My Wife Saved My Life with Reno Collier

Reno Collier is back in the building for this awesome episode with Jeff!! Reno is starting a new venture.. hosting a new show called 'The Carve Off' and his podcast 'Alive & Sober' is rolling and he stops by to check in with Jeff and set the record straight... he owes it all to his wife!!

👇 In this episode:
Becoming a kid again
Changing up your act
The help it takes to get sober
Being funny in other settings

How to find Reno Collier
Instagram: @reno_collier
renocolliercomedy.com
Listen to his Podcast Alive & Sober

And Follow The Carve Off On Instagram: @thecarveoff

🎧 More episodes: Who Gave Jeff Allen a Podcast?
🎟️ Tickets at JeffAllenComedy.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I it started to mean more to me. Like it used to be I'd stand out and shake hands and people be like, Yeah, it was so funny, whatever. Then every once in a while, someone would go, Hey dude, uh, I listened to you on Bob and Tom, and I've been sober for six months, and you really helped me talk about the thing. That meant where it didn't used to I never even had that. That meant more to me than somebody going, dude, that was so funny. I love that bit about the duh. I just kind of was like, Oh, thanks. It's like I wasn't giving them anything.

SPEAKER_03 0:48

All right. Hey everybody, this is Jeff Allen. Welcome to Who Gave Jeff Allen a podcast. We're gonna find you. We're gonna seek you out. Whoever gave this to me is in trouble. There's six billion of you. We'll find you. Uh my sponsor is still Nordic Wave. We're still hoping to sell one. We have not yet in almost a year. Cold plunge, that's right. Dunk your body. Talk to your doctor before you do it. I don't want you to jump in there, have a heart attack, and try to sue me. I own nothing. My wife owns everything. Uh we have a guest today, and uh I have been looking forward to this. We had him on before, and um uh it almost shut us down. Uh so uh we thought we'd bring him back and see if we can completely close this up so I could stop losing money. By the way, subscribe uh wherever the button is, subscribe, share, uh, complain. We don't care. It moves the algorithm. Just talk about us one way or the other, it doesn't matter. Uh Reno Collier uh is a nationally touring comedy, comedian, podcast host, and longtime friend of blue-collar comedy world. Having toured with Larry the cable guy, you're still touring with Larry. Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:58

I've been riding those coattails. I still have flannel in my fingernails. Yeah, there you go. Just holding on, man. Larry the cable guy. Hey, fat redneck, make some more money.

SPEAKER_03 2:06

Well, let me do with the intro. Oh, sorry. My God. I got you, I got you. Interrupting me. Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Ingval, and Ron White, known for his uh relatable storytelling and southern humor.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Um I didn't write any of that.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

I know you didn't. Reno appeared on Comedy Central, CMT, NBC, Animal Planet. I had a tie that's a good one. That's when you were drinking, though. That's when you were drinking.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

I was I was drinking quite a bit. Then you were an animal.

SPEAKER_03 2:33

That's when you were an animal. Uh beyond comedy, Reno is deeply passionate about serving gold star families. I can attest to that with Soldier's Child. Uh, you do an event every year. Um I was only invited once.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I just went to the invited more. It's just that you live in Chattanooga, so it's kind of hard for you to do it. I don't live in Chattanooga. It felt like an hour and a half to me.

SPEAKER_05 2:56

My God, we're not even saying I went all the way to your house, no aquarium.

SPEAKER_03 3:03

Chattanooga's. Well, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 3:06

For Murphy'sboro. Well, yeah, Murphy's borough. You never know when the truck's gonna flip over on 24, and it takes me seven hours to get here.

SPEAKER_03 3:13

Can I get through the intro? My God. Supporting children of fallen military heroes across the country. And uh you're also uh the host of the podcast Alive and Sober. I'm gonna talk about that because uh where he shares honest conversations about addiction, recovery, faith, redemption with humor and heart. So you are here back, back Reno. So let's mention the the uh uh the because she's gonna go to lunch. So the you did an hour and a half interview last time. I did an hour and a half interview. And your nerve to text me and ask me if we edit, because for an hour and a half you never mentioned your wife once.

SPEAKER_01 3:49

Well, I hear that. And that's on me.

SPEAKER_03 3:51

Here, own of it, own of it. As if I would edit Sandy out of the podcast, she's the only redeeming quality you have.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

I I love I love how you did this with her sitting in here with me. What happened was I can get uh I can get ahead of myself. And we were in the car, and your podcast was one of the first times I ever opened up about getting sober and being honest and about Jesus and about things like that. Oh, wow. That was one of the first times I ever did it. And that was, it was an hour and a half. So we were in the car, and I go, hey, let's listen to uh the podcast with Jeff. She's like, okay, cool. You know, it's raining. I'll never forget this.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Actually, I think her words were she was trapped in a car with you and forced to listen to the podcast. Problems with a false ego.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yes. It was how about a little less you, a lot more me play?

SPEAKER_03 4:47

Because I can tell you, if if I ever said to Tammy, hey, I'm on a podcast, you want to hear it, she would go, I'd I'd rather have a spinal tap and a root canal than listen to you for an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_01 5:00

So we're listening to our podcast, and I put it on. And as I start talking and start going on and on, about 10 minutes in, I'm like, all right, come on, Reno, you know, throw something in there about Sandy. And I'm going, you know, and then I found Jesus and I went and I did this, and I've been helping these other alcoholics. And I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, and then I, I, I, I. And about a half an hour in, I'm like, you gotta be kidding me. Jeff must have cut something out. Because there's no way I would talk that long and not talk about how wonderful my wife is. I look over at her and she has this look on her face that's she's kind of starting to look away from the front out the windshield, and she's starting to look out the side window. It's nighttime, it's raining. There is nothing to see out there. So I know she's not visually, she's not counting deer or you know what I mean? I wonder what mile.

SPEAKER_03 5:51

Count deer.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Yeah. So about an hour in, I noticed that her whole demeanor had started to change. And it was a lot of uh you're full of whatever. I think I can't say the word, but didn't you say you're full of whatever? And I go, what do you mean I'm full of whatever? And she's like, Deer poop. You sound like you did all this by yourself. And I was like, Well, I also clearly gave all the credit to God. And surely you wouldn't want to put yourself on the screen. That didn't make it better, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:23

So as it went on, I started to know I started to know it was getting deeper.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Right. And it was getting worse and worse. And it made that hour and a half. I could have sworn this podcast was nine hours long because I'm sitting there going, Reno, come on. So at that point, I have a tendency to get out over my skis, and I can act like I did things on my own. When clearly that was not the case. From the minute that I decided I needed to get the most important thing that happened in me getting sober was when we were standing out as far as what I remember, in the we're standing on the back on our back porch and I'm drunk and I'm drinking, and I'm like, I think honey, I I think I I I gotta stop. Like I'm I'm literally, and from the doctor, I'm killing myself. And she looked at me and goes, I'll do it with you. And that was she's not an alcoholic, but she does love wine. And that was the first thing that kicked me on the track of I'm not alone. I mean, you know that fear of I can be surrounded by people and feel alone. Oh, absolutely. And and I was felt like I was kind of out on an island holding the secret in everybody knew. I mean, it's not.

SPEAKER_03 7:46

Let me ask you this, because I I I could tell you the number of people that came to me after I said, I'm an alcoholic, and they and and the response was you?

SPEAKER_05 7:57

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Zero.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:59

Not one person went.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

You? Really? No. We couldn't tell when you caught my backyard on fire. Yeah. You know, we had no idea. So it was that. That's what sucks though. With alcohol, you have an excuse. Why'd you start that fire? I was drunk. When you're sober, nobody you know, you throw a liquor bottle through a window and people go, oh, he's an alcoholic. You chuck a Mountain Dew through a bottle and they're like, he's a jackass. Like that guy's a jerk. I have no excuse anymore. I'm just, you know.

SPEAKER_03 8:27

I just wrote a line in the show. Pre-diabetic. I just wrote a line in my show about I drank vodka because it didn't smell. You know, I could I could kiss her and she couldn't smell it. It was all the other stuff that gave the vodka away. Waking up half naked next to dumpsters, you know, passing on on the front line, parking the car in the ditch. How did I get this lump on my head? Exactly. Those were the things that gave it away. You hear a car alarm going off? It woke me up. Yeah, my breath smelled good though. Yeah. You know.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Right. Then it's kind of that's not the liquor. That's my vomit. Right, exactly. You always think, well, first of all, I think you you always think people think about you more than they actually do. And you think people care about you more than they actually do, or care about what you're doing. And for me, I internalize everything. So it was always like, nobody knows. I mean, I I I could manipulate a situation to get a drink. So I figured I was manipulating everybody and everything, you know. And people didn't know.

SPEAKER_03 9:26

It's so cool that your wife would would join you in that. Dude, it saved me because Tammy doubled down. She drank more after I quit. It was like when I came over with hip hip replacement and I took oxy for a day, and I said, I'm I'm not taking this anymore. And she says, What are you gonna do for the pain? I said, Nothing. I'll suffer through it. She started taking the oxygen. You know, one of us is not gonna be here. I'm gonna listen to you whine for the next two weeks about how sore you are. Right. And then I gotta hear about it. Yeah, well, push a log through your vagina.

SPEAKER_01 10:03

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. But it's just it's a it was a weird thing. So she didn't ask me.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

At what point did you make the decision to throw me under the bus and tell her that I edited her out?

SPEAKER_01 10:16

I didn't. Because you wouldn't know when you said I I before I talked to you, I was like, he had to have cut something out. They must have shortened it for the time or the thing. Because clearly I couldn't be responsible for this. You know what I mean? I mean, there's no way, even sober. I'm still like, that's not my fault. You know, I'm sure. You know, honey, we were in there for what four hours. They ought to cut it into an hour and a half. That's what I didn't know. But then when you talking to me felt like four hours. No, listening to it in the car with her felt like four hours. But it was uh it was one of those things where I had gotten out and I clearly, and I'm not on here, we don't have a relationship where it's like I have to come. Um she brought me in here by my ear, and she's like, get in there and tell them I got you sober. Right. But for my own I did I was wrong. Like I missed a huge chunk of the whole reason that I was able to do it. I mean, on New Year's Eve, the last thing somebody wants to do is drink apple cider, bubbly, and you know, play what do we play? Poker. I mean, you know, like it was we were just I was locked in for months. Like I took off three months of not going on the road, and uh and I keep looking at her. So you you didn't go to rehab, then you rehab was ninety. I did ninety and ninety. Oh, okay. Um and uh I just everything about those ninety days was about me trying to get sober. The the detox I did though, which was stupid. If you if you think you don't need a detox, I thought that too, and I almost died.

SPEAKER_03 11:56

Well my son just went in, um I'm not breaking any confidence. Um uh he he called me. He had done a six-day intensive for PTSD and TBI, and um he called me and said that um he um needed to go back. Um he had a an incident that that he felt was a psychotic break or something. And I he said asked me if I would pay for the six days, and I said, Absolutely, don't worry about it, you know. And then his wife called me and said he's got a twelve hundred dollar a month pot habit. Called him back and I said, I will not pay for six, I'll pay for thirty. You're gonna detox for at least a week.

