Episode 10: Are We Making Hard Things Sound Too Soft? Language, Labels & Modern Offence

In this episode of Too Sober For This, Shell and Iain are talking about words: the ones we use, the ones we avoid, the ones that make us flinch, and the ones we maybe need to reclaim.

From “alcoholic” and “addict” to “disabled”, “triggered”, “resilience”, “mindfulness”, “queer”, “c4nt” and “unalived”, this conversation gets into the messy, funny and uncomfortable reality of modern language. Who gets to decide which words are harmful? When does changing language help reduce stigma, and when does it just make things more sanitised, vague or algorithm-friendly?

Shell and Iain also talk about the words they personally struggle with, the labels that have helped them understand themselves, and the ones that still feel loaded. There’s a lot in here about recovery, identity, diagnosis, online censorship, stigma, and why some words are uncomfortable for a reason.

In this episode:

•  Why some people identify with words like “addict” or “alcoholic” and others don’t 
•  The difference between reclaiming language and being defined by it 
•  How algorithms have changed the way we talk about suicide, abuse and trauma 
•  Why sanitising difficult words can sometimes dilute serious conversations 
•  The weaponisation of words like “resilience”, “triggered” and “mindfulness” 
•  Diagnosis, self-identification, ADHD, autism, OCD and the problem with “everyone’s a little bit…” 
•  Comedy, offence, intention and where the line actually is 
•  Why language matters, but so does context, history and who is using it 

As always, there are also sober w4nker wins, questionable emoji use, mango-eating dogs, chia seeds, family visits, cruise ship karaoke, and the ongoing evidence that sobriety does not automatically make you a calm, wholesome person!

Listen now on all podcast platforms, and if this episode gets you thinking, send us your thoughts. What words do you hate? What labels have helped you? And are there any words you think we’ve become too scared to say?

Follow, rate, review, share with a friend, send it to your group chat, or shout about it loudly in the street. All of it helps the algorithm believe we are more important than we currently are.

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@toosoberforthispodcast

Shell Righini - @shell_righini  Iain Anderson - @iainanderson.comedy

Traumedy Show - https://iainandersoncomedy.com/

Listen to Shell’s podcast We Recover Loudly here on Spotify  

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello and welcome to this new episode of Too Sober for This with your host Cheryl Raghini and the Trini to my Susanna.

SPEAKER_04 0:09

Ian Anderson.

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Ian Anderson. How are you today, sir?

SPEAKER_04 0:14

I'm good. I'm so glad you mentioned Trini because I just watched the most uh recent episode of Begin Again with my friend Davina McCall. And she had. And this is a really so I ended up DMing Trini.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Isn't she one of us? Not a comedian.

SPEAKER_04 0:30

I mean 30 years.

SPEAKER_00 0:32

30 years sober. That's incredible.

SPEAKER_04 0:35

So I have an amazing story about her, and I thought I better tell her because she'll be dying to know because I was in Davina's newsletter. But um in 2023, when I started doing comedy, like a lot of addicts, I just decided okay, I'm going to Edinburgh, I'm going to take six months out of my corporate job next summer, go to Edinburgh Festival and become a superstar, right? And so I've you can do this thing in Spain where you can take a six-month unpaid leave, like a sabbatical. And I was like, How am I going to afford to take that six-month unpaid leave? And I was watching her interview, which I highly recommend watching with the CEO of Iris. Don't love his stuff, but her interview was great. And she's talking about how her husband had committed suicide. He was one of us. They'd actually met in a meeting. She at the same time was trying to build her business. She was in her late 40s, trying to convince a bunch of bunch of men that women will shop online, right? For this makeup, for people in her age range. And no one would invest in her. And then she said the most amazing thing. She says, Look at your life, think of the bigger picture and where you want to be, and look at what you're willing to sacrifice. And she sold her house and all her designer clothes to fund her trendy London. And now she's like a bazillionaire. And I immediately after watching that podcast sat down on my laptop, emailed my landlady, and gave notice on my flat.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

Yeah. And it was cause of that interview. Like I talk about it all the time. And then I was like, oh my god, she's on that chair keeping it warm for when I interviewed with Davina. And uh and I was like, I actually should tell Trinity, so I have to yammed her, so I'm hoping for some feedback.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

Well, when you do speak to Trini, uh you can also tell her that when I was dating a guy uh in my mid-20s, uh lived together, and it was a horrible relationship, he treat cheated on me 24-7. One of the people he cheated on me with was her niece. Oh my god. I know. So uh yeah, you can tell her that her niece is a whore. I know. Anyway, nice to see you. Where in the world are you, Ian Anderson?

SPEAKER_04 2:37

I'm home in Barcelona, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:38

I can tell you're home because there's some bananas in the background and it looks clean. Wholesome.

SPEAKER_04 2:45

My hair's washed, I've got time to wash my hair, my laundry's been done.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Like you were wearing the crispest white shirt I have ever seen. It looks fresh out of the packet, which means you're which means the staff are in session.

SPEAKER_04 2:58

Yeah, Leo's uh very happy to have me home. But like he'd I think I've talked about this before, he never uses emojis, right? So sometimes he'll never use them yet. And when I first met him, I wasn't sure if he even liked me. And then, like, and now I always say to him, if anything happens to me and my body turns up in a canal, he's suspect number one. He looks like he hates his fiance. He only uses because he doesn't use emojis, he's driven the emojis out of me, which is disappointment. I don't use them now because of him. I've kind of come down to his level. Anyway, I was on my way back, and Hero excited to to see you. And I went, I'm really looking forward to go home. He went, okay, pork in the fridge.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, what the fuck have you done?

SPEAKER_04 3:40

Love. He was always like that. So I was like, Yeah, you just have to not. It's good because you can read into his texts. I've never like always stopped using emojis, but they've just never existed.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

My dad uses uh roughly on average 15 emojis every message he sends. He sends a message to my sisters and I every morning with like at least 15. And the only time he's not sent any emojis on a message was this one time to my sister, she just got a new tattoo. And there were no emojis, and she knew she was in trouble.

SPEAKER_04 4:16

My friend, when she met her new husband, uh, insisted that they didn't use emojis so she didn't read it. She's one of us, so she didn't over-read into things.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Oh my god. Literally, my dad will drop punctuation rather than emojis when in a rush. So, like, if he's up late for golf, then his message will just be 50 50 words, a stream of consciousness with zero punctuation, but they'll still be. But have you ever watched that Simpson's episode where Homer Simpson's dialing a number and it's like he looks at the number and then looks at the phone and goes boop, and then looks at the phone, looks at him, boop. That's how he does his emoji. He's like, does all of his messages. So the fact that he abandons punctuation but thinks no, these 15 emojis are so funny.

SPEAKER_04 4:58

I've got a comedian friend here that says her dad uses them incorrectly. She's Spanish, and he like it's like, Hey, it was good to see you today, and then like eggplant emoji, you know.

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Oh god, yeah. It's when there's he did it recently, you know, the splash emoji. Yeah. I don't know what he was meant to be referencing, but it's definitely not what he thought it was.

