BONUS WTF Collections - Getting Sober
Guest:Hi, Full Marin listeners.
Guest:It's Brendan, and this is the first Tuesday bonus episode of the new year.
Guest:It's also the first WTF collection of the new year.
Guest:What we do here is we put together a bunch of things from old WTF episodes that kind of thematically make one new episode.
Guest:And today, the topic is timely.
Guest:It is January.
Guest:I know a lot of people partake in dry January, but it's a
Guest:But that's not necessarily the reason to have this episode.
Guest:I would say the reason to have this episode is that one of the most common bits of feedback, email, commenting that we get about the show is from people saying the show helped them with their sober journey.
Guest:whether they were already sober and listened to the show and got encouragement from like-minded people, or whether they needed sobriety and the show was helpful to them on that front.
Guest:And I'm still very touched when we receive those comments and messages.
Guest:I know Mark considers it one of the great achievements of his life that he gets those comments and messages.
Guest:And so...
Guest:I thought this would be a good episode where I have five stories here that I'm just going to play them in a row.
Guest:You won't hear me again on this episode after this intro.
Guest:And these were from guests who were on in the earlier years of the show and I think told some stories that really kind of established this show as a space where people could...
Guest:feel free to share this and feel comfortable sharing this.
Guest:And I know a lot of people received not just solace, but direct help from hearing stories like this based on the feedback that we have gotten.
Guest:So this is the order it's going to go in.
Guest:You won't hear me again, but if you need to hear who the speakers are at any given time, the time codes are in the episode description.
Guest:So you're going to first hear Rob Delaney from episode 55, then Craig Ferguson from episode 278, then Karen Kilgariff,
Guest:from episode 487, Dax Shepard from episode 533, and finally Jason Siegel from episode 623.
Guest:So I hope you enjoy this.
Guest:I hope no matter what your situation in life is, you get something out of this episode and also just enjoy these very talented people and the good fortune that we have to hear their stories.
Guest:you had a baptism a revelation a bit i did to a degree yeah this was eight years ago it was eight years ago i was yeah i was very lucky uh it won't sound lucky at first but uh yeah i uh i drove i was in a blackout which how did the evening start
Guest:I was over at a friend of mine's house here in LA.
Guest:Having a good time?
Guest:Having a good time.
Guest:A friend of mine that I went to NYU with, and she was having a party.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And a keg party.
Marc:Oh, a kegger.
Guest:A kegger.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:And it started out normal, you know, other normal people drinking normal amounts of alcohol.
Guest:Just pumping on the keg, and you had the first, like, you know.
Marc:Get rid of the foam.
Guest:The foamy one.
Guest:And then we tapped that, and then we tapped a second keg, or rather finished it.
Guest:And so then we moved on to wine, and then we moved on to whatever else was around.
Guest:And my final drink that I ever drank was, I had a solo cup, you know, like a keg cup, and I had a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in the other, and I poured them both in up to the top, which if you drink, you know that isn't a drink.
Guest:It's just gross.
Guest:That's just, that is an indicator.
Guest:Yeah, that's a red flag.
Guest:And I drank that.
Guest:And I drank that all the way down, and then I was like, hey, you know, that wasn't bad.
Guest:So I made another one, and that's when I can remember my consciousness just stopping recording.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:It was you going, hey, this isn't so bad.
Guest:And then the next thing I remember was being in the hospital surrounded by cops and doctors.
Guest:But what I had done is I had been like, well, I'm going to sleep at my friend's house, and everybody had left, and I just went to sleep on her floor.
Guest:And then apparently I got up, you know, in the middle of the night and was like –
Marc:before we go on so you were that guy see now even that decision in my mind it's like uh i can go ahead and sleep here yeah like because when you don't get that fucked up and you're at the party and you see that guy everyone's sort of like oh yeah okay yeah i'm just gonna catch him is here good yeah yes where i'm already laying down yeah and uh so then i think yeah and i think people were like well we aren't gonna move you because you're big
Guest:So you went to sleep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then I got up.
Guest:This is the first time that I know of that I had done this, but I got up, but still in a blackout.
Guest:So I kind of like began my new day.
Guest:And the first thing I decided to do was take a car, not my car.
Marc:It was in the middle of the night.
Marc:It was during the day.
Guest:It was.
Guest:It was like four in the morning.
Guest:Oh, it was the worst time to be that fucked up.
