Sicker Than Others
A podcast on the ups and downs of recovery from Alcohol, Drugs, Sex, and Love addiction. Based in a residential treatment center in Los Angeles, each episode brings a short but in-depth account of what happened, what it was like, and what it's like now.
Hosted by Seb Webber.
Sicker Than Others
From Violence to Value: Rewriting Steve’s Life
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Steve didn’t slowly drift into addiction—he was wired for it.
Raised in the Valley in a traditional home, Steve’s early life was marked by violence, instability, and a constant need for intensity. From getting into fights as a kid to setting fires for the thrill of it, there was always something inside him chasing adrenaline - something that didn’t know how to sit still.
And when life gave him structure, he thrived.
With the right guidance, Steve became an athlete, stacking trophies and proving he could be great. But without it, the chaos took over. As his family fractured and the rules disappeared, Steve learned how to game the system—skipping school, running the streets, drinking, and doing whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted.
He wasn’t just rebelling—he was searching.
In this deeply honest episode of Sicker Than Others, Steve sits down with Seb just hours after attending a memorial - a reminder of what happens when addiction wins. Together, they unpack a life shaped by extremes: discipline and destruction, potential and self-sabotage, connection and isolation.
This is a story about a man who could have gone either way…
and what it actually takes to change direction.
Because for people like Steve, the problem isn’t living hard-
it’s learning how to live at all.
Resources
Beit T’Shuvah – Recovery, community, and treatment
https://www.beittshuvah.org
Support Beit T’Shuvah
https://beittshuvah.org/support/donate/
Alcoholics Anonymous
https://www.aa.org
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (SLAA)
https://slaafws.org/newcomers/
Credits
Host: Seb Webber
Executive Producer: Jesse Solomon
Intro Theme: Jesse Solomon
Recorded live at Beit T’Shuvah
8831 Venice Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90034
Production inquiries:
seb@magick-arts.com
Sicker Than Others is a podcast on the ups and downs of recovery. This podcast does not reflect the views or opinions of Betashuva or any of its subsidiary businesses or partners. Sicker Than Others neither speaks for AA or recovery as a whole, but you'll find some useful links below if you want to find out more. Sicker Than Others touches on subjects and situations that some listeners may find offensive or if you're lucky, triggering. You have been warned.
SPEAKER_02Meth has been kind of like my my number one go-to, the ways and means, but it's a lifestyle. Meth isn't just a drug, it's a whole lifestyle. Okay. So there's characters involved, there's dealers, there's cooks, there's tramps, you know what I mean? There's like it's a whole towns are like this. Okay, like you know how you took the bike to Honga? That's one of them.
SPEAKER_01I am super hyped to introduce my guest today. Steve, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's good to be here. Yeah, dude. I hit Steve this morning. Steve and I went to a m a memorial today, because that's what happens when you get sober. People die. And um I you you you stick around long enough. You um you unfortunately um meet people the passway, and Steve and I were in a memorial today. And I hit him this morning, was like, Steve, you gotta come on the show. So I'm really happy you're here. Steve, I don't know where to begin with, Steve. So Steve uh was my roommate here, um, and he's now uh one of my closest friends. But the get down, uh sicker than others, is pretty simple. I just want to know what it was like, what happened, what it was like now. And um, yeah, I kick it off. Tell us how how how this ride in recovery started.
