Keep Comin'
This is a podcast about recovery from substance abuse. Each episode will feature a new person from the recovery community telling their story in an in depth, guided manner. This is intentionally NOT the format and "rules" typically associated with 12 step meetings. You'll hear swearing and talk of drug and alcohol use that is not part of the standard AA or NA meeting format.
Keep Comin'
Episode 4: Eliot V.
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Eliot traces his arc from boarding school vodka runs and nihilism-fueled benders to sobriety, yoga certification, and watching a close friend die of liver failure.
February 2003. That's when my life changed. My name is John Knolls, and this is Keep Coming, a podcast about recovery from substance abuse. In the 12-step round, you get to share your story or use it and listen. That's the format, and it works. But there's something missing. The conversation. The questions no one gets to ask. This is the conversation. All right, Elliot, I think the last time we saw each other was maybe a couple of years ago in South Dartmouth, if I'm not mistaken. As usual, we we catch up uh and then don't see each other for a long period of time. But we met many, many years ago in our uh toddler era in that same region and have known each other uh on and off the for the years since then, and we are technically related to each other.
SPEAKER_01This is all true. I vouch for this. Yeah, we are second cousins. It's been a little while, but um, it'd be good to see you actually. I'm seeing you right now, so it's good. It is good to see you now, currently. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Elliot, what are you recovering from?
SPEAKER_01The substance that that I had to stop doing, hopefully forever, was drinking alcohol for me. There were a number of signs for years that I probably was doing this in a way that was not helping me and was hurting me. And sometimes literally, you know, like uh 3 a.m. bike accident on Bedford Avenue in Brooklyn, you know, that would that wouldn't have happened uh without a little alcoholic uh assistance. I broke a hand, my racket hand, unfortunately, which is fine now. I play racket sports, so that's good. I mean, those were physical things, just a lot of things in my life that were not not going well, and it was because of alcohol. Like I would say, I would sometimes just say anything to anyone and then have to deal with the repercussions of that and things I didn't mean, things said to people I loved, things that were callous or worse, and just all those next days of phone calls and texts and conversations of like, oh my God, you know, sorry. And what's your sober date? That would be February 2nd, 2020, right before COVID. Um, and in a way, very lucky that that timing worked out for obvious reasons. I mean, I I think a lot of people with whatever their substance issues or whether it was food or whatever people are dealing with, I think COVID was probably a really tough time for any of that with the amount of stress that people were under, the disruption of regular life and responsibilities. Um, I feel really lucky that the date was that.
SPEAKER_02What was the last week of being active like for you?
SPEAKER_01So I'd been sort of attempting to stop, successfully stopping drinking for months at a time in the in the sort of two and a half years leading up to that. I don't know if you want to call it A-B testing, but A was definitely better than B. You know, I'd I'd sort of have a few good months, and in one case went to Jamaica with my wife, um, leaving the kids at home and might have even been her idea, well, just have a corona, like we're in vacation, you know, this isn't this isn't real life. And I hadn't gotten, I didn't know what I now know about things like that, that that's not how this works. You know, a few weeks later, things had escalated uh again. And so by the time I got to that week, it had been something that had been on my mind, and I'd really been looking back at these two modes that my life had been in in those two and a half years, and it was just a very clear view of which is better, literally, what is better. And then maybe things came to a head. Um, there was something about the first Trump administration that, you know, I'd been drinking probably more than I should have for a while, but there was something that happened mentally for me in that era. Mine took the form of annihilation, and just everything that I care about seems not to matter to anyone else in the world. And like just this sort of abandoning of hope that happened and just the absurdity of the world that we were living in. It's like, why not just be drunk at that point? For me, there was something that took things to another level in terms of the nihilism. And so I in that week went to Chicago, played in the tournament of this bizarre ancient game that I play called cord tennis. And I played as the top seed in a tournament. So that means you're the you're the pick to win. So everybody's watching, you know, oh, there he is. And it's none of them know me, right? I'm not, I haven't been played at Chicago before. And I was feeling pressure, lost in the second round to like this really crafty old man with a lefty with a knee brace with a vicious drag serve. Lost that. It's like you're in Chicago now for a few more days, nothing to do, not playing tennis anymore. You know what you can do at the racket club is there's a bar, and you can watch tennis hang out with people. So I started doing that and got in, got talking politics with this guy, and we decide to have steaks and dinner, fancy dinner at the club, just me and him in some room, and we're just gonna talk about this and have some drinks, more drinks. And things got so out of hand with that conversation. I mean, the between the drinking and the Trump conversation and the nihilism and the losing as the top seed, I did not comport myself in a sort of uh a manner in which I'm now proud. A lot of ways to say that, but it was a bit of a shit show. And the next day on the plane, I said, I think that might have been it. If I'm gonna go out on a like I kind of felt like it was inevitable that I was gonna really stop. Like it was starting to feel like I I now have evidence with myself that this is what I want to do and what's gonna be the catalyst. And I was like, you know what? That dinner, what a what a way with with the the the conversation that was had, and it just seemed like a nice bow on it, and a a way that I'd have a story to tell now, or hopefully forever, that that was the end of it.