SPEAKER_01 12:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:42

You need to detox, and then you can make your decision whether or not, but you're locked in for thirty. He ended up going forty-five. And he said it saved his life. Good. And uh eight months now. I told him, I said, When you make a year, I will fly to Montana and it'd be the proudest day of my life to give you a one-year chip and to hand that to you.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

That's awesome, man.

SPEAKER_03 13:02

Yeah, yeah. Really, really proud of him.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

It's so weird the way that like we go through things ourselves and it's it's horrific. And then your kid goes through something and you actually have a lot more empathy and you understand it's not that um and in this day and age, so many people talk about it. I don't think people are as as ostracized. I think they still feel ostracized.

SPEAKER_03 13:25

Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

But I but I I think people are starting to get a feel on addiction and like you don't just toss somebody out in the streets. Uh uh it's still terrible. I mean, if if you don't have the means, you need I did my first prison ministry thing, dude. Yeah, it's not cheap. No. And and it's it's weird because I found uh like when I first got sober, there was this old black gentleman, dreadlocks, Vietnam vet, and he was my go-to. Like every morning he'd be like, if no one told you they love you today, I do. I say that on my podcast just because of this dude. So we were talking, and I was going, like, uh and forgive me if I've told you this before, but uh I was going like, dude, tell me. I don't really listen to you, Reno. So just sit there quietly. All fresh. By the way, it's all by the way, my wife left. It was all me that got sober by myself. Let's not be stupid. She'd come on, man. I know they went to lower. Oh, we could be honest. Let me tell you something.

SPEAKER_03 14:21

It was me, you know. But but I was that's like this podcast with Carolyn had nothing to do with it. It's all me.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

We're such comics, man. So but I would I was talking to him and I was like, I'd been sober like six months, and I'm like, dude, I went to the batting cages today, and then I rode go-karts. And he goes, How old were you when you started drinking? I was like, like 13. He goes, My brother, you're still 13. Yeah. So when I went and did this prison ministry thing, I was trying to all these dudes had like tats on their head and everything, and I'm standing there like, I'm coming in hard. It was a it's a reintegration. They all had five years or less left in their sentences. So they're trying to reintegrate them. And these are people who are addicts and alcoholics who have gotten involved in the process of trying to get sober in prison because there's booze and drugs all over prison, too. And it doesn't so I'm sitting there, I'm like, I'm coming in hard. These guys, they're bald with tats on their heads and they're jacked and I'm like, I'm coming in hard, right? I'm coming in like I need to show these guys I know what they're talking, you know, what they're going through. But before I started speaking, they all go around the room and say their name and what they wish they were doing. And the first guy was like, I I'd like to learn how to ballroom dance. Another guy goes, I want an ice cream cone. Another dude, I want to ride my bike. And I was like, dude, they're just like me. Right. They're 13 years old. And the and then you start hearing stories about foster care and when they were introduced to meth at 10 and all these things. And and you don't want to say no one ever had a chance, but these guys are starting off at the bottom, man. Like it was it was so opening, it opened my eyes so much to the fact that we all have to know that we can be redeemed if we're breathing. Right. Right. Regardless of who and by the way, Jesus specifically spoke of people in prisons and widows and orphans and things like that. So that's why I'm involved with a soldiers' child. It's widows and orphans, and then I'm trying to do this. I'm trying to take it literally and for whatever I can do, just kind of drop a seed. But as I listened to him talk, it made me go, dude, I could have been sitting there. The stuff they got busted for. Oh, absolutely. You know, you leave a Christmas party, your work party, you had three glasses of wine, you T-bone a family of four and take them out, and you were married with kids and you go to church and your life, and duh. And dude, I did that every night. Right. I I mean I was drunk every day. And if I so if I was driving, what was I doing?

SPEAKER_03 16:58

Yeah, when I was brought to prison, that was my opening line. But for the grace of God, you know, and if did you feel me? I I if you sense that there's some judgment here coming from me, you're completely mis missing the vibe because uh believe me. And my favorite thing was, you know, they give you the little uh panic button, you know, on your belt. Ours was on a wall, but yeah. Well, anyway, panic button, and I'm doing the math. The guards were 60 feet away, the prisoners were 20 feet away, and I said, uh not a chance they could get here to save me, right? And they all busted up laughing. I go, I go, I don't, you know, again, I'm just doing the math. I mean, if this thing was actually there for a reason, other than, you know, so I said, I don't I don't really need this.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

But did you feel I I had like I remember uh Wayland Jennings talking about like all these people died in a plane crash and he had survivor's guilt or whatever. I uh they're different, but they're kind of the same. Did you feel like weird that you weren't there? Yeah, because it was hard to speak to him for me because I'm going like it's hard.

SPEAKER_03 18:03

I dealt cocaine poorly, but I dealt it. I got out of it uh relatively quickly because I was late with a payment, and the guy said, uh, you know, get out of your house. I go, what do you mean? He goes, I got paper out on you. I go, what's that? He goes, uh they're not gonna kill you, they're just gonna break a bone. And I go, what? You know, I was three hours late with a payment, you know, for the guy, and I said, I'm out. He goes, No, we're fine. I go, No, we're not fine, actually. I'm a little scatterbrained, you know. Yeah, I don't need to get a broken leg because I'm a day late or whatever, you know. So I got out, probably saved my life. I found out later from a local cop. We were sitting at the bar talking one night, and he said, Um, why'd you stop? And I go, What do you mean? He goes, Yeah, you were on the radar. And I was only in it like a month, so they knew I was uh, you know, because I had a big mouth and I you know, I start dealing, I just meet people. Hey, you want to buy some coke?

SPEAKER_05 18:58

Jeff, I'm your pastor. Yeah, I wasn't I wasn't cut out. I wasn't cut out.

SPEAKER_03 19:02

So yeah, you stand in front of these prisoners, and God God always reveals your heart. I mean, he always reveals, you know, uh so it tries to cover cover the the the level of hypocrisy down to a manageable uh uh part of your life. So I I was and again, I my opening thing was don't ever think for a second that that there's any judgment coming from me. You know, I mean I understand circumstances, I understand choices, you know. Yeah. Um I just I felt like But the whole 13-year-old thing. Um I I got sober at 30 or 31. And um when I heard that, that you are the age emotionally that you are when you started drinking made sense because I was hornier than I've ever been in my entire whole life. Yeah at 30, 31. Tammy was like, what the heck is I said, I don't know what's going on with me. And that's when I shared at the meeting. I said, I don't understand this. You're so horny.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

And you won't take that blow pop out of your mouth. You're 13 years old.

unknown 20:01

That's actually funny.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

He's eating hubba bubba gum, hubba bubba gummy sex all the time. I don't know what's wrong with my audience.

SPEAKER_03 20:10

You don't put glue on your hands and then you peel it off. Let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 20:13

Yeah, let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

So that was yeah, that was very eye-opening to me, though. It was so I told her at one point, I said, You may not want to hear this, but you're married to a 13-year-old right now. Yeah. You know, and I'm hoping to mature at a faster rate. So um, you know, you don't have to wait 17 years for me to hit 30. Right.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

You know, but you start to look at your decision making and go, I was totally third tier. Shut up. That's not something a 40-year-old says to somebody. Yeah, exactly. You know? Exactly. But I just I I did want to at least get in there that I mean, dude, without her, I wouldn't be. You know, I mean, it's in all seriousness. And I I was sitting there going, you know, even in this, even in talking about sobriety, I can get very grandiose and tr make it about me. And I have to be that's why like on my on my podcast, I don't have any celebrities. And the reason is because when I was trying to get sober, I'd see a celebrity talk about it, and I'm like, shut up, dude. You got a DUI, your publicist is making you do this, you're just trying to get another film.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

It's funny because I got sober the first time uh when I was 25 because of Daniel J. Travanti. I was polishing off the remnants of a half gallon of vodka for the day. Yeah. And I'm watching the Tonight show, and he talked about his alcoholism and and how it saved his career and everything. Called my dad the next day. That's killer. Yeah. I just I No, I I didn't make I made a year, but I was still doing cocaine. Going to it going to the meetings and doing cocaine. Right. I I advise against that, by the way. There's another meeting on the other side of the church. Right, exactly. Well, it just it it it came. What I'm what I'm trying to do is And it's not because he was a celebrity. He just happened to be a good It could have been Joe Blows on the Tonight Show, but they wouldn't have him on there, but talking about But back then it wasn't people weren't getting a pat on the back for it.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

No. It was still like a so that guy was brave. I'm not talking about guys like that. Like Brian Headwelch, that dude's living it. Do you know he has the place for corn? Oh no. Dude, if you can ever see his documentary, it is unbelievable. But that dude is all in proven he's for years. I mean, you're corn. You're playing in corn. I mean, that's one of the biggest freaking hard rock bands in history. They freaking rock. They're so good. But he found Jesus, got off meth, is trying to raise his daughter. Like all these things. It's it's nuts. But the the main reason is is I'm also I don't say where we go, like because it's a tradition. But I was finding that people I was working with who's so funny, let me talk about that because I got hammered because I mentioned AA.

SPEAKER_03 23:07

Yeah. And I get hammered by the traditionalists. And I said, okay, so I say I'm a member of a 12-step group and I'm an alcoholic. You think anybody puts the two together? So they know. Yeah, they know. So I I'm not, you know, again, I'm not trying to be arcane about it. I mean, uh, and when I got in there, um, I was an atheist, I didn't believe in God, and they told me pray, said to what, you know, and find something. And and I wouldn't be here without that 12 step. I would not be here today. I would not be married, I would not have, I know that without those people. And I think every year, my birthday, September 29th, I get on there and I thank the thousands and thousands of strangers who kept me alive all around the world.

SPEAKER_01 23:49

No, and people that people that think that they don't give back have no idea how much those shares mean. Oh. Have no idea. But but the the thing for me is is what I'm trying to do is fill the space um where because I'd I'd I'd talk to a guy and he'd be like, I'm like, You coming tomorrow? I can't. I'm a truck driver. And I was like, hold up. So basically what it is is it's a recovery meeting for people who can't get to one. Right. So I built a catalog of 50 episodes, so it hits like if I've been incarcerated and I'm going for a job interview, how do I explain that? I have a doctor come on and explain. He does this stuff. Oh, wow. So cool. And and he's also in recovery. Everybody is in recovery that's on it. But I just didn't want because of I'm just trying to do it differently. I don't care how many people listen to it. I just want the right people to listen to it. If there's 50 people that bring the right people, he does, and that's what I'm depending on. Right. 100%.

SPEAKER_03 24:49

Yeah, those seeds that you throw out, you know, you and you'll never know. The guy could be sitting there polishing off the last of a half gallon of vodka and hear that and just go, you know, dad, I need help.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Yeah. You know. And I just I don't want to be in the business. Here's the main reason it's because of my own weakness. Like, I don't take any money for like if if I do something for money or for likes or anything, I'm gonna destroy it. I know it. I I do it all the time. I know. You know, because you know what I'm talking about? Like, if if I'm not focused on like I feel like God wants me to do this podcast thing or whatever it is in my life, I can take that and go, yeah, and how can I make money at it? I'm already off.

SPEAKER_03 25:29

Well, it's so funny you say that because since I moved to Nashville 30 years ago, I've wanted to write a song. And my motive was I want mailbox money. Yeah. Never written a song. And it hit me like about a year and a half ago, I was praying or something. I go, come on, I want to write a song. He goes, Well, change your friggin' motive.

unknown 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

Right? It's totally gonna glorify you.