SPEAKER_02So I uh I was just like your every uh garden variety kid from the valley. I grew up uh in a conservative, you know, Jewish upbringing. My mom taught kadima. So, like as a example is and when I went to there was no daycare. So daycare was going with mom to school, basically. She taught kindergarten through six at uh CBK in in West Hills, but back then it was called Kanoga Park. And uh so I went to two schools, right? And went to I went to grade school and then I went to Hebrew school. And so about second grade comes up, and um I I had already started having a little trauma going on in my life, you know, at home, but just didn't really talk about it, you know. I mean, there was corporal punishment in our house, you know, and it it I got beat a lot, you know. My mom is is from that old school way of you know, Jewish mom, and she's like, you know, that's how you love your kid with a stick. And anyways, um so I would go to school sometimes missing a tooth, you know, a black eye. It was no big deal, okay? Even back then the principal would spank you. But there was a game we played on the on the playground called Socco, and uh for some reason this kid took my position and I felt like he punked me, you know what I mean? I don't know where it came from just inside me, and so I laid him out. You know what I mean? I laid him out. I tuned him up with just a two-piece, and then the next thing you know, there's like a pool of blood, you know, the yard duty teachers blowing the whistle. I'm going to the the principal's office to get spanked, and we even worse, to call my mom. Okay. So then another episode is I just I had this fascination with matches, right? So my dad would, every restaurant he went to, he would collect the matches and put them in this old 70s like glass lamp, okay? And I would steal them, right? And I'd go to the nearest field and flick them, you know what I mean? And so there was a there was a uh Catholic school on Sherman Way and Lake Mason, and um I lit their I lit their uh like parking lot on fire, okay. So the nun came out, she grabbed me by my ears and my buddy and took us home, and then I got beat again. You know what I mean? So I don't know what it is. I'm like that guy in the book, the Jaywalker. I get a thrill out of out of uh adrenaline rushes, you know. That's one of my get downs, is like anything that they can give me a rush like that, I'm all in. And so uh violence became a big factor in my life. And until I finally got uh someone looked after me and they said, you know what, he needs more attention than other kids. So I ended up going to private school, did really well there. I stopped getting in fights, uh, became an athlete, right? That's been my whole life. Like if you give me a little nudge, like an attaboy, I will flourish. Okay. Yeah. Without that, because I wasn't getting it from mom and my dad was always working, like I didn't get that. So if I had a coach that looked after me, I would just excel to this to the tenth degree, you know? And that that became my whole thing. I had trophies, you know, most valuable athlete uh from everything from football, baseball. And so that was my whole life for a long time. And then about 13, 14 years old, my parents divorced, and I'm not I'm not using that as a as a pole vault to to my alcoholism, but it had a big effect on me, you know. And uh my brothers went to go live with my mom, and I went to go live with my dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's heavy, dude.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and you know only coming to bait the shuma, right, and realizing the dynamic. There's so many people have the same thing going on in their life where they had like their parents separated, right? And the way that they were, you know, married, you were they you're not supposed to ever get divorced, you know. I mean, Jewish couples from back east don't get divorced. You know what I mean? And so the next thing you know, um, I'm with dad. My dad, my dad's wanting my my companionship and love so much because he doesn't have his family that he basically enabled me again to the tenth degree. I could do anything. Uh I could smoke cigarettes in the house, I could drink as long as I stayed in the house, I can have my girlfriend over and lock the door. You know what I mean? So I became a latch key kid, you know what I mean? He's always at work. He would pay me just to go to high school, you know. He I I mean 20 bucks is a lot of money in 1983, you know? Yeah. And he would pay me, and I would just like go to the first two classes so I don't get, you know, they don't call you. It's called home group, and then I would bounce and usually go to the gym or like go to the mall or something. That's the other thing, is that I made a deal with my my uh with my parents. I said, look, I'll stop, I'll stop running away. Because I I was a runaway. I would I would hop out my window, it's like 15 years old, and I'd lock the door from the inside and I would bounce and meet up with my buddies. We'd go to Stony Point in Chatsworth, you know, and drink beers and smoke some weed, whatever. So um I made a deal. Look, if you get me this gym membership, okay, I'll I won't run away no more, and I'll go back to school. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so for the most part, that worked for a while. You know what I mean? It worked for a while. I had the gym.
