV would give me value, give me financial security, make people love me. So I wasn't calculating the anxiety that would come along with breaking news. I was just making that calculation.

[Dan Harris]

It's also inconvenient. You write about this. I mean, this is the stuff that people at, you know, who don't work in TV don't know. But, you know, you're not sleeping, you're at an earthquake or a Mass shooting or whatever, and you are out in the cold often or the heat and there's no food and you've packed in a hurry and probably forgotten a bunch of. So it's not just the anxiety and stress of it, it's the sort of indignity of it.

[Alison Camerata]

You know, I write about how I often forget pants. I'm not joking. That's not a punchline. You know, I will get to where I'm supposed to be going and realize, like, where are my pants? And I'm just ill equipped for that level of breaking news and operating that many steps ahead and thinking that I'll need Clif bars and I'll need water and exactly what I'll need. However, that level of no creature comforts, I think I am equipped for. I don't love it. I don't love being out in the freezing cold, and I don't love being in the sweltering heat all day long. But, you know, I do think that part of my turbulent teenagehood did equip me to, you know, know how to eat a bag of chips for the whole day. I mean, I've joked about how there's nobody better at a. At a stakeout for a criminal. I can hide in a car Footwell for hours. You know, I know how to do that, and so I can do that all day long. But that's a little bit different than breaking news. Like, that's a stakeout where I know that I'm going there. I know I'm just going to eat a bag of chips. I know I'm going to be hiding in the van stairwell, and then I'm going to spring out when the criminal comes out, and that I'm good at. But the breaking news is always very trying emotionally for me.

[Dan Harris]

It's funny because doing ambush interviews, I remember chasing the CEO of Philip Morris International down the street once. And a bunch of times I've done these. And you know where you. You find somebody who's accused of something and who is unwilling to talk to you after many, many requests, and the lawyers say, fine. The network's lawyers say, fine. You can go surprise this person on the street or wherever that's not breaking news. But like you, I loved that, especially when I felt righteous, you know, like, this is somebody who deserves to have their day ruined.

[Alison Camerata]

Absolutely. I chased a telemarketer around, the kingpin of this telemarketing ring that had built all of these people out of their life savings by promising these, you know, incredibly too good to be true salaries if they would just first send $12,000 to save their place in line for these incredible jobs that they were going to get in a minute. God, he had a really great name. What was his? It'll come to me. Anyway, he had a boiler room in South Florida, of course, as so many of them are. And I found his boiler room and went in with my camera and microphone and was like, where is he? And there were all these doors. It was sort of a house of mirrors to go in and open doors to try to find him. And then at one point, I saw, like, a flash of somebody running out, and I chased him out to the parking lot, and I chased him to his car, and I stuffed the microphone in his face, and he got in his car and he peeled out, and we got the shot of him peeling out. And that did feel righteous. Yeah, I totally agree. That was very satisfying.

[Dan Harris]

So there's something you and I both like about adrenaline, but there's a version of adrenaline that comes with breaking news that for some reason, doesn't agree with us.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, that one is not manageable to me. You know, again with the stakeout, we know where we're going. We hope that we're going to find the per or whatever, the recalcitrant politician. But with breaking news, it's just really. I find out of your control. And I also don't like. There were some breaking news that I would do, where I would fly. You know, the breaking news would happen. I'd grab my go bag, I'd race to the airport. I'd be on a flight and kind of off the grid, disconnected for seven hours, and land and have a live shot to do a half an hour later or 45 minutes later, and I wouldn't know what I was going to say. I hadn't been there long enough yet. I wasn't steeped in the story. And that really makes me anxious. Yes, I really like to get my arms around a story first. I love the storytelling part of our jobs. You know, your former job. Well, your current job, actually. I love the storytelling part of that, but I don't love when I don't know the story yet.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, you said it better than I could have. It's interesting you said that you can't remember to put pants in the bag and all that stuff. That kind of processing comes hard for you. But I've sat next to you as you've anchored the news, and I've been on there as, like, a panelist and watched you manage a variety of different guests in the Studio and people on satellite and then the producers getting in your ear. That's pretty high level processing that would seem to be able to accommodate the packing of pants.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, thank you for that. I consider it totally different. You know, that's a climate controlled studio. That's where I know you're going to be my guest. You didn't just parachute down next to me and somebody said, like, talk to Dan. Like, I have my notes in front of me that you probably saw when you were sitting next to me. I cling to. I have prepared for that interview. I have written out questions for you. I'm listening as you, the newsmaker or the guest or the analyst are talking to me. And I know what subject matter we're going to talk about. It's just totally different for me. Whereas, look, okay, really, if you're asking me to analyze this, I think I forget pants and a laptop charger because I don't like breaking news.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, exactly.

[Alison Camerata]

I mean, I think that this truly is me applying the brakes. I think I'm just being resistant to breaking news. And I think if I don't bring pants to work, there won't be breaking news. And then invariably there is breaking news and I just have to fly off.

[Dan Harris]

Okay, so you mentioned your tumultuous teenage hood, which is really the subject of or much of what you cover in your new book, Combat Love. And that kind of picks up on this theme that you've already established, which is that one of the reasons you became a TV reporter, notwithstanding your aversion to breaking news, is this desire to be seen and not heard.

[Alison Camerata]

Seen and heard.

[Dan Harris]

Did I say seen but not heard? Oh, that's what I want for my child, not for you. That was a Freudian slip. Seen and heard.

[Alison Camerata]

I see. That's some old school parenting you're doing. I like that.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, lots of old school parenting. No, actually I do the opposite. I'm way too cuddling and throttling all of these old school impulses I might have. But anyway.

[Alison Camerata]

All right, well, we're going to talk about that. Dan, we're going to talk about that later because I'm not in favor of that.

[Dan Harris]

We should talk about that. But let's start with your parents. Do some character sketches, do some storytelling. Who are these people?

[Alison Camerata]

My parents were both intellectual stars. My father could speak fluently, six or seven languages. He went for high school to a all boys school in Philadelphia that you had to be invited into. It was invitation only. He was first in his class at the Army Language School. My mother was first in her class in a huge Philadelphia public school. She thereby earned a full scholarship to University of Pennsylvania. They were both attractive, they were both magnetic, they were both charismatic. People really liked my parents and I was very proud to be the daughter of my parents. I was always proud to be seen with them. I could see the kind of magnetism that they had and other people who wanted to be around them. And that was a nice position of stature for me. I was an only child of these two parents who, you know, I think at times had some narcissistic tendencies. And for the time that I was there, a projection of them, it was great. And they had nothing but sort of adulation and adoration for me. And then when I as a teenager wanted to go in my own direction, I think it was harder for them to sort of recognize what path might be best for me.