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:So I took it.
Guest:I got in a car and I drove it.
Guest:Not anywhere near that party or near where I lived at the time.
Guest:And I drove it really fast into the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power at the intersection of Pico and Genesee.
Guest:And it was a pretty cataclysmic car accident.
Guest:There was no one else involved except me, thank goodness.
Guest:I didn't know that at the time.
Guest:I did have to ask the cops if I had killed anyone.
Guest:And they told me that I had not.
Guest:And yeah, I took out three parking meters and
Guest:Two trees, a light post, and then the building and the car.
Guest:And you were in the building?
Marc:In the building.
Marc:You drove into the building?
Marc:Yeah, half in, half out.
Marc:Now, you don't remember having any sort of anger or water problems at home?
Marc:No, no, it had nothing to do with my electric bill.
Marc:There was no momentary like, those fuckers.
Guest:Water and power.
Guest:Fuck them.
Guest:I saw Chinatown.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:So no, that didn't, I don't remember, you know, and it could have been the kind of a thing where I just fell back asleep within my blackout and then drove into it.
Guest:You know, it could have been an aggravated.
Guest:Fuck that building.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:So how badly were you hurt?
Guest:I broke both my arms.
Guest:You can see there's a pretty big scar on this wrist where I kind of rebuilt it.
Guest:This longer scar on my arm here, that's all titanium in there.
Guest:This was very badly broken.
Guest:Bionic.
Guest:You're bionic.
Guest:Yeah, I'm slid.
Guest:Slightly bionic.
Guest:And my legs were not broken, but they were kind of torn open, my knees.
Guest:So they had to sew them up like with hundreds of stitches and put me in leg stabilizer so I couldn't bend my knees.
Guest:So although my legs were not broken and they recovered fairly quickly for the first few days afterwards, I was in things that did not allow me to bend my knees.
Guest:Which I should tell you is kind of the aha moment was me being wheeled around in a wheelchair in jail by the cops, and I couldn't use my arms.
Marc:So you went to jail?
Guest:Yeah, after the hospital, because they took me to the hospital in an ambulance and did what they needed to do to stabilize me.
Guest:And then the cops said, can you mind if we take them now?
Guest:And so they took me to jail.
Guest:Were you like, wait, what happened?
Guest:What happened?
Guest:Oh, they told me, they said, you're extremely unbelievably drunk.
Guest:They drew my blood and I, it was a 0.271, which if you know, 0.08 is illegal.
Guest:So that's effectively three and a half times the legal limit.
Guest:So yeah, they brought me to jail and to book me and all that.
Guest:And when I was in jail, I was in the wheelchair and I couldn't use my arms on the wheels and I couldn't use my feet on the ground.
Guest:So occasionally I would slide out of the wheelchair and my bloody hospital gown, which was covered in face blood would come up over my dick and balls and ask,
Guest:hole and show that to everybody in jail, which, you know, if you've been to jail, you know, you're not supposed to do that.
Marc:That's sort of like a strip show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They're like, yay, entertainment.
Marc:Here we go.
Marc:Shake it.
Marc:Yep.
Guest:And did that go anywhere for you?
Guest:That, well, that, nothing happened, you know, nobody fucked my ass or anything, but they did... I guess they draw a line.
Marc:They're like, you know, I want them to be able to fight a little.
Guest:Well, you know, as a gentleman, you know, we're into the hunt, and when it's that easy, you don't want to...
Marc:No one wanted to fuck you in jail.
Guest:Believe it or not.
Guest:Holy shit.
Guest:I know.
Guest:Then that's when I knew.
Guest:I was like, this is the problem.
Guest:That's when you knew?
Guest:Yeah, when nobody will rape me.
Guest:But it's funny because it was right then that I was like, you know what?
Guest:I like, as they say, you know, with drinking and stuff, if you need to go there to stop, that's where you need to go.
Guest:And for me, I'd been trying to quit for years before that.
Guest:So you knew?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:I'd had lots of problems.
Guest:Is it a family situation?
Guest:It is, yes.
Guest:Alcoholism, drug addiction, depression are pretty rampant.
Marc:Good American family.
Marc:Big time.
Marc:I had a couple of experiences with that myself.
Marc:Blackouts are very frightening.
Marc:And I'd only had a couple.
Marc:But there are some people that are regular blackout drinkers.