SPEAKER_01I mean, you were gaming, dude. You were gaming your gaming the system, right? You knew that you could get from your dad what you needed.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely. Right. And and that happened to the day he died. That I was already 35 years old, and he would tell me, Look, Steve, I can't carry you anymore. I got gray hairs on my balls, okay? And so, but my dad never turned his back on me. He never said no. I would hear my mom in the background going, Leave later, leave him alone. Don't just let him bottom out. You know, my dad would just come to my rescue every time. Um, what's even crazier is my parents got remarried. Crazy. That's crazy, huh? But it happens. And um, I was the best man at the wedding. I think I was like 21 or 22, and we try to have some reunification, but I was already an alcoholic, you know, at that point. My little brothers are still in at Konoga High School finishing up. They're Val Victorians, you know what I mean? They're super smart kids, and I'm just Steve. You know what I mean? I'm just Steve, um the black sheet, you know, driving my little Camaro around town, you know, just doing buds and suds, partying, you know. I can usually hold down a good job, um, but but I always lost my jobs. I would work like three, six months at some warehouse in Chatsworth. And the jobs were so easy to get back then, I could just go to another place the next day and get another job, you know. Um, so let's keep moving forward. So at about at about um 18, 718, I started using cocaine. And so we found cocaine finally. Everyone's doing it. And I'm I'm not talking about the stuff like today, I'm talking about like Scarface, you know, cocaine. Yeah, it had like little fish scales on it, yeah, and it was almost pure. And uh, it was like the greatest thing that ever happened to me, you know? When I when I really got accustomed and used to like the high that you get from cocaine when you snort it, I became a monster. So I would snort up to an ounce, you know what I mean, by myself. And um, I didn't like sharing, you know what I mean? And and really, it's really hard to be with like a female when you're really high on coke. Oh, so don't, I know it. So I I found a lot of isolation in that, um, where I would use cocaine and and be by myself just snorting for days.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Uh then I found the magic recipe on how to cook it myself. Ooh. A little cookery class. A little cookery class. And so a little baking soda, some water, an old salt shaker, glass salt shaker, you know, and then a big big bucket of bowl of ice to to like rock it up. And the next thing you know, I'm I'm like a rocket man, you know? Yeah. I'm making big boulders of crack. And and these are the ones that you know you get a bell ringer every time. And so I was a crackhead. I was a crackhead from about 22 to about 25 years old. And so my alcoholism, my my cocaine addiction had taken a toll on me, and my family did an intervention on me. I ended up at this place called um Harris Springs Ranch in Las Vegas. Back then it was called a 28-day dry out program, and you could uh it was it was it was really popular. Okay, it's like after the chic days, and after the you had a 28-day program, and you were good after that. Oh, yeah, fine. Yeah. So I went there, and lo and behold, in detox, I met my first wife, you know? Oh, yeah, and then and that that just seemed to be my story all the time, you know. Um I just like to dig more bottoms. So I ended up getting with this girl, she's from Montana, and uh she was she was like a bar fly cocktail waitress in in Las Vegas, and she was just happened to be going to detox too. You know, and then she's like, Where are you going after this? And I go, I'm going to a treatment center on Mount Charleston. She goes, Oh, I want to go too. You know what I mean? So pack up your bag, baby. We were there together. Yeah. After the treatment's over, she says, Steve, where are you gonna go? You going back to LA? And I said, I don't know. I'm thinking about staying in Vegas and living with my brother. He goes to UNLV, you know, and just getting away from the valley for a while. Yeah. And so I did. Okay. So I that's when I finally got involved in AA. They had an AA clubhouse that was close to we lived on Las Vegas Boulevard and um Sahara.
SPEAKER_01The recovery in Vegas is really good. Really good. Yeah, I've gone to a ton of meetings out there. They love AA. Yeah, yeah. And those little meeting rooms that were in strip malls, but like I've been in there and you have like 20, 30, 40 years of recovery in every meeting you go to. It's really strong, which makes sense.
SPEAKER_02And they go 24 hours uh at a time. So you you can never get a meeting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, because I think the the culture there, I mean, Vegas is one of the few things where you can places where you I don't know now, but you could uh um someone once told me you could valet park for a living and send your kids to private school. I mean, it really is a 24-hour um town. So it you really can go to a meeting at three in the morning and it'd be full.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Which is crazy.
SPEAKER_01I've been to some great meetings in Vegas.
SPEAKER_02Great meetings in Vegas.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Strong AA. So I ended up staying in Vegas, and uh me and Cheryl uh did our thing, you know. Um I relapsed after about a year, and then uh she says, Hey, let's go to Montana, let's do a geographic. Did she relapse as well? She relapsed as well. She relapsed, and then I relapsed, and then our great plan and design was to go to uh Wilson, Montana, okay? Okay. It's like a cowboy town. Yeah, I don't know what that is. The bank and the bar are the same thing. Okay. There's 50 people that live in this town. Oh my god. They're all ranchers, okay? And back then I had really long hair, you know, and I was just like this stoner kid from the valley, and when I got there, I was in culture shock, okay? Um, it was the craziest thing. We ended up living in an 1890s schoolhouse converted into a house. That's dumb. A real schoolroom that they used for all the kids in the area back in the late 1800s.