SPEAKER_03 25:50

Can I glorify somebody else other than me? I'm gonna put your name in it. Well, that's it. You know, yeah. It was so funny though, because it was like a freight train. All these years, I've been telling Tammy, I can't write poetry. I can't write what's wrong with it. I got this block. Yeah. And I said, All I wanted was mailbox. I just want the mailbox money. Yeah. You know, I know guys that have written one song and they've lived off of the one song, the royalties. Absolutely. So it's just one.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

Somebody wrote honky donk badonkadonk. And they Jamie Johnson wrote it. And when they asked him why he didn't sing it, he goes, I'm not singing that. Yeah. But he wrote it. And I'm like, I could write honky donk bedonkadk. Like it doesn't even know what was the point. A three-year-old can be put out.

SPEAKER_03 26:30

Yeah. Yeah. I could do that. No, I can't, apparently. I can't either. Yeah. So, but uh, yeah, motives are important, I think, to God. And and you can't lie to him because you can't get on your knees and go, all right, I'm gonna tell you what you want to hear. Right. You know, he goes, No, I I know what your motive is.

SPEAKER_05 26:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:47

And um, so I I obviously would love to make money at the my my goal with this was at some point I want to get off the road and I still want to do things creatively. And I thought a podcast keeps me off the road. Absolutely and it allows me to, you know, but in order to to to fund it, I have to travel and tell kind of tell jokes. And I'm hoping in a year or two or whatever that we we can get enough.

SPEAKER_01 27:12

That's different.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:13

That's different. I and there's nothing wrong with trying to make it. Not at all.

SPEAKER_03 27:16

And I don't want to niche myself with I'm I'm gonna ask you this because you've you've niche yourself in. Do you feel like you've covered everything um in 50 episodes or whatever?

SPEAKER_01 27:25

No way.

SPEAKER_03 27:26

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

No way. But there's enough there where what I wanted is if somebody's like, I can't get to a meeting today and I'm struggling with this, you can go through and find it. Oh, that's cool. And go, okay, today. Is it just Reno Collier? It's called Alive and Sober. Alive and Sober. Yeah, it's on all the This is the f this is the first interview I've done to promote it. Oh, okay. So it's kind of fun. Well, the twelve people who watch me will see it. Well, you know what? Those twelve might turn into thirteen that I You know what? Who cares, dude?

SPEAKER_03 27:57

If God's God, he's God that's the whole point. Like you said, if I was doing it for likes and and whatever. Um, it's interesting to me, but it was interesting to me. Somebody said to me one day, I said something about I did a sh a show with uh uh Tyler Goldwyn, uh, a pastor out of um uh Lebanon, uh Tennessee. Uh really really interesting interview. And I uh I looked just at one point, I said, you know, it's got like a thousand views or something, and I thought it's all it's got. And the guy goes, that's a pretty big congregation. Yes. You know, when you think about it in terms of eyeballs, right? And you never know out of that thousand whose heart will be fed for that or make a change or uh, you know, go to their wives and repent or something, and it it uh you know you don't know. I mean, that's that's the beauty of the internet.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

Let me ask you this. So we're both hoping that we're spreading love to people and trying to help them, right? So if I drive 45 minutes to get here, do this for an hour and a half, drive 45 minutes home, and one person decides to make a change and they get to see their kids again on the weekend, it's all worth it. It is. Dude, if if I knew 50 people were gonna be changed, I would be ecstatic. Not that a podcast is gonna change anybody, but it's just little seeds. It's just little thoughts, it's little things. And that's what ends up being important when you look back.

SPEAKER_03 29:19

But those seeds and thoughts uh have changed our lives. Absolutely. There were people in hindsight, you go and you go, there were people that came in. You know, my favorite answer to a prayer was uh you ever see Wonderful Life? Oh, one of my favorite when George is praying at the bar and his answer to the prayer is a punch in the mouth. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:37

Isn't that the greatest answer to that? Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 29:39

And it sends him on this journey that ultimately changes his own. Lulu's pedals. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:43

Lulu's pedal.

SPEAKER_03 29:45

Yeah, zuzu. But it was just so funny, man. Because I was such a cynic. I I have watched that movie every Christmas Eve for 45 years, 50 years almost, long before I met Tammy. We're married 40 years. Uh, every every year. And it's be because of that, dear God, I need this, you know.

SPEAKER_05 30:05

Bailey! Bailey! Bam!

SPEAKER_03 30:08

And then and and as I became a believer in um in divine, there are no coincidences. There are, you know, sometimes God uses pain. Yeah. You know, maybe he didn't order up the punch in the face, but he goes, Well, since you've been punched, you know, I think I I can use this. That's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

You know, well, plus sometimes you don't learn unless you get punched in the face. Well, it's like, listen, because George also said, not that it's real life, we're acting like a but you know, but he also said, like, I'm not a praying man. I'm not the, you know, I did with this and that's what the gift of desperation is. That's right. You know, that's why, dude, I I don't wish everybody was an alcoholic, but I I almost wish everybody'd hit a rock bottom because I could I I just was treading water. I was playing both sides of the fence. And, you know, people and I don't care about these people, but they're like, dude, the Jesus stuff, man. I don't know if stand-up comedy and who cares? I'm 55. I was supposed to be dead according to the doctors five years ago. I'm not going out uh the Reno show. Right. By the way, I do have a new television show coming out called The Carve Off, if you'd like to check that out.

SPEAKER_03 31:15

Well, let's talk about that. You uh you were filming it because the last time I wanted you on here, you were in the process of filming that.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yeah, it was fun, man. It was uh I I'll tell you, can I tell you a crazy story? You that's what this is all about, man. Crazy is a good thing. It's a little bit long. Crazy has a home here. It's a little bit long, but it is one of those things where when I start to make my tea time. You got it. I can see the clock. Okay. We're good, buddy.

SPEAKER_05 31:39

Oh, yeah, we're good.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

So I was pitching this idea for the podcast, right? And I was talking to somebody, uh cable guy's wife, and sh, I'm sorry, to Damien, and then cable guy's wife calls me and goes, What are you doing? I go, I'm pitching this podcast about Jesus and sobriety, but every avenue I have to be able to promote it is not gonna let me talk about Jesus. Not not because they're anti-Jesus, but their show isn't set up. They don't want religion or politics or radio, Bob and Tom, all these different things. And she goes, Don't talk to anybody else about it. I'm I'm gonna have somebody call you. I didn't know she was on the board at Back to the Bible. This Arnie Cole guy calls me and goes, hey man, listen, I want to talk to you about this when you come to town. I go to town to meet up with cable guy to go on tour. He comes out and meets me and he's like, Hey man, here's what here's what we're looking at, here's what's going on, blah, blah, blah. We'd love to do this with you. And I'm kind of like, Back to the Bible sounds so churchy. I don't know. I go, dude, I go, first of all, if I was to do it, I need something else going on to be able to promote that so that I can just pull this in with it. And I don't have anything. Right, right. The next day, Jeff, my phone rings and this guy goes, Hey man, I don't know if you remember me, but I came to your show down in Florida and we had you up for a commercial for this construction company. I was work I work construction during COVID because we had you up for uh this commercial and you didn't get it, but we have this show, we're doing 13 episodes called The Carve Off, and it's this chainsaw carving competition show. We'd love to put you on tape. I'm like, you got to be kidding me, right? Yeah. So cable guys' kids take my phone, we go down, they just happen to have all these saws and stuff in a barn that's having work done. I don't read any of the lines, I'm acting like I'm cutting my hand off, I'm jacking around. We drop that jackal song with the chainsaw on the back. Send it off. He goes, dude, they freaking love it, but they want another video of you introducing yourself to the sponsors. All right, cool. I go, I can, but I got to be on stage in like 20 minutes. We're in a casino. I'm out with cable guys still.

SPEAKER_02 33:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:47

I go, all right, let me make it real quick. So what I do is I go in the room with the lights, you know, like the actors' lights and all that, and I start recording and I go, hi, I'm Reno. I've been a comedian for 30 years. I've been in some movies, I've done a lot of TV stuff. But my favorite thing to do is host television because I approach it with no ego. Like I eat with the crew. I don't think an ego will do anything but destroy any creative situation. And the door opens up, cable guy comes in and he goes, Hey man, you're on stage in 15 minutes. And I go, Shut up and get out of my dressing room, jackass. And he looks at me and he goes, Well, let me tell you this. The crew is eating dinner right now, and it'd be nice if for once you'd sit with them. And I just look in the camera and I go, meh, and I hang up on him. Right? They call me back. They go, Dude, you got it. And I'm like, You gotta be kidding me. And they're like, No, no, we're filming in September. So check this out. So I fly back home. It's fourth of July. We're in the pool with our friends from church. And there was a couple, Ben and Susan, who had sat in front of us, who moved from California. They sat in front of us for two years at the time, and we become friends with them. They're in the pool. My in-laws are in the pool. My wife's in the pool. And Sandy goes, Hey, tell Ben and Susan what's going on. And I go, I just got this show that I'm hosting this chainsaw carving competition thing. And I was in Nebraska talking to this guy about a podcast about Jesus and sobriety. And she goes, Where in Nebraska? And I go, Lincoln. And she goes, You're not talking about Arnie and Shar Cola back to the Bible, are you? Oh my gosh. And I go, Yeah. And she goes, We've been friends with them for 30 years. We were with them when their son overdosed and died. Holy crap. And it hit me at once. Dude, that's why he's so into doing this podcast. That's why they want me to do it. And why would these people from Stockton, California, be on the corner of downtown Murfreesboro and First Presbyterian Church sitting right in front of me, right? I'm like, I just look up in the sky and I'm like, dude, I'm in. I'm in. I got it. I got it. So I get to start doing the show. And one of the episodes, they carve me. Because I put that in my audition tape like a moron, not thinking it through. And I'm going, what do you mean you carve they're going to carve me? He's like, you're going to come out in like boxers and they're going to have to carve you out of this huge log. And I'm like, oh no, right. Because I was not in shape. And I'm like, you know, fat is funny. Skinny is fine. In between at 54 is gross, right? So I called Tim Wilkins and I go, Tim, he's a does the bodybuilding fat me up. Yeah. No, no. I go, what do you freaks do to get jacked in two months? Sends me a thing, right? I go on a diet, I work out like crazy, I get there, I'm in shape. They they I talk them into doing a cutout of my picture instead of me standing there for eight hours in boxers and they put the cutout out. I come out, I start making jokes. You know, I'm like, yeah, it looks like because I have real skinny legs. Sandy said my legs look like I broke them and just had my cast removed, like there's neuropathy or something. Yeah. So I'm making all these jokes, right? Good stiff breeze. They hum like a tuning fork.

unknown 36:54

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

Dude, right, right. And I'm I'm in show mode. I'm like, yeah, damn, bing, bang, boom. I blow the horn for him to start carving. And this dude goes, Come here for a minute. And I come over and he goes, Hey, I did some research on you. And uh I'd like to carve you in the sense of your walk with Jesus and sobriety. Wow. I have made fun of people crying on television for years. You'll have to watch the episode. It goes, it felt like God was like, nah, dude, we ain't waiting for the podcast. We're doing it now. And the episode plays out. I can't give it away, but it it it was unbelievable. And people say, you know, when I tell them that, you know, my friends are always like, you know, Kaiser, oh, dude, everything just happened to fall into place. It happens all the time. Right. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 37:46

Well, I always said the coincidence is the atheist miracle. Right. You know. Yeah. It's a good way to blow off things that impossibly come together.