SPEAKER_04 5:21

Did you just apply with flamengo dancer? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

Yeah, I just send the normal aubergine back to him. Ah, well, weirdly, we are actually talking about communication today. Um, so today's episode, we're talking about words and the power of the words that we use, stigma around words that we use. Um, and it has uh created some very interesting conversation with my friends and I regarding this. But before we get into that, um I just wanted to read a little bit from um from my own, from my own Instagram, because I thought this was pretty cool. So we do our sober wanker wins of the week here. You know, we like to talk about the moments in the previous seven days where we've got reflected and gone, wow, I've done something different. My biggest win last week is that I bought some new microfiber cloths. Big one, eh?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I was talking to my mum on the phone at the time. I was in Audi, and I just went wild. I went, you know what? I'm just buying these, not even looking at the price. And I threw them in. I was like a like a feral millionaire. Oh my god, they these cloths are so soft as well.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Do you have an investor or an OnlyFans?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

I'm clearly feeling like I'm doing way better than my bank balance says.

SPEAKER_04 6:38

My name's Shell Rockefeller.

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Next thing you know, I'll be buying Lurpak instead of own brand butter and leaving it out on the side so that everyone knows I'm a success.

SPEAKER_04 6:49

Yeah, just letting it out, letting the ruggle rancid because she can't.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, literally. Um, but so I I decided to do a post on um on my socials about these wins to see what other people were saying, and I just absolutely love it. So we've had um one of our listeners said brush, brushed and flossed her teeth twice daily. Now, come on, in the madness, when did you floss?

SPEAKER_04 7:11

I'd never flossed.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Apart from when high on cocaine.

SPEAKER_04 7:14

I didn't used to floss on cocaine.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I I like to do my nails, get really light into it.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

I was dancing and being a prick, not doing self-improved. I was making like playlists because years ago we didn't all use our phones, and we used to party this kind of some might call it a squat uh flat in Glasgow, and there was a massive desktop computer in the corner of the room, right? We're talking about 23 years ago, and that we used to call it the jukebox, and it had what we used to line up songs on WinAmp. Do you remember that? So we had all these MP3s downloaded, and you would just sit there and just like line up tune after tune after tune, and you like we used to rotate who sat in the chair, and it was just one computer that sat in the corner, and all we did, all we ever used it for was playing music.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

God, it sounds so old, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_04 8:06

Yeah, but we didn't we didn't used to walk in and link our phones up to the speaker, like that's a very new, and I know it's new because I've dated guys 15 years younger than me, right? I I was like, oh yeah, I used to turn up to parties with a bag full of menu discs and CDs.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Yeah, yeah, you well, you used to listen to the whole CD through. So I um on Spotify, they've just got this thing this week where it's like I think they're 20 years old, so it's doing this whole like your life in Spotify. It's amazing. It's yeah, again, it's one of these lovely little marketing things that have completely hooked me in. It tells you what the very first song that you ever listened to on Spotify was. Um, and then like your all-time songs, what you've listened to the most. So most of mine are oh, it's brilliant. Most of mine are Jamie T, and it is from back then where you would you listen to the whole CD over and over and over and over. Um it's very good. My very first song was a Bell and Sebastian song, which I thought was very highbrow of me. Oh wow, what is it?

SPEAKER_04 9:00

I know Scottish there, yeah. Scottish. And my what was your Spotify age last year?

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Um, I was young, I think I was like 32 or something.

SPEAKER_04 9:09

I was 18.

SPEAKER_00 9:12

It was really bizarre that that did that that was a weird one because so many of my friends were like 70, and then yeah, I was also like oh younger than 32. I was really young. I remember showing off about it.

SPEAKER_04 9:24

My friend was we did it on the comedy scene, it became a really good opening line because my friend Hoy, who who was performing last night, he was on like 65 and I was 18, and I'm like, God, I'm not even listening to like gay man, gay man's music. I'm listening to like, you know, I'm so up and coming and happening. I like to keep my finger on the pulse of society.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

Yeah, honestly, yeah, there was something wrong with that calculation, 100%.

SPEAKER_04 9:48

Or I was listening to Peppa Pig, I don't know, like to average it out.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Um, so someone else commented that their sober wanker win was that they wore clothes and not sweatpants today, which I think is a massive one. I love that because it's really difficult when you work from home. I am actually wearing sweatpants right now, I've just realised. And that weirdly felt like a win because I never had loungewear until like COVID times because I always worked. I was such a workaholic, I never was off. And so, like, it would just the idea of having clothes for comfy downtime. I didn't have downtime. So I still now putting on a pair of sweatpants feels really novel to me.

SPEAKER_04 10:25

I love a pair of Hadidas classic. So I'm wearing these red ones, I'll just show you.

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Oh, well, those aren't sweatpants, those are uh hipster.

SPEAKER_04 10:34

Like I'm I'm a cool lounger.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

You're just like a regular wanker now.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Yeah, but I'm going actually I'm going for a massage after this.

SPEAKER_00 10:42

So Oh god, you could but that's a pretty wanker win, in fact, in you know, spending money on massage or is that not? I don't know actually. Um I love this one too. Um one of my one of my followers um picked up my brushes for the first time in years and started a portrait. Fucking loving painting again. How cool is that!

SPEAKER_04 11:01

Oh, that is cool, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:03

I love that. And I really I'm gonna keep on doing the sharing about this because I just think it is really important. We celebrate like the days of sobriety, we celebrate, you know, the big wins, but it is, it's these little things, these little moments that make you pause. Like the other week I finished a whole bag of spinach. Do you know what I mean? Before it went crack, before it went manky. Do you know what how I worked out yesterday? I've eaten eight, eight baby gem lettuces this week.

SPEAKER_04 11:29

Eight baby gem lettuces? Is that not just obsessive behaviour?

SPEAKER_00 11:33

No, that is that's recovery in action.

unknown 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Well, it's also salad season.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

It's good, yeah. I eat a lot of salad this time. We go through a lot of mangoes in our house.

SPEAKER_00 11:45

Uh well, uh anyone watches um our socials, so all 93 followers, will have seen that Milo is now into mango because him, like me, is very easily influenced and heard that your pups like mango. I got some in the old reduced style of Audi like a fucking winner. And I was eating my mango, and I was like, half half half the fucking packet goes to him.

SPEAKER_04 12:07

I totally and he's over the moon. I was thinking about that we're gonna force Shell into poverty.

SPEAKER_00 12:15

Literally, I was like, Oh, I hope you're gonna get a job to fund this fucking mango habit you've now decided. Yeah, between that and the olives, I'm he's eating me out. I don't know, this dog is bizarre. Um, yeah, any other other than having a massage, anything else that you've paused this week and thought, fuck me, I'm sober.

SPEAKER_04 12:34

Well, I had my auntie visit for the day. She stopped in Barcelona on a cruise. From Scotland. Like from Scotland, like uh Jane McDonald. And uh that was nice actually, because I've been here 15 years.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 12:49

That was the first time any family has been here. But I didn't really have any family in my life until about four or five years ago, so yeah, that felt really nice, you know, because I was like, oh, this is this is something I thought I would never be doing. And it was really funny. So they're from a little town called uh Port Glasgow, Greenook, is where they live. And last night at my show I had a woman there from Greenock, and that never happens. Like that no one in Spain is glitch.

SPEAKER_00 13:15

That is a glitch in the matrix, right there.