SPEAKER_02Were you getting grief from friends or family leading up to that?
SPEAKER_01Absolutely family. I might not be married today. Um, if she hadn't had so much patience with me is something I don't know if she's ever going to listen to this podcast, but that's something you know she knows and needs to know. There was a lot of patience extended in my direction as I screwed up, lied. Yeah, she gave me chances. It's it probably took a toll on our relationship. I mean, that still probably affects things, um, kind of always rebuilding from that. I mean, it's been six plus years, almost six and a half years. There were there were good times also, but I think that was a that was something that I was conscious that I might lose. And we have children. At the time we had young children, and like the the idea that that that could go wrong for me was a powerful motivator. So I don't know if I completely flew the plane into the mountain, but we were we were headed towards it, you know.
SPEAKER_02I also want to relate to your sense of, and these are my words, not yours, hopelessness, helplessness during the first Trump administration that you mentioned, and and just sort of like, why not? What the hell's the point? We're all gonna die anyway, kind of mentality. I had a very similar reaction when I was still getting high and drinking in the early 2000s, right after 9-11 happened. And you know, the buildings come down and I was just obsessed with watching the news and just the the smoldering rubble of 9-11. My usage got a lot worse after that. It just felt like the world was ending to me during that time.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, I can see that. I mean, when if you're sort of teetering or you're in a shaky place, and then there's this something happens globally that you feel like you can't escape that can shift things. And it certainly did for me. I I'd like to return to a question you asked earlier, which was what are you recovering from? And you know, the the easy answer is alcohol, but the uh the more complicated answer is what is this grasping like for something? I've thought obviously a lot of us have spent a lot of time thinking about why we did these things. I sometimes think, wonder whether Popeye had anything to do with it for me. I was obsessed with Popeye. Popeye has a problem. Now he's got a can of spinach. Now he's able to solve the problem. He's a different guy, he's able to do anything. Meant that was my favorite thing. Like I had a little can that my mom actually put, you know, got an old soup can, cleaned it off, put paper around it, made it into like a Popeye spinach can. Like I was dressed up as him for Halloween, you know. He was my that was my cartoon, and it's about using a substance to sort of uh kick ass. And maybe that somehow embedded in there. Um, but for whatever reason, you know, I was thinking about this in my recovery, which hasn't been completely traditional. Um, I went with meetings to meetings thanks to you, which I want to talk about. But some of my recovery has been about, you know, realizing like cardio, right? If I'm exhausted with cardio, there's not much of an urge to drink at the end of the day. Um, and then for years I've been obsessed with yoga, like almost pretty much over 10 years now. I've been doing it nearly daily for, I don't know, six or seven years. And but it's like I'm grasping for something to help me, right? And it's like I've changed what that thing is into these healthy things, but I'm still kind of addressing why is it that I need to do something?
SPEAKER_02There's still something there. The problem itself is not a hundred percent gone. The analogy is back in the 90s when we used to make mixed CDs and you had to put a CD label on a CD. Putting a round label on a round item is not exactly an easy task. But if there's a bubble in that when you put it on and you leave it on, that bubble doesn't go away. You just push it into something else, and it just moves around the C D or it turns into a crease, but it never goes away. And to me, I've always seen my addiction challenges as A, trying to minimize it, push it towards something that's less damaging. And and that is about as good as I can say is what it's like being an addict. It's like there's always still something there. You're just finding the least destructive channel for it.