SPEAKER_01 37:56

There's no way that that couple was sitting in front of me for two years at First Presbyterian Church and happened to be in the pool. I mean, dude, Stockton, California and Murfreesboro, Tennessee, for these two people, it just it it's it's amazing how it plays out. And when I say stuff like that, which I believe 1000%, that doesn't mean my whole life's like that.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Not at all, man. You know what I mean? So these heartbeats they're God wings. Well, it and you know, it's interesting that the day after I I committed my life to Christ, I just said, I'm yours. I don't even know what that means. I I really didn't. I just yeah, I was at a friend's house. Um, after a year and a half friendship and uh you know studying the Bible for a few months, and um I met the pastor um and all of this. Um I'm sitting on the end of my bed, my kids are in the other room, my my wife is uh uh in Ohio. Um we're not we're separated, we're not we're not doing well. Looks like we're gonna get a divorce, and I'm on the end of the bed. And I felt different. I felt light. I felt um and I see in this valley in front of me you know, and it dawns on me. The day before, I got on my knees and I said, Okay, Jesus, I'm yours. Whatever that looks like, um, I'm yours. And I said, Oh, I wonder if that's what this feels like. And then I see in my mind's eye, I was here, I was here, I was here, I was here. Things that happened to me that I could have ended my life. You know, T P. Mulrooney, you know, the comedian, I don't know. T P and I were on a train at three o'clock. Wait, am I thinking of John Mulrooney? No, you're thinking of John Mulrooney. Yeah, T P was a comic in Chicago. And we we were drunk on the L train, you know, just talking, and we wind up, you know, in the hood, you know, south side at three in the morning. I don't know. Anyway, it was not good. And the trains come every half hour. So uh, you know, we looked and thought, oh, we got 20 minutes before the next train. Eight or ten guys see us on the platform. They come up and they circle us like hyenas. I mean, they're s taunting us and circling, and one of them looks at T P and goes, You're a comedian. And T P goes, Yeah, I'm a comedian. You know, he says, I was at your show Wednesday night at Zanies. You're a funny man. What are you doing out here? And he goes, We're lost. He goes, Damn right you're lost. And they sat there like guardian angels for 20 minutes. Really? And I got on that train with T P and I said, Out of a city of three million, how many people were in that room? He said, Maybe 20. Oh, so he's not selling tickets. No, that was this is yeah, this was back. This was back when nobody sold tickets. The club was the draw. So anyway, uh years later, I get on my knees, I say, I'm yours. And then the next day, for the first time in 20, whatever years, I think about it, and he goes, No, I was there. And then the skeptic in me goes, Where were you when the family of four got off the exit on the south side and got slaughtered at a gas station? Yeah. Forget gas. You know, uh so I again there's this part of you that goes that wants to put one foot in the world and the other foot in the in the vine. Well, I'm both feet in now, and just go, I'll pay attention to punches in the face.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 41:11

You know, it isn't just a punch in the faces. What are you trying to tell me?

SPEAKER_01 41:15

You know, it's like that adage where I don't know if it's adage, I don't even know what that means, but it's where a guy's sitting on a fence and Jesus is on one side and the devil's on the other. And Jesus goes, Hey man, I can give you eternity, I can give you love, I can give you light. And the devil goes, I can let you do whatever it is your heart desires, right? Right. And the guy's sitting on the fence, he's like, you know what? I kind of like it up here. And Jesus disappears and the devil looks at him and goes, I own the fence. I never heard that. That's great. So it it that's how I look at it. Like I can't stay on the fence. And not only that.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Well, I think the Bible said it. Your your um your lukewarmness makes me vomit. I vomit your lukewarmness. Yeah. You know, uh and and I'm obviously paraphrasing that's from the book of the book of Jeff. But uh, yeah, it's in the Bible. In the book of Magic. Somewhere. You know, it's so funny though, that most people, you know, including me, are illiterate enough that you could tell me if you said it with authority, I'd go, Oh, I didn't even know that was in there. Yeah. You can do whatever you want. I did not know that.

unknown 42:19

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:20

It just it's one of those things where, you know, when you feel it and find it. And you and I were both in a situation uh alcohol and drugs are undefeated. They're gonna win eventually if you stay on them. I mean, there's no nobody gets out alive. You can look at Keith Richards and whatever, but uh, you know what I'm saying. Like he died 37 years ago. He had to have. But but when you look at that and you go, all right, I was given this gift, right? Now, when you get a gift and you don't share it with other people, you're lonely and you're a jackass because you're selfish. I feel like, and tell me if you feel like this, I feel like I need to tell people, man. I want them to know. I want them to have it. I want them to, you know, and they're like, well, what if you don't sell as many tickets? You've done that your whole career. You've not your whole career, but when you found Jesus, your act changed, your whole demeanor, everything.

SPEAKER_03 43:18

Well, I got out of the clubs because one, I couldn't draw an audience. That was the main reason. But two, I I wanted to be in an environment where it was comfortable to share my story. Um, and again, that comes from uh the 12-step program where you share your experience, strength, and hope. Yeah. So when I brought the comedy into a church, my thought was, and Tammy and I talked about it, my gosh, they're paying you out of tithes and offerings. What are you offering outside of the comedy? Not realizing that the comedy was a ministry as well.

SPEAKER_01 43:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 43:50

I mean, the healing benefits that come from laughter with the with endorphins and uh and all the uh the positive stuff. But I thought, well, I got a story, so I was I was very I love telling the story because it's about God's redemption and restoration. Yeah. It's not about me. Nothing I did. On my best day, I'm laying next to a dumpster half naked in in my waist. Right. So why wouldn't you shout that from the rooftops? Yeah. And now that I'm back in clubs and theaters doing stuff, I wrote about it in a book. So now I can share the book, but I can't sell the book unless I tell them what's in the book. So now I get a chance to talk about, you know, um, and it's so funny because I got on my knees one day and I was I was basically telling God, I'm tired of telling the story about what a dirtbag I was. And basically that voice inside of you that's it's it's pretty loud at times, said, You'll tell the story till I give you another one to tell. You know, it's not your story. Right. It's really not. Yeah. You know, and uh so I'll tell it. I know there's people probably tired of hearing about it, but if there's people that haven't heard it, you know, there's a six billion people, and you never know. Um if you're honest and talking from the heart, um it can be used. Yeah. You know, and um For good, for something that's well that's it. You can lay your head on a pillow at night and go, you know what? I took some arrows, you know, I took some shots, but consider the source. Right. You know, and I also look at it. Well, that's it. You don't know the wounds they carry, you know. And if you I've learned anything about recovery, we do what we do because we're wounded deeply, you know, and the more you heal those wounds, the more you allow God to heal those wounds, uh, the less damage you do to yourself and others, you know. Yeah. You just all of a sudden there's this desire to figure out how to love, you know. Um, and you know, I remember telling Tammy, uh, you know, um, I don't know if you've said this to Sandy, but you know, I I when we were getting a divorce, I said, You deserve better than me. You know, I mean I loved her. Yeah. I just was damaged. I I said, maybe this is permanent, you know. Yeah. Um, I don't know. I'm trying, and that's what I told her. And you know, we we ended up obviously we're married 40 years, and she gets on my nerves constantly, you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

That's what you always say. I know. I was trying to get you in trouble like I was. I wasn't in trouble. I wasn't in trouble.

SPEAKER_03 46:20

I wasn't times in this podcast. Sandy is the best. Yeah. I think every 20 or 30 minutes we should just throw that in. I love you, honey. I love you, baby.

SPEAKER_01 46:30

If we're listening to this in a car and it's raining outside and it's dark, I'm talking about you. Yeah, I love you.

SPEAKER_03 46:35

So, what's going on outside of the podcast? You're touring with uh Larry.

SPEAKER_01 46:40

I was. We really just golf more. Dude, I to be honest with you, I don't care about stand-up any as much anymore. Like I I love doing it. I love being on stage, but the road has just Well, you don't fly. No.

SPEAKER_03 46:52

Uh you're my uh road buddy. When I'm driving, I know, and you're I know it's a weekend. Chances are you're in the car. Yeah. Yeah. You don't I mean, you don't fly anywhere. If you got a 12-hour drive, you leave a day early. Yeah. And you drive.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Well, dude, we almost died in a plane crash. And uh real tiny plane. Well, here's a story for you.

SPEAKER_03 47:10

I'm getting the Grady Nut Award. The only award I've ever won. It's for this a gospel comedy or something. And I want to be back to get it. So I hire a plane, a little prop job in Pennsylvania to fly me back so I'm home in the morning to go to this award thing. Well, anyway, I'm this a four-seater prop thing, and I'm sitting there and I hear all these alarms going on. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, and I kind of wake up and I look and I realize the pilots, whatever, and I'm thinking I could die. Well, I pray. If this is it, Lord, let the people in my life know I loved them more than anything in the world, and uh I'm in a better place. Honestly, that was my reaction to it. And anyway, I looked out the plane, and there's all the we're landing in Nashville, and there's all these ambulances and police things, and we land, and we get out of the plane, and the pilot's lighting a cigarette, you know, and I said, What happened? He goes, lost our hydraulics. And I go, is that a bad thing? He goes, couldn't steer the plane. You know, but we happened to be on the course landing. So now here's the story. I get to the Grady Nut Award, and uh anyway, I said, How did Grady Nut die in a plane crash? I went, Really? I go, my God. So anyway, I said, I don't I don't want another Grady Nut award. I don't want anything to do with Grady Nutt. Yeah. But that was, yeah, I um I uh that was my near plane crash.

SPEAKER_01 48:38

We were Dan looked at me and goes, dude, this is it. Like he couldn't, he tried to get up to the pilots to tell him to get out. The whole thing was a disaster. I had, whether true or not, whether it didn't happen, but I was convinced we were dead. And I started praying. I mean, I was asking for forgiveness for stuff I don't even know if I did. Like I know anymore. Yeah, and then I can't listen to it. I can't listen to my playlist because it's like Skinnered, Stevie Ravon, John Denver. You know, it's like you know, like I can't. I'm like, just calm down, calm down.

SPEAKER_03 49:10

I've always thought Denver was a satanic uh, you know, if you played it backwards.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:16

Country roads backwards destroying the environment. Destroying God's creation. Right. That Denver.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

Yeah. But dude, when stuff like that happens. So you don't fly anymore. That's amazing to me. I will again commercially. I'll never fly private again. Really? I've been in too many, dude. Too many streamer.

SPEAKER_03 49:36

No. Nope. I flew on a uh uh a singer's plane um and I loved it. I thought private was the way to go.

SPEAKER_01 49:45

When I was drinking, I loved it. Yeah. Because I didn't care. But I don't love it anymore. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 49:50

And getting bounced around at 40,000 feet, and it's not Yeah, but you're pretty safe to figure on a Friday or Saturday if I call. Yeah, oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

Although I'm not going on the road this summer at all. You're not? I'm just doing the podcast and spending time with family, and um I'm gonna have to do stuff for the TV show like voiceovers and pickups and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 50:12

But um, we need to play some golf. I'm I'd love to. I'm on the road a lot. Um I have a wife that wants things. You know. My wife wants things too, but you just tell her screw it.