SPEAKER_04 13:18

And um, anyway, we took them out to a Filipino restaurant because as you know, my husband is racist and he won't eat anywhere else. Um so we went, we went and picked them up, and my auntie doesn't work very well now because she got long COVID, so we just taxied them everywhere. And it just felt nice to be able to pay for everything and you know, do take care of them and stuff like that, because they're very like, you know, when we go and visit them, they don't like to go out and eat out, they like to cook at home and blah blah blah. Like, not because they're stingy, but they just they don't see the point in eating out because they think it's an unnecessary, it's just a different mindset, isn't it? And so I was like, we took them to this restaurant, and uh uh we ordered these uh like buns filled with pork, right? They're called uh chopin. And um uh so me and Leo grabbed them, we ripped them, we start dipping them into the sauce and eating them. And my uncle blessed him, he starts trying to cut his with a knife and fork, and but the knife keeps bouncing off it because it's like that squishy Chinese bread. Uh and I'm like, just just use your hands, Uncle Charlie's like, right, brilliant, aye, brilliant. So he pulls the top off it and he starts eating the inside of it with a fork and leaving the bread like it's a fucking scotch pie. And I was like, God bless them, yeah, they were so funny. Um, and I was like, because they take they think they're really well travelled because they take cruises, you know. But I was like, I was sitting there just watching them have a great time, and like I thought to myself, this is so nice, you know. I mean, it was something I thought I would not all the things I thought would never happen for me in recovery, not that I wanted them either, right? Have happened.

SPEAKER_00 14:51

Yeah, having those beautiful moments of calm and peace and joy and just having family that want to be around you. Yeah, absolutely, and and being able to treat them as well.

SPEAKER_04 15:03

My auntie comes off the boat full of stories, right? She is a nutter. Like, this is the Anderson gene. There was like there was a big storm happening, and the boat was going from side to side, and they couldn't get my auntie off the karaoke. So the storm. She was hanging on, she was hanging on, and then hanging on to another guy's arm, singing burn baby burn. Like, I could imagine you being exactly the same. In the middle of a natural disaster, don't worry, Annie Agnes is here, and I was like, oh my god, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

You'd be telling them to cue up Celine Dion so you go down singing Titanic the way that she would have liked who intended it. Oh god, well, the most sober wanker thing for me right now is that I've got a cheer seed stuck between my two front teeth, and it is so annoying. So anybody watching um this on a reel and seeing me go like sw like that in my nose like a rabbit the whole time, it was a fucking cheer seed. Honestly, why do we eat them? We eat them because they are a nutritional powerhouse. Um, so yeah, we wanted to talk a little bit about words and stuff like that, and stigma around words. There's been a few terms that you and I have had discussions about offline previous, and we thought this would be quite an interesting one to talk about. So, to kick us off, um, I did do a tiny bit of research this morning about some of the words that have recently been changed in modern times, these new terms. So, one that we all relate to. We're not we're not allowed to use um uh well it's not that we're not allowed, it's frowned upon, uh, addict or junkie, or um in fact, in many circles, alcoholic or drug abuser in that. It's uh a person with a substance use disorder, and actually that's been changed, hasn't it? And medical terminology that it's called an alcohol misuse disorder versus alcoholism, and it's termed a disorder, um, which is quite a new thing. Instead of handicapped or disabled, we're supposed to say disabled person or person with a disability, so much like with the disorder, it's kind of like trying to humanize them, apparently apparently put the human before the condition. Um this one's quite feels like quite a mouthful. Instead of offender or convict, um, we're supposed to use justice involved individual or returning citizen. Justice involved individual feels like I don't know how I feel about that. Instead of poor or low income, we're supposed to use an economically disadvantaged. And our final one, um, or not our final one, actually, there's two. One that we've talked about, instead of committed suicide, um, we're supposed to use died by suicide. And instead of obese person, use person with obesity or person of size. So there's a few to start us off. Thoughts, Mr. Anderson.

SPEAKER_04 17:52

I mean I I understand the the not one to be like labelled. Like I I totally understand that. Um but we do live in a world where people are constantly looking for labels in a sense that there's always something wrong with them. Right? Like years ago I used to work in the job centre and I remember everybody looking for you call it a diagnosis, I call it an excuse. So there's always some other medical reason for a lot of people why they can't do stuff. Now, no disrespect, if you've been diagnosed with someone for real, that's great. But usually when someone like yourself, right, so I know that you've got a diagnosis that answered a lot of questions for you, it was like a relief to have a name for it because then you knew what to do about it. Rather than, oh, I have this thing, I'm just gonna stop trying, right? So I think it's not even the words themselves that matter, it's what you then do with the words that are assigned to you. However, I do understand why. I mean, I do think we're a bit soft these days, but I I do understand why some people want to almost change language because they think that's what's causing the problem. So, you know, the I understand not wanting to be something but to be the person with something. Very I understand your thinking behind it. I'm really into like subconscious and we're not meant to claim it. Marissa Peer talks about this, she never says my cancer, she says the cancer. She says if you claim ownership over it, you keep it. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:30

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 19:31

And I agree with that. Like, I don't claim ownership of things that hold me back, right? But that's only useful if you are then going to go on and take action. And that's really the long and short of it for me. Like, how you want to address it to make you feel better about it is absolutely up to you. That's the wonderful thing about words, right? Um, I've said on many a podcast, including your own. I don't have a problem with the word addict, you do. Like, that's the thing. Like, if it hurts your feelings, hearing me call myself an addict, that's kind of a you problem. Like, if somebody calls themselves fat and you do, don't call yourself that. Like, that's a that's something for you to go and work away from. Like, the person is probably using the language around themselves. Like, when I put weight on, I was like, I'm fatter than I would like to be. And I remember one of my friends being like, Don't talk about yourself like that. And I'm like, I don't have any, I'm not saying it to be mean to myself. I'm just that's the language I use around my own body, right? So I think for me, like it's such a kind of wild west language because a lot of it is to do with intention. So I live in a country where English is not the first language. They use the shortened versions of Pakistani here in Spain, which we don't use in the UK. People say it all the time. And I remember the first time I heard it, I was in work and someone said it, and I nearly dropped my coffee. I thought I was gonna have to fire the girl until my boss said, Oh no, you you just are from Scotland. Yeah, like I was like, We can't say that where I come from, and they'd say it here. It's what they call the shop still, right?

SPEAKER_00 21:11

Really?

SPEAKER_04 21:12

Yeah, it'll blow your mind, and I'm like, you know, even I can't say it, even though everyone around me says it, right? So I think some of it is to do with intention as well, and it I can never really know what anyone's intentions are. So I like again, I understand language is always changing. My only buyer beware is some words, if they make you feel uncomfortable, then try being that thing, right? So I'm a great believer in the word homeless. I think a lot of people trying to change the meaning of the word homeless have never actually lived in the streets. And if the word is painful to listen to, then imagine sleeping in the streets. So I'm always actually brought up on my show last night. I was like, oh yeah, I was recently doing my podcast with my friend, and we talked about how. Sorry, you feel for homeless cats and dogs, but not for homeless people, right? So, like, I think there is something about the discomfort of the word suicide. Um, die by suicide, I think, is fine. I don't like the word unalived. I don't like the to shorten eating disorder to ED. I don't like that we can't say rape online. I don't like the word rape is uncomfortable. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah. Do you know what's more uncomfortable? Yes. Being raped.