Marc:The worst blackout that I had...
Marc:which I can't quite get out of my mind because the scariest thing about a blackout is that for however long it takes, maybe years, there are big chunks of time and actions that are really not within your memory.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:So you really have to rely on people to come up to you.
Marc:The worst.
Marc:The worst.
Marc:Yeah, where they say, holy shit, man, are you okay?
Marc:And you're like, what?
Marc:And you don't want to ask because you might find something out terrible.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Well, what happened to me, I had cocained myself into a psychotic state.
Marc:And by the time I left L.A., I was pretty sure that there was a universal conspiracy against me.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:That I was a chosen one.
Marc:I was hearing voices in my head.
Marc:And that would be an indicator of a problem to some people.
Marc:But for me, I'm like, they're trying to tell me something.
Marc:And I don't know if you've ever heard voices in your head.
Marc:But when you do, it's never one.
Marc:It's always many.
Marc:And I spent a lot of time trying to get them to pick a fucking leader.
Marc:Somebody's got something to say.
Marc:Step to the front of the head.
Marc:I'm awaiting direction.
Marc:Get a union representative.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:So I get back home.
Marc:I renew my passport because I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to go.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And at that time, it was very important that I wore two pinky rings, one on each finger, each with a skull on them.
Marc:Oh, God help you.
Marc:Yeah, and if I didn't have a shirt that had a skull on it somewhere, I would be in horrendous mystical trouble.
Marc:Oh, those are tough times.
Marc:Yeah, and hats were important, too.
Marc:I had several hats that were protecting me.
Marc:That does make sense.
Marc:Yeah, and a couple of things helped me at that time.
Marc:I got cleaned up.
Marc:I stayed clean for about a year, and actually Stevie Wonder helped me.
Marc:And I believe the line in superstition is when you believe in things that you don't understand, you will suffer.
Marc:And I really was like, there might be something to this.
Marc:That and Tom McGuane, who is a writer, once said, if the mind is not a boomerang, if you throw it too far, it will not come back.
Marc:I believe that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So I didn't really get sober in the traditional sense, but I was hanging on to a couple of ideas that enabled me to get rid of the rings.
Guest:It's yeah.
Guest:You say Stevie wonder, because I truly believe that he's like the finest expression of what a human being can be.
Guest:And I've often thought that if we do make contact with aliens, that Stevie wonders who we should have be our kind of emissary to just say like, this is what we're about.
Guest:You know, they'll find out later.
Guest:We're not.
Guest:But at first they'd be like, Hey, we like you guys.
Guest:Go tell them.
Guest:They'll trust you.
Marc:I'm not clear that he's not one of them.
Marc:True.
Marc:It could go either way.
Marc:But the blackout experience I had that was just horrible is I was at a show.
Marc:I ran into this couple.
Marc:There was a man and a woman.
Marc:The only thing I could think of in my memory is that it was like Boris and Natasha, the cartoon.
Marc:He seemed very runty and weird.
Marc:And she, I think, had a scar on her face.
Marc:They had cocaine.
Marc:And we were doing cocaine in the bathroom, drinking.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And then the last thing I remember is they took me to an apartment and and and I don't I don't really know what happened after that.
Marc:I do know that the next day I was dispatched in a cab and I was coming to and my shirt was on backwards.
Marc:And I was panicky.
Marc:I'm like, does my ass hurt?
Marc:Did something weird happen?
Marc:What did they do to me?
Marc:Was I okay?
Marc:And then I get home and I was married to my first wife at the time.
Marc:And they were freaked out because they didn't know where I was all night.
Marc:And I got home and I was wasted and hungover.
Marc:And she says, listen to this message.
Marc:And I had called and left her a message that said, I'll be home as soon as I can get out of this dream.
Guest:Oh, Jesus Christ.
Marc:wow that is the membrane between dream and reality had been perforated exactly and then the other thing the other horrible thing i did at that time which isn't horrible in relation to some stories is that i remember one time i got out of bed wasted to pee and you know when you're wasted you're not going to stand to pee why would you yeah so like the bathroom was off the bedroom and there was a chair with the footstool in the bedroom and apparently i just sat down on the footstool
Marc:and just started pissing on the floor.
Marc:Oh, that's superb.
Marc:And my wife woke up and goes, what are you doing?
Marc:And for about three seconds, I thought I was completely justified.