SPEAKER_01 50:25

It's kind of like her wanting me to talk about her.

SPEAKER_03 50:27

Yeah. It might happen, it might not. No, it's it I got So you're about what, 16 years old now?

SPEAKER_01 50:33

Maybe Shut up, Jeff. Shut up. But it's uh it I just needed a break. I just I had to take a break for a minute. And uh like I'm doing some corporate stuff in the fall and these Christian film festivals and stuff like that. But I love the idea of talking about getting sober to a room full of people drinking.

SPEAKER_03 51:00

And I was like going, well Did you ever thought about working a comedy show around like a one-man show type? Because that that entered my mind years ago. Um, I thought, you know, take the story, build build a an ebb and flow that's it's almost like you know, it's interesting. When when I was listening to uh I read a lot of John Bradshaw um back in the eighties when I was getting sober, and that's all about family dynamics. I don't know if you remember him, but he had the mobile and he would the center of the mobile was the parents and all the children on the outside, and he would tap the parents and the whole mobile would move. And and anyway, it was uh he was very popular in the um in the 80s. And um I remember people telling me how funny he was. And I watched him on the PBS and I thought, he's got a joke every 18 minutes. Right. You know, and I thought, well, gosh, I could do that. I could write a joke every 18 minutes. Yeah. And then and and again, I I loved talking about recovery. I loved because it was so new and refreshing to to realize, you know what, I was I was in that mobile. I mean, the the wounds that I had were not again, I didn't look at my parents and go, you did, you know, and I told my children this. This will shock you, but we didn't wake up every morning and figure out a way to screw you up. I mean, right. We didn't sit there, oh, we did this, we did this, we did, oh, there's so much more we can do to F them up. You know, we'll do this, this, and this. So I said we did what we knew what we knew, you know, and we weren't qualified, uh certainly to have children, but I don't know how many people nobody is. Nobody is. Nobody is, and if they tell you they are, then they really are. Then that's a problem because the egos uh you know. So um, you know, we I just and then then I hired somebody to write a one-man show around the first six chapters of of the book of the getting sober, that that decade of uh ages of thirty-one to forty before I I gave my life to Christ. I said, This may be a make a good play one-man show. So I had a guy help me write wrote it out, and I did a table read at the house. And Tammy hid behind a dishwasher and cried throughout the whole. And I gave him his money. I said, I I'm I'm not doing this. I could not do this for seven nights a week. Yeah, just six nights, five nights. I couldn't do five shows a week doing this.

SPEAKER_01 53:22

Well, I know you get this too, but it and I and the other thing is is the reason I'm taking time off is I'm trying to write different stuff because uh a lot of what I talk about doesn't go with what I believe anymore. Oh I guess so it's still it's like you know, I'll do a joke and then I get off and I'm what started to mean something was I would do a show. And that's conviction, not condemnation. Right. That's a conviction. That's that's your that's your heart going, eh. Yeah, it's a bit, it's a bit much, Reno. That's and especially because you have this chunk in the middle of your act about how God saved your life and how sobriety saved your life, and how Sandy had a big part in that too. Um But like it I it started to mean more to me. Like it used to be I'd stand out and shake hands and people be like, Man, it was so funny, whatever. Then every once in a while, someone would go, Hey dude, uh, I listened to you on Bob and Tom, and I've been sober for six months, and you really helped me talk about the thing. That meant where it didn't used to I never even had that. That meant more to me than somebody going, Dude, that was so funny. I love that bit about the duck. I just kind of was like, Oh, thanks. It's like I wasn't giving them anything that came out.

SPEAKER_03 54:39

Yeah, but also understand that the laughter heals as well. Um I learned that coming out of COVID. That's how long I people would say to me at the church, love your ministry, and I go, I'm a comic. You know, it's not a ministry. But when I had husbands with tears in their eyes, when their wife was in the bathroom, they would come to me and go, It's the first time I heard my wife laugh in three years. Dude, that is a gift. That is. That's uh something that we've been given by the divine as you know, again, there's too many healing benefits to laughter for it to not be by design.

SPEAKER_01 55:15

Oh, dude, laughter and joy. I mean, look at look around at people. Yeah, people are freaking miserable. A lot of them are and and giving them an hour to laugh is huge.

SPEAKER_03 55:27

I'm just I'm just saying for people ask me all the time in interview, they probably ask you the same thing. I don't know uh uh uh what can people expect from your show? I said, distraction. I said, I'm a distraction for an hour, hour and a half, man. I said, just come on out, forget about your day, your problems. And uh my dad pointed that out to me. He went to see my dad could not wait to go to Las Vegas. He never had any money to go, couldn't afford it. And then he worked for a guy who liked him and said, I'll take you to Vegas. Come on, let's go. All he wanted to see were the comedians. And uh Alan King was his favorite comic. Yeah. And uh when he came home, I said, How was it? He goes, the biggest disappointment was Alan King. And I go, really? He goes, why? He goes, all he talked about was taxes and the government and the and he goes, I didn't pay whatever I paid to have some rich guy tell me how bad things were. Right. So anyway, I've never forgot that because I went through a phase back in the 90s uh where I was so miserable in my sobriety, I had to have a reason. So I I just pointed at the Republicans and the Democrats, yeah, and I said, It's them. That's they're the reason I'm miserable. Right. The whole country's screwed up, and that's why I'm miserable. Yeah. And God, I lost work. I lost work all the time. Yeah. I mean, I was screaming about everything, Clinton, whatever. You know, I had some little old lady come to me after a show. You are rotten from the tip of your head to the tip of your tongue. And I said, F you lady, I'm gonna pound your head into your chest cavity. You know, so anyway, um, I just backed away from it. And the couple of jokes I did during the Biden administration, people commented, reached out. I don't read a lot of comments. Carolyn does, she gets mad for me. But um, they said, Don't go there. Yeah. Yeah, we we we don't we listen to you because you don't go there. Right. You know, there's enough of that. I mean, if you want it, you can get it anywhere. But uh, you know, did Larry, did he ever put any restrictions on you?

SPEAKER_01 57:26

No, yeah, no, dude. He should have fired me every day for 20 years. His first ever arena tour, dude. Here's how, here's how his first ever arena tour, 17,000 people in Raleigh, North Carolina. I am out by the bus getting drunk with some politicians or whatever. I don't even know what time I'm supposed to go up, you know, whatever. I'm talking the guy ended up getting a DUI and getting kicked out of Senate, whatever. We're standing out there and I'm telling him, I'm like, you don't know anything about it. I'm telling him politics. Like, I didn't know he was a Democrat, and I'm amazing after a quarter of account or something.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

You just smart you get.

SPEAKER_01 57:59

Oh, brilliant. They come running out and they're like, Reno, you're on stage in like three minutes. I'm like, I'll be back. And I go running in, I go up, I do 25 minutes, and I go, thank you, good night. And I walked off the stage, and cable guys stand there like, you didn't bring me up. Oh, you're supposed to bring me up. I was supposed to introduce him. I didn't even my whole job is just to talk while 20,000 people get seated. It's for me. For him. Yeah, yeah. Those 17,000 people. But they came to my show. Everybody wants to pay $100 to see 25 minutes of some guy they don't know who he is. I mean, why wouldn't they? Yeah, that's that old um um uh Albert Brooks pit.

SPEAKER_03 58:41

But first, are you ready for Santana? Yeah, but first.

SPEAKER_01 58:47

Dude, one night when I was out with uh with um Jeff and Bill and cable guy, and Ron didn't go out. That's how I got that gig. He didn't, he wanted, he's like, I'm not gonna go try to be clean. I don't want to. I don't so they threw me on it. So we're in Knoxville, they're about to introduce me to come out, and the tour manager has the microphone, and what he's trying to say is he just got off the road with Ron White. Please welcome Reno Collier. He just got off the road with didn't come through the microphone. What came out was Ron White, and the whole place is like, oh my God. And he goes, Please welcome Reno Collier. And I'm like, oh my gosh. No. Dude, I used to have dreams that those guys were sitting in the middle of the arena and I was upstairs running around and I couldn't get down.

SPEAKER_03 59:35

Oh my gosh, that's yeah. Awful.

SPEAKER_01 59:37

Like it was it was uh great opportunity, ha ha ha, whatever. It was not fun. Yeah, because they're disappointed. They're disappointed. At that time, it was like, here's the Beatles, but Paul's not here. Here's his little cousin Jeff McCartney. Right. You know what I mean? Whatever.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

I had a buddy years ago uh back in Chicago when I was living in Chicago, it's like early 80s, was uh supposed to open for Jerry Lee Lewis and uh the Blue Macs uh in Chicago. And right before the show starts, they tell him, do 45. He said, Well, I thought I was gonna do 20. He goes, No, Jerry's not coming. Um the IRS told uh the IRS called the Blue Macs and said, if you pay Jerry Lee Lewis a nickel, you're responsible for all his back taxes. So they called Jerry and told him we're not gonna pay you. He goes, Well, Jerry says, I'm not coming. So he tell they tell Jerry Doc, my friend Jerry, he goes, do 45 and then tell him Jerry Lee ain't coming. He goes, No way. Yeah, because they're gonna rearrange the architecture of this place, and I don't want to be part of that. So anyway, he just did his 40 uh 35 or 40 and then left. Uh didn't say anything. So then they had to do an over the thing, Mike. Jerry Lee Lewis is canceled, he's not gone.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Dude, those old opening, like when I when I first I was doing open mic or whatever, and then you'd get booked all over the southeast, like comedy house theater, and I was used to the punchline in Atlanta that was packed every night, and it was like cake, right? You go up and people So I got booked, and I would only be doing stand-up like six months in Ocala, Florida at the holiday inn in their lounge that was like a comedy house theater at the time, making like 150 bucks a week. I show up. Bragging. I know, oh yeah, I was rolling in. But you got a free hotel and I didn't have anywhere to live, so I'd take two weeks at a time. Absolutely. First night of the two weeks. But then they charge you because there were no shows Monday, Tuesday. You had to pay for your own hotel. They got their money back. It was a total scam. So I walk into the lounge of the Holiday Inn, and the show's supposed to start in like 10 minutes, and there's nobody in there. And I'm like, hey, what's going on? They're like, hey, and I go, where's the comedy club? And they go, You're in it. And I go, This is this is the and he goes, look, and there was like a two-foot streamer of bricks that was wallpapered on the thing, and there's like a box to stand on. When did bricks become I have no idea, dude? It's always bricks. Yeah, we have bricks. Yeah, bricks here. Yes, we do. So this old couple walks in, the lights are still on, and they sit down, they get a drink, and they get some popcorn. And I'm talking like they were probably in their 90s. And I go, I go, where's when's the crowd get here? And they go, eh, this is it. And the other two comic comics, there was a guy, Steve Brewer, and some I can't remember the other guys. Anyway, I go, uh, I go, hey, just so you guys know, I'm not going up there. And they're like, yeah, you are. And I go, I'm not going up there. You want your room in the opening. I'm the opener. I'm like, I'm not going up there for two people. And they're like, Yes, Reno, are you a comedian or not? Like that, this is what we do. You have to suck it up and muscle through it. And I'm like, I'm not doing the, you know, this is ridiculous. So they turn the lights off and hit the spotlight on this two-foot piece of wallpaper, and you hear, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, are you ready for some comedy? And I hear the old guy go, Why are the lights off? And I'm like, oh no, dude. And they're like, please welcome to the stage. You're hosting MC. And then it stops. They don't even have your name. It's a recording. I know. And I walk up on stage. At first, I'm like, I'm like, I'm not going up there. And the manager goes, go up there. And this older couple can hear all this. And I'm like, no, I'm not going up there for two old people. And he's like, get up on stage or you're not getting paid. I'm like, fine. I walk up on stage, I'm just being a jerk. I'm like, how's everybody doing tonight? I'm high five in the empty tables and everything. And I go, does anybody have any questions? This old guy goes, Why are the lights off? Turn the lights back on. And I go, Are you ready for your feature act? See this hottie I met in the bar. I go right into, Are you ready for your feature act? I didn't do any time. The guy in the back's like, F you! I'm like, please welcome to the stage from teacher. I was up there 30 seconds. I bring him up. He goes into this bit about porn and these things, and these people are wandering around filling up popcorn. There's nobody in there. This guy lays, the manager lays into me. He goes, I'm gonna tell you something right now. I'll fire you. I don't need you. I don't, you don't have that. You are you're this is not how this works. And I'm like, what kind of a dump is in there? Because I thought company clubs were the punchline. Right. You know, exactly. I'm like, there's people in there eating corn with no salt on it. Have you eaten in the free food? Of course it's free. This stuff is for people that are in a retirement home. Yeah. Oh, it was a disaster. My first trip to Vegas. Then I did it for 30 more years. Yeah, I was gonna say, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