SPEAKER_04 22:26

Exactly. And so I think sometimes with language changes, I always wonder who does it benefit.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Well, the algorithm and the online stuff is the reason that we have some of these new terminologies. And like the unalived um one, like the way that they um, you know, it's like SED or something like that for for sexual abuse. SAID. SAID, sorry, and some dyslexic, fuck no. SQ'd. Um, I think like by using these acronyms, though, it also dilutes what we're talking about. And by creating the acronyms to allow conversation to continue online, it's actually taking away the gravitas because I think words do hold gravitas, and regardless of intention, and I don't mean that that means that you have to tiptoe around words, but there is history and there is there is things. So around, like you just said about the the Pakistan shop. Like, yeah, we used to call it the um the shortened word of that growing up in in the UK as well. We had a shop up the road, that was what it was called. We also had a Chinese shop which sold chips, and you know what that was there for, Colt. It was the and at the time you weren't saying it in an offensive way, you were a child, but you have to respect the history behind that and the reasoning why that's an obsessing word. And that, like you're right, I would find it uncomfortable to use a word like that in Barcelona because I don't like what else it's associated, what else it's associated with. But so yeah, that's really interesting. Uh, when you were talking about Marissa Pierre, though, and the the words, um it also reminded me of Gabool Mate and the word alcoholism, and the word alcoholic alcoholism is a word that I still to this day really struggle to identify with. Gabal Mate says, you are not your disease. So for him, it's not a useful word in that. And you know, Gabal Mate is a massive, massive influence in the world of um addiction and in helping people with addiction. And you may like him, you may not. He's very divisive, but I personally, he's never done anything wrong to me personally, so I still like him. Um, you know, he pay me that tenner back, so he's fine. He's good people. Um, and I really, whereas there are a lot of people, so Briani Gordon, a very outspoken um advocate of using the word alcoholic, she was on my podcast many a couple of years ago and specifically said that for her, she has to say that word every day. I don't even say that word in meetings because I am not that disease. I am not my past. And I wanted to just play this clip before I get your feedback.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

I'm not an addict. That's not how I identify. Yep, I spent 20 years ramming fucking blow up my nose drinking tequila, but I still don't identify with that. Why? Because I no longer do it, man. So why am I gonna sit there and remind myself of the fucking past when I'm moving forward? And I get it. A lot of people do that, and that's cool, man. I respect anybody how they move forward in life. I don't wake up every single day and think, how am I not gonna drink today? I've come to terms and I've accepted the fact that the party is done, it's over, there's no reservations. This is what I'm building. There has to come a point in your life where you get real freedom and power back because you fucking know your worth.

SPEAKER_04 25:39

I mean, I think it's kind of the point of this podcast, isn't it? That it it's not just the drinking drugs. So, like, if like am I not and am I not at risk of addictive behaviours in other areas of my life? Well, I think we've got about like 10 episodes so far that say yes. Yeah, stop doing drinking. I've thought about drinking drugs in ages. I'm nearly nine years clean. I've had workaholism, I've had uh sex and love addiction, I've had food problems. Like, by understanding my past, I can do something about my future instead of pretending they're completely not related. I'm not saying that's what this guy is, but also weird in 12-step programmes, it says in the book that we won't live in fear, we'll come from a place of neutrality. And what really pisses me off is when people make it sound that if you call yourself that word, you're sitting there scared that you're tiptoe. I I that's just not my life. I do call myself an addict, and I am around drink. I was a uh I'm a fucking comedian. Like, I mean, I spend my life in bar so many people on my show were wasted last night while I got on stage for an hour and a half and talked about living in the streets and being a drug addict. It doesn't affect me, right? A guy was so drunk he had to get kicked out, which has never happened on one of my shows. Um, he probably could have stayed and listened to it. Actually, we may have needed it. Um but that's like it isn't one or the other. It isn't call yourself an addict, so you must be tiptoeing around and living in fear, or don't call your self an addict and you're in the past. I I almost feel like for me, by not acknowledging my past, that is the biggest evidence that I'm scared. Do you mean interesting is is by not looking at it like yes, my past is uncomfortable, it has not defined my future, but it that's why history matters. The reason why we're having problems in politics is because we refuse to believe history. There's people out there that think the fucking Holocaust didn't happen, right? So your history um is data that lets you make better choices in your future, and again, the energy you put behind a word matters, right? Um, like for example, I speak Spanish. Um, the word vergüenza means shame, but not shame in the way that we mean it in English, right? It's like to be embarrassed or que vergüenza. So, like the la the words change depending on your culture, where you were born in the world, the religion you grew up in, the the colour of your skin. Like words hold a different um like the N-word is something you'll never see me using. I hear it all the time when I'm in America from people that don't look like me. Do you get what I mean? Like the like so I think like language means what you want it to mean to you. And if that guy thinks the word addict is beating himself up, I feel sorry for him because the day I called myself an addict, I finally felt this huge relief that there was um a and it's a daily reprieve, right? That there was a there was a there was a solution. And if I was going to boil it down to something super basic like diabetes, you you don't see people with diabetes diabetic denial. Do you know what I mean? Like that was the old me this morning before I took my insulin. Like it's like I have my treatment for my addiction is there is no cure, and I just need to keep an eye on this daily. And if you don't want that to be your life, you don't want to have to think about it every day, go for it, right? But I think for me, if I was to pretend that it was just my past, um, I would use again.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Interesting.

SPEAKER_04 29:28

And I know that, and I know that by the way, I eat chocolate.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

But it is interesting because it's, you know, like I I swing between them. Like I don't want to identify with the disease. And and again, you know, that's a whole discussion in itself, you know, whether or alcohol alcoholism is a disease or not. And there are people that believe it is, there are people that believe it isn't, you know, but in a way, a disease model does kind of work because you're right, you take a daily, a daily medicine, as it were, from it to stave it away. Yes, when I got diagnosed as ADHD and autistic, those labels were really helpful. They were answers to questions that have been asked my entire life, and yet the answer of the label or the wording alcoholism, alcoholic, has not been a label that I've gone, no, I'll take that one. That's for me still very much one that I push against, regardless of evidence. Um, I think there may be something in terms of that reclaiming of the word. You just mentioned about how, you know, um, you know, rappers and stuff will use the N-word, and one of the arguments to that is the reclaiming of the power of the word. And so maybe there is in that respect, so I hope when you were talking about that, I felt like there was that kind of power in the way that you were saying, I am an alcoholic, and I'm claiming that as a power rather than the way I say it, which is alcoholic.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

Well, I don't I don't like the word queer. It makes me shudder to my core. I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 30:52

Why?

SPEAKER_04 30:52

Because it was a slur when I was growing up.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Hmm, it was well, I mean, gay was a slur growing up, even. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 30:58

Like we never big fat homo.

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Big fat homo. That's just a few.

SPEAKER_04 31:04

Ironically, because we were just uh because we were so skinny. And uh we used the word poof and uh Poof, yes.

SPEAKER_00 31:11

Oh gosh, that's an awful classic.

SPEAKER_04 31:13

I use the word I use the word faggot on stage, but again, I get to use it, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:18

Because I'm you know homo. That was gonna say so. Is that do you believe in that? And in that way, again, maybe with the word alcoholic, is it like you're allowed to use it if you are it? You know, so you can use the word faggot. I can call you can call yourself an alcoholic, but don't you call me an alcoholic or well like but that but that's but there you've just revealed your problem with a word that you you think is an insult.