[Dan Harris]

So what happened in your teenage years?

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah, my parents got separated when I was 7, they got divorced when I was 8. And I was one of these kids. I don't hear about kids like this very often. But I was relieved I wasn't devastated by my parents divorce. I was relieved that my father had sort of become a heavy presence in our house. He was drinking heavily, but not ever to the point of any drunken episode or anger management issues. He was sort of just disappearing into the furniture and he was clearly self medicating, but that wasn't a word I knew at 7 and 8 years old. So I was relieved when my parents got separated and there felt like there was a lightness in the house and my mother sort of felt untethered. And this happened to be at the time in the 70s of women's liberation. And out came the Carol King albums. And my mother and I would, you know, belt, you know, what independent women we were in the living room every night. And so there was a lightness after my father left. And that said, I think that things. What I've learned in writing the book from interviewing my mother is that things did not though get easier for her. So they got easier at first because my dad and whatever albatross he was on the sofa was gone. But financially they got more challenging for her and finding her way got more challenging for her. And she, I would say, lost her way at some point or got confused about what the best way was. And when I was 15, before that I was sort of unparented. I was one of the Gen X generation. I think this is a universal commonality among so many of us. We were semi parented or unparented. Even people who had nuclear families that were not children of divorce. I don't know where the parents were in the 80s. They just, they weren't around. So we were a real free range bunch in my town, doing whatever we wanted, basically. And I was particularly unparented because my mom was going back to school to get her PhD and she was involved in a really intense romance. And I would say that I was sort of third priority after those two things. So I got hyper attached to my friends and to my friends families. They became a surrogate family for me. And at the same time, at 13, I fell in love with this local punk rock band from Shrewsbury, New Jersey called Shrapnel. Over the next two years, I would follow them into various dicey and dangerous situations. And then when I was 15, my mother, on a whim, really decided to move us 3,000 miles away from the only home I'd ever known in Shrewsbury, New Jersey, which is a really small town, to a place we knew virtually no one, Washington State. And she moved there because a man who had been in her life kind of lured her out there. And she was looking for some sort of stability and financial stability and emotional stability. But it was completely ill advised that she follow him out there. But she did, and that falls apart immediately. And our relationship soon kind of unravels as well. And I end up leaving. We end up going our separate ways when I'm 16.

[Dan Harris]

Well, how do you go your separate ways from your mom as a minor?

[Alison Camerata]

It immediately falls apart with the first man whom I call Walter in the book. She immediately meets another man whom I call Mac in the book. So for nine months we live with Mac in a town called Bellingham, Washington, which is, you know, just one of the most beautiful towns in the country. But I can't really see its beauty because I'm so uprooted. And so I miss my home so much and I'm so disoriented. So 10 months later, Mac gets offered a job in Pittsburgh. And my mother has never been able to find a job while we've been in Bellingham. She's tried and has not found a job because Bellingham doesn't have jobs for Women with PhDs in creative arts education. And he gets offered a job in Pittsburgh. She knows that there will be more jobs for her in Pittsburgh. And they sit me down and say, we need to move to Pittsburgh. And I say, I'm out. I'm going to go my separate way. I'm not going to move again. And so my mother says, what Will you do? And I said, I don't know. Give me a couple of hours. Let me have the car keys. And I took the car, and I went to my friend's parents who owned real estate in the town, who owned a big real estate company. And I pleaded my case to them and said, do you know of anybody who will take in a border? Do you know of any room to rent anywhere? And they were a really established family in town and had all sorts of fun toys for teenagers, like sports cars, and they had a plane, and they had a beautiful boat, and they had a beautiful house on the lake. And I was sort of secretly crossing my fingers that maybe they would want a daughter. And they called me a few hours later and said, we'd love for you to live with us.

[Dan Harris]

So instead of going back to New Jersey, you stayed in Bellingham with these fancy people?

[Alison Camerata]

I would have gone back to New Jersey, I think, but I didn't know who would take me in in New Jersey. I didn't have a home there anymore. I didn't have. My father had moved away from that town, so I didn't have a home there. And I just hadn't thought the plan through enough. So I just. The first thing I could think was to go to this family's home. And they solved my problem.

[Dan Harris]

I guess the question is, did they? Because you've used the word home twice in the preceding paragraph. And this book, as you've said, is all about. And this is a quote from you, it's a story about the elusive place called home. So maybe say a little bit more about that concept for you and its importance.

[Alison Camerata]

So when my mother moved when I was 15, that was the last time that I had a home, that I truly felt that I had a home for another two decades. So for the two decades or maybe 15 years, I felt I understood what home was. Back in Shrewsbury, I knew I had very close friends. I knew the rules. We all had the same New Jersey accent. I knew the music. I had a tremendous sense of belonging. And so at 15, when I lost that sense of belonging and landed in this foreign land called Bellingham, Washington, where I also had friends, by the way, I also made friends. And I ended up having a very intense love relationship there that was very special to me, still is. So it wasn't that I was lonely. It's that I was disoriented and that I knew all along it wasn't my home. I didn't understand evergreens and mountains. I understood the beach, and I didn't understand Skiing, I had never ski feed. That's what everybody did there all day long, all weekend long, whenever they could. So I guess, I mean, there's so much to this, but I'm. I think other people are more adaptable than I am. But I didn't ever embrace it really as home. And so I crawled my way back. So I lived with this wonderful family for that year. I was a junior in high school. So I lived with them for my junior year of high school. And then I wrote a letter back to my old school school and pleaded my case in New Jersey, my old school in New Jersey and pleaded my case and said, I really miss home and I want to come back for my senior year. I miss everything about New Jersey. And does anybody know of, again, a spare room or anybody who would take in a border? And a family wrote back to me and said, we'd be happy to take you in. So I went back for senior year. And I think of that senior year when I was 17, as one of the best years of my life, really. And I've had a lot of great years. I mean, I've had a very lucky life and I'm. I have a very happy life. But I think of that as a victorious year of coming back on my own and of making my way back. You know, I think of it as. I mean, in the book, I equate myself to, like, Odysseus, you know, because I knew the struggle of crawling your way back home and the sort of hero's return that I was met with. And it was really glorious. And then I went to college and I left New Jersey and went to Washington, D.C. and it took me many, many, many years to find that sense of home again.