Marc:What are you doing?
Guest:Why are you asking a man taking an honest piss?
Guest:That's funny because one of the most terrifying things was after the accident, and the cops, I would have stayed in jail for days, but they were like, we can't take care of you here, so we're going to take you home, but here, come back on this date to court, and then you can come back to jail for a long time.
Guest:So the next day, I kind of went back to my apartment.
Guest:They took me back.
Guest:They folded me in half and put me in a cruiser and drove me home.
Guest:And I remember lying on my bed for a few hours, and then I got up to piss, and my urine was neon blue.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And that was terrifying to me because...
Guest:My urine is never neon blue.
Guest:And so I started to cry.
Guest:And I went to blow my nose.
Guest:And a bunch of bits of glass came out, which I later found out were windshield chunks.
Guest:So then I started to sweat.
Guest:And I took off my hospital gown.
Guest:And there were stickers all over my body.
Guest:But they were like a heart monitor anchor thing.
Guest:things that I had no idea.
Guest:And I'm like peeling them off.
Guest:It took me, I would find them like a week later.
Guest:I still found a couple, but I found out later from reading the hospital intake thing that the blue stuff, they had infused my bloodstream with something called methylene blue, which is what they flood you with to see if you're hemorrhaging internally.
Guest:And I hadn't been, but they didn't tell me that they weren't like,
Guest:Just FYI, your urine will be the color of Gatorade for the next five peas.
Guest:And so that was the worst hangover of my life was that day.
Marc:Peeing blue, covered with stickers, blowing glass out of your nose.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, okay, so there you are.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you decide you're going to put, you don't have a girlfriend at the time.
Guest:Oh no, I sort of did.
Guest:I had like a newish girlfriend, but I evaporated from her life and months later got in touch with her and was like, just so you know, I'm alive.
Guest:And she was like, well, not to me, you're not anymore.
Guest:And she was a cute little German architect.
Marc:Oh, you got yourself a normal one.
Guest:Like a person with a job and stuff.
Guest:Oh, shit.
Guest:But that was that.
Guest:And so, yeah, then basically I was sentenced.
Guest:They said they said I could go to jail for X amount of time or I could go to rehab and a sober living halfway house for four and a half months.
Guest:I picked that because I didn't want to go to jail.
Guest:And I genuinely at the time was like, I've had enough.
Guest:And I really, really want to get better and not do this anymore.
Guest:And I don't know quite how to do that.
Guest:So I said, I definitely threw myself at their mercy and said, you know, sure.
Guest:You were what they call willing.
Guest:I was willing.
Guest:And I'm not like a wholesale different person from before.
Marc:Yeah, that's all the big fear is that what you end up doing once you get through the tunnel of insanity that is being newly sober is you figure out whatever way you're getting sober is that you have to change your way of thinking.
Marc:Because I don't know if people...
Marc:People who don't have the bug, who don't have the hungry animal inside of them that is never sated, never fed, that demands that you feed it in order to, with the idea that you're going to feel whole and better.
Marc:I mean, there's just no end to that.
Marc:And if you've never had the feeling where your brain locks in on something so hard, like whether it's drugs or food or gambling, there is a trigger or sex.
Marc:There's a trigger within people that have addiction where it's like, you know, before you get it, all you can think about is getting it.
Marc:And your brain then locks in on the obsession.
Marc:All right.
Marc:And then once you get a taste of whatever it is, that fucking animal will not stop eating.
Marc:It is true.
Marc:It's baffling.
Marc:And you can't explain it to somebody that doesn't have it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:But a lot of people have it.
Guest:There are, I think, I can think of a few works of art that do effectively communicate it kind of well.
Guest:I think, honest to God, and it's going to sound cheesy, but the film Trainspotting, I think, has elements of it that show the horror of it.
Guest:That movie, Requiem for a Dream, I think, just when it gets really dark, addresses it.
Guest:one of the best ones and i feel like such a dork for saying this but in in the lord of the rings movie when the golem thing splits into two pieces and argues with itself and one of them is trying to rip it apart that have struck home for me because you really do feel like i felt like i had a physical alive monster with a voice and feelings and all that shit that lived like my rib cage was like a jail cell and it was like shaking rattling at the bars just saying give me
Guest:give me give me and it's maddening you know and and that is what it feels like but i'd tell you when you get that first hit or whatever well it's like honestly that would have felt like and i try to and i don't feel guilty now if i feel like oh i'd like to be really high right now or whatever i don't feel bad about that i just kind of let that thought go but it feels like a chemical equation is like being completed like i'm you know i'm a percentage of what i could be but add drugs or alcohol now i'm a hundred and
Guest:percent and let's fucking roll yeah like introduce it and then i'm like here i am i'm not me until you put alcohol into me
Guest:CBS in 1989, fly me in here to L.A.