SPEAKER_04 31:41

I've never thought I'd I've never thought the word alcoholic was an insult.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Only for me though, not for others.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

Yeah, but that's the thing, like the like the the word the equating your version of alcoholic is equal to saying the word faggot, and for me it's not again what the words mean to you are important so important when I came in. I wouldn't say the word God in meetings. I used to nod on the word god and made sure everybody saw me do it, like hmm. Um and then somebody said to me, Are you willing to be an arsehole over something that's essentially a pronoun? And I I use it, and it's not what you and I probably don't have the same concept of what it is, it's definitely not skydaddies. But I use that word, and when I use that word, people get really upset because they're like, Oh, you super religious, like people that are in the programme.

SPEAKER_01 32:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 32:32

No, that's not what that means. But then I'm like, Oh, I get it. I used to think 10 years ago it was the all-powerful white-bearded man sending floods on locusts. Like, it's again the meaning of a word is up to you. There's like Ricky Gervais talks about this. He says there's three and a half thousand gods in the world. What one do you mean? And and he's he's right, like it's a perception or a definition you give it. So I think for me, like, I would never force anyone to say that word. I've never sponsored anyone and forced them to say anything they're not comfortable with. But like, if if I'm in a meeting and there's words making me shudder, I need to find a way to navigate them because that this is the real world, right? That people are upset by words all the time. But we're in a very unique time where people want to police your language to make them comfortable, and that's wrong, right? If I hear a word that makes me feel uncomfortable, I always kind of look internally and go, what is it about that word? I don't need to call myself it, I don't need to use it. People call themselves the queer community. I'll still show up to queer comedy nights. I will not refer to myself as queer, and when showrunners do it, I get really upset and I come back to them and say, I just don't like the terminology. If you want to be called queer, I'll respect it. I do not like the word, it's just not for me. In fact, the woman who does my social media, Imogene, um, was put together my YouTube channel, and one of the things that that's in it is like queer joy, blah blah blah. I'm okay with that. But then she says, Growing up in Glasgow, in like queer in Glasgow, I was like, we have to change that. Like that's just not how I would refer to my own past. So again, that word just isn't for me.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

Yeah, and it doesn't change what you are or who you are, but it's like you say, it's the important. So like the word addict, and I blame the media, I blame the movies, but the word addict is one that I would use more freely than alcoholic because addict still has a glamorization to it. You know, rock stars are addicts, and so yeah, you're right, it's definitely an association of like a self-association of what I associate it with. And yet it's only for me. For other people, I'm happy for them to call themselves it. And some of my greatest friends in the entire world world are dirty alcoholics, no, are alcoholics, and I love the freedom in which they can speak and identify themselves that way. I can't.

SPEAKER_04 35:03

I do think language is important, right? Don't get me wrong. And I know I'm saying the words can mean different things, different people, but I do think because of the oversanitization of language, and yes, a lot of it's to do with the algorithm, which is hilarious, because you can perpetuate homophobic, racist, sexist ideology, but you can't say the word suicide, which would maybe save lives. Um if you had language to explain, explain your experiences. But I do a joke about um there's people called minor attracted persons, and it's the inclusive name for paedophiles. And I think they have a flag.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

They have a flag, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 35:39

They try to join pride, and that this is where we're at when we over overly politically correct, we give way for so when I do the joke, I say, Oh, what we're gonna start calling rapists, sexual encounter surprisers or serial killers, end-of-life enthusiasts. Like, where do we draw the line? Like, that's one of my friend's favourite jokes, and um and although I make comedy about it, like it comes from a very real place of like some language is meant to make you shudder a bit, and some members of society when they've committed heinous crimes, particularly around people that can defend themselves, there should be a head-hanging low, shame none moment around that. I don't think paedophiles should be marching freely in the street, flying a flag and being proud about it, and aligning themselves with something like the LGBT movement, which is comes from real, like we don't want to be different, we just want to be like everyone else. We wanted to not lose our jobs for being gay, like women, that we wanted to be able to vote, we want you know what I mean, like and so to align like criminal behavior with something that's kind of meant to be good and pure, we get into hot water and and at the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, when we start making children adults, so around the kinds of decisions they can make around our life, I don't want to be too controversial, but like you know, huge life-changing medical decisions around your body and things like that, then we we open the door to that kind of chat. And years ago, they wanted to lower the age of sexual consent for gay people to 16, and the only people that turned up to that march in support of it were old men. Wow. I I mean, men, I've said this on the podcast before, we're kind of gross, right? But there's all these signs when the language is changing around people when you're calling it minor attracted persons instead of pedophiles. The language of some groups is meant to be alarming because it's because it is criminal, right? If you told me something was a justice diverted person, I wouldn't really know what to do with that person. I do think people should be able to turn their life around. But again, I think crimes are crimes.

SPEAKER_00 37:56

Yeah, and I was just thinking actually, you know, as a comedian, you've almost got this um an an open door in a way to use language in a way that is quite pushing things to that edge to in in a way that other people um aren't able to, because you can really go to the edge of things for the sake of humour or dark humour and actually be able to have that must feel like quite a weight of responsibility, in fact.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

Well, I feel like it's a it's a it's actually a privilege. So I'm uh I'm at the top of the homosexual tree, right? So I'm I'm a white man, right? Uh so in terms of like diversity, like I'm the kind of like, you know, I'm like Are you about to say that you're the head of the homosexuals? I'm the head of the homosexuals. I'm basically I'm basically this I'm basically the straight white man of the gay community, right? Um like and which my new show, Dismantle the Gay Triarchy, is about.

SPEAKER_00 38:52

Um, he's got a title. I like this.

SPEAKER_04 38:56

Yeah, it's already trademarked. And so um, but that's the new show I'm going to be working on. I feel like I can talk about things on stage that some women would want to talk about, and this may upset some of our listeners. But I've a number of years ago, we started changing the language around women's bodies in law and in policy, and that deeply concerned me about 10 years ago when we started saying chest feeding instead of breastfeeding, and when we started saying wombhaver, I'm not transphobic, honest to God, like but I do think when we start changing medical language to become non-gender specific, we actually make people very unsafe. And that actually people need to describe what's going on with their bodies. So a friend of mine a couple of years ago is on a board for a cervical cancer charity, and they could not use the word vagina in their literature because they said not all people have vaginas. That's a level of political correctness that actually makes biological or cis women unsafe, right? So again, I agree, and at the risk of sounding like the person that says I have a black friend, but I have trans friends. I I grew up with trans people. Like we came up in the gay scene together when it was a lot harder to be trans, right? But the the people who are kind of my age in their 40s that are trans tend to not get so fixated in the neutralisation of language to make them feel comfortable. This is a very modern movement where people need everyone to be in agreement with what they are. And I think that's when we're in trouble. That are we asking the language to change because it's outdated and it's offensive, or are we asking that language to change so everybody makes me feel comfortable? And I think one of the beautiful things about being in a 12-step programme is we understand that life is not about making us comfortable, but we need to, however, navigate a world that often feels very jarring to us.

SPEAKER_00 40:57

Yeah, but also isn't that in a way almost a um a symptom of now, this desire to make comfortable, to always be comfortable. I referenced a previous episode where I suggested that loungewear was the beginning of the demise of civilization, uh, and and this desperate need exactly that to make myself comfortable, make sure you're using words around me that, you know, I have we've yet to use it. But you know, the word trigger has been again that weaponization of a word trigger. And and I do think that there are many instances where using the word trigger is is valid, um, you know, but at the same time, you know, when before we recorded this, I was making my breakfast in the kitchen. I was thinking, oh, we might we're probably going to talk about suicide in this episode. Um, I'm about to talk about the word cunt. Yeah, I was just having a little breakfast thinking about doing your morning manches, doing my unaliving thinking. And um, and I thought, oh, maybe at the beginning of this episode we should say, oh, trigger warning, this episode will talk about this. And I thought, no, because that literally goes against everything that I know I and you as well believe in. It's like, I don't want you to have a preview of the fact that this podcast might talk about dark things. And we haven't really this episode, but potentially in one coming up very soon we will. Um, and I don't, I don't want you to be warned because I want you to listen. Yeah, I want you to hear. And so it's yeah, it was kind of I want you to reclaim the word that's fun.

