The Smart Drunk

Will’s story isn’t the version of alcoholism most people expect.

He didn’t fit the stereotype. High-achieving, intelligent, outwardly functional, and capable of building a successful life, Will looked like someone who had it together. But underneath the ambition, the work ethic, and the performance was something much darker.

Growing up on the East Coast in an achievement-driven family, Will learned early that success mattered. But alongside family trauma, instability, and a relentless internal pressure to perform, alcohol slowly became more than just an escape, it became a system for survival.

What makes Will’s story so compelling is the one thing he couldn’t let go of.

He was willing to change relationships. Geography. Routines. Entire chapters of his life. But work? Work was sacred. Work was identity. Work was also one of the biggest triggers keeping him trapped in relapse.

In this episode of Sicker Than Others, Will sits down with Seb for a deeply honest conversation about ambition, alcoholism, family dysfunction, long-term treatment, loneliness, and the dangerous lies high-functioning addicts tell themselves.

This isn’t a story about someone losing everything overnight.

It’s about someone who looked like they were winning… while quietly falling apart.

Produced by Jesse Solomon.

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

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

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_01 0:22

I did cocaine and woke up one morning and I'd done, you know, I'd like to go through an eight ball on a night, kind of like, you know, no problem. But like I woke up and I felt like such shit that I was like, I'm not doing cocaine anymore.

unknown 0:35

You know.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

I wake up feeling like shit and I'm like, alright, let me do some more. Hi, welcome to Sicker Than Others, the podcast brought to you from within a treatment centre in Culver City. I'm your host, Seb, and today on the show is Will. Will Will, welcome to Sticker Than Others.

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:07

It's good to be here. So the get down is very simple here. I just want to know what happened, what it was like, and what it was and what it's like now. I just want to hear your story. And what's kind of fascinating is I actually like I've seen you around with friends, but I don't know. I love having people that I see in my community that I don't know their story. I don't know your story. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's very interesting. So yeah, hit it tell us from the get get get it from the jump.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Yeah, I don't I don't share my story a lot, um, especially here at BTS, just because I I sort of when I came in I got involved pretty quickly um with work stuff. I I did like three months. Actually the so Mia, after my um primary, like my counselor, therapist, and spiritual uh counselor, uh Mia was the the fourth person that I talked to. Because I think the one of the major things that I coming in here I had seen was that work was such a huge trigger for me. Um I was like, I'm not I've not to be this anymore. I I have this like cycle of get sober, do be doing great, get back into work, that starts doing awesome, and then immediately relapse. And so this was the time I was like, what was the one thing that I had never been willing to change in recovery? Was like the one area like I was willing to change geography, I was willing to change relationships, I was willing to change pretty much everything other than like work. And so this time I I said that was gonna be something that I I I I I made some changes. I was gonna do things differently this time in regards to um my job, especially since like work has such a like deep-seated um connection to like my issues that I have in my psyche outside of alcoholism, but definitely with the alcoholism too. So, you know, um all right, so what how what was it like or how did it how did it start? So I I grew up on the East Coast, born in New York. Um definitely to a a achiever family. Um my dad especially was somebody that um was all about uh achievement. Uh he did his undergrad at Fordham, then got his MD at Columbia before coming out to Caltech to do his um uh masters in microbiology before going to Harvard to get his PhD um and then becoming um a neonatologist. Taking that all putting that all together to do neonatology. What is a neonatology? So premature babies. So like the okay premature, premature babies. Definitely need some of those. Yeah, yeah. So that um like he when I was I can it's actually my first memory was uh landing in um the Cayman Islands and coming off the plane and being like, this is so beautiful, I have to remember this. And um we were there because by he was doing work on a rare genetic mutation that occurs in children in or it occurs in people in the Cayman Islands. He was doing a study specifically uh the children that um uh that uh in the Cayman Islands who had this uh genetic marker. Um that it was only found because of the the genetic makeup of African slaves who were brought over, the indigenous people of the Cayman Islands, and then Europeans and just the the uh the effect of those groups uh coming together in one uh isolated island. But anyways, so then we were up in uh Boston was sort of where we I was raised. Um I started off at a school that was like started off in a the in a place where it's idyllic, you know, like I went to a place called the Apple Orchard. And like and you know, where we were uh for like pre-K and K in kindergarten. Uh you know, we had goats and horses and you know, there was like, you know, that sort of thing. And then we went, then I went for elementary school to this place called the Park School, which is like up there and one of the best elementary schools in the country. Um and so like had a nice little life going, and then my parents got separated and things went very different. So I went from a school that like was you know at the time cost the same as Harvard, and it was in elementary school, um, to my mom sending me to an inner city Boston school, where on like the third day I was there, I saw one of the students punch one of the teachers, you know, and um and so it was like that was a very jarring change. And um, and I think that it de definitely like affected how I look at the world and just how my family, like how we discuss things, the trauma is so built into my family that like we don't realize it until we're telling stories to other people, you know, and like and then they're like, wait, wait, why are you laughing about this? Or like you know, there's this disconnect of not realizing that this isn't humorous or that this isn't just how life is, you know, like the way I found out my so the way I found out my parents were getting separated was by the the night the weekend before I turned six, we went out to get a dog my parents and said, Okay, you're allowed to get a golden retriever puppy. So the weekend before I turned six, we went out to pick out the puppy. So I spent like the entire day like playing with Golden Retrievers puppies, which you know, as a five-year-old at the time, like what's better than that? And then the next weekend on my birthday, we're gonna go back out and pick the puppy up. And the night before, my um my mom comes into the bedroom and she says, I need to talk to you. We can't get uh your puppy. And I said, Well, why not? You know, why am I am I not gonna be able to get this? And um she said, Well, your father and I are getting separated, and I can't take two, two, and two, two and one. And I can't take care of you and the puppy and your brother and sister. What were you more mad about? The puppy. 100% the puppy. Um but you know, and so and like I'm sure she had a conversation with me, you know. But in my mind, what I remember, I remember just being like, like, you're not getting the puppy, your father and I are getting divorced or separated, good night, and like turning out the light and walking out is like how I remember it, even though I'm sure you know, yeah, I'm sure she like talked with me, you know, for a while about it and everything like that. But um, and so like that it was definitely a very like uh a change in my life. That was a major like sort of like turning point in my life, and after that, like we went so I went to this public school, and my parents was um they actually didn't eventually really get divorced for for another six years. And there was a lot that went on then of you know um my mom pulling us away from my dad, letting us see my dad, not letting us see my dad, like all of that over the next like six years. Um was she mad that the related was she was angry?