SPEAKER_00Was there any meetings out there though? One one meeting.
SPEAKER_02And it was in Livingston. You have to drive a hundred miles to get to the meeting. Oh so we did it. We even tried. You know what I mean? And uh we made it out there, but we I ended up we ended up I ended up getting drunk in a blackout and actually marrying her. Okay. Yeah, that was another one. So I wake up and and the next thing you know, she's go, I go, What happened last night? She goes, You don't remember? We went to the we went downtown to the judge and everything. We got married. Whoa. So I got on the phone with my little brother Jeff and I said, Look, you gotta get me out of here. You know what I mean? I don't know what I get myself into. And he said, Look, Steve, you gotta get yourself out of this one. I can't help you out. So uh I just decided to take the guy's field truck that I worked for and my dog and pack up, right? I cashed my last check at the bank bar, got me a bottle of Bacardi, right? And just drove all the way, okay? Back to the valley. Back to the valley. So good. In a blizzard. In a someone else's car. Yeah. Um, I had to ditch the car halfway home and just get on a greyhound, you know. So I get to San Fernando with the Greyhound, which I know very well, and my dad says, Hey, uh, you can go anywhere you want, Steve. I'll drop you off, but you can't come home. You know, and I'm 25 years old and I'm just going through it. I made a deal with him, you know. I'm good at deals with my dad. I said, Look, I promise you I'll never drink again if you let me come to Palm Springs with you and just live with you for a couple days. It's my birthday. You know what I mean? I want to be 25 in a couple days. And he said, Let me talk to your mother. You know what I mean? And the next thing you know, I got the green light. I'm back, I'm back in the saddle with dad, my mom, and me living in this little apartment in uh off of Palm Canyon, right? In in Palm Springs. My dad had moved his business in the early 90s to the to Palm Springs, you know, he's an accountant. And so uh he went all the way from Ventura Boulevard. He got out of the valley too. I don't know what was going on. A lot of people were leaving the valley back then. So what happened is is Cheryl followed me and she showed up in Palm Springs, okay, and she wasn't done with me. You know what I mean? So I got sober. I had a home group called the Cornfield Group, right? I got really involved in AA. I was I was a big fish in a small pond because Palm Springs is a small town, you know, and I was kind of a big guy and I had a big mouth and I had a big presence and I was able to uh to flourish there, you know. Were you bodybuilding at this time? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Um when I met Sheryl, I was uh at one time I was the dormant at Cheetah's, right, in Vegas.
SPEAKER_00Oh, a strip club.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, all nude strip club, you know.
SPEAKER_01And so uh Yeah, fun fact the Cheetahs in Atlanta, you can get like a gourmet meal at the Cheetahs in Atlanta. Oh yeah. Yeah, like uh I think I had like the best. They have buffets every day. Yeah, it's amazing, like a lap dance and steak.
SPEAKER_02It was pretty incredible. So um anyways, we end up uh where are we at? I'm in uh I'm oh yeah, I'm back in the valley uh at Palm Springs now. So Palm Springs, I do really well. I'm like got three years sober. My brother says, Hey, you want to come back to the valley um and uh develop this uh medical supply business with me? I'm I'm I'm doing great and I could afford you now. And I was like, absolutely. It was like I had arrived because I finally got that trust back from my brother and from my dad and from my everyone that I was that really meant anything to me, you know? And they wanted me to be a part of something with the family, and I was like, absolutely. So I left my my little nest in Palm Springs and made it back to the valley, okay. Now, looking back, right, that was a life decision that I made, a choice, okay. In the beginning it was great, but I had left all my the normal stuff that was keeping me sober, all the the GSR stuff and all the you know, the panels that I did and all the sponsoring guys I did in in the Palm Springs area, I had left that behind. So when I got to the valley at Three Years Sober, it was all about let's work, make money, and let's just move up.
SPEAKER_01But the recovery in the valley is really good too. So it was it was Yeah, it still is.
SPEAKER_00But you m you were just too busy with what I was still going to meetings, but it wasn't the same.