[Dan Harris]

How did you finally find it?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, interestingly, and here's where you come in Boston. I did have a sense of that in Boston. So after living in Washington, D.C. where I never felt at home, I never felt like that was really my place. I had had sort of some peak experiences as a teenager in Boston. And I had it in my head that I wanted to live in Boston and I wanted to move to Boston. And in the book I write about, this psychic predicts that I'm going to get this great job offer someplace cold and snowy. And I hadn't applied to any job in Boston. And a week after the psychic tells me this, I get a phone call from a guy who's starting a national morning show. Well, Joel Cheetwood, whose name you'll know. So Joel Cheatwood was a big TV producer in our day. And he was starting a national TV show, but nobody knew that yet. And he was going to be based in Boston. And I truly felt as though, like, serendipity and fate had found me, and like, the heavens had bestowed their goodness, you know, their pixie dust on me. And so I moved to Boston, and I was already primed to love Boston because I believed I would love it.

[Dan Harris]

And.

[Alison Camerata]

And I loved it. I loved every second of Boston. So I just have a natural affinity. There are some places that maybe we all have a natural affinity for, and maybe there's some places that we have a natural antipathy for. I certainly do. But I do think most people are more adaptable than I am. So that was when I was 29, and I really felt at home in Boston. Also. I loved my apartment. I made close friends. It was an intense experience. And I stayed in Boston for many years, and I did feel a sense of home there.

[Dan Harris]

I want to get back to home and what it means. But just to say about Boston, you brought me into it, so I have a memory. And I've said this story to you before, but I've told this story to you before. I had spent my early, early twenties in Bangor and then Portland, Maine, and then I got a job in Boston at, like, a. Not even one of the big stations at a cable station, so it was called New England Cable News. And I was 25 at the time. And my first story they sent me to, you were covering it. And I remember you were, to me, like, the apex of sophistication in my mind. You were wearing leather pants. You were definitely more senior to me.

[Alison Camerata]

That's awesome.

[Dan Harris]

You had been on the ground in Boston for a while and were a more experienced reporter. I did not have the courage to talk to you at all, but I remember that experience very clearly.

[Alison Camerata]

This makes me so happy on so many levels, Dan. First of all, I like that I'm leather tuscadero in your memory. That makes me so happy that I'm just out, like, I was, like, smoking a cigarette. That's how I'd like to be seen. Also, like, I hope I had on, like, spiky stiletto boots, leather pants. I hope I was, like, smoking a cigarette in some sort of, like, wisecracking, you know, ace reporter way. I assure you that's not what I was wearing. And I love that I tricked you. I love that I tricked you into thinking that I had the whole thing w and set. But, I mean, it is true that I did feel comfortable in Boston And I did like reporting in Boston and my job there. And it was a really good chapter.

[Dan Harris]

You seemed utterly in command, and I felt like an imposter. So that. That's my. That's my memory, leather pants notwithstanding.

[Alison Camerata]

Fantastic.

[Dan Harris]

So back to home. Like, what do you mean by home? What does that concept mean to you?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, it means a place where you feel that you belong. It means a deep sense of cellular belonging. It means that you understand the language and the music. And home is twofold for me. So it's a place. It's a place that looks and smells a certain way. And often in my head, that is Shrewsbury, New Jersey, or Monmouth County, New Jersey. But when I go back to Shrewsbury, which I did many times to write the book, to research the book, if my friends aren't around me from that time, if I'm not surrounded by my friends, it's missing a little something. And if my friends are around me but we're in a different place, like I go to a bachelorette party with them and we're in New Orleans or we go to, heaven help us, Las Vegas, that's not home either. So it's not just my circle of friends that I'm with, and it's not just the location, it's the melding of those where I get my full home hit. So that's what I mean by home, basically, more than the physical structure over my head. Because when I moved back when I was a senior, when I clawed my way back when I was 17, I didn't really have my own home, but I still considered myself home.

[Dan Harris]

So it's people in place.

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah.

[Dan Harris]

The combination. Do you have it now? And if so, where? Is it your home, the physical structure in Connecticut? Is it your workplace? Cnn? Is it both? Is it neither?

[Alison Camerata]

It is the physical structure where I live in Connecticut with my family. So here I love the town that I live in. And it's very beautiful. And when I drive through the streets, I'm often struck by its beauty and how lucky I am to live here. But there's a beach here in the town that I live in. And it's when I go to the beach and I smell the saltwater and I hear the seagulls and I have my feet in the sand that I go, oh, this is what I mean by home. It's a sensation of the childhood and teenagehood beach. That's a big home trigger for me. But now it's my physical structure of home, where my family and I live, because I didn't have that for so long. You know, I didn't have my own home from the time I was 15 to the time I bought a place in Boston at 33. So I really like having my dishes stacked where they belong, in the cabinet where they belong, and being able to find the shirt that I'm looking for. Like, things being in their place means a lot to me and I see the significance of that for home.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, that can sound superficial, but it has significance, doesn't it?

[Alison Camerata]

For me it does, because I was moving around. I was always moving around because I was always looking for, like, where's the next place that I'll. I'll be living? Where am I going to be paying rent? Who's going to take me in? You know, I was sort of always relying on the kindness of acquaintances and their families or friends and their families, and just having my own structure, my own place, my own bed with my stuff around me is just very powerful to me. I don't, I don't really take that for granted.

[Dan Harris]

Maybe that's the groundlessness that neither of us likes about breaking news.

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah, I think that that's a good point. I don't know what even to visualize when we're heading off for breaking news, particularly if it's in a foreign land of some kind. I can't even visualize where we'll be or where we'll be staying or what we'll need, that kind of thing.

[Dan Harris]