SPEAKER_03 9:20

Yeah, she was she was she was definitely angry. I've been the dad in that situation. Really?

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yeah, and like so was it the same thing? Same thing.

SPEAKER_03 9:28

My kid's mom was fucking rightfully so, she was pissed at me. So it would be it was it was yeah. It's like I think people try not to weaponize their kids, but they do accidentally weaponize their kids.

SPEAKER_01 9:38

Yeah, my mum didn't try to not rub it. Oh, she she didn't know. My dad eventually like left children's hospital, moved all the way to San Francisco because she like that's how weaponized she got about it, where it was like she you couldn't be in the same side of the continent. Wow. Um sad. But that's that's good that so so how did you guys how did you guys like get to a point where you were able to did you have that like comedy card? It got sober. Yeah, we got all the topics.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Yeah, well, it got sober and it got um I got sober, and uh we're recording this the night before I get two years, which is kind of crazy. Um thank you. Um I got sober and then I did another thing, which was when I came here, I put all my trust into Jill. And I had I was so angry and sad and defeated, and like that I realized that even with getting maybe like a month sober, that wasn't gonna be enough. Like I had to have like an intermediary throughout my whole time in treatment. And you know, my first conversation I had the first conversation Jill had with my baby mama, sh my baby mama was like, Stella, Stella's never coming to Beit Shuba to visit you, you know, and then like that's now my kid comes to Shabbat. You know what I mean? And it's just like and Jill like literally sat me down and she was like, I know how to work this, you are gonna have to let me do this the way.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

I love Jill.

SPEAKER_03 11:10

Yeah, she's the best. She completely, completely mended my relationship. She knew how I think she's amazing because she has such a um difficult job of dealing with angry family members. Like one awful thing to have to go do it. You know what I mean? You really have to be in tune with having to do that. So, but that's how I did it. I I I didn't fix it. Honestly, Jill fixed it. Yeah, and I just followed what Jill said.