SPEAKER_02It would just never the magic that happened to me in Palm Springs to this day is just starting to happen for me again right here in West LA. Like I hadn't I was in the book with guys, I was I was taking like on my Christmas and New Year's, I was spending time with guys in detox, you know, uh doing step work with them and stuff like that. And so AA had become uh my the the only way that I knew how, you know. And and it I lost some of that. When I moved to the to the valley, I had lost some of it. But yeah, great meetings in the valley. My my get down was uh Commercial Lane in Woodland Hills, right? And then um Dumets. It's like a church at top of Canoga in Ventura. Um you know, West Valley AA is is probably like it's great, it's great.
SPEAKER_01It's great.
SPEAKER_02It's great.
SPEAKER_01And and NA too. There's a lot of really great uh there's I got it at this little NA meeting into hunger that's uh I know where it's at.
SPEAKER_02It's in the park. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it.
SPEAKER_01It's so great. Yeah. And a lot of those uh messages in recovery of the the bikers go there, which I think. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_02The messengers from Chatsworth. Yeah, yeah. In fact, the road captain, uh Craig, Craig Pilant, he used to mi he used to go out with my sister. Oh we ended up burying up in the Chatsworth, um uh the Chatsworth uh graveyard up there at Topolason.
SPEAKER_01But anyways, um So tell me about um tell me about when you discovered Crystal Math, because this is a great story. Okay.
SPEAKER_02So I was uh I was uh working in the phone room, selling tools, and um I was still using periodically when I binge, I was still using cocaine and like alcohol, right? And then uh all of a sudden I seen this guy, I was training him to close deals, and the next thing you know, I came to work and he had 13 deals he closed, and his lips and his jaw was like talking like this to the side, and he had created a whole character for himself, yeah, right? And I was like, Where did you learn that? I didn't teach you that. And he goes, At lunchtime, let's go to Carl Jr. I'm gonna I'm gonna show you what I'm working with. I was like, all right, let's go. So I get in the car and he opens up his hand, he's all you see those? And I go, Yeah, it looks like a bunch of broken glass. And he goes, put it in your hand, and I want you to lick it, you know. So I licked it, okay. The next thing you know, we went back to work and I sat and stared up my phone for three hours. You know what I mean? I couldn't, I couldn't even budge. I was stuck. Yeah, that's how high I was, you know.
SPEAKER_01Back in the day when meth was different.
SPEAKER_02Pulverized me. I had never been that high, you know. Funny thing is, the next that night I called them up and said, Look, on your way in, bring me a 20 of that, you know? And uh I'd never forget every morning at work I would rack up a big rat's tail of meth. And I'm talking about the greasy, oily stuff, you know, that smells like cat piss, you know? And I would rack one up and then I turned my I turned my my metal desk, you know, the file drawer, I turned it into like a little fridge. It had ice in it. I had Mickey Big Mouse right there, and I would just like do racks and drink at my desk. It was crazy. And I worked for a guy on the program.
SPEAKER_03No!
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And uh I was killing it. I mean, I was killing it. Meth got a hold of me, and I was making 1800 bucks cash a week, and I would have a limo come pick me up so I'd go cash my check. Listen to this by Monday morning, I'm bumming a hot dog off the hot dog truck and asking me, Hey, man, can you load me 20 bucks? And I need a pack of barbell box. It was horrific. You know? Um wild. Once once I got a hold of the met though, it got a hold of me so bad it changed the pattern in my brain, my brain chemistry to where. Even to this day, like if I if I have any meth in my system, it's a rap, you know? Yeah. I'm like that shark Bruce, you know, in uh finding Nemo. You know what I mean? He gets a little snort of blood, and the next thing you know, he's off to the races. That's me. And um that's happened many times. I've had I've had quality sobriety, and the next thing you know, I thought it'd be a good idea to do a little line, and um I was off to the races, back to prison the whole the whole night. So meth has been kind of like my my number one go-to, the ways and means, but it's a lifestyle. Meth isn't just a drug, it's a whole lifestyle, okay? So there's characters involved, there's dealers, there's cooks, there's tramps, you know what I mean? There's like it's a whole towns are like this. Yeah. Okay, like you know how you talked about Tahunga? Yeah, yeah. That's one of them, all right? Even the Jack in the Box drive-thru guy is high on meth. You know what I mean? And so that's also one of my favorite spots is Tahonga. We call it Tea Town. I love it. Um, but that obsession became the great obsession of my mind, and the way what it did to my mind and my body, it took me back to prison like five, six times. Yeah. So by the time I finally realized that my life was, you know, over, my daughter was already out of high school. Yeah. My son was getting ready to go into high school, and there I missed out. Like when you're supposed to be a dad, go to their fucking graduation, you know, when they go to first day of school, they're supposed to do all this stuff, and I'm fucking on the prison yard acting like a fucking teenager, you know, trying to be Mr. Popular.