SPEAKER_04 42:30

They they say that about in live theatre now, because I've been told to put trigger warnings on my show and I don't. And I'm like, life doesn't give you a trigger warning. But secondly, right, actually, the impact of the show usually it isn't as impactful because people are waiting on the offensive part to come, and it's usually not that offensive. Like, often I'm doing um a fringe festival next week. I won't name the fringe, but they're kind of very insistent on having all these like badges to sanitize, you know, so so dump someone doesn't get upset. Is that not just art? I mean, I'm just like I'm I'm kind of and I so last night on my show I says, oh, if you've not read the description of the show, because the show just falls off a cliff at the bit where I lose my house and I end up living in the streets very quick. And um that's how it felt while it was happening. And I always say, I don't give trigger warnings as part of my show. If it's uncomfortable for you to listen to, imagine what it was like for me to experience. And that and this is the thing, I'm not there to make you it's like the people that donate to charity but won't actually look a homeless person in the eyes, right? It's like you're offsetting your kind of like goodness, like, oh, I want to hear about it, but I don't really want to know the truth. You know, the truth is uncomfortable. And I feel like the reason why I did the show in the first place was for people to see the reality of the situation, but also hope that you can get out of the other end of it. And I do believe that about mental health language, about survivors of um interfamily abuse, which is where it usually happened, and all those things, I People are so quick to say, oh, well, not all men, yeah, but like a lot of men, and men usually within your family, like that's just the statistics, right? And so the discomfort is the reality of the situation, and only we live in a world where we think reality is optional and up for negotiation, and it's it's just not, right? And so, again, like the litmus test for me is like, what is it about this word that makes me feel uncomfortable? And am I genuinely clinging on to an outdated word for no reason? I'll never use a word on stage, for example, just to shock people. If you need to shock people for your joke to work, then you're not funny.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Um, I have just written down reality is not optional as a t-shirt slogan. And um I think I've written that one down before from you. Um, on the flip of that, um, I've used language in my own business specifically to shock.

SPEAKER_01 44:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:53

And the reason that I started with the sober cunt socks, which was the first product I dropped, and it was um about this time last year, I think I'd done my second drop. So early last year, and it was really around the whole identity of a sober person being this foundation of goodness, this hierarchy of peace, and like, well, not hierarchy, that's the wrong term. Ironically using the wrong word. Ha! Probably also ironically wrong. Just call me Alanis Morissette. I love that when she's like, it's like a death, what's it death roll pardon? Two minutes too late. That is not ironic, Alanis. That's fucking horrendous.

SPEAKER_04 45:38

I know, but it's just really unfortunate.

SPEAKER_00 45:40

It's not even unfortunate. That is just awful. Um what are things to sing about? Anyway, back to there, there's an identity and a cookie-cutter expectation of what it is to be a sober person, and I was really not identifying with it. I I'm terribly, I put on weights when I stopped drinking because of having fibro and you know biscuits. Um I know, I I I've got a condition called biscuits.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:11

You've probably heard of it, sir.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Um had accepiatis, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:18

Um, I know they fucking say, you're here, eat all the sugar you want when you're sober. They don't tell you though, like to stop. Um, and um I I I don't like running. Uh regardless, even if I didn't have fibromyalgia, I wouldn't run because what am I running from? Uh, you know, like it's just fucking stupid. Um, all of these kind of archetypes, that's the word I was looking for, not hierarchy, all these archetypes of what it was to be a sober person. And and that's why I wanted to use the word cunt, because it's like I might be sober, but I can still be a massive cunt. And that reclaiming of that word, um, and the shock value that that had to the people, the divisiveness, you know, like my dad was like, nobody's gonna want to buy something with the C word on it. And I, you know, that sold out twice, so you're wrong. But it's kind of like for me, I've used language to bring people in. I wanted to pull a community of people that did identify with that word and were able to say, Yeah, do you know what? I might be sober, but that doesn't mean I'm soft. It doesn't mean you can take advantage of me. It doesn't mean that I'm now going to be like airy fairy and let you know whatever people do whatever, or you know, I'm not gonna change who I am at the core. I'm still a cunt. And you know, as you've said in a previous episode, in fact, sobriety showed you just how much of a cunt you are. Um now I have obviously broadened that because that was more of like a um, I wouldn't go as far as to say a stunt, but an entry-level product into then other products and stuff like that. Um, but I saw a reel the other day about a woman like our age going, what is it with the new generation trying to claim our word cunt? And they're saying things like, those shoes are cunt, that that that that that's uh that night last night was cunt. No, it is not. You are a cunt, you are not something cunt. I was like, Yeah, I totally agree with that. Bitch, that's our word. So I mean, like, there is still very much that attitude sometimes with some words, isn't it? It's like that's our word. You don't get to use that word.

SPEAKER_04 48:21

And also, like, yeah, we are we are a generation of people now that are all speaking like drag queens, aren't there? That's what they're all like everybody, like the people you least expect it, they're like, it's giving cant. I'm like, all right, dad.

SPEAKER_00 48:37

My mum, my dad, my dad calls my mum um Moo Moo, who knows why. And um, we started to call my sis my mum Moo Paul because sometimes she messages in school that says stuff like, you go girl. I'm like, all right, calm down, Moo Paul. She's in her 60s.

SPEAKER_04 48:57

It's like Rose Denero, and I'll be like, it's giving beef.

SPEAKER_00 49:03

Well, she just had a haircut in a really short bob, and I said, That's called a cunt, that style is called a cunty little bob. And she was like, Oh my god. And I was like, So the center that is it, Leslie Bibb, the actress from White Lotus, who has the cunty little bob, and that's where the stars could like kind of determine that. Yes, she's got a cunty little bob, and she I know, well, wait till you meet it in a couple of weeks. Um, so I've got a couple of comments from people about some words. So I said to my one of my two of my very learned friends, my very intellectual friends, one of them is a doctor, um, and the other one is also incredibly clever. I just made her sound like she was a clever in comparison.

SPEAKER_04 49:43

She paints with potatoes.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

And my other friend who can do her own shoelaces. Um, so I said how I hate the word resilience. I fucking hate the word resilience. I feel like that word is so weaponized. Um, and they've said I think resilience is mine too. The idea of it encourages bad treatment of people and the assumption that they're able to bounce back. Um, and then she also has commented that she hates mindfulness, which is constantly suggested as an inadequate shield for mental and physical illnesses in the same way. Um says, I'm existing in a cost of living crisis with a global health emergency and genocides happening in multiple places. Oh, have you tried mindfulness though? What do you think of the term mindfulness? I mean it's more of a concept, but it's also a word. You know, again, it's a a weaponization is a word that could be useful, but it is very much weaponized as well.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

Well, it's not it's not a word, it's a practice, isn't it? So I think that it's been misused like a lot of it.