SPEAKER_01 11:32

I equate what Jill does to in some way in in somebody in the medical field. Like I I looked at getting into the medical field and I hated being around sick people.

SPEAKER_03 11:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Um, and Jill, I think, is the same way where she not only has to be around the sick alcoholic, but she has to be around the sick family, too. Yeah, it's it takes like a like a special type of person that's willing to be around.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

She knows exactly how to I don't want to say work the situation, but she knew how to work for at least for me, she worked it. And every time that she would talk and check in, uh, you know, there'd be a little bit more, it'd be like, okay, now you're gonna have a FaceTime on Thursday. And it was like it was incrementally, and of course, I'm out of my fucking mind. I'm like two months sober, and I like think I should have the world, and I'm talking about like visitation and like, you know, and I want to have a schedule, and she would tell me to shut the fuck up and like let her keep working. And she worked on it for fucking nine months, like nine months. She just worked on it, and every time I was like a little I got a little bit more of what I wanted to eventually. Um, yeah, she's a big big part of the reason that that got fixed the way it does. And now I have a really great relationship, but it it only exists because I'm sober. There's no way, I mean, there's just no way I could I I you know I've just started building trust. And right, you know, my kid's mum still shouldn't trust me. You know, I've done so much damage. I kind of like the fact there's still lots of work to do, but she trusts me enough and I can take the trust, like that's enough for me right now. Trusting me enough, like I have the code to her front door. Like I stole this girl, this woman's handbags and gave them to prostitutes. Like I did some really heinous shit.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Time, man. I know it sounds so simple, but time. This is why with all the new people that I meet, it's like the only thing you can do is time. Like the only thing it's just it's over time, it's never gonna be on your fucking schedule.

SPEAKER_01 13:19

Well, I think what you also said about the lack of expectations. Oh, totally. That was one thing they did. I I didn't care when I was here, like whether they said yes or no. I had zero like emotional or even like intellectual investment in whether or not somebody said to me yes or no. Yeah, either way, I was gonna have to feel the exact same way about it.

SPEAKER_03 13:38

And I'm gonna be okay no matter what the answer is, right.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

Instead of catastrophizing and well, if you don't have the emotion, the emotions are what cause you to catastrophize or to have to feel like up or down. You know, if you don't have those emotions invested in it, then it it really has zero impact. Stay out of the results. Yeah. That's what we say. So how far into your ninth step did you make the amends to your first one. First one? Yeah, okay. Why did you want it to be the first one?

SPEAKER_03 14:04

I didn't want it to be the first one, I want it to be the never one. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Because um, and this is the way my sponsor taught me, and the way I teach my guys is I think you lead with the hardest one first. The one, you know. And none of my sponsors are even on their ninth step yet, but the first thing they will do is I'll I'll say to them, what's the one you don't want to make the most? What's the hardest one? The one with the most money, the one with the most damage, what is the one that makes you sick to your stomach? That's the one you're doing first. That's what I did. You know, and uh and time, and then and you know, the the other thing about amends, which is really interesting, is I really believe this as well, is that the amends aren't for them. It's really for you. Oh, 100%. You know what I mean? It's really it's really for the person giving it. You can dress it up as like it's like some sort of closure for them. It's not though. It's closure for you. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

It's I had to not make amends was the hardest thing for me.

SPEAKER_03 14:56

Yeah, so I've had a few of those.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

You know, where there was somebody that like my ex-wife, where I didn't reach out to her. Um, I and I I don't wanted to, but I do she had zero fucking interest in that. And like I did like a a mini from a distance amends, yeah, but it wasn't what I wanted to do. Like I wanted to get like the full phone call, like lay it on, go through all that, you know, rehash it. Um instead I did the she contacted me to let me know. She wanted me to find out from her that she was getting remarried. And I did the amends by giving her telling her that I'm excited for her, I hope the best for her, and that what she that I was glad that she had found this person. That was my amends.