SPEAKER_01Right. I mean, another way I've tried to put it in a more cheery way is I'm trying to feel good. I was trying to feel good then. I was doing it in these dumb in retrospect ways. I still have work to do. Um, you know, I'm trying to do a bit more meditation, and I've got a therapist who actually ended up, she's a uh also she studied yoga teaching at the same place I did, which was a complete coincidence. So we've we've got sort of a language in common there. And I was telling her, like, yeah, things are going well. I'm trying to get a jog in at lunch. I find if I can get some cardio, like my stress level in the afternoon is just so much better. And she's like, Yeah, or you could, you know, set an alarm every half hour and just take a minute to sit and get into your breath and your body and not even get ramped up to the point where you need to blow off steam by running fast for 40 minutes. And so she's on to me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, busted. When do you feel like you first started abusing things was?
SPEAKER_01Um, definitely boarding school. If you want to learn how to experience alcohol in the most sort of pre-alcoholic way possible, it is uh be in an environment where you have to have the most concentrated form of alcohol that you can find because you're hiding it. So you're lying, you're having a secret, you are getting the, you know, if you can get the highest 151, all the better, right? Like, and so these are your first drinking experiences, or like high test, either vodka, typically vodka, and try to do, you know, a classic move would be like four shots of vodka, brush your teeth, change location. So if you're acting in a way, there's nothing near you that's incriminating, because in your mind, and it's not far from the truth, your whole future hangs in the balance if you're getting caught with this. And so contrast this with whether this is true or not. What I've heard about English or German culture, um, where kids are sort of at the pub and you have like a tiny little beer when you're 15 and you're like, oh, this doesn't even taste that great, or you know, but it's not like this James Bond high stakes like maximum throughput per minute of alcohol in total secrecy, and it's a contrast contrast in in styles. And I don't think that set any of us up very well, but not everybody reacted the way I did. So I think I've heard you speak about you know the challenges of schools like that, and you're you know, I left home basically forever when I was 12. That's a bit stressful. Um, and my parents were getting divorced, was one reason that I was that I thought it was a good idea to go. I mean, one of many reasons. I also thought the academics would be great, which they were. Um, but there was it was a stressful time, and you're not the coolest person in the world, mostly, unless you're like one of a handful of dudes, and there's a lot of pressure, and there's a there's a pecking order, and you're looking at who's below you, who's above you, where do you line up, and then you've got crazy academic pressures, and then you know, somebody basically a friend of mine started hanging out with the crowd that was doing things like drinking, and seemed to be his social cachet skyrocketed, and you know, he had all these cool friends, and I thought those people were cool, you know, you know him from the soccer team or whatever. And so I was like, maybe I should should do that. I think, or he was like convincing me, and then I sort of overtook him in that area after he pulled me in. So something was different between the two of us, right? Like he was first, but I went further, and so something was different uh in our approach, and so that's when it really started. I think it was that early. Um, the two of us even were eventually caught, amongst with some other kids, smuggling in like 80 liters of vodka. You know, it made us I was in five AP classes and had to leave the school um and go, you know, we were suspended, we were not expelled, had to go away senior spring on a study away program, and didn't get to take any AP tests after being in like Latin V, BC calculus, AP physics, everything AP English, everything. Didn't get to take a single exam. So that cost me, you know, a lot of college credits.
SPEAKER_02And you know, it's interesting when we first start drinking to your point, it's in a very sketchy manner. We're hiding it, we're doing as much as we can, as quick as we can, and then moving on. It's just sketchy from day one. You know, you're 13 or 14. How old were you? Were you 12? No, I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01No, I was I was probably more like 16. I I resisted. I I didn't uh I mean I wasn't even wasn't even around it for the first couple of years. I think it was like junior year, and then by senior year, we're out suspended, right? So it didn't it accelerated, I suppose.
SPEAKER_02When I when I first started drinking, I feel like it just allowed me to have a sense of humor and things rolled off my shoulders more. And so when the kids at my school were busting my chops during sports, it didn't affect me as much. And I didn't have a temper tantrum and I didn't freak out. And I just felt like I was just chiller and fit in better.