Coming up, Alison talks about how her childhood informed her own parenting style. The delicate balance between giving your kids too little or too much freedom, and whether it's okay for a journalist to make themselves the center of a story. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It's hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of the best selling book how to Change. Choiceology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. I can say personally that I 1 million percent vouch for Katie. She is an incredible scientist. She's done so much work that informs what we now know about how to make behavior change or have it change in our own lives. She's been a guest on this show. She's not only incredibly smart and accomplished, but also really warm and a great speaker who's able to articulate complex and important ideas in simple ways. On the show, which again is called Choiceology, you'll hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes, and everyday people about why we do the things we do. You can listen @schwab.com podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast. Craving your next action packed adventure? Audible delivers thrills of every kind on your command. From electrifying suspense and daring quests to spine tingling horror and romance in far off realms. Unleash your adventurous side with gripping titles that keep you guessing. Exclusive captivating Audible Originals Hotly anticipated new releases Must listen bestsellers that hook you from the first minute. Whether it's heart pounding suspense like the Audible Original Original Mad Love, a fantasy romance adventure like Onyx Storm or a listen with the lights on epic like Stephen King's latest Never Flinch. Plus more big releases like Frida McFadden's the Tenant and Amelia Hart's the Sirens. There are a bunch of books I've loved recently, just to name a few. Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor, Beautiful Animals by Lawrence Osborne, Nightboat the Tangier by Kevin Barry. All three of them just outstanding. And Audible, by the way has over a million audiobooks, podcasts and originals all in one easy app. I in fact in the process of writing an Audible original that I will be recording in the next couple of months. So big fan of what they do and have really enjoyed working with them. Start listening and discover what's beyond the edge of your seat. New members can try Audible now free for 30 days, and dive into a world of new thrills. Visit audible.com 10% or text 10% P N P R C N T to 500500 that's audible.com 10% or text10% to 500500 Let me just go back in time to your teenage years. One question that came up in my mind as you were recounting going your separate ways from your mom is like, what was your mom thinking? Why did she agree to that? And were you consulting her as you then wrote the letter to New Jersey and then went and lived there? And how is she okay with that? I can't imagine allowing my son to do something like that.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, here again, you're not a parent of the 80s, so in the 80s I knew some kids who didn't live with their parents. It wasn't as foreign a notion as it is today in our helicopter world. So that's first. But second, and more importantly, my parents always gave me tremendous freedom. I had a lot of freedom for an only child. I probably had the most freedom any only child has ever had. I made my own decisions. They treated me as though I was smart enough and grown up enough to make my own decisions. I decided halfway through fifth grade that I didn't like my public school anymore. My mother took me around to see some other schools. There was one that I liked best. They told me, it's your decision. And it was really hard for me because I was terrified to leave my friends. And they said, it's up to you, we're not going to make this decision for you. And I decided to go. And they just always kind of imbued me with a lot of independence. So by the time I say at 16, give me the car keys, I'm going to go figure this out, my mother knows that I am going to figure it out. I was already resourceful, I was already working, I was already just really self sufficient. And she knew because she had made these kind of foolhardy decisions for us of moving across the country and how devastated I was to do that, that she had lost the authority to make me go. She just knew that that was over and last. By then I'd been to three high schools. She didn't think that by going to a fourth high school in October of my junior year that that was going to be great for my mental health, that was going to be great for my transcript, for my college prospects. So she just knew I was right. I was right that I was supposed to stay there. And she couldn't have stayed, we could never have afforded if she had stayed with me without a job. That didn't work. That equation didn't work. So it was really the only choice and it was the choice at that point that I wanted.

[Dan Harris]

That all makes sense, I guess. But you did reference earlier and I think this is a bit earlier in the chronology. You know, you're hanging around this punk band Shrapnel, whose song Combat Love you named the book after, and you, you used the words dicey and dangerous to describe some of the situations in which you found yourself. So this independence, which I want to come back to because I think we can make a real case for it, and the lack of independence being, you know, part of one of the points of origination for the anxiety we're seeing among children these days. But this independence has, it's a double edged sword and you, you found yourself in places you probably shouldn't have been.

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah, so I had more confidence than I should have. I had more confidence and I had more independence and less supervision than I think any of us would be comfortable with our kids having. So I had a lot of confidence in my own ability to talk myself in or out of a dicey situation. My own ability to just kind of get what I wanted As a teenager. So I did that a lot. You know, I did that a lot. I didn't have a lot of money or resources, but I had a lot of moxie and I just didn't want to be told no. So I would go off to CBGBs, or I would go off to see shrapnel, wherever, without any money, without really a plan. Sometimes all sorts of shit would go down. Like there's one scene I talk about in the book where there's a night where the two guys that I rode with were notoriously the hardest drug doing most dangerous, truly leather wearing guys in my town. And I hitched a ride with them to see shrapnel. And from the second I got into the Dodge Dart and it was speeding up the New Jersey Parkway, I just had that horrible sinking feeling in my stomach like, oh God, oh God, oh God, this was a mistake. And I prayed, don't let me have to go home in this car. Please, God, please do not let me have to make this return home in the car. Because they were already drinking, there was already whatever kind of drug use, and I was petrified. But when I got there, it kind of all seemed worth it because I was excited to see shrapnel. And then, lo and behold, my prayers God intervened and my prayers were answered by making the driver pass out from the drugs he had done and be unrevivable. And I was like, thank God. And so then I was very happy that he was not gonna be able to drive us home. But I didn't calculate that I was stranded, and I was stranded at, you know, 1:30 in the morning on a burned out corner in Queens. Then there was more divine intervention in that story. So when people read the book, there was another stroke of divine intervention that saved me. But yeah, like, that's not a 15 year old using great judgment because maybe 15 year olds and their frontal lobe doesn't actually have great judgment.

[Dan Harris]

Yes, I think that's, that's inarguable. So how does all of this inform your parenting style now and how, how old are your kids?

[Alison Camerata]

19. 19 and 17. It informs my parenting style in the way that I wish that my kids could have a little bit more of the freedom and self sufficiency and electricity that I felt as a teenager. I don't think we're doing them any favors by constantly monitoring them and helicopter parenting them and bubble wrapping them before they ever leave the house. I am happy that they're not stranded on a burned out corner in Queens at 1:30 in the morning with no money and no way home for sure. But I wish that they had a little bit more of an opportunity to have to fend for themselves and figure stuff out. So in my own way, I've tried to do that. I mean, feebly, I guess I would say, because I think that our entire culture right now is set up for the helicoptering from, you know, the GPS systems and the constant monitoring on our phones and being so connected via our phones. So I see that I'm tilting at windmills, but in my own way, try with their papers, with their school decisions, to just back off, you know, to back off. And. And I try to be as unhovering as possible in this current climate.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think personally that that sounds like the right strategy. And you earlier indicated that you had some things to say about my stifling my old school parenting urges. And I think I've probably stifled them too much at times. I mean, I don't want to be snapping at the kid, but I think I. I hover and I. Because seeing him in distress or confusion or anxiety causes me. It's selfish in some ways. I'm unwilling to be able to countenance his discomfort because it is uncomfortable.

[Alison Camerata]

It is uncomfortable to see your kid in distress, for sure. And I'm not, you know, advocating old school like corporal punishment, by the way. I think we've made some very good adjust from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. But I was objecting to you saying that you're coddling your son, because I just don't think any good comes from that. I know there's a happy medium somewhere, but I know we haven't achieved it yet. I think we were too unparented in the 80s and definitely idle hands for the devil's workshop. And I think that we got into a lot of trouble and we definitely could have used more supervision, but the pendulum has swung too far, I'm sure of it. So if there's any way for you to just leave the room when your son is in distress and just give it, I don't know, set a timer. Set a timer for a half an hour and see if he can figure it out himself, I think that that would be the most helpful thing you could do.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, I, I'm, I'm with you. I had an intact family in the 80s and 70s and 80s, but they basically gave up at, you know, age 15 or something like that. And I was totally free range.