SPEAKER_03 15:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Um I didn't Did you mean it? Yes, I did. I I really did. Like I I I mean, one, I I never this is like yes, I I meant it, and um I was as I said to her, I'm just glad that it like limits some of the guilt on my part for how awful I was as a husband at the later stages of our marriage. Yeah, you know. And like so um that like what she has now is what she wanted. It wasn't when we met, and it definitely was part of the reason why I didn't ever want to get married is because people change. Yeah, you know, and the like marriage was when it was created was it was a real like forever, you know, like whatever, like it happened for so many reasons. And I'm not saying that that's the right thing and it should be that way, but at the time when it was, you know, marriage was marriage, it was because there was you you went through the shit together and you had it for the rest of your life. But now that doesn't exist anymore, you know, like for most people, yeah, and it's not necessary for it to exist. Um so like I I just I don't understand marriage, um, unless you have kids.

SPEAKER_03 17:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

And my whole thing was I was never gonna have kids.

SPEAKER_03 17:09

Right. Never?

SPEAKER_01 17:10

So no, no, no. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:12

Worst investment ever. I'm still waiting for the ROI. I mean it's better pay off. At least I have a girl and girls will look after you when you get old. That's that's what I've been told. Maybe. Maybe, right.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

I guess the only one really talked to my mom is my sister. No.

SPEAKER_03 17:28

So how did you end up getting into treatment this time? And you're a boozer, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:32

A boozer, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 17:32

Yeah, you're a old you're a hard, hardcore, old school boozer.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

Yeah, no, there was always the only thing that I really like like I mean, I've done pretty much everything under the sun. Um, but I could like, for example, I did cocaine and woke up one morning and I'd done, you know, I'd like go through an eight ball on a night, kind of like, you know, no problem. But like I woke up and I felt like such shit that I was like, oh, I'm not doing cocaine anymore.

SPEAKER_03 18:00

You know, that's the exact opposite. I wake up feeling like shit and I'm like, all right, time to do some more.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Well, now if I did cocaine, I'm sure. Like it's there's a it's there's a point. Like I think, so I think there's two things to it. One's one, I think that I was always an alcoholic, but at the same time, it needed to get to a point where I flipped that switch where I couldn't like I couldn't go back from it anymore. Oh, the invisible line.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Yeah, the invisible line of like I'm never gonna do this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then oh shit.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

I remember the first time I like woke up shaky. I was like, oh, that's not a good sign. That's not a good sign at all. How cold did you have to go to detox before you came? Yeah, yeah. So I I got really lucky. So this time coming in here, so I had I got sober and had some sobriety. Um I had been started working for cooking for a rehab in detox. Okay. And was providing the food, like um, prepared food for their lunch and doing some other like dinners and for like in the sober community. Um and when I relapsed, the person, one of the like one of the people in sobriety, so who NA was like got me connected with this organization called Clear Behavioral Health. They're based out of like the South Bay, and an amazing, amazing organization. And um they scholarshipped me in, like what they charge for a 21-day DDox was I was not gonna be able to afford. Yeah, and they scholarship me in, and um then at the end of it, I I knew this time that I couldn't, I couldn't stay sober before I left after 21 days. Yeah, I knew that I was gonna relapse.

SPEAKER_03 19:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

Um I'm not convinced.

SPEAKER_03 19:50

I don't, I'm not trying to shit on other programs at all, and I understand they exist for a reason. And I went to multiple rehabs, and the thing I was told at the time was you need to go to long-term treatment, and I'm thinking, ah no, I'm fucking way too important. Like, I got shit to do, like people rely on me, like that was in like 2014 or 2015. I wish I went to long-term treatment for I I'm a really big believer that you have to go to long-term treatment now.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Yeah. Well, I mean, I so I think that what BTS and the seven month seven month minimum, yeah. That's I I like in the 90 days, like what I was thinking with long-term treatment was 90 days. Yeah. So at the end of the 21, I was like, I'll go to Beiteshuva. Because I'd heard from people about Beiteshuva, just in like being on the west side and being in uh AA. Um and everything I'd heard was really positive. And so I was like, all right, I'm uh this place, I want to get into this place, I want to do that place. But at the same time, I I was thinking three months. You know, I was thinking that but what what you get here that I don't think you get from any other place, even the 90-day sort of place, is that a community that um I don't even know how to say this. That it's not just the community that you find in AA, but it's a a lifestyle community of like I'm going to like have these people in my spiritual life, I'm gonna have these people in my recovery life, I'm gonna have these people for me in my work life, yeah. You know, like I the per person when I go out to like going out to eat now is like my like I'm going out to a bar, is I'm going out to eat. And I would say out of the top like four people I contact, like Jesse and Mia are at the top of that, like four to five people that you know that I'll contact to be like, Hey, do you want to go get something to eat?