SPEAKER_01That was very close to my experience. Yeah, chiller, fit in better. Um, you know, people say that alcohol reduces your inhibitions. I heard another version of it, which is that it's emotional myopia, where whatever's in front of you takes on outsized importance, whatever's not in front of you almost doesn't exist. For whatever reason, you know, lack of inhibitions or whatever that myopia is, it enabled me to sort of open up more to people and tell stories or what I thought was funny or react to their stories. And then I realized that people actually liked me once I actually started talking to them, and it was the alcohol that enabled that. But I it's like I was sort of scared or in a shell. And so it allowed me to open up, it gave me fake confidence, and then things kind of snowballed, and you just associate it with like, this is a good time, this is when I'm this is when people like me. I don't know. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02For me, it had a carryover effect, meaning I I didn't have to be drinking or drunk to feel like things were better. It just felt like my entire life got better once I started drinking, uh even when I wasn't drinking. And which, of course, early on, when you're 15 or 16 and you're starting, you're not drinking every day usually. Some people might. But for me, it was between drinking, which would, I guess at that point probably be on the weekends. So five days in between, I still felt like white life was better and it didn't require drinking.
SPEAKER_01That's a good point. I hadn't thought of that too. Because it was like that for us too, you know, that you kind of felt like you're in that club even when you're not doing it, I think. And it becomes an identity thing even when it's not an activity, I think.
SPEAKER_02So drinking started at 16, but when did you first start realistically thinking to yourself, something might be off here? I might have a problem.
SPEAKER_01I was in denial, I think, for a really, really long time. I mean, when I look back now, it's a little more clear to me. It's like, ooh, that was a sign. That was a sign. But I think I really didn't accept it. And also I was surrounded by other people who were doing the same thing, some of them. Even if they were able to stop, it's like they were still doing it. That was still the scene. So I think I really only noticed it as a problem when I stopped living in cities, you know, I was in two two really big cities, and then suddenly sort of out in what I thought of at the time, at the time as the middle of nowhere. And I've just, it's like wife, small kids, no friends in this new place, and still trying to kind of keep some type of partying behavior happening. But I'm like almost just by myself doing that. And it takes on a whole different overtone when you're like, wait, this isn't like, you know, this isn't after work drinks with a bunch of work people. This isn't going to a show. This is like I'm sitting in a basement and other people are upstairs not doing this. I mean, then you know, things start to feel like there's a problem, I think.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned partying and you alluded to it a little bit, but you'd go go to the bar. What was partying like? Because for me, partying at the end was yeah, you go to the bar for a couple of hours until the Coke dealer's around, and then you you figure out how to really party.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's funny you say that. For me, um, for a while it was just pool shows. I was in bands, we would we would always be like drinking during our rehearsals. Wonder why that band didn't take off. You know, it was like the way some people do poker night. You know, it was basically an excuse to be now we're drinking in a rehearsal studio. Now we're drinking at a bar, now we're drinking at a bowling gallery. That was great for a while, and then I had friends who did start waiting for the Coke dealer, and that just for some reason that wasn't my thing. And I found that scene to be kind of annoying, like, and I missed my drinking friends when they turned into people who were kind of not having as much fun having beers because that dude isn't there, and then after the guy's there, things turn take a whole different direction, and then you're at somebody's apartment and everybody's telling uh talking about their plans for world domination at the same time. It just wasn't didn't wasn't my scene. I mean, there was something what for whatever reason, alcohol specifically was the kryptonite for me in a way that other things didn't didn't happen that way. Yeah. Throughout all of this, you know, I've always taken my work very seriously. I'd never lost a job, you know, it didn't basically didn't impact that part of my life. Even in the nihilism towards the end of my drinking career, something in my brain kept that part of my life operating somehow, which I'm grateful for. But I will say, when I stopped, when I was like A B testing and stopped, I didn't know what to do. I knew I had to stop. I knew that my previous attempts to stop hadn't worked. And I actually I think I went to some meetings during one of those A-B testing eras. Um that might have not been the but I but that was the one that almost stuck. That was like right at the very at the very end. And then there were meetings again after that. But I just remember not knowing what to do with myself, being like, the idea of going to to those meetings, which thank you so much. The the ones you you like suggested these these two that I went to, and one of them really ended up sticking for the the one with with the just men was less distracting or made me act like less of a show off, or I don't know what the dynamic was different. To have literally something to do with my time was sometimes part of it, right? Like I will be occupied. I have there's something I'm doing tonight. And then, of course, the