My first trip to Vegas, uh, one of those open-air lounges, yeah, with the curtains, you know. Okay. And uh 15 people in the room, and in the middle of my set, somebody, you hear all the bells that somebody hit a jackpot. All 15 people get up and run to the like Pavlov's dogs. Yeah, they just run out to the thing. And I'm standing there with nobody. And I go, Do I have to keep talking? You want to get paid? You keep talking. So I just kept talking. And that's all you could do.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:00

Nobody came back, and it was like, yeah. I remember when I was moving out to California, I didn't have any money. I'd saved like $2,500, and I had to work my way out to pay my way out for gas. So I went to That's what we all did. Yeah. So I had like a show in New Orleans on one of those Haras. Yeah, I went northern.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:17

I went to uh Nebraska and Colorado and New Orleans. But you had to make your money, right? New Mexico.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:23

So I show up to do the show in New Orleans at the old Haras on the boat that you had to gamble on the water back then. Oh, right. I show up to do it. I remember that. Yeah, I remember the and Mutzy. Remember Mutzy? He was like the House MC. No. I think he passed away.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:38

I worked with uh who's the guy that was in all those police academy movies? Michael Winslow? Michael Winslow. Yeah. I worked with him on that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

Well, this he was like the House MC. Yeah. And he went up and they were giving a car away. And there's like five hundred people in there. Of course for the car. Right? He goes up, he does his set, and then he goes, Before I bring up your next act We're gonna give the car away. And he brings out this big ball and spins it, and somebody wins, and they go, Every single person gets up and leaves. I mean, every single person. And I'm like, you did your set, right? Got your stuff in, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:13

Then you did the freaking um I go Harris flies me down on a private plane. They're signing a new treaty with a tribe somewhere in Missouri. Yeah. 1200, 1400 people under a uh outside outdoor tent. And right before they bring me up, um uh Harris has got a bunch of stuff to give you uh out over there. So nine hundred of the twelve hundred get up and leave. So there's three hundred left. Now they're bussing the tables for t a dinner for twelve hundred people behind me. I can hear all the clanging and whatever. So I'm doing my thing, you know, and the 300 that were left just gradually got up and left to the point where there were like 40 people left.

SPEAKER_05 1:07:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:02

And I looked at him, I looked at my watch and said, Harris told me to stay up here until all of you were gone, but you people are gluttons for fucking shit. I'm I'm done. I'm gonna leave now. Yeah. And then the 40th clap that was said. And you wonder, why would you spend the money for a private plane in the thousandth uh uh uh that they paid? Yeah. For what I don't know for what? To make the announcement, of course they're gonna go to the free stuff. Yeah, you know? It's a casino. Oh no, we want to see this guy we've never heard of tell jokes.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:33

Yeah, you know, yeah, yeah. So um the road's not you know what was funny though is when I was drunk as all get out, and I went up and I started playing blackjack. They cashed my check for me at the casino from the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:48

Yeah, my first trip to Vegas. I lost my check by Wednesday.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

I had I cashed it in. I sit down and start playing blackjack. I had like $2,500, $3,000 saved for LA. LA, right? I get drunk, I don't even remember finishing blackjack. I woke up and all my money was gone. Except for like $26. All the California, nothing. I puddle to Texas, make it, make it from Texas to Phoenix, Phoenix to LA on fumes. I have no money. I'm eating like hot dogs and ramen noodles for everything. I have an audition, and I go get in my car with this guy, Jeff, and we he had the audition too. We get in the car, we start driving. I go, dude, I don't know where I am. I go, give me my atlas out of the thing. He opens it up, pulls the Rand McNally out, and like five grand falls out. At some point in my drunken stupor in New Orleans, I went and hid the money so I didn't blow it in my car. Wow. And had no I'm like, missed the stakes for everybody.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:49

Which is so impressive because you were 13 years old. I know. For a 13-year-old, that is a master move. So you were a mature little teacher.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

I was a brilliant 13-year-old at 27.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:00

Yeah, exactly. That is so cool, man. Hey, uh, you do a tournament every year. Well, first of all, you golf. Uh Larry, the cable guy, is an avid golfer. Yes, he is. Uh I heard you complaining. You played for 13 straight days. I wasn't complaining. That's just because my wife was here. Oh, okay. Well, yeah, no, I freaking loved every single time. Well, it's a good thing she doesn't listen to this. You know. You're gonna trap her in a car again. She's only gonna hear the first half. I guarantee you, if you ever went, hey, let's listen to Jeff Allen. No. She wouldn't let you finish this. Not again. Not again. Yeah. Yeah. So I do. I love it, dude. Uh I'm addicted to it. Yeah, it is. Isn't it interesting? There's uh a lot of parallels, especially with the self-flagellation of the alcoholism and the golf addiction.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:43

Well, I think too, I mean, my brain is like a freaking ping-pong ball, just bang, bang, bam, bam, bang. Yeah. And when I golf, uh you it's all I can do. Like you're just focused on the ball. You're just focused on your swing. You couldn't fit something else in your head if you wanted to, if you want to hit a good shot. Yeah. Like if if you it just makes me disappear for a while. It's an escape. Well, that's it.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:06

I mean, and again, I I I finally, after I wrote a chapter in my book about the addiction. It almost destroyed my marriage. You know, golf? Yeah, it was so funny. We were, it's not funny. In hindsight, you know, a lot of a lot of pain and suffering is funny because of your stupidity. Of your stupidity. But you know, in counseling or something, the counselor said something. Uh Tammy said something like, uh, golf is Jeff's mistress, and the counselor said, No, from what I've heard, it's his wife. What a jerk. You pay him? Yeah, not her. Uh yeah. I went to a woman. I figured my problem was a woman. I'll go to a woman. Maybe she can hold it. Big mistake. You got a veteran. Oh, I did. Are you on my side or something? I went, I I always used I tell people this if you want to get help, go to a therapist who works for the state. They're not in it for the money. Right. They're there to actually help people. And I went in there, I was gonna tell her my tail of woe, and she was gonna pat my hand and tell me, You poor man, you need to leave this woman.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:05

And I told her my tail of woe, and she said, if you came here looking for permission to get a divorce, you came to the wrong thing. Apparently, she's heard this from men before. Yeah. So anyway, oh no, no, gosh, no. I want to get help.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:19

I want to, I want to stay married to this. The hardest thing, like when I first got sober, everything was, well, at least I'm not drinking.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

You know what I mean? You're golf seven days away. I'm not drinking. Well, that was the thing about New York meetings.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:31

Yeah. You know, the guy would raise his hand and he'd go, I stabbed my wife this morning, and eight other guys would go, I remember when I did that.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:39

And I'm sitting there feeling guilty because I raised my voice. I love, I I I know this isn't the reason to go, but I love going and hearing people. I remember one time early on, I I I part of the reason I went back was I was like, these stories are unbelievable. I know. Right? But this guy, this big biker dude who goes to this meeting all the time, uh he go, so he was people were sharing or whatever, and he goes, Oh, you know, I got this thing and blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever. He goes, That's all. Oh, hold on a minute. You know, people say to be honest in here, and you should be, but let me tell you this. If you ever killed somebody, don't bring it up in these rooms. Someone will telling you, I got a buddy doing 25 to life. All right, that's all I got though. And I was like, this is the greatest place I've ever been in my life.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:25

Like even if I wasn't an alcoholic, I still want to come back for the Oh, my favorite was a guy that used to have his wife handcuff him to the radiator every Friday night, leave a half a gallon of vodka and a porta potty there so he could pee. And he goes, Yeah, I did that for about six months before I realized that's probably not normal. Six months. Six months every weekend. He goes, Well, I wasn't driving. You know, that was the whole point. Yeah. Because he could not not drive. Right. So she said, Oh, she'd go bowling or whatever. They just chained him up and leave him old school. I thought that was great. And then my other one was uh the guy came home. Uh, he used to, he, his wife went to Alan on and ruined his drinking. Yeah. Because she said, I don't care, kill yourself. And it ruined it for him. He said, prior to that, it was a game. Right. And I she couldn't figure out why every time I went and did yard work, I came in drunk out of my court. So he comes home one day and the whole yard is dug up of holes. She's looking for his bottle. But anyway, she finally went to Alan on and and said, I don't care. You can drink yourself to death. I'm done.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

Dude, this one little guy got sober. This one little guy used to come in and he was he's sh shorter and little. And he everything is, I was about to whip his ass. I was about to whip his, you know. So he he he goes, he goes, I was working Chattanooga, Taco Bell, and uh I was drunk, man, had a bottle of liquor in my sock air, and I'll just boom, boom, boom, you know, and I dumped a bunch of the taco meat on the ground in grease, and they're like, get out of here, you're fired. And I was about to whip his ass, but I was like, you know what, man, you come out here. He goes, I'll go outside. He goes, I go outside, I'm giving him a finger. I get in my car, I back up, and I ram into a telephone pole. And everyone's laughing, looking at me out of the window. He goes, So I look over, there's a strip mall and there's an enterprise rental car place. So I go over to the enterprise rental car too and I get in an argument with him, about to whip his eyes, and then they give me the keys to the car. I get in my car, I drive it home, and I start hearing their squeaking sound or whatever. So I take it home, put it on lift, get it up underneath, and I'm sitting there messing with the car, and I think, damn, how jacked up do you have to be to change the brake pads on a rental car?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:41

Like, who doesn't?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:42

I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:43

And so, but that was the stuff at the beginning that I was like, man, because in the beginning Well, don't you find though, uh again, you start laughing. I mean, genuinely laughing for the first time in years. Yeah. You know, it's not this drunken, you know, uh, you know, I threw up and it's just listening to people. I mean, the insanity of your life at the time, but you're you're removed from it now. You can look back at your folly and see it for what it was. You know, you were a 13-year-old guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:19