SPEAKER_01And I think we really bonded as well because when we met each other when I was here, you had told me that uh my daughter Stella was at the s same age that you went to prison. Yeah. Right? And I remember that being like a huge wake-up call for me to be like, oh, that's what's if I don't start to get this, well, the how you told me how that happens and how you had to leave your, you know, your daughter and your family together really hit me hard. It was like, oh, okay, yeah, I couldn't imagine what that was like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I saw I saw the the same pain that you had in your eyes that for not being with Stella, yeah, that was me. Yeah. You know what I mean? And so when you're just guys like us that were real lovers, you know, not really fighters, but like we're a big presence, and you pull you take away the one thing life that means everything to us, it crushes you. Yeah. I don't even there's no words for it. It just devours your soul. Yeah. And and she still calls me and texts me, but like to this very day, I haven't seen her yet, you know, and I've been sober almost four years. Yeah. And she's still now she's sober. Now she's going to fellowship Paul in Palm Springs. That's crazy. You know, and my son's, my son's sober too. That's another whole story, you know. Yeah. I was with Chris and she sponsored Lisa. And then when I broke up with Chris, I got with Lisa and had Seth. It's like a Jerry Springer show. So, but I got two beautiful kids. Yeah. You know, they're already grown, doing their thing. So right now I'm just I'm putting together my life, you know, life without meth, life without, you know, being an active gang member, that's for sure.
SPEAKER_01And um Yeah, man, you show up, dude. You show up. I can't imagine what it must have because it's funny because like the first time I met you, so it's funny, I get I I'm I I I just had like I had this bad luck at run of roommates, right? I had one guy that fucking uh I think it was like after two weeks of me being here, he got kicked out, and then I had this my friend Jake, and he had an issue, and it was like, and then I had this bad run of roommates, right? And I'm just trying to get my shit together. And I go down to the PF's office and one of the PFs of tech here, one of the techs goes to me, hey, you got a you got a new guy? He's just straight from Folsom. And I'm like, What's Folsom? Right? I'm like the last guy that gets any of that. And I walk into my room and Steve is topless with all his tattoos out, and I'm like, hell yeah. And uh it was uh it was great, dude. I think you saved me here. I think you fucking saved me. It was great, it was a really great Steve and I uh you know when you when you're getting sober in places like this, it's the healing comes. I really think about this a lot. I thought about this a lot at Shabbat this Friday, and I think about this like to what how to tell other people going through this, but I have a really strong opinion on this stuff. This is kind of long-winded, but let me get it out. Like programming in any treatment centre is just the fucking programming, right? It's the shit you do during the day. I don't necessarily think it's the stuff that makes you better. What makes you better is the healing in the downtime. It's those weekends where there's not much to do. It's the evenings when you have to sit with your thoughts. And I just remember us, we would just watch UFO documentaries, Bigfoot, and it was just this common bond of two guys that are totally fucked. Yeah, right? We're just two dudes that are just fucked. And we have nowhere to run, nowhere to go, and we're stuck with each other, and like we make the best of it. Absolutely. It was fucking great, dude. It was like the thing that like really plus, you never wanted to be in a room with me and Steve because the two of us we snort and sleep talk. So not only are you not going to sleep, you're also getting uh conversations as well. It was full conversations.
SPEAKER_02I don't even know who I'm talking to. I started doing it again with my new roommate. It's crazy. He has to suffer through all that. Um, but yeah, I just uh that's a whole nother thing I'm fascinated with. You know, I'm I'm super open-minded about certain things, and you know, I have my own personal take on what what the moon is, you know. And I know what you'll think of. All the little different species of aliens that live here on Earth. You know, I really I'm really up to speed on all that. But like I found somebody instead that's the same way. Yeah. And he listens to podcasts with all the good information, right? The newest stuff that's out there. And so he would tell me or send me a picture of like some UFO coming up out of the water in Malibu or something.