content of that time. I mean, hearing, hearing stories, um, sharing some of my own. Um, I don't know if I I'm pretty I'm sure that it wouldn't have worked had I not done that. Like that was such an important part of things for me. And I I was very delayed in working through some steps. Oh some of them I just only did actually in the last year, like because I didn't, I sort of took what I what I thought I needed and was like, all right, I think I'm I'm gonna try cardio and yoga now or something. And then what I realized, um, and I have other friends other than you who are in the recovery community and relatives, that there's a point to these steps, you know, and so I kind of returned and uh was was checking off more of them more recently. I've thought occasionally about going and picking up a little signifier of this many years or whatever, and then wondering whether that would be uh disingenuous. I'm still coming to recovery. I'm still I still think about things that were said in those meetings all the time. And I'm thinking, I often think about returning to them. Um, and I know that's what I would do if I ever felt in danger of uh drink picking up a drink again. I think I remember talking to you in sort of the pink cloud era of it as well, where it just felt like a superpower to be not drunk or hung over or thinking about being one or the other. That was one of the things that really got to me in the A-B testing was even when I was saying I'm gonna have one beer a day and sticking to that. How much am I thinking about that one beer? How much am I thinking about not having the second beer? And like just the amount of mental processing that was going on, even without drinking too much, it was in my thoughts so much. I was like, you know what? Zero is so much easier than one. It's like not even close. So that's where I've been ever since. Um, I still think it's a it's kind of a superpower to not drink. I mean, I mean, I've learned a lot in this whole yoga thing that I talk people's ear off and nobody wants to hear it. But uh, one of the concepts is that the body seeks balance always. And so if you think of, you know, there's like a balance, let's say balance scale. So if you think of one of those and you're putting alcohol on on one, you know, pushing the anxiety down with alcohol, you're telling your body, like, make more anxiety if you want balance. So you're pushing this down. And then when you take that weight off, all that anxiety comes like whee, like way shooting up. And so I think what happens with people, and what I think happened with me, is that you know, that starts as a little bit of a wobble and just goes more and more in each direction, and more and more in each direction. I mean, I wonder sometimes, like I had a fear of flying for a little while that I don't have anymore. And it was like during sort of more of a drinky era, and I wonder like how much anxiety that I had about things were like I just have anxiety, and now it's attached to flying, but really it's from this other thing. I had um I have a very old friend who, when I was ceasing drinking, I was talking to him about it actually, and I was thinking of him as like, oh, he's one of the lucky ones, he's able to do this. I visited him in the hospital earlier this year after his liver failed, played him a song. He could, I don't know if he could hear it. He was already out on machines, and I'm going to his service at the end of this month. Yeah, I remember him saying, like, I need to do that. I need to do that at some point. And I said, I got into him. I was like, I would love to take you to meetings. I was thinking about that one in Providence, or I'll find one down near him and just I was like, I will go with you. We can do this. I'll talk about it, talk your ear off about this. And he didn't have the urge. There was no follow-up call. There was no, you can't make somebody do something. From my own experience, when other people wanted me to stop and I didn't want to stop, it's like there was a phase where it was like cops and robbers with my wife. If she doesn't know, then it's okay. And so you've outsourced this concern. And the only way it worked for me is when I'm actually the cop, then I can't be the robber. Like when it's all in the it's all in-house now. You know, you're always there and you're seeing it. And so anyway, I knew with him, like if this isn't coming from him, it's not something I'm gonna be able to impose on him.
SPEAKER_02To what extent did detox and rehab centers play a role in you getting sober?
SPEAKER_01None at all. In the traditional sense. I mean, I went to Krapalu and got yoga teacher training as part of this journey. I mean, I that was very recently, after five years of not drinking. There were those very important meetings that I went to, you know, hearing other people's stories. I love to hear people tell stories. I love to tell stories. The people's the the travails that people went through, the things they put themselves and other people through, um, and the attitude with which some of these people would tell these stories of radical self-acceptance. I mean, the this yoga system that I do, they they have an idea of like uh sort of looking at your own behavior non-judgmentally for what it is. It's funny, a lot of the there are very few guys in the yoga community that I've encountered. I mean, it's very strongly female. The ones who are there, maybe more than half of them have been to meetings. And there's something about being able to look at your own behavior realistically and really see see it without beating yourself up too much, either, right? It's I mean, it's kind of easy to be like, oh my god, I'm an asshole. And it's another to be like, everybody is struggling, we're doing our best, and you have to accept these parts of yourself that are not super great. Like, that's part of you, and I think that's something that happens to both of those communities.