SPEAKER_03 21:58

Jesse's in my top four people when I'm like Oh my god, I'm feeling this feeling. What do I do?

SPEAKER_01 22:03

Tell me everything's gonna be alright. I don't even want it to tell me that it's gonna be all right. I want it to be like, oh, let's go to a good restaurant and just like eat and talk normal shit. Like talk like fucking gossip like little like schoolgirls and like talk about like oh I like the spicy food or whatever it might be. That's what I that's what I need.

SPEAKER_03 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:24

More so than a help with recovery. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_03 22:30

And yeah, no, no, and I I think I think yeah, and I and I'm with you, and I I think I've actually thought about this a lot. Uh I think the first so I've done three months, went to CryHelp for three months, and I was high two days later. Um not down to the program, but it was down to the fact that like the reality is this is I don't even know. I for me, and this is my personal experience, I touched my mic, sorry. For my um my truth is that I didn't even know what I was feeling until month four and five. I really felt month months one to three was just drying me out. I agree, just putting me in a routine, knowing when to wake up for breakfast, when I was gonna have dinner, when I was gonna go to meetings. It was like very baseline living.

SPEAKER_02 23:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

The difficult shit, the stuff that I would definitely get high over wasn't until fucking month four and five.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

I agree.

SPEAKER_03 23:16

Right? Yeah. And I think that's one of the places, that's one of the reasons this place is so special. Like you really, if you drunk like you did or used drugs like I did, there's no way I'd be fixed in three months. Like in the slightest. And yeah, and the fact that we can have a community to come back to, like, I you know, I still come back here a lot, read with a bunch of guys. I mean, that's just this it's there's no place like it. There really is no place like it. It's no place like it. And I what I've noticed as well, and I really hate how the the the term of the NAA where we say the stick with the winners or stay in the middle of the crowd, but I found myself now, I know who the winners are, yeah. Yeah, right? And I stick with them. Yeah naturally.

SPEAKER_01 23:59

It's kind of Do you think it's naturally or do you so it's like subconsciously?

SPEAKER_03 24:04

Naturally now it is. Like I came in early today and I'm like, I just I want to go hang out with Sarah Jacobs for a bit. Like, like you know what I mean? Like I need to get to get my fix of my my sober fix from my friends, you know what I mean? And that's you can have acquaintances and maybe people you meet in other treatment centres, but you don't have like I've made like lifelong friends here. Oh I've made I've made like I've made friends here that like they could call me at two in the morning and be like, Seb, uh I need you to come with me. Some people are gonna get hurt, and we can never talk about it ever again, and the only thing I'm gonna say is whose car are we taking? Yeah. You know what I mean? Like that that is a type of friends.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

We'll be trying to talk about a bit.

SPEAKER_03 24:41

But like that's the type of friends I've created here, you know? And and and not not you know, it's it's special. And I don't think you can get that in a three. But also you you get out what you put in. Like I've put in a lot of work to be social, to check in on how people are doing, to like call people outside of my time here, like go to meetings with Jesse, like go like hang out with like whatever it is, I've put the work in.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