Plus, you know you're not alone. Well, that's it. When somebody when somebody tells you they did something that's on the same meter as something you did, it gives you comfort. Like, okay, I'm not alone. Right. I'm not a freak. I'm not a freak.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:32

Because that's what the enemy uses to remind you, you're so unique. You know that nobody does nobody's as bad as you. Right. You know, no. And there are people way worse. Oh, yeah. Oh, absolutely. And way worse. That's why I I left it when I went in at twenty-five. I go, not even anywhere near as bad as these people.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:48

Well, when I first went in, I was looking at everybody, I'm like, dude, these people are like dirty. Like, do they not know I'm on television? Like, do these people not understand? And two weeks in, I'm like, oh no, Reno, you're just like these people. You just have a job that celebrates it.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:07

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:08

That's the only difference. Right. You know, I show up to work and people are feeding me drinks before I even get on stage. Right, or these people get fired for, you know, putting the tire on backwards because they're so hammered. And you know what I mean? Like they're it's a big and and the things that I consider blessings in my life, you know, having Sandy to be there with me, to say, I'll do it with you, and being so supportive. So many people have nobody.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:32

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:33

Which is why they've lost everybody. Which is why I'm doing the podcast alive and sober. Right. To try to fill that voice. But it it kind of is, actually.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:43

But I heard a story in uh years ago. Um guy was in Boston wearing a suit and tie, doing his uh experience, strength, and hope. And he explained why he was putting five dollars in the basket every meeting instead of the traditional one dollar. And he said he was he would sleep at the Boston Commons, make sure he got the bench by the bus stop so he can laugh at the people underway to work. And somebody tells him that if you go to a meeting down the street, you can take the money out of the basket. Nobody says anything. So he goes in, basket comes, he takes the money, puts it in his pocket, looks around. He goes, I did that for weeks. Took the money, put it in my pocket. He said, The first time I passed the basket without taking the money, the whole room stood and applauded. Because you think in your head, these idiots, these moron, you know, and but yeah, he said it it finally hit me. So anyway, he said uh those high-rise down the street, my company built the um high-rises. And it said everything you needed to say, man. You get rid of that that that thing in your life that's destroying it.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:53

Um now you have a chance to be what you were meant to be, you know, in a creative uh uh whether it's creatively or or uh financially or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:03

But um See, dude, that's another thing I'm running into with my act, is like who am I really? Like that's why like I I did not.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:14

Because it's like it gets huge laughs, which believe me, when you're up there by yourself, you want those laughs.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:20

But like I started doing shows in churches, and I was like, not not a ton of them, but some of them. And uh and I was like, you know, I don't I don't want to do that. I want to be in clubs where people are drinking. I don't need to talk to people in church. And then uh Sandy goes, You were an alcoholic sitting in church. And I was like, Oh yeah, because I used to think if you did churches or cruise ships, you were done. I've done both. Like it doesn't you're not if you if there's a microphone, you you you think you'd rather go to Ocala and that's a comedy club, and sit there and do a show for two or for people where people go, why is it the lights off? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if that's stand-up comedy, why isn't a church? But you know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_03 1:19:03

Like I I love Well, did you find uh you're a storyteller? So I found when I went into the churches, they're actually used to having someone speak for 45 minutes without interrupting and using metaphors. Right. So it was a great fit. Yeah. It was a great fit. Um I didn't think anything of it. Um I I was in Vegas on 9-11 and I called Lenny. I couldn't get home. I mean, you know, all of the stuff. I was locked in for seven days. And I just said to him, I I gotta find another place to do what I do. And at that point I was working clean anyway. And that's that came about because my fourth grade son called his teacher some nasty names, cussed at her and driving home from the meeting with the teacher, Tammy said, That's on us. So I curbed my language at home. I it was it's unbecoming on your fourth grade son talks like you do. Right. And it's hypocritical for the parent to go, those are adult words. You know, shut up.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:03

You know. So anyway, um, I started cleaning up my show uh for that reason. I just I wanted you know, Cosby said it about Dice Clay. He said, What's he gonna show his kids? You can't put that in front of a what's Cosby gonna show his kids? Well, that's yeah. Well, that was yeah, it was a good fit for me. Yeah. I was a brand new believer. I was excited about uh uh having bigger audiences. Again, I wasn't a draw, and I got tired of babysitting drunks. I was again, I was I used to say I headlined comedy club. I never headlined a comedy club. I was a closer. I was the third act up out of three. Right. Um and um Well, you're selling a lot of tickets now. Well now I am. Yeah, at this age, it's it's wonderful. You know, um I did an interview recently with a guy who said, What's it like at this age? I said it's great because when it ends, I can quit. Right. Right. I'm not 40 years old and I got 35 more years of life or 30 more years of life to figure out what am I gonna do. I mean, I can't the people aren't coming anymore, and I gotta do something. You know, so um it this is great. I'm in a great season of our lives. Um, and uh it sounds like you are in just a great place, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

Dude, I've never been happier. And the other thing I wanted to say too is if somebody just is sober curious or whatever, the one thing I didn't see being so important is it was the first time I ever had to be honest in a long time. Right. And and I didn't know how to be honest. I mean, I know how to be honest.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:33

You'll lie you die. So just tell the truth. Just but I hate all you people. I would raise my hand and go, I hate all you people. Yeah. I hate it. I hate it, you know.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:41

And I hate everything about this.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:42

Little old lady came to me after a meeting after about a year and a half, she goes, you know, I've been listening to you for quite a while. Maybe the problem isn't your wife. That's hilarious. Every meeting I'd raise my hand and go, you know what she did today? You know what she did today, you know? And I'm still doing it, but now they're paying me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:59

That's the way to do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:00

Yeah, you know what I mean? Yeah, put my whole act together. But uh I just thought, what a blessing and a gift to be with a in a room full of broken people who know they're broken and to be honest about it. And um I remember complaining about personalities, and again, principles before personalities. And that is something that we I carried into my church life because I can remember going to some churches early in our uh in our walk and Tammy complaining about the personalities. And I go, Yeah, but did you hear the message of Jesus? Yeah, did you hear the message of redemption, restoration, the beauty of grace and mercy? Yeah. What does that have to do with anything? Right. I hated that woman over there. I hated her hat. I hated her I go, just take your mind off of everybody else. Because my sponsor told me earlier, he goes, the same ass a-holes you met in the bar are in these rooms. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So don't get involved with the personalities, get involved with the sobriety and the um and find people that uh that will edify you uh and uh but be honest with you, you know. And um I like progress, not perfection, too. Yeah. Yeah, I just got a call from a uh comedian, uh 38 years sober. He calls me, he goes, Will you be my sponsor? I go, I haven't sponsored anybody in years. I go, 38 years sober, you really need a sponsor? He goes, I bitch a lot. Yeah. I said, Well, call me a bitch anytime you want. You know, because uh so anyway, that's I have a sponsee now for the first time in years. Yeah. And uh love it, dude. Yeah. Well, anyway, uh Soldier's Child, let's talk about that real quick. Where can people go?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:40

Uh to Renal Collier.com or what we do is it started with one kid um 17 years ago. Remember, you know the picture of the Marine handing the little boy a flag and he's crying. That's on like every meme. And that kid's from Murfreesboro. So we started, yeah. So my I didn't know. So this started in Murfreesboro. It did. Oh, I didn't know that. My buddy Daryl started it. He was a veteran and he lived next door to that kid's grandfather, and we just had our big dinner, and the little boy's uh grandma was there, which was really cool. Um, but he wanted to do something for the kid for his birthday, and it uh turned into what about the other kids who lost a parent? So it started out like that. Now we have over 5,000 kids all across the country. But it's uh it's kids who have lost their parent, and we have summer camps, we have music camps, we have we they have a birthday party in honor of their parent through their 18th birthday, um, scholarships. It's grown into this wonderful it's a Christian organization. Um But unfortunately 70 percent of our kids are PTSD suicide kids now. So it started out with people dying in combat and now it's turned into, you know, you hear twenty-two a day, it's more. And those children need to be taken care of, and our camp has developed where the counselors are kids who came through our program. So when the kids go to camp, they're not sitting in a classroom where nobody understands what they're going through. Well, that's the point. I read it in a book.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:14

No, I live this. Yeah. Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. That is huge.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:18

It's um but we have a golf tournament that I'd love for you to come play in again. I know you played. When is it? What day? It's on Columbus Day every year in October. Well, that's my big holiday. I know. Is it you celebrate that?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:30

No, I get lost. Do you? Every Columbus Day in honor of Christopher Columbus. Oh, of course. Yeah, it's like He made a left when he should have made a right. De Gaul or whatever that I don't know what either. Do you ever read the biography? Somebody wrote a biography about him, and um he was he would in the storms of of traveling get on his knees and say, God, I'm yours, I'm yours, God, I'm yours, I'm yours. And then when the storm would calm, he'd just go back to being dirt baggy once a boxhole. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, you know, but it constantly.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:02

I used to talk about that in my act about how, like, you know, when I was a kid, Christopher Columbus was a hero. Now they're like, ah, he made a left, his wife wanted him to go right, and he wrecked into America, he got off and he hacked up all the Indians, and it's like, geez, at least I got half off my mattress. You know, like I don't know. That's the way I look at things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:23

How did it benefit me? Yeah, what did I get out of that?

SPEAKER_01 1:26:26

Yeah, I don't care what he did. But but a soldier's child took the biblical meaning of taking care of our widows and orphans literally. Yeah and we're actually working on a documentary. And people can donate, they don't necessarily have to play in the city. No, you can go to a soldierschild.org and you can kind of see what we do and see uh if it's something you'd be interested. I mean, we have people who just package birthday presents or that go on shopping sprees for kids around Christmas or birthdays or we always I mean, with over 5,000 kids, we have to do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:56

Well, how come then all this time I've known you, you've never asked uh because Tam and I would love to do that come Christmas. We would love to do that come Christmas. Uh let's go, dude. We um you know our church has obviously the the angel tree or whatever, and we buy you know for locals um in Fairview. But we would we would love to uh to part partner in that with you. Um you know how the nonprofit world works. Yeah I'll hit you up. Yeah, I know you will. I got you. I know you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:22

So Columbus Day, when is that? It's October. October. Oh, okay. Yeah. I've I've hosted it for sixteen years.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:28

I think I'm probably busy. But uh That's all right.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:31

You know. You do it on like a Monday though, right? It's always a Monday because the country clubs are closed. Yeah, and I'm normally Monday.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:38

You still out at Stones River? We are at Old Natchez. Oh. Which isn't a lot of people. I know where Old Natchez is. Yeah. And that's where we've been. I think that's where we are this year. I shouldn't have said that out loud, but that's where we've been the past few years. Oh, okay. Love it, and they were great.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:52

Well, that's great. I I played um a handful of qualifiers there, actually, when I was playing decent golf.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:58

Yeah. You know. Man. Yeah. But it's it's really like if you get a chance, we have the kids speak, um, the moms. It's uh when you see it and you feel it and you hug these kids, dude, it's a change. It's so humble. It's like USO tour. Like you when you're around people, it's so humbling. You know, like we walk around with our problems and we think we have problems. These kids are at really high risk to get involved in drugs and trafficking, absolutely things like that. There's no dad, there's no, you know, or mom.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:32