SPEAKER_02Who do you feel was most impacted by your drinking and how?
SPEAKER_01I hope it wouldn't be selfish to say me. This is this it went on for years and years, and you know, right back to missing those AP classes, what would have happened if I'd done that? What would have happened if I'd been not hungover at work at in the 90s in San Francisco when the whole internet was taking off, and probably a lot of the people I worked with are retired by now. The the more real answer is is probably my immediate family. I mean, my kids can't remember me drinking, I don't think. But there were some lapses in judgment. There were some mornings. I mean, I remember in the very early days with the first kid, you know, when it's when it's your morning as the dad, and uh so my wife was working Saturdays, so I'm out Friday night, and then I'm up at 5 a.m. Um with a baby, and the me and the baby are both just lying on the floor, you know. I mean, that I re I remember that happening, and I was completely attentive. I'm obsessed with being a dad. I was never like falling down or you know, being drunk in front of these kids, but I think more of hangovers more than drunkenness would have been the thing that that stole from us, from my experience of them and from their experience of me. I think I think that for sure was a factor. Um, and then my wife like having to deal with my shenanigans is the big one.
SPEAKER_02How did your friends and family react to you finally getting sober?
SPEAKER_01I think my my family, like not my family, is in my wife and kids, but in the other direction, like parents, siblings. I I don't know if they still kind of get what has happened here, to be honest. Um, I think there's some denial there. It's like, oh, he's he's doing this for for health. He's so into health that he's not drinking, is maybe the lens that it gets viewed through. And I'm like, no, I really this was this that's part of it, but like I had to stop, you know. Um, I don't know if people fully get that. And then in terms of friends, it's such a wild variety of responses. I have one friend who greatly admires it and it's inspirational, and he's not a super problem drinker, but you know, like most people, it takes more of a toll as you get older. And you know, he's experimenting with taking breaks. He's like, dude, I'm this feels amazing. I I I gotta keep doing this. And then he'll call and be like, Yeah, it's uh not not happening anymore, but you know, maybe maybe give it another shot. Um, but he's super into it. Then I have uh an old sort of drinking buddy from from California who is like, you didn't even have a problem. Like you're making a mountain out of a molehill. Like, come on, you're just being dramatic. Like we all, everybody, whatever, it's fine. You weren't that bad, you know. So there's that reaction, and then there's the the taunting um of of like some of these the core tennis guys who are like, Oh, come on, like just right when I really get to know you, you you know, right when we get to know you, we you don't do that anymore. And it is really a social, it's something I still haven't figured out. That as soon as you kind of meet somebody, they're like, hey, we should go get a beer. And it's like, yeah, I'll go, I'll watch you get a beer, that part will be fun. Then I'll watch you on your fourth beer, and it'll just kind of be like lame for both of us. Like, we can do that, but I've done it. That's something I'm still working on. I'd I'd love to get some kind of poker night together. I mean, of course, everybody would turn that into a drinking thing too, but at least there's something happening besides the drinking, right?
SPEAKER_02What was the hardest part about early recovery for you?
SPEAKER_01Just so it's like this uh protective shell that you've that you've been able to exist under is gone, and you're just kind of raw. I mean, you're you're kind of there's an identity situation happening the same way that when when you started and you're like, ooh, this is like part of who I am now, and then that's part of who you are for so long, and then that falls away. There is kind of a like, who who really am I now? Do you remember trying to dance sober? Like you go to somebody's wedding, and usually you're just hammered and you don't even, it's not an issue. You just dance like a fool and love it. Try to dance in front of people for the first time on zero drinks, something like that. Rough, man. It is rough. And just a lot of things like that, you know, out to dinner with people. Usually that's that can get the conversation going, you know. You have a couple glasses of wine, that's not there anymore. Um, you need to really build these skills from yourself and not from the these external crutches or whatever they are, this Popeye spinach, you know? Yeah, that's what those early days were like, is just it it was so much a part of uh of so many things, you realize. And you need to figure out new ways to relax. Like, what do you do after a tough day at work? I was lucky enough, I think right at the beginning of the pandemic, I bought half of a hot tub, put the other half on credit, and the stimulus check came through for COVID and covered the other half of the hot tub within like 70 cents. And so that coincided with the ceasing of drinking, and so that became an afterwork ritual. In between work and dinner, family go in the hot tub for 20 minutes instead of having a cocktail or a beer. I actually recommended that to somebody from my high school who I knew could afford it. I went to my reunion. He saw me having a good time without drinking. He was recently trying to be sober and was, I think he left the reunion after the first night. He couldn't take it. He could not take being around that. And he's like, How are you doing this? Why are you not miserable? Like, what is the secret? I'm like, so many things, dude. But at your at your stage, get a hot tub, and that's what you should do at 5 p.m. is go into that. Or think of something like that. Cardio, like, do anything you can in those early days to just feel good and and then work on what's making you need to feel good and not be able to relax how you are, but save that for later.