You know, and I think as well, a big part of that, a big part of my healing was, and I've read this, I've read, I've read Bill's story in the big book hundreds of times, and only a couple months ago did I realize there's one line in it that says something, something, something um I was lonely, and then I so I turned to drink or something. My answer of why I used was on the front page of Bill's story like this whole time. And the reality was I was just fucking lonely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? My therapist here, the first fucking first month, Andrew was like, dude, you're just fucking lonely. And if you look at me on a surface level, I don't look that lonely. I'm pretty personable, I kind of have I'm charismatic, like I like to be involved in stuff, but I was dying of loneliness. So this place has given me the avenue of not being lonely anymore. Yeah, you know, I know that I can come here to the meeting. I come to the meetings, I come to the meetings like I did yesterday because I'd I'd rather not be sitting at home waiting for my girlfriend to come home. I would like to just be around people. And then the good you get from being around people, because then I'm starting to meet new people. It's it's really reciprocal. Yeah. You know, it really helps in a lot of a lot of areas of like like you said, it's a lifestyle. It's really a lifestyle choice to be part of a community like this.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Yeah. I struggle, I struggle with that. Um my natural inclination is to be solo. Get me too. Um but I do agree with you that like again, it goes back to the lifestyle. It's just oh, it's a way of living that like that I that I needed to incorporate into on like a really fundamental level, and you can't do that in 90 days. No, like learning how to like go through the processes of like so for me it's shutting down my brain. I like I've never been able to do that. Like the first time I got drunk, I was 11, and my mom didn't really drink my my mom, like my mom was lonely, and so she decided she was gonna go to Al-Anon. And so she went to Al-Anon, and that's sort of like became her community. So we never really had alcohol in the house. It was like we had a bottle of wine that like that was actually what I drank to get drunk the first time. And um, I I don't even know how I can't even imagine how old it was because we really never did have alcohol in the house. So who did she go to Al Anon for? For my dad, who's not an alcoholic. Okay. It was never an alcoholic. She was just she had like three. You know, to deal with. Um, and so where are you if you as like a difficult person with like three kids, where are you gonna find like a community that like embraces you right away and is there to like like help build you up? It's like recovery, that's the only place, you know, especially in this is in the 80s. There's like no other place, like yoga didn't exist, you know. I mean, you can do soul cycles and it's like like Jane Fonda and and Alan, that was it. Like those were like the two ways of like finding a community, and so that's what she Chester did. So, like, yeah, so I was like Alatine and all that. And so I think part of what it took me a long time to get sober with was I just thought it was all bullshit. Because like I saw that like my mom said like everybody was an alcoholic to my mom. If they disagreed with her, she didn't get along with them, they were an alcoholic. Yeah, and so it was really hard for me to believe in alcoholism for a long time.

SPEAKER_03 28:45

Um, because she liked when when she found out you're an alcoholic, was she like finally got to these meetings?

SPEAKER_01 28:54

Yeah, yeah. She didn't think she stopped going to them. Like she she she went like one or two when I when I got so when she I got my alcoholism progressed in such a way that it was like later in life, so she didn't really see my alcoholism until I relapsed later on. Uh and then when I relapsed, she did see it, and I did suggest her go to like an Alma meeting. She's like, I already know. Yeah, I know where to go. She did she did. She was like, I'm good. She was like, she went to like one or two, but she's like, I got bridge. Like that also she found she found her new community.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

That's funny. I often think there's nothing worse though than an alcoholic suggesting who doesn't want to do the work saying you should probably go to Alanol. It's not condescending, I think.

SPEAKER_01 29:39

So patronizing. I think you should just.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

I know I've got all this shit going on, but I think you need Alanol.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Well, she won't like honestly, what it is is for she she should be like she's crazy crazy. You know what I mean? Like she's like crazy crazy. So she should be getting that kind of help. But like Alanod is a good, like, a good substitute for it, where it's like at least people will like catch you on your bullshit a little, and they just know how to like say, like, um, that's that's insane. That's like like for example, my brother set her up in a house in Torrance 15 minutes from the beach, 15 minutes from um my brother and her uh like baby uh grand grandson. Yeah, you know, like um I was living close by coming over every day to like take out her trash or help with mail as I like in amends for when I did that time when she did see me relapse and everything. Um and she decided she wasn't getting enough attention, so she moved to uh Bismarck, North Dakota. Like that's you know, that's like the kind of crazy we're talking about here. You know, so it's like if she's if she had yeah, whatever. But I agree with you. Sounds like we should have your mom on the shark, to be honest. She's fucking fascinating. She's she's a charming too. She's a charming, funny, funny lady. Uh she has yeah, she has stories to her.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

So you how did you hit so when did you start feeling like you were getting better? And you obviously you you did you did your what do you call it? You did all the you did the the the program and then you transitioned pretty quickly into work though.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

Yeah, so after three months I uh started the internship. Yeah and did the internship for three months and then I was going to leave um and move. Um and I I mean looking back on it's so funny, like I was so delusional in one way, still like even after six months, yeah, I was still like so there was an opportunity that came up through a friend, and I would have been moving cross-country away from any sort of like recovery that I knew of. Like I was and like it I know how like not a good idea it was, and that I knew that it wasn't a good idea, in the sense that I didn't tell my sister, who I tell about everything. You know, I did tell my brother, I was like keeping it to myself that I was gonna do this. Oh yeah. But like and um then Avia said to me, would you Simon, who sort of had brought uh who had been. I went in the house of Simon. Okay, yeah, he's I love that guy.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