SPEAKER_00 50:42

Misuse, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 50:43

Yeah, I don't think people even understand. Really, mindfulness just means concentrating on one thing at a time. Uh Ruby Wax um does amazing work around this, and it's been scientifically proven to impact depression and all kinds of things. So it comes from an old Buddhist practice and then was popularized in the 70s for pain treatment by a guy called oh god, I can't remember his name now, but he then brought it into hospitals and stuff like that in America. So, like people have misunderstood it. But then again, why does that surprise you? Because like 10-12 years ago, everybody was saying I'm a wee bit bipolar, that doesn't mean anything. And now people are saying I have ADHD, they've never actually been to a doctor. And do you know why it's offensive? Again, language is important because if you water down, like when somebody drinks all the time and say, Oh god, sorry, I'm a little bit of an alcoholic, and I'm like, Because you know, I drank my life away.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

How do you feel when somebody says that? Or about a friend? Because you'll be in a group or something, you'll be like, Oh, Susan, she's a bit of an alkie.

SPEAKER_04 51:48

Yeah, yeah, I just don't say it. I never say anything, yeah. I never say anything.

SPEAKER_00 51:52

It's like does it not make you feel a bit funny inside?

SPEAKER_04 51:54

Because it makes me feel a bit funny, no, because like again, maybe she Susan, there's a program, Susan, but also people think it's a laugh, like it's like you know, but people are misusing or self-diagnosing themselves with ADHD now. It did used to be bipolar, everyone had bipolar after Kerry Katona got it. Um, and yeah, like the thing is like if you really have something and you are convinced that there's a problem, um, why are so my friend who I was staying with in Lisbon, if you're listening to this, go to the doctors. He I thought he had I thought he had an ADHD medic uh diagnosis by the way he was talking about it, how it affected his life and blah blah blah. He just dis it turns out he's just self-diagnosed and with self-neurodivergence, which is fucking mad, right? Because if you don't look into ADHD for real, it is life altering. People commit suicide because of rejection sensitivity.

SPEAKER_00 52:50

Yeah, I really struggle with rejection sensitivity, and people don't yeah, people don't understand that it's not just me. Like there was something over like Christmas New Year period, and and in fairness, uh it wasn't all it's probably not a good example because there was some stuff that was a bit of a rejection, but the spiral is it's it's intense, and I was thinking about this earlier weirdly, and about my working environment and when I would be uh disciplined or called up for things at work, and just the the inability to move on from that, and that would be when my drinking would really start to come in. So, yeah, but oh weirdly at the same time, because I what I in my real life, the thing that pays the bills is I do support work for people who are neurodivergent, diagnosed, and and and some have often also still waiting for their assessments. Um, so some may be ADHD and waiting in an autism assessment, stuff like that. And I do say to them, like, look, you don't need to wait eight years to start living your life in a way that feels you supports you differently. I don't know if that'd go that's the same as me telling them to, well, if you think it, be it. But I don't know, I do think this is probably a completely different episode, but there is something to be said to not waiting eight, nine, ten years for your diagnosis to then start putting in place things that will really help you. Um, I do hate it when people say they're a little bit ADHD or everyone's a little bit ADHD. It's the same with OCD. I have friends who have actual OCD. So Brianie Gordon, who we've mentioned, um, huge advocate about OCD. She used to think that she went to sleep. She convinced herself that in her sleep she woke up and went around a town abusing people, and that she had this thing that she just convinced herself she was a paedophile abusing children, like like crackers. Fucking crackers, and yet she genuinely thought this was a thing.

SPEAKER_04 54:43

Yeah. And she would have had all these rituals around being able to not Maria Bamford talks about it. She's a comedian, she talks a lot about when she was younger she had to squeeze her hands together three times, or else she was going to get up in the middle of the night and kill her family, chop them into bits and eat them. Yeah. Wow. And like that's why, like, so my partner's very, very clean. And someone I know from one of the comedy clubs is like, oh, is he O C D? And I went, That's actually not the right thing to say about someone who's just tidy.

SPEAKER_00 55:11

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

I I I pull people up on their language all the time, not because I'm the language police, but by words are important, right? Uh when it comes to like diagnosis and stuff. You wouldn't cough and be like, oh, cancer, right? You'd be like, you just wouldn't do it. Like when it comes to mental health, people don't take mental health seriously because of the way we diode the language. People don't take sexual abuse seriously when we say things like, Oh, he's a bit rapey. Like, you know what I mean? Like, what are you trying to say about that guy? Are we saying he's a criminal?

SPEAKER_00 55:46

Interesting, you just pointed that out because I was watching Celebs Go Dating this week, and one of the celebs on it, I I mean, they say I don't know how they classify celebs these days, but his behaviour towards this woman, I was chatting to my sister on WhatsApp. I said he's behaving really predatory, and that's how I thought he was behaving. So would that be would I be using the word wrong or not really because it's not a disease, is it?

SPEAKER_04 56:13

Predatoryitis, right? It's a choice, it's a choice, it's a choice, man. And uh look at the guy that I always bring up on the podcast that I won't mention is thinking about running for mayor of London, like you know, him talking about being in his studies, having sex with 16-year-olds, and everyone not calling it out, you know, while it was happening, not you know, and saying, Well, you know what he's like? You know, he's a bit of a boy, you know what I mean? So it's like, but if the word, the actual words they were using around rapist, uh, you know, sexual abuser, like all of these kind of things, like it they they are uncomfortable words because they are they should be.

SPEAKER_00 56:55

Well, I was gonna say it's like the word cunt being an insult, where it's like, but why is it an insult? It's female anatomy, and it's been used as an insult in a way to use a female genitalia as something to that is insulting, which completely then you have to pull around like, well, that's complete patriarchy, that's you know, control, that's and and I am a believer in women claiming that word back and using it in a way that takes that I Well then I'm I'm bringing back knob then. Do it! Oh my god, shall I get you some shots and say sober knob?

SPEAKER_04 57:24

Dickhead, sober knob, sober dickhead.

SPEAKER_00 57:27

I called somebody a prick the other day, and that was brilliant. I was like, oh, I haven't used that word.

SPEAKER_04 57:32

It's a classic, yeah. I love going to Scotland because I can call everybody a fucking fanny.

SPEAKER_00 57:38

Oh my god. I love it up how up north, and this we'll finish on this actually, but uh, I love it up north. Everybody calls groups of people lads. Like even if groups of girls and and groups of like in an island I've noticed as well. It'll be like, all right, lads. Man, and I what what's that all about?

SPEAKER_04 57:54

I don't know. I think it's just like guys, you know, maybe you can't.

SPEAKER_00 57:57

I love it. I don't know why. I think it's for some reason I really like it.

SPEAKER_04 58:01

I like it as well. It sounds super friendly, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 58:04

It does. It's like, all right, lads. So um well, one of the words that my friend Jen hates is the word ladies.

SPEAKER_03 58:10

Ladies.

SPEAKER_00 58:11

Ladies, and and then I said about you know, gentlemen and how, you know, it's quite strange that word gentleman. And you know, even in that, again, it's the importance of those words, like how you use it, because she hates the word ladies because it has been used in a way that is a in a controlling way. Ladies, yeah, and it's very much gentlemen, is that it's like a um a rising of rank, you know, gentlemen. He is whereas actually there are some really terrible gentlemen out there, and there are probably some really awful ladies as well. We could talk all day about this. Um, I think it's really fascinating. I love words. Um I think that personally we should use whatever words that we feel fit. I don't know, without offending others. Um, or actually, no, fuck it. Go and offend some people because I think whoever you offend probably maybe they needed to hear those words.