SPEAKER_02What was the best part about early recovery?
SPEAKER_01Just waking up, like the mornings, I think. Like I got my mornings back, I was able to do an hour of yoga a day. Like, where does that hour come from? It's from after work, you're not drinking. Morning before work, you're not hungover. So bam, there's like four more, five more hours out of every 24 just appears. And so I loved having time to do this other stuff that I was getting into and waking up feeling like like doing something rather than hitting the snooze bar and just wishing that I didn't have another whole day to go through. I mean, what kind of that's not any way to go through life, right? Like, how do I get through these next 10 hours? That's not if anybody listening to this is having that experience, that should be a sign, I think.
SPEAKER_02In what ways has this process of being sober and getting sober helped you handle non-addiction related challenges?
SPEAKER_01I think it's made me more level-headed. I think it's made me uh more compassionate to other people's failings, having to confront mine so directly and and watch myself run away from them and have to bring my focus back to them. I try not to expect other people to be perfect. I don't know. I wasn't as as forgiving of people's failures as I as I am now, I think. So that helped just let a leveling out emotionally, like not maybe maybe I'm not having this fantastic night, but I'm not having the terrible morning or the outrageous fight. I was, however, surprised. My first fight with my wife without drinking, I was like, wow, like that can still happen, I guess. You know, there was a honeymoon period of like we are just not fighting. I guess that's what that was. And then you're like, oh, like there still is life, actually, you know, not every problem was caused by this. I'm still gonna have to deal with stuff, and I'm not gonna have that to help me deal with it. So there's kind of nowhere to hide. I don't know, it gave me a different vocabulary for talking about unpleasant stuff and like a willingness to sit with things that you don't want to want to sit with. It's like because you're you're not able to just run to some type of um oblivion anymore.
SPEAKER_02What would today's version of Elliot tell his younger version to spare him some pain along the journey?
SPEAKER_01Just pay attention to what to how this really feels. I think there was a period where the fun was over and I didn't realize that the fun was over. Just to have some self-awareness, really think about like, are you enjoying this? Because there was a time when I was, and then there was a pretty long time where I wasn't, and I just was kind of going along, like, this is how I do it, you know. So I'd tell myself to like really, really pay attention to uh how is this how is this really making you feel? What is this really doing in your life right now? Is it helping?
SPEAKER_02Let's talk about your family dynamic growing up a bit.
SPEAKER_01Let's see. My dad's an interesting guy. His dad is an arguably even more interesting guy in a in a not great way. Uh I don't know. My dad's a fairly intense person. I think he would he would admit that. He's a classical pianist. And the way he describes that, you know, I was really into baseball growing up. He's like, the best baseball player in the world can hit, you know, they hit over 300, right? Maybe they hit like 330. So it's like 330 hits out of a thousand pitched, a thousand at bats. He's like, if I hit 999 notes out of a thousand, that's terrible. So that's the level of pressure that that takes. And the sort of single-mindedness of of how he had to organize his life around that probably had an effect. Like, I think we were all kind of wired to his emotional level somehow. Like it was just a radar of like, how is this guy doing right now? Having this sixth sense about like it is not time to push things because there's gonna be some kind of eruption here, you know. So there was a bit of that happening. Um, so yeah, I do have I have two siblings. Um, I'm the oldest. So I think I I had the most New York, I had the most of the of the marriage, I was the oldest when things were sort of going off the rails, and I'm the only one who left home when I was 12. I was the only one who went away to school. For whatever reason, neither of them has had any kind of substance issues. My sister, especially, just has never done anything. I mean, we we were kind of the same. And then when I went off to school, I took a turn, but we we were very much of the same mindset of like a students, you know, we were in operas, we played violin and piano, we were I was a professional opera singer when I was seven years old, cashing checks, going to Toys R Us, buying stuff. It was the best.