SPEAKER_01I'd be like, hell yeah. But that's it. Like when we get sober, we can like it's great to have a common interest. I know people are like, Why are you guys talking about UFOs? But it was like, it was, it was like when we would watch UFO docs and we'd send it, it was like the first time I was like, Oh, I'm getting better. And oh, I actually like I actually like this shit. Like, yeah, when you first get sober the way, you know, well, for you it was like when you left prison and you came here. Like, I I I don't I didn't know what I liked. It took me months to even get any close. That's why I'm such a big component of long-term treatment, because I think you don't even know fuck identifying a feeling after 30, 60, 90 days. I couldn't even tell you what I was feeling until month four or five, like in the slightest. And it was great to like have bonds and fucking figure out that what I like because you know, I did I didn't I didn't even know how to tie my shoes, like I was that fucked up, you know what I mean? Um and I I think as well, like you work in treatment now, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I started out here, and you still have a strong program because Yeah, I still got commitments. I sponsor some guys from here. I got a couple guys that call me sponsored, but they don't really do anything. Yeah, I got a few of those two. But I but I got two guys that um are really into the work, and uh I met them both here. One of them works here. That's great. Yeah. So yeah, that's my main thing is that, you know, when when Carrie when I wrote Carrie that letter, and I was in I was in Wayside, and she came to visit me like two days later after I wrote her. That was a god shot to me. You know what I mean? And when she came to visit me, she had a file on me, okay. I just want to read this to you and let you know what a fucking asshole you are. That's what she before we could even get going. That's what she said to me. I was like, I did I said that and I did that. She's all yep. All the way back from 2008 when Rabbi Mark was my spiritual advisor, you know? And um Yeah, shout out to Carrie, she's amazing. They took me back, you know what I mean? They took me back. I I got it, you know, that was a hot hit back then. I got into it with this kid, and his his parents were big donors, you know.
SPEAKER_01Oh, the first time you were here.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. And uh I had to go tune him up upstairs. You know, we did we did um the men did a whole group at night. What year was this? 2008. And you do a whole group. Everyone meets in the this is all different, but it's called um where did I miss the mark? Or 10 after ten. Is it 10 after 10? Yeah. And all the men are in one group, right? And this me, this guy kept getting at me, and I'm like, dude, stop. And then I said, All right, you're gonna make me do this in front of everybody. I said, after this is all over, let's go upstairs and handle it. And you know, he didn't know. He didn't know. And back then I was fresh out of Chino, you know, I had come directly, almost directly from Chino to to Bait Teshuva. My brother heard Rabbi Mark speak at um his temple, and he was trying to pull money from the members, you know. My brother made a donation to his cause, bought his book, and like was really moved by by Rabbi Mark, you know? And um, and so yeah, he told me about this place and so I came here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I had a great I had a I had just one interaction with Rabbi Mark the eve before my first birthday, um, my first sober birthday. Um I got connected to him and Harriet, and um I drove out to Palm Springs, and he came and just just they were like, Why we you know, they hadn't they had no idea who I was, right? I mean you remember I was telling you about this. And I went because I just wanted to see the people that I I I had I had been trying to get sober for so long. And I remember, you know, Lisa and I often talk about this Lisa who works in intake, we we talked about how she she said, Do you remember how you said this wasn't gonna work? I was so dead set that this wasn't gonna work. I was like, I'm gonna do it, but I this it's not gonna work, nothing's ever gonna work for me. So I wanted to meet the people that built this, and I went there um on my own accord. I reached out, you know, myself and everything and set it up, and he said something really interesting to me. He goes, Get year one was just getting sober. Year one was getting physically off the shit, right? That's it's it's removing the shit from me, right? But year two was about figuring out what man I want to be. Who do I want to be? And I remember being like that was such solid advice because the problem is I I got the the good news is I got my old self back, but the problem was I got my old self back. And so I really spent a lot of time on what man did I want to be, and I decided, and and I think I'm I'm gonna take two years in a month, and I probably will I want to talk to new people about this because for me I I spent a lot of time this year deciding that I wanted to be. There's a reason why I come here a lot, and there's a reason why I help people, because that's the person I want to be today. I want to be someone that's dependable, reliable. There's a hundred people out there, and if any of them needed anything from me, they could a hundred percent count on me. You need a vape, or you need don't spread