I love it. I remember when he got his teeth. That must have been a big deal. I remember when he's got his teeth. That was the Noah was awesome. It was awesome. It made I like almost cried and had because we both came in around the same time and just like seeing that it was amazing.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

He's the biggest cheer best and biggest cheerleader of anybody that he like is friends with that I know. He's like the greatest. Yeah, it's it's it's amazing. I I love that guy. Um, but yeah, so she asked me if I wanted to work here. And I had in my head already sort of made the decision that I was going to move to New York and work for this uh company, and I was gonna like have that experience. And you know, this great recovery in New York, and you know all the bullshit with LFLs, right?

SPEAKER_03 33:15

Um it's really hard to get crystal method in New York. There's no bug. Crystal method is like 120 bucks a gram in New York, I'll be fine, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:25

Yeah, um, and then uh so then that night, like I then I don't know, just through the course of that day after she told me, um I had talked to like you know, Cameron said something to me, and Sarah said something to me. Sarah, I I love like she's a sweetheart, and sh um and just and Amy and just everybody sort of like said, you probably should date this. Like, I th I think this would be good for you.

SPEAKER_03 33:51

But wasn't that like a little bit worrying though, because you have such a weird relationship with work and you got offered a job.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Kind of in six months. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of not, you know. Was that a worry? I mean, you were already thinking about moving to New York anyway, so I was gonna be working either. Anyway, regardless, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yeah. I mean, I I needed to work.

SPEAKER_03 34:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:10

But what was more concerned is like so I had worked in kitchens, and that like Kitchen culture's crazy.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

We've had Heathon, we've talked about kitchen culture in general. It's drinking and drugs, and it's late nights, and it's Yeah, and just like opening restaurants.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

You work like seven days a week, 18, 20 hour days, you know, and you do that for like three to six months, and you know, and I like the only way and I naturally the only way to shut off my brain had been to drink. Um was the only way I knew how to do it. And in the kitchen culture, that's that's how everybody that's like, yeah, of course you fucking drink. You just worked 18 hours shift and got your ass handed to you.

SPEAKER_02 34:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:54

Um so yeah, you deserve to like have a little drink beer at the end.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

And also you can drink during your shift.

SPEAKER_01 35:01

Well, I I never drank during well, that's not true. I did sometimes. Like I like never is I like saying never. I definitely had drinks, but um, but I that wasn't like a regular thing for me. It was right at the end when I was doing like the um putting in the orders for the next day or like writing up um the prep list for the next day. That's when I would start drinking. And then I would I I could throw them back fast um to get so that you know, like I would get done around like 10 30, be well, I would I would get done with like expoing or whatever I was doing or covering on the line, whatever it might be, at by like 10 30, and then have had like three or four beers, like four or five Jamesons by like 12:30. Uh then get home, finish off half a bottle of Jameson to a whole bottle, and still be as and be asleep because I was getting up at like 6 a.m. So you know, like I had to compress it.

SPEAKER_03 36:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:03

So I like I would just like but you know, and then I would have a and then when it got bad, I had a whole routine in the morning of like pills I had to take to be able to like not be shaky and not be vomiting and like be able to get it.

SPEAKER_03 36:17

It's so much work, isn't it? It's so much work just to regulate yourself, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:21

And I was if long as I was working seven days, I was usually pretty good. Um, but it was like when I went down to like I'd have a day or two off in a week, then I wouldn't like so it's say I usually took off like a Sunday and Monday when I was at that point. So I'd take a Sunday and Monday off, and so it wasn't really until like Thursday that I was like functioning at like my full capacity, and then like Sunday would come around and you know, so it was a second, I think they were really getting three days out of me. Yeah, is what they were getting, you know. So it was like I was a part-time warrior, you know. Like it was just not it was not good.