[Alison Camerata]

And, and do you think of it as fondly as I do? I mean, did you like that style?

[Dan Harris]

I loved it. Those were some of the happiest years of my life. And looking back at it, you know, I have very similar feelings, I think, to what you've described where I'm surprised that I and my friends survived because we did some toweringly stupid and risky things. And, yeah, my wife sometimes will joke that, like, every once in a while she'll hear some news story and she cannot believe what she's hearing. And we. It was very similar. I mean, it was a suburban. I grew up in suburban Boston. You grew up in suburban New Jersey. It was out of control. So I. I was great. And it really prepared me for journalism in some ways. You know, I'm reasonably good in chaos, and I'm. I'm crafty and resourceful and all of that stuff. And, you know, this is what I hear in your story. And there's no way I'd let my kid do that, but. Or another. And I think there's a happy medium, and we have not struck it.

[Alison Camerata]

I totally agree. For instance, I'm very glad that we moved away from the rampant drunk driving of the 80s.

[Dan Harris]

Good.

[Alison Camerata]

That's been a good update. There was constant drunk driving until, you know, Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other things decided to pass legislation and decided to lobby. And that has been absolutely an improvement on every level, for sure. And I think that the fact that we're more sophisticated emotionally and we talk to our kids and don't, I think, suppress their feelings and our feelings as much. Great, huge improvement to have more communication. And I definitely think we've evolved since the 80s, and if we could just have done those two things, you know, stop the drunk driving and been more evolved parents with more communication, I think we'd have kind of an uber generation. But, you know, we took it too far.

[Dan Harris]

So you've written this book. It's very personal. All the things we've talked about are in there. You also talk about panic attacks and your time at Fox News, and there's a lot, a lot of stuff in there. And I guess I'm asking this question as somebody who's also been a journalist and then wrote a memoir. And do you have any feelings, tricky feelings, about making yourself the story? Because our training really is to not do that.

[Alison Camerata]

Right? I mean, that's what we were always told. Don't make yourself the story. Check your bias at the door. It's actually the opposite, Dan. What I started to feel fairly recently in the past few years was by insisting on. On that tabula rasa anchor mask that we were trained to wear at all times. I started to feel that it was actually a. Not a disservice so much as a barrier. It was a barrier to a real human connection. And there is definitely a place for that. I mean, I think that it's. Journalism is very valuable. I'm very happy that I was a conduit to be able to tell other people's stories. That's what I've done for the past 30 years. I've been a conduit to telling other people's stories. But I just remember, I mean, the story that comes to mind is the George Floyd killing. The next day, I think I got the first national interview with Felonis Floyd, who was his brother. And it was a long interview. It was one of these interviews where the minute he came on via satellite, we realized that he was just sort of operating at a different level. He was already saying deeply profound and sort of poetic things. Even in his most raw grief. He was crying during some of the interview. And he just already seemed like a really special person looking for justice for his brother. I think the live interview was about 15 minutes long, which, as you know, is an eternity in TV news. And we hadn't planned to go that long, but he just was so compelling. Okay, so then the interview ends and I know you've had this experience. My phone lights up like a Christmas tree. Fantastic interview, Alison. Oh, my gosh, that was so wonderful. You're the best. You're so wonderful. You're so fantastic. And I usually like those accolades, for sure, but in that one, I felt a little bit like, ugh, I just had somebody at his most raw grief. I asked him to be really vulnerable. I was straight faced and I'm getting accolades. Like, we ask a lot of the people that we interview, we ask a lot. We ask them to pull off their mask. And I'm not going to pull off my mask. The satellite was also like, if he had been there in person, I don't think I would have felt as disconnected or whatever as I did. I would have been able to reach out to him or hug him or hold his hand or say something in person during a commercial break or whatever. But because like, satellite ends, he says goodbye, I get the accolades onto the next thing that I started to feel like maybe just peeling back the curtain a little bit on my own life might help people connect, you know? And Dan, actually, now that I think about it, when you and I went to lunch years ago and I told you that I was considering doing this and I wondered if it had ruined your life by being so candid and honest. And we went with our good pal John Berman, and I was, you know, just wondering how you had dealt with all of that. And you did it, too. I mean, you did it first. You pulled back the curtain and showed that you had struggled with something that is a fairly common issue of anxiety attacks and drug abuse. And you were in a much more straight news job at the time. And so, I don't know, that gave me a little bit of courage to think that. I think people will be able to connect with my story, too.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I mean, I. I think everything you're saying makes a lot of sense to me, and I think there's probably a way to do it wrong and a way to do it right. Some part of me has some sort of feelings about all these news anchors who are writing personal stories, and I don't know why, and maybe it's because I still have this. It's totally hypocritical because I did it. I was among the first to do it. And I went real. I went hard at the. At the personal revelation. So. But I still have this sense that, well, it, you know, in our job, it is, you know, at its highest form, a public service, and it shouldn't be all about us. And. But then I can make the counter argument that it is a public service to be honest about yourself, because that normalizes these experiences for people and makes them give them permission. Yeah. So I guess what you're hearing is some inner conflict.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, I do hear your ambivalence, and I guess I would say to you that it can be both, and it can. I think we have done great service for helping amplify the voices of others and the stories of others. And I really like doing that, and I'm not trading that in for this. But I also think that by being on tv, you give off an image of being a little perfect, you know, because we're at our most perfect when we're on that screen. We're well coiffed. I have a mask of makeup on. I'm in my jewel tones. You know, we're well lit. And there can be a feeling that, you know, we've never had a hard day in our life. And. Okay, that's. That's cool. I like that image for a while. But I do think that when you peel off the mask, as you did in yours, I don't know, I think that at some point you end up helping an entirely different audience of people, as you say. You normalize these problems. If even your perfect anchorman has these issues, well, then I guess it's okay for other people to talk about having these issues.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, yeah. I think that's when it goes right. And the question is, are there times when it's just self centered and self aggrandizing? I don't think that's the case with you. I just, I worry about it a little bit with myself. There was a hilarious article in the Daily Mail after my, my book came out 10 years ago, something like balding self obsessed anchorman something. So it was like something in the headline. And I love it. I mean, I. It's hilarious, but part of it stung a little bit.

[Alison Camerata]

You're not balding. I'm taking umbrage at this for you. I don't like a reference to a receding hairline if it's just not true. I'm.

[Dan Harris]

Well, they were picking up on the fact that in the book I did a lot of whinging about fearing that I would lose my hair. So it. In their defense.

[Alison Camerata]

No, I don't think that's journalism. I'm sorry, I. I don't like that.