that out too loud and far. But like I the reality is I would give anyone anything they needed if it's gonna help them in this journey, you know. And I really had to think about that because that's the type of sober person I want to be, right? Um yes, super was super thought-provoking for me because a lot of times when we get sober, we just talk about like getting through the steps or just getting, you know, abstinent, or just um like even just landing, but no one really talked to me about what who I wanted to be now. I got sober, you know, and it was really great to spend some time with Rabbi Mark, and he was really drilling me down to like you need to define who that person is you want to be. Um, and I was really, really thankful for that. And he gave me a stack of his books. I felt really embarrassed. He was like, Did you read my books? And I was like, I got the choice now to lie to the rabbi and say yes. Or I could say, No, I haven't read them, and he looked so disappointed when I said I hadn't read them. I felt like such an asshole. Um, but it was a it was a beautiful, touch-in-ful moment. So um I want to talk about what we did today, because I think that's important. I think that's important.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01So um Steve and I, we um before I got my own apartment, um, we and before I left the care of I left the care of Bait Shuver and we went to a sober living, right? Yeah. And we had a roommate called Mason. Yeah. Young kid, 20, I think it was 27. He's like 28, yeah, and he died like last week, right? And um you know it's uh we weren't necessarily close with him, but it was it doesn't the scary thing about all this is it gets easier. That's what I don't like. You know, it gets easier that when I realize when people die and I want to show up to the memorial, so we went to a memorial today, um, and we were talking about it. It was um it's you know, we met his parents and here's a kid too that I I I mean I wasn't I didn't this is the other thing as well, like I liked what Charlie said today, which was like it's always the people you don't expect or the people you like that are the ones that usually are the ones that that I hate to say it but die. You know what I mean? Like it's not the ones that you are like not fond of, it's always the really heartfelt, warm people. And this kid was really warm. And honestly, I've been thinking about it a lot today because it was like we lived with this guy in a room and I didn't know how much pain he was in. He he masked it really well, right?
SPEAKER_02I could see a little of it, you know, now that I look back when he would camp out in the living room, and he was talking about how he had made a big hit, you know, because he's a salesman.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_02And um next thing I know, he's like saying, I'm moving out.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_02And I'm like, just like that. I I go, come on, you're not that well, you're not ready, you're not ready to move out yet. Come on. And he goes, No, I I got my got a little place with somebody, or he said, No, first I'm going to, first I'm going to Colorado, then I'm coming back and I'm gonna move into my own place. And um, you know, Andrew is is like and him are really tight. We would talk about that. I'd be like, How's Andrew doing? He goes, Oh, he's doing good. I saw him at work today, you know what I mean? Yeah, and Andrew, Andrew showered that dude. Yeah, you know, he loved him to death, you know what I mean? And um, that was a trip today, man, seeing his parents, you know, yeah. And then doing the sound, sound bath and looking in her eyes, you know, really deep like that. And it's almost like looking into Mason's eyes, huh? There's like really crystal blue.
SPEAKER_01And in a weird way, there was this we talked about it. It was I mean, he he had it's funny because I don't really want to talk about him like it's not here, but I think it's also important. And I have lived with him in sober livings before I came here too. So he definitely saw me at my worst. Um in a weird way his parents seemed relieved. I couldn't really hear they were so I felt that too. You know what I mean? Yeah, they and his mum was so beautiful, his dad was so articulate, but they it was they weren't we were way heavier than they were. Yeah. They were really loving. It was just an interesting thing. I mean, these memorials uh they suck, man. They say in AA you need to buy a suit because you're gonna start going to funerals, you know, and that that is the truth. But um, hey, as we come to the end of the show, um I ask every guest this what would you tell little Steve today?
SPEAKER_02What would I tell little Steve today? I guess I would tell him that you know, everything's gonna be okay no matter what, you know? It might not seem like it right now, but things are gonna turn out for you. You're gonna everything's gonna be okay, you know? I was really fucked up as a little kid. I got fucked up a lot, you know? And I had I had stuffed all that stuff down, you know. It I'm just now, like you talk about, I'm just now figuring out who I am, you know, on an emotional level. You know what I mean? I've been I've had a a face up, a mask on my face for decades, you know. You know what I mean? And I know that that there's a lot of pain that that little kid still carries around, but you know, I'm fucking tough as hell too. That's why I'm still here.