SPEAKER_03 36:59

Yeah, I remember just those like you know, we start to put up those like schedules of when we're gonna use or drink, you know, like I'm gonna drink up the thing. I I remember being like, I'm only gonna do cocaine when I'm not in LA. And then I remember looking at my calendar being like, oh, I'm on tour for the next six months. How convenient that was my bottom line that I just set for myself. Ah, it's fucking crazy. Yeah. Um and what's what like how's your life now? Like what what will it be quiet?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

It's um I think that I mean I I love that I get to be involved in recovery on a daily basis.

SPEAKER_03 37:37

Um but it's not it's not your recovery though, right? You do you do you keep a strong line?

SPEAKER_01 37:43

Um I get to be involved. Well, so as far as no, like beacheshuva is a job. That's all it is. It's um I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

But I think that's really important to bring up, right? Because I I see that a lot of times that yeah, you've especially for people my girlfriend just started working in treatment, like yeah, it's good that you have that perspective, right?

SPEAKER_01 38:04

Yeah, I mean I I think what it is more so than even I shouldn't even have said working in recovery. It's that I I do something that I'm I feel good about.

SPEAKER_02 38:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

And where I feel that there's a level of altruism to it that you don't like the job that I do, you don't do it for the money, you know, like that's not why you get involved in it. Um but and it feels good to that that that I don't know, like it gives me pride that I'm doing it. Sorry, I'm touching the mic.

SPEAKER_03 38:38

Well, you just do you just do you do it for the money, just not your money. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:43

Literally. Very good point. Very, very, very good point. But I like I like I love being able to say, like, I got one of the guys came up to me today and told me what he wanted to have, like, wanted to create something here. And what I get to do is find out a way to make that happen for him. Yeah. And I I love that. Um but but yes, my recovery has to be honest, my recovery isn't even just AA. For me personally, my recovery is also like my therapist. Yeah, I forgot. Yeah, you know, like no, yeah. I like I I have to have a therapist. I can't just have a AA. I need to also have it.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Being sober is a remaining sober is a is a whole lifestyle. I think you need to have a little bit of everything. You have to be fulfilled in your work, in whatever that is you do. You have to go to a meeting or do do whatever that is. I'm not saying that that that's that's the same for everybody, but like there needs to be some sort of like spirituality side outside of it, right? And then there's gotta be some outside help.

SPEAKER_02 39:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

That's how I've seen work I kind of have this trifecta of and I think that's all wrapped in community, right? And then the community is the circle around it all.

SPEAKER_01 39:47

Yeah, no, and I I the the looking for what is exactly what you need is also sort of part of it for me. Like I I I know that if I get it to a point where I stagnate, where I'm not like, alright, this area of my life isn't quite where I want it to be, so let me work on this, then that will that stagnation will start flowing into other areas, it will flow into my recovery, and then I'll start getting these ideas, like these brilliant ideas, which I did last time. Like, I can drink for a weekend. It's gonna fuck shit up. There's gonna be consequences, but I can do a weekend and then deal with the consequences on Monday and Tuesday. When I had the last time I had that brilliant idea, I was in jail in six hours. Yeah, you know, so I didn't even get through a night. It was like a weekend. It was like it was it wasn't even two hands, it was like barely two hands a lot at the time before I had ended up in jail.

SPEAKER_03 40:45

Um it's kind of weird because this has actually been one of the most interesting interviews we've done because we kind of do it in a different format, which I like. But we like the end of the episode. What would you say is a little world today? If you were to hear in a child or whatever you want to call it, some inspiration, what would you say the word inspiration would you say?

SPEAKER_01 41:25

Like a memory that we had where we realized like, oh, we were fucked up even when we were like little kids. And for me it was I remember when I was like seven or eight being really angry at myself because I hadn't written a book yet. Like feeling like really disappointed of myself, and like that I was never gonna be anything, that I was a complete failure, uh like eight because I hadn't written something.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Yeah, mine was 18 and I was like, why don't I have a Ferrari? For real. That was like the thing. Like, oh, it's 100% real. You piece of shit. Why don't you have a fucking Ferrari, you loser? Yeah. But what would you say?

SPEAKER_01 42:01

And so it's just like that um stay where you are, just be within the moment of where you are. Don't worry about anything outside of this next 24 hours. If you can focus on just doing the best you can in this 24 hours, you're gonna be surprised about how exactly the 24 hours before you'll get. Like what can you do to exceed your expectations for the next 24 hours? I wish I had done that. Thanks for coming in, dude. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 42:33

I appreciate it.