SPEAKER_04 59:04

But offence is taken, not given.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

Oh, another t-shirt slogan.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

Yeah, offence is taken, not given. Some people find equality offensive. Um Right, you give my main like so like I've like I don't run around trying to upset people. I think that's where I draw the line as well. Like, because I do sometimes think, you know, like I'll use gay pride as an example because I think it's a really good one. Like where you keep saying bring your kids as for family. Well, then we need to kind of think about what we're presenting to those kids. And I do think, like, oh, don't bring your kids then, but you've just said it was a family event, and if it's a family event, I don't want to see somebody with their ass hanging out in the word cunt at Nottingham while there's kids there, and um people say that makes me archaic, but um I mean they didn't do that 40 years ago, and the people of my generation still grew up a little bit fucked up. So, what are we gonna be like in 20 years? Whether I've been seeing people getting blowjobs at two in the afternoon in the middle of Brighton and calling it activism. Like, I just think there's some things are adult only, and that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Being gay is an adult sport.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:12

Um we shouldn't be, we definitely shouldn't be having sex with children.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:23

Now that is the uh title for your new show.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:26

Being gay is an adult sport, write that down, Shell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Oh, it's going, it's going on a string vest a string vest and matching chance.

unknown 1:00:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:38

I mean, it really is that basic, and I think that um like language should be, you know. I have to so for example, some comedians they'll say, Do you have a clean set that you can perform on cruise ships? No, I do not.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:51

Um do you have come on on a cruise ship?

SPEAKER_04 1:00:54

I couldn't not swear. And do you have a I couldn't?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

Do you have a um you could say that that was being like racially insulting because you were Scottish.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:04

Well, that's what I told my that's what I told my psychiatrist when he told me not to drink. Uh I called him racist. And then like some some comedians they're like, oh yeah, we do kids comedy, and I was like, Oh my god, I'd rather die. Like, I don't, you know, like no kids at my show. Like someone showed up, someone showed up to my show in Edinburgh with a teenager with a 13-year-old, and I said to her mother, it's your choice. She can legally stay in the building, but you should know. And then I said, you know, I was doing my usual show, and I said to the to the kid, I says, Look, your mother's just looking for a reason to blame therapy on someone other than herself, but we all know it's her.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:45

The real reason your kid shouldn't be in the show is because Ian is gonna read it.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:50

It was Scotland and everybody was howling, you know, because we're being abusive to children, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:55

Yeah, again, it's racist if you come up, come up against us. Oh dear. Well, as always, we have uh righted no wrongs, but had very interesting conversation. And um yeah, I think you're right. I think when it comes to using those identifying words, it's a lot about how we feel about ourselves versus what the word actually is. And again, I've ended this session with revealing that Shell needs to do more therapy, but she can't afford it. So instead, she's gonna do a podcast. Make more t-shirts and make some t-shirts. Um, speaking of, there will be some new t-shirts out next week. Um, I believe if anybody's listening, some um neurodivergent, self-identifying t-shirts. Um, which um hopefully will be out by next week, um, by the way. So do check those out on the website if you either are medically or self-identify as neurodivergent.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:58

I'm gonna I'm gonna put in an order for some socks.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:01

Yes, I will be seeing you in a couple of weeks. Let me know what you want.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:05

And I'll just bring cash.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:06

What the fuck am I gonna do with cash? Wrap up a sausage? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:11

Go to grid.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:14

I don't know. It's madness. I've got cash in in a drawer here, and I just look at it and I can remember in the early days of um recovery, having cash in the house was such a flex because like I'm not using it. But I think drug dealers probably do Apple Pay by now.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:30

Yeah, they do. Towards the end of my using, I was um I was paying by credit card in the gay sauna for drugs. But I think like what I'll say, like I go through, I g uh I always have cash on me in Edinburgh because people tip you, you know. And um it's amazing because you can go and buy biscuits, eat them, and then be like, that never happened, it's not a misstatement.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

True. And and I do really feel for people who ask for cash in the street because it's like I'm not being a cunt, I genuinely don't have cash. But I do think that some banks are now handing out little card readers so that homeless people can take payments.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:06

There is like a a safety, I feel, with cash. Like in Spain we're starting to go the other way where people are paying for cash and things again.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:13

Oh really?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:14

Yeah, because like I mean, if the banks just decide to freeze your money, they'll freeze your money.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:19

Oh, it's a conspiracy thing, is it?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:22

I think there's a safety in having cash on you.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:25

Well, do you know what? Jokes aside, I've always got a little bit of cash and my passport just in case Milo and I ever need to leave in a hurry.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

Well, always has cash on him because he's Filipino. I mean, there's always hundreds of euros on us. And I'm a comedian, so I've always got money that I don't want to declare. So um, like I've never got less than 500 euros cash somewhere in the house, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:46

Oh god, Milo, remember all this for our summer trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:49

But it's like it is when I was in Thailand, it was actually good that I thought like a cash person because most of them didn't want card payments. So it is very cultural.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:00

Yeah, no, it's very true. All of my zero money is digital.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:03

All your zero money, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

I'm hoping it all gets wiped out so I can claim that there was more there. Um, thank you so much, um, everybody for listening. Um, as always, the easiest, cheapest talking about money, things that you can do for free to support us are like this episode, share this episode, subscribe to this podcast. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't mean you're gonna get emails. It just means that the algorithm likes us more than it currently does. Um, rate the show again, absolutely free. If we post something on social media, like that post, share that post, send it to your granny. All of these things are absolutely free. Supporting your friends is free, apart from when we actually ask you to buy things from my shop or go to Ian's show, and then that is money.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:45

That's good of course.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:46

So if you could do both of the things. Um, all of the details of Ian's upcoming shows are in the show notes, as is. We would prevalently to buy those neurodivergent t shirts.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:58

And share, are we? Recording an in-person episode when I see you?

SPEAKER_00 1:06:03

Probably not because your schedule is so fucking tight. It's tighter than a pair of skinny jeans in the 2020s.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:11

I'll be, I'll make we'll definitely record some content.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:14

But we will definitely record some content. We've still got this month, it's the longest month ever because it's still not even next week. It's the week after.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:22

Oh gosh, I know. It's because I'm leaving home on Thursday. It's so long. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:27

Um, but next week we actually have um we've invited a special guest. So we have a special guest on next week's episode. Um, we have decided to yet again open up this marriage and invite in a third. So I'm very excited about that. We've got lovely comedian um called Amelia coming to join us, and it's going to be very, very, very funny. Not just two funny people, but three.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:49

She's very funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Well, don't say that because now I'm already getting in my head that she better not be funnier than me.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:57

You will not be disappointed. She's gorgeous and fabulous and talented, and like just wears her heart on her sleeve and is a bit like you know, that kind of always questioning her recovery, which I think is great. We're gonna get a lot out of the conversation, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:14

Love that. I hope you sell me in the same way.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:17

Um, to your website.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

I know, thanks. Um, if you could send them the link to the pay page, that'd be even better. Um right, have a wonderful um day. Thank you, our dear listeners. I think we're up to seven now, so thank you all seven. Woo! And uh speak to you soon.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:36

Speak to you soon.

unknown 1:07:38

Bye.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:39

Bye.