[Dan Harris]

You say, or at least intimate in your book, that one of your hopes is that, and I think maybe I'm reading between the lines, you'll tell me that, you know, we live in such polarized times. You work for a network that has just become, I guess, along with the New York Times, that the sort of avatar or shorthand for what people on the right might call like libtards or whatever. You know, that's what they call us. You know, it's become the shorthand for liberal bias in the media. CNN has, and I believe you kind of intimate or even say outright that maybe something about humanizing yourself can turn down the volume on this polarization a little bit. Am I, am I picking that up correctly?

[Alison Camerata]

Yes, you're picking it up correctly because I. That is my ardent hope every day. And it's not just by sharing my story. I just think that it's sort of, again, build a bridge. It's building a bridge rather than creating a divide. So however I can build that bridge, I try to do it on the air all the time. I'm always happy to talk to any side. And I think that regular humans are not as polarized as campaigns would have you believe, or as some cable news outlets would have you believe, or some partisans would have you believe. I just don't think that's true. Well, I know it's not true. The Numbers suggest that the vast majority of Americans are in the middle. And so there are definitely loud fringes, but they're not the majority. So I've always felt that, having worked at FOX and CNN and before that, ABC and NBC has given me, I think, a helpful worldview and viewpoint. And I don't like when I don't like putting people in boxes. I don't like when somebody puts me in a box. So I don't like when I people are considered straight up partisan. I don't know that that is really how most people are. And so, part and parcel of all of that political talk or whatever, cable news talk, I do think that what is really more of a bridge than our politics is our life stories. And so our stories of survival, our stories of struggle, anxiety attacks, don't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat. Drug problems, don't care if you're a Democrat or Republican. So to me, talking about those things build more bridges.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah, I think you're onto something. Coming up, Alison talks about how to survive the news, coping with anxiety and your levels of media consumption and much more. This episode is brought to you by Choiceology, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. It's hosted by Katie Milkman, an award winning behavioral scientist and author of the best selling book how to Change Choiceology. Psychology is a show about the psychology and economics behind our decisions. I can say personally that I 1 million percent vouch for Katie. She is an incredible scientist. She's done so much work that informs what we now know about how to make behavior change or have it change in our own lives. She's been a guest on this show. She's not only incredibly smart and accomplished, but also really warm and a great speaker who's able to articulate complex and important ideas in simple ways. On the show, which again is called Choiceology, you'll hear true stories from Nobel laureates, authors, athletes and everyday people about why we do the things we do. You can [e-mail] podcast or wherever you're listening to this podcast. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Therapy can feel like a pretty big investment of time and money, but in my experience, it is definitely worth it. I say this is somebody who's had therapy on and off for several decades, including when I was a child and who is now part of a family where we spend a decent amount on therapy, but it is really worth it. It is incredibly helpful for me, for my relationships, for the people in my family and their mental health. You can look at this. In terms of the raw numbers here, traditional in person therapy can cost anywhere from 100 to 250 bucks a session, which definitely adds up quickly. But BetterHelp online therapy helps you save on average up to 50% per session. So with BetterHelp you pay a flat fee for weekly sessions, saving you big on cost and time. Therapy should feel accessible, not like a luxury. It really is kind of a human right. With online therapy, you get quality care at a price that makes sense and can help you with anything from anxiety to everyday stress. Your mental health is worth it. And now it's within reach. With over 30,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient too. You can join a session with the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life. Plus you can switch therapists anytime. Your wellbeing is worth it. Visit betterhelp.com happier today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H e-l p.com happier we're talking about polarization. I'm curious if you have any thoughts on how we can survive the news cycle. You know, it's pretty tough right now. We've got war, we've got a presidential campaign that's already nasty and likely to get even nastier. What techniques do you use to stay sane in the midst of all of this? And what would you recommend to news consumers?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, I mean, if you want to get into self, I mean, I guess it is a little selfish on my part to have been able to bow out of this news cycle right now, to be on this book tour that has been kind of self sustaining. I've been so much happier to talk about anything in the book. You know, to be able to talk about the search for home, to be able to talk about abandonment issues, to be able to talk about drug addiction, to be able to talk about being broke, being, you know, wrestling with depression or despair. Any of that stuff. Again, to me, being able to be out in the world and talk about that stuff, which I think is more important to humans and to all of us than how you vote, has been a really nice, in some ways, respite for me. I mean, I know those are hard issues, but I just think they're more meaningful right now in terms of how we're going to get through the political cycle. I wish that we were talking more about the stakes, less about the horse race. I think we're past the horse race. I think this is a really important election. And I wish that we just talked about the stakes a lot, and maybe we'll do that as we move forward. And I think that all we can do is just remind ourselves that most people are not as partisan. When a true partisan comes up to me and really wants to engage, I sometimes say, like, please stop spewing your politics onto me. I'm not that interested in how you vote. I don't find that to be the most interesting thing about you. I'm happy to talk about the first concert you went to or what music you're listening to now or how, like, you know, like you just said, like, what you do for, you know, self help. But I don't care about. It's not I don't care about people's politics. It's that no good can come, I feel, from engaging or trying to talk sense into somebody. So I just try to avoid that. To your. The second part of your question about what I do for my own kind of wellness. I know it's blasphemy, Dan, to tell you this, but I don't meditate because.

[Dan Harris]

I thought you were going to say I don't watch the news.

[Alison Camerata]

No, I don't meditate because I know. I mean, obviously, I know that's totally off message, but here's what I'm going to. I was going to bounce off of you, and you can tell me if I'm full of shit. I think that I can achieve an alpha state, like an alpha brainwave, pretty easily. Like, I think that I'm always kind of close to a meditative state or possibly comatose. Like, I sleep very well. I sleep many hours a night. I've never had a problem with that. And when I'm feeling overwhelmed by the news cycle or just my job, the hours of the job, I lie on my bed and stare out of the window and stare at, like, a leaf gently blowing in the breeze. And that's very therapeutic to me. And that's it. I don't consider that meditating your thoughts first.