SPEAKER_02You're not joking about the professional opera singer thing.
SPEAKER_01Not at all. No, that's a real that's a real thing. Um, so I was on stage with solo lines and New York City Opera and did a little bit at the at the Metropolitan Opera. I was the understudy in Madame Butterfly. Uh it was in the cunning little vixen, Song of Norway, La Bohem. I was in a lot in a few things. Yeah. So we were kind of like overachieving little uh little city kids. Yeah. So she, I think the last time she got a B was in sixth grade. And then, you know, she went in through Princeton and Harvard with a PhD and never, never a B again throughout all of that. And we were like the same. So I whatever it was, it was like had to have been at the at school or something. And then I have a brother who uh we played we played chord tennis together. I just played with him a couple days ago, lives close, and yeah, he doesn't seem to have these issues either. Where does your mother come into play here? She's great, she was around. Um, she she worked, but she made sure to be home before we got back to the apartment. You know, her thing was like, you're never gonna have a key to the apartment. Somebody's always gonna be here. And she stuck to that. So that that probably limited her career a bit. But she did that. She she was great in that regard. I had a I had a really happy childhood. I mean, there were there was definitely an underlying stress happening. You know, my dad, he's calmed down a lot, but he was he was the type of dad that like your friends are scared of, you know, like not just you, but he'll yell at them too. You know what I mean? And still he'll he'd probably yell at somebody else's kid if he saw somebody being out of line. I mean, you know, you couldn't interrupt anyone, your dinner's at six, you gotta be there. You're there, it was things were very strict. I went to an incredibly strict Catholic school, um, not being Catholic, with just George Carlin went there. Like his whole first comedy album was about that school. A lot of rules, a lot of structure, a lot of a lot of people in authority who didn't make sense to me. That was a big theme of like these people who say that they know what's going on are idiots, frankly. They were, I thought almost every adult that I knew was like a complete imbecile and was just making these rules that I didn't totally have to uh adhere to. You know, a little bit pompous or something, arrogant. But the hypocrisy of the people running that school was like outrageous. You know, you couldn't miss it. And then there was a bit of that with my dad, with like just he'd be the best, and then he would act in this way where I would write him off completely. I'd be like, I no longer care what this person says. Like, that's it. Um I'm it doesn't affect me anymore. Like, I'm this is absurd. I'm done. And then like three days later, you're like, Oh, he's okay, he's all right, you know, let's go kick the soccer ball, and then it would happen again, and he'd be like, ah, again, I'm that's it. Was he a drinker? He was. He blame he said he wasn't until he met my mom's dad and that whole culture. But he was so serious about the piano, you know, most of his life until his 20s, he wasn't he didn't do anything, he just needed to practice seven, eight hours a day, you know, you know, for some sometimes. In my mind, I didn't know that it was drinking at the time, but it's like, was that about what some of these outbursts and some of this behavior was possibly fueled by that? I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_02Elliot, what didn't we talk about today that you'd like us all to know?
SPEAKER_01I think I'd like to reiterate a thing I already said, which is that the body seeks balance. And if you're doing anything in your life that's pushing consistently in any area, something else is going to push in an opposite direction. And even though you might not see it right away, it's it's gonna happen because it's just how our systems work mentally and physically. So if you're doing something to tamp down Anxiety, don't be surprised if your system responds by producing more of it and then you're in a weird cycle.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's like it pushes back.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yep. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Elliot, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. It was great seeing you.
SPEAKER_01Thanks. I love what you're doing with this thing, John. I think it's uh super interesting and you're never gonna run out of material or interesting people to talk to.
SPEAKER_02So my wife says, You're the only person I've met where everyone you know is either sober or needs to be.
SPEAKER_01That makes sense. That tracks.
SPEAKER_02As we say in recovery, keep coming.
SPEAKER_00Keep moving, ain't no looking back. Choose your weapons, lay them with no regret. God decided your story is bumping over back. JD cats, the try to move your back to the check. You planted a seed, it don't wait for a tree. Snuck your foot in the door, then wait for the key.