Yeah, as a man who feels that men are important to it, certainly, you know, it was interesting. I got into a discussion with a pastor one day about women pastors, and he said, I don't have a problem with that. He says, I only have a problem with women telling young boys how to be men.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:48

You need a man to tell a boy how to be a man or show them how to be a man.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:52

You do, and you have to live it yourself too. Well, that's it. Telling them, you know, it's it's like that I went to a military school for all this. It's example. You lead by example. Right. And my example was terrible for my kids. Yeah. And I'm gonna have to face the consequence. Not in every way. I wasn't an awful dad, but I was first, and it was I was gonna get what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:16

Yeah, I read my son's trauma sheet when he came out of rehab. He said, Um, I'm I'll show this to you if you don't mind. I go, No, I'd love to read it. And first I think I know was abandonment. Yeah. You know. And I said, I there I there was nothing I read in there where I said, I agree with it all. I said, you know, but you're responsible for healing from it. I can't fix what I did. I can't, you know, it's not my job.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:41

Yeah. And fixing stuff is not easy. No, it isn't. It's unique.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:45

But you gotta be willing to do the work, yeah, you know, and uh get get on your knees and uh and through time, the sanctification process, nobody gets sanctified overnight. No. You know, it's just a took us a long time to get down there. It takes a long time to get out. Absolutely, man. By the way, I have a golf tournament September 9th for the Anti Predator Project. By the way, uh you can go to uh my website if you want to play in it. It's here in Nashville, in Dixon at Greystone Country Uh Golf Club. Uh September 9th, it's a Wednesday. Uh we're just raising money for the Anti Predator Project. Uh to Which is awesome. Help with some uh with the human trafficking.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:22

We are wonderful people. We are, aren't we? Let's take another hour and talk about how great we are.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:31

Should we have the women are here to that's why I want to do it now? Do it now before they get back from lunch. And start going liar, liar. Uh Reno Collier, out with Larry the cable guy. Uh Mo, you're off for the I'm off for the I'm I'm doing uh there are a couple things up. Where can they find the show with the carving and the It's on social media? I just don't want to see you in boxer shorts. They're stuffed.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:52

Not every episode. It's okay. We we haven't released, we filmed all 13 episodes. They're coming out. If you follow us on social media, the carve off. The carve off. It'll have all the updates of everything that's going on. I think they're doing this, so I will push the social media when I go and play. Yeah, I hope they're doing it. But it's it is coming out, and it it I I know that, but I just can't get it. You know what network? That's what I can't talk about. Oh so if you follow the socials, it'll come out. Um, okay. And it it was really cool. Dude, it's the artist on there. I I didn't know what it was. I thought it was a bunch of rednecks hacking up wood. These guys, it's like a band of misfit toys that that to that tour the world. I think it's great though.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:37

You get it, you get a skill like that, and it's nothing but a labor of love. Yeah, you're not financially you know hitting the jackpot. Well, one of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:50

The way that they got into it, one of the guys is dude's huge. He's like 6'6, big old freaking dude. I go, How'd you get into this? And he goes, Well, I'll tell you. He goes, I have four kids, and when my daughter wants me to push her on the swing, I wanted to be able to push her on the swing. So I work out of a barn at my house, I do these, I sell them, and if my daughter goes, Hey, let's have lunch, I have lunch with her. Wow. And I remember being like, Why didn't I talk to you 30 years ago? You know what I mean? Like it was it was one of those, and a couple one guy's a veteran, he was a Marine. Uh I hope you don't beat yourself up too much.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:28

I did I did for years because I was never home. But you know what? I knew of no other way to put a roof over their heads.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:34

No, no, dude. And there's a lot of positives that came out of what we did, too. It's I I I yeah, by no means am I sitting around all day going, you moron. Right. But there are things that are.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:46

Even in your drunk and stupid, you know, people were howling and laughing, and those endorphins were getting released.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:52

And again, for the I was howling and laughing, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:55

Yeah, yeah. But you notice that the uh the older we get, most of our fun stories start with I was trashed.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:02

Oh, dude. It was like wh whenever I'd go to a town, you know, somebody'd be like, Did you see the statue of what? And I'm like, Was it in a bar? Yeah. No.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:10

I know I was the worst until Tammy started traveling with me. I was the worst tourist ever. Yeah. Oh, you went to the Grand Canyon? No, I didn't. I drove by it.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:18

Yeah. Best steakhouses in the country. Really? I had a hot dog at a gas station and drank a 12-pack on my way home. I don't know what the yeah. Um, but now it's so everything I thought was so corny and stupid. Yeah. You know, now I'm like, oh, I was wrong. Yeah. Like this is I thought I wouldn't be able to do anything. I thought I'd never laugh again. I thought no one would like me. I thought I was fake. Well, nobody likes you. No, I know, but I mean, tell me. They don't tell me. They don't tell me. They don't tell me they don't like me. You know what? I don't like them either. I know. I gotta be. I was talking to Sandy and I go, I go, honey, I go, it's hard being an extrovert. And she goes, Do you know one? And I go, no, me. I'm a comedian. I'm an extrovert. She goes, No, you're not. No, you're not. I go, what are you talking about? She goes, How long have you lived in Murfreesboro? I was like, 23 years. She goes, how many friends do you have here? Like, real. I was like three? I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:12

We went to church for 15 years at the same church. And at one point people were leaving. I said to Tammy, point out two people we know. Hundreds of people leaving. I knew the pastor. Yeah. I would talk to him, and I knew a couple of the associate pastors, and I knew a couple of people.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:31

Um see, I'm stuck now because I came home, I found a house that was on a golf course, and I was like, Oh, we're gonna move. It's fifty miles away, but I was like, I found this house and it's perfect, it has what we want. I walk in and I'm gonna show it to her. I'm like, honey, we're gonna sell that.

SPEAKER_00 1:34:44

And she goes, Oh my gosh. They asked me to be an elder at the church and I've never been so honored.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:52

And I was like, Well, we ain't moving. Right. So she's on the phone with her son and she's crying. She's like, Br and Britton works in Mississippi with Young Life. And she goes, I can't hear what he's saying, right? And she's like, I they asked me to be an elder at the church and I've never been so honored. And he goes, How does Reno feel about this? And I don't know what he's saying, but she just kind of looks at me and she goes, What do you mean? And he goes, Well, as you become an elder, people are gonna look to him too. And she's looking at me like this, and I just hear her go. He'll be fine. Right? What that turned into is now I go in and help cook on Wonderful Wednesdays, which is church dinner for 150 people. They present it to me like you're gonna come in and cook. And I'm thinking, chopped and beat Bobby Flay. I'm like, oh yeah. No, I'm really the only man. There's a couple other, but when I go in, I'm the only I'm the only one big enough to grab the big pots and wash them out, take the trash out. I'm dish boy. There you go. I'm dish boy. Now, at first I was like, no, but now I'm having the best freaking time. On my birthday, these little ladies brought me cards. They bring cake. Absolutely. They're like the sweetest people. All the the whole community of it is really fun. But I don't remember anybody's names. So it's, I mean, nobody, dude. Right. Like I'm the worst. I don't know why. It's not that I don't care.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:16

Self-centered prig, but don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:18

I mean, really, a lot less you, a lot more me is kind of work. I know.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:22

Well, I'll tell you what, it's so funny because after the new church is literally a quarter mile from our house. Is it the one across the street from your house? It's no, the uh it's uh they make a left, it's literally a quarter mile. It's next to the um the old body shop. But they started in the grade school, and that's where we started going. And Tammy got plugged in. Uh she does two different ministries there for crocheting. She crochets prayer shawls.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:49

Did you see her bag? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:50

She crochetes prayer shawls.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:52

That's what Sandy does too.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:53

Well, it's called Prayerfully Made. That's a ministry, and then she does another one, and then she plays mahjong on Fridays at the rec center with the church people. So Tammy said to me the other day, she goes, I can't wait for you to just when when this career winds down, I can't wait for you to get plugged in like this because it really has made a difference in her life. I said, I'm I'm plugged in. I mean, I I golf with the pastor. I uh you know I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:21

I golf with his elders, I golf with this other guy. I try to try. I golf with my pastor too.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:26

Yeah, but it's hard, you know, to to I'm not there on Sundays. Most Sundays I'm working, you know. But uh it is a different life, and uh, and community is important. Uh and find one, I'm telling the the audience now, find a community. Uh we're not meant to be isolated and alone. And you were you said it earlier. I I could I I drank alone in crowded bars. I could be there, I made sure I was in a town and I never knew anybody, and I would sit there all the noise around me. So when I read the list of um traits of an alcoholic, isolation, you drink alone? No, I I don't drink alone.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:03

I drink in, you know, so I could crock that off the list. You know. I don't want to throw anybody under the bus, but uh there's a famous person, not a comedian, a singer, that used to wake us up on the bus at 10 o'clock in the morning because if we got up and drank with him, he wouldn't be drinking alone. Wow. Yeah, because you know, that's a sign. That's a sign. And you can't have I mean, we can justify and twist anything in our head. Absolutely. Dude, I'm so thankful to be on here and Well, thank you for coming in.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:32

I know it's hard to get you down here from Murfreesboro, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:34

It's uh Well, we come in for supplies occasionally, and I'm gonna get some flour and salt and bacon, and uh then we'll ride the horseback and ride the pony back. Bad willing, we'll make it down past Antioch and Smyrna and get all the way down to 24.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:47

Soldierschild.org. Uh the life life and sober. Alive and sober on all the all the platforms, uh alive and sober. And um, if you have an issue uh that and you know you do, um call Jeff at 615. I was just gonna say you know, reach out to Reno. But anyway, there's 50 50 uh uh archived uh And there's more we're gonna keep going. I mean I wanted to get there is help out there, believe me. Um uh uh Alcoholics Anonymous is in every city, town, and um in the country. And we have two testimonies here that uh we would not be here without those beautiful, wonderful uh people. Um And if you're thinking I can't do that, yes you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. Yes, you can. It's and I can tell you this, and you'll tell them the same thing that every promise they make in that blue book has come true.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:49

You are not alone. I am here with you.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:55

You didn't tell me you were gonna sing. I would have cut this five minutes ago. No, I was going to can you cut that out with all the stuff about Sandy, please? We'll let yeah, we'll edit that out. Anyway, God bless you guys. Subscribe, subscribe, share, comment. Uh I'm here to make money, uh, even though I've I'm losing I'm losing money every week. But uh it's a labor of love. Christian, our sound man is back. We we missed him for a couple of episodes. Were your parents Jewish?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:23

But uh uh no. We uh I was I'm a PK Pastor's kid.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:28

Oh, right on. Oh, I didn't know that. My name's Reno. I'm a gambler's kid. Yeah, I'm an atheist son. So uh that's cool, man. Are you foot loose, Pastor's kid, or are you pretty straight?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:40

Nazarene.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:41

No, but I mean are you foot are you are you like, did you go crazy?

SPEAKER_02 1:40:45

Uh not in my teenage years, but once I got to college, just a little bit, nothing crazy.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:53

Can I tell you something?

unknown 1:40:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:54

You are not God bless you guys. We'll see you next week. Thanks. Bye bye.