[Dan Harris]

Just to say I'm not the arbiter or referee here. I often go back to something that my meditation teacher, Joseph Goldstein says, which is, like, whatever works, you know, I'm not very prescriptive, and I don't, like, judge other people's mental health. The fact that you're sleeping well says a lot. And the fact that you seem, if your subjective experience is that your default mode is reasonably serene, notwithstanding the fact that we discussed, you know, plenty of tumult in your inner life over the course of your life. But if what you're saying right now is that generally speaking, you're. It's not hard for you to generate these alpha waves, I take you at your word. And I would say that the lying on the bed and staring out the window, if you're not in rumination or fretful projection, but you're actually watching the undulation of a leaf or something like that, that is meditation. Meditation is just like being awake to whatever's happening right now. So I don't want to be approving or disapproving of people's inner lives, but it is kind of. And approval.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, thank you. I appreciate that and I appreciate how you framed it, because I really didn't know what I was doing. I mean, I didn't know. I never have thought of that as meditation until I was listening to many of your podcasts and I thought, is that what I'm doing? So I appreciate you framing it that way. I do feel that a lot of this is hard won because I definitely don't know that I was always built this way. I have achieved it now, but it's after years of, you know, wrestling with depression. I mean, my depression was situational, so I didn't wrestle with it for years. Over the years, I had a few bouts of depression and despair, and as we've talked about, I had some anxiety attacks. So I am in a serene place now, definitely. But I don't know that that was always my nature. I just learned through having to live through it, how to come out the other side of it.

[Dan Harris]

That makes a lot of sense. You said before you made the joke, this is going to be blasphemy. I'm going to say I don't meditate. And I rudely interrupted you to say, I thought you were going to say you don't watch the news. But as a recommendation for people with regard to how to survive this difficult news cycle, which again, has, you know, like war, climate, presidential politics all rolled up into a dumpster fire, one thing that I would say, maybe this is blasphemous for you, less so for me, given that I'm not being paid by any major media organization right now. But I do think titrating how much news you consume on your phone or on your TV or wherever is important because the news is like mainlining the human capacity for negativity bias. We definitionally are focused on, you know, the planes that don't land safely. And so, yeah, I think you get a skewed view if all you're doing is watching or reading the news, it's interesting.

[Alison Camerata]

During the 2016 presidential race and during the Trump presidency, I found that people who came up to me in the grocery store or the airport were highly engaged. They were highly engaged. This was sort of knew what was happening. They wanted to wake up and find out what was happening. They felt, it felt very urgent and immediate. And I heard from people all the time, I can't turn it off. I have it on all the time. It's crazy. I can't live without cnn. And people were very grateful to me. Thank you you for getting us through it. Thank you for being there. And I felt my purpose very strongly during those years between the Trump presidency and Covid. I felt my purpose every day. At that time I was anchoring the morning show on cnn. Now what I hear people say is I had to take a break. I can't watch it anymore. I just can't watch anymore. And they're almost apologetic to me because they think that they should be or that it's some sort of public service to watch the news. And I know what they mean, but I forgive them and I give them permission to turn it off because it's like what you're saying. Our central nervous system can only handle so much and we've reached our saturation point. We really reached it again. This is just based upon what I witnessed from viewers during these years at the end of the Trump presidency, when every single day during those four years felt like there was breaking news and you would wake up and something new and extreme would have happened. I think people took a deep breath at the end of that. The viewers at least who have spoken to me and they wanted a break and now I think they're still experiencing some of that hangover and some of the saturation level. And it's confusing because we have to be engaged again. You know, the stakes are obviously very high. They're important. People have to be engaged. But I don't try to talk people into watching cable news and having it on all the time as they did during those years. You know, you can also read your news for a slower metabolism of it. But you do need to be engaged.

[Dan Harris]

I agree. We need to be engaged. It's a dosage question. Yeah. Back to your story. After having written this book, I guess it's a two part question. What has the impact for you been of writing this book? And how's your relationship with your mom now? I know your dad has passed.

[Alison Camerata]

My dad passed away. So for me it's been wonderful. It's been really very, very gratifying. I'm really happy I did it. It was a real labor of love, and I'm so happy on so many different levels that I did it. One of the first ones, and I don't talk about this one. I haven't talked about this much on the book tour, but several of the people in the book have passed away, and two people died suddenly and unexpectedly who are. Were close friends of mine and are in the book. And so part of me feels like this was an important timepiece. I'll cherish having these stories because they helped me with it. And I feel like I got the truest version of what all of our story was as teenagers and in our youth. And I'm glad to have that timepiece, that time capsule for myself. Personally, I'm very glad I did it, because it used to. These stories used to kind of haunt me and bang around in my head. And by writing them down, I've gotten a lot more bandwidth mentally. It's gotten out of my head and onto the paper. And that has liberated me in many ways from not having to think about it all the time, as I did for years. Back to my mother. My mother really, really didn't want me to write it. And I heard you say that your mother really didn't want you to write your memoir either. Mothers don't like this, you know. So my mother really didn't want me to do it. I've told the joke, but it's not a joke. She repeatedly said, can't you wait until I'm dead? And I tried for a while. I thought, okay, I'll do that. And then she, just to spite me, kept getting healthier, I think. And so by the time she was 84, I was like, that's it. You know, no mas. Like we're doing this. And she was really nervous about what her friends would say. She feels guilt about how everything played out. She has friends who didn't know her then, and she was very, I guess, embarrassed about how they would think of her. And lo and behold, they still love her and they feel for her, and it's probably only going to strengthen their friendships, and it's all actually worked out.

[Dan Harris]

That's great. I have one last question, which is totally random. And it just made a note of this. Earlier in the conversation, you were talking about being back with your friends in Jersey and hearing their accents and what happened to your accent?

[Alison Camerata]

It was beaten out of me when I moved to Bellingham. So I'm 15, and I moved to Bellingham. And people would come from miles around. Okay, maybe that's an exaggeration from other hallways in the high school. People would come and be like, let us hear you talk. We hear you. You have an accent. Talk for us. And what they loved when I said there were some words that they loved that I said. Store. So when they say store, they. It's not two syllables. Like in Bellingham, they say it with one syllable, but from New Jersey, you say Stuart. Like, I'm gonna go to the store. Stuart.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Alison Camerata]

It's hard for me to say it now, but it has two syllables. Hawk. H, A W. K. Hawk is how I used to say it. Now I say it a little bit more like hawk. They say hawk without the W, which makes no sense. Sarah. I say the. I say the name Sarah, they say Sarah. And, oh, hot dog. I used to say hot dog when I moved there. And they would be like, what? They thought that was the funniest word that they'd ever heard anybody say, that a dog had a W in it. So because they would, you know, they just made me say it so many times that I lost some of it. So by the time I moved back, I didn't have as thick of an accent. And TV news has a way of also eating the hot dog out of you.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. Yes, it does. Is there something you were hoping to get to that we didn't get to?

[Alison Camerata]

Well, you and I haven't bonded about our anxiety attacks. Shouldn't we talk about that?

[Dan Harris]

Sure. When was the last time you had one?

[Alison Camerata]

Last time I had one was senior year in college. So I guess I was.

[Dan Harris]

You're. You're an amateur.

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah, it's true. Well, or was I a charter member? I mean, so I was, you know, probably 21 when I last had one. And I learned just how on my own. Once I. You know, as Mr. Rogers says, what you can mention can be managed. And so once I had a name for it, oh, this is an anxiety attack. I'm not actually dying or having a heart attack. That helped me. And, you know, I just, on my own, knew that taking deep breaths would help me and slowing down whatever I was doing. But again, to your experience, I am amazed, Dan, that as somebody who had anxiety attacks, that you could be on the air. I can't think of anything more anxiety provoking than being live on the air. Like, that's really quite a high wire act that you were doing that you were on the air while having anxiety attacks.

[Dan Harris]

It was really Hard. I have to say, speaking of you, I. I was joking when I called you an amateur. I mean, meaning more like I. It's still a big part of my life, you know, panic.

[Alison Camerata]

It is, but I mean, in other words, you still feel one coming on. You have to manage it.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. And so for me, a big variable is exposure. After I got over the panic attacks I had in 2004 and 2005, I had some coping mechanisms and I stopped doing cocaine, which really helped. But I was on TV so consistently that, you know, the brain just kind of acclimates. But now that I've retired from TV news, when I go back on, it's very hard. And actually, some of my first experiences of going back on TV after having retired were with you. There was a period of time, I don't know, maybe a year or two ago where you were anchoring the 10 o'clock show on CNN and it was a panel show. And there were a year ago, a couple months where I was being invited to be on the panel. But there were times when I would come on the show where I had been off the air for a year, I was panicky. And I remember times where you would ask me a question and I would say things and I would dissociate because it felt so surreal. And I thought the panic was going to come and I was bracing forward and words were coming out of my mouth and it all felt very surreal and in a bad way.

[Alison Camerata]

Well, I'm really sorry to hear that because you fake it really well. You fake. You're such a professional and you're so articulate and you know your stuff and so you fake it really well. I mean, obviously you come ready to play and, you know, that helps a lot. I know what you mean. Being on TV is a muscle that you have to use, I find. So even I'm not doing a daily show right now. And when I go back on TV on somebody else's show, because I'm not using that muscle every day. I know what you mean. It's. I have a little bit of a disassociative situation that happens. So I hear myself talking, I see myself looking at the camera, but I don't ever think it's going to spiral into a panic attack anymore. But I know, I know what you mean about how they feel sort of the same. There are definitely body sensations that feel the same in that moment.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. And for me, and because my brain is very good at panicking and I still do have panic attacks, that it really is. It is a clear and present danger. So I have to. There's a lot of things I have to do. I just did a little bit of press around the 10th anniversary of my book, and one of the things I did was have my wife come and stand behind the camera on Good Morning America and the View, and so I could just see her, and it just made me comfortable.

[Alison Camerata]

That's so nice, Dan. I mean, that's so nice. That's beautiful that she, you know, speaking of home.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah.

[Alison Camerata]

I mean, obviously, she gives you some sort of feeling of safety and comfort and home, and that's so nice that your panic can be resolved, you know, with her image.

[Dan Harris]

Yes. Yes.

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah. That's really nice.

[Dan Harris]

My son travels with me a lot. He's nine. And one of the things we do is travel together when I'm giving talks, because I do give a lot of talks, and people ask him what his job is, and he says, he's my emotional support animal.

[Alison Camerata]

That is so cute.

[Dan Harris]

It's very cute.

[Alison Camerata]

That's really nice. I mean, that's. I think that what. My gosh, what a beautiful silver lining, you know, to having anxiety. But I'm sorry. I wish I had known that. That was so complicated, you coming on. I remember that you kindly. And you can cut this. But you kindly offered Jay Michelson to us, who was so great. I mean, I was. That was. He was a delight to have on, but I was like, God, man, Dennis. So evolved. He doesn't even care about FaceTime on TV. He's giving it away.

[Dan Harris]

Yeah. I mean, part of that is true. I mean, somewhat evolved. I definitely don't have competitive feelings as much as I used to. Jay Michaelson, just for the uninitiated, is he's been on this show many times. He's a incredible person. Meditation teacher, rabbi, journalist, LGBTQ activist. He's got a great substack right now, and he goes on CNN and lots of other places to opine on the news. Yeah. And Allison put them on a lot. Before I let you go, Allison, just. Can you remind everybody of the name of the book and anything else you want them to know about from you?

[Alison Camerata]

Yeah. So my memoir is called Combat Love. It's a story of searching for belonging and home. And it just came out. You can find it anywhere that you buy books or you can always follow me on Instagram. Yeah, that's how you can keep up in there.

[Dan Harris]

And there was a novel several years prior, I believe it was Amanda Wakes.

[Alison Camerata]

Up, Amanda Wakes up, which was the story of an ambitious young journalist broadcast journalist wannabe anchor working her way up at a kind of pseudo cable news network that was pretending to represent both sides but really just cared about ratings.

[Dan Harris]

So basically that was a memoir too.

[Alison Camerata]

Yes, that was a memoir too because I I write what I know as all early writers do.

[Dan Harris]

Such a pleasure, thank you for your time. It was great to have you on.

[Alison Camerata]

Thanks Dan. It's such a pleasure to talk to you.

[Dan Harris]

Thanks again to Allison. Great to talk to her. Just to say Alison experienced two major life changes in the year since we recorded this interview first and I'm very sad to report this, her husband of 23 years died after a two year battle with pancreatic cancer. So I'm sending my best to her family. Also In December of 2024 she left CNN ending a 30 plus year career in national news. She she's since moved on to Substack where she hosts a video podcast called Sanity and I'll drop a link in the show notes for that. I'm also on Substack. As you know, if you're a paid subscriber, you can get ad free versions of this very podcast. You can also get live Guided Meditations with Me and much more. And finally, let me just thank everybody who works so hard on this show. Our producers are Tara Anderson, Caroline Keene Keenan and Eleanor Vasily. Our recording and engineering is handled by the great folks over at Pod People. Lauren Smith is our production manager, Marissa Schneiderman is our senior producer, DJ Cashmere is our executive producer and Nick Thorburn of the band Islands wrote our theme.

[Alison Camerata]

Foreign. You might say T Mobile takes the holistic approach to coverage because T Mobile helps keep you connected from the heart of Portland to right where you are on America's largest 5G network switch. Now keep your phone and T Mobile will pay it off up to $800 per line via prepaid card. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com KeepAndSwitch up to 4 lines via virtual prepaid card. Allow 15 days qualifying unlock device, credit service port in 90 plus days device in eligible carrier and timely redemption required. Card has no cash access and expires in six months.