Guest:and say, we'll put you on a deal.
Guest:They give me a deal.
Guest:I do a pilot.
Guest:When you get this, I do a pilot with Gwyneth Paltrow, Zach Braff, and a couple of other people who are there in their late teens at the time.
Guest:I'm in my, I'm like 25, 26th.
Guest:And it's this... About high school.
Guest:We're there at a high school and I'm the teacher.
Guest:And I'm out of my fucking mind the whole pilot.
Marc:Well, just booze or blow too?
Guest:Blow by this time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:But mostly my thing was booze.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Blow was just a kind of... Keep you drinking.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It's a vitamin for drinking.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And then...
Guest:I did that, and the pilot didn't go, so I think, I'm fucked in America, I'll never work again.
Guest:So I go back to Britain, and I get a theatre job playing Brad Majors in the Rocky Horror Show in the West End in London.
Guest:And it's wall to wall drinking.
Guest:That's already a revival at that.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But it's a big show.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I'm in the show and the show is doing well.
Guest:And then I I, you know, I run out of steam.
Guest:I just run out of steam and I and I burnt out.
Guest:You know, I know.
Guest:How bad did that bottom look?
Guest:Well, you know, I was.
Guest:Was it dark?
Guest:Was it like, oh, it's over?
Guest:I've talked a lot about it.
Guest:Oh, you have?
Guest:You know, it's kind of like, yeah, I was suicidal and stuff, you know.
Guest:For real or just self-pitying?
Guest:You know, I'll never know.
Guest:I guess self-pity because here I am.
Guest:So I guess not for real.
Guest:But, you know, it felt real at the time.
Guest:But you never tried.
Guest:No, no, no, not seriously.
Guest:You know, I thought deeply.
Marc:Right, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:Because it's relieving.
Marc:That's what selfish people do.
Guest:The comforting nature.
Guest:Yeah, it is.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And then after I got sober, that's when things began to change.
Guest:I mean, I've been sober now almost 20 years.
Guest:I've been sober much longer than I ever drank alcohol.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I think the danger is...
Guest:That's why I never go on the Dr. Drew or any of these shows and talk about alcoholism.
Guest:It's very difficult for me to define my life by that one thing.
Guest:I'm still an alcoholic is beyond doubt, but it doesn't mean to say that alcohol is a problem in my life because it's not.
Guest:It fucking could be in a heartbeat, but it's not right now.
Guest:So I don't,
Guest:I don't really kind of try.
Guest:I try to stay away from that kind of professional.
Marc:It's a little, well, it's a little exploitive and it's also like it, it honors the, uh, the, uh, the sort of, uh, the parameters of the secret society is that, you know, I mean, when you represent the disease, uh,
Marc:If you are getting sober in the way that many of us get sober, you know, you're supposed to keep it to yourself because, you know, it has to work on its own.
Guest:I don't speak for any other.
Guest:The organization, as loose as it is that got me sober, I am not a spokesman.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:I can't.
Guest:speak and they don't want you to they don't want me to they told me they don't want me to like if i needed some help and we turn the mics off we'd have a conversation that'd be a different thing but when the microphone's on they have specific instructions that's right what i can't can't say and many people within that they still do yeah sure they do it and they've also accused me of doing it and i say go back and look motherfucker i've never mentioned it
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Never.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because I don't.
Marc:I never mentioned it.
Marc:It was brought up to me by somebody because I've talked about it on the show.
Marc:And they say the reason that they say you don't talk about it is because if you go down, then you're bringing that down with you.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Of course.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I never thought about it like that.
Guest:I mean, it's like if you go down, then people can go, well, look, it doesn't work.
Guest:See?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, look at that asshole.
Guest:And then 10 other guys die.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, I just, I really try and respect that.
Guest:I mean, I do respect it.
Marc:Well, the interesting thing about sobriety is that it's much more difficult to be sober than it is to drink.
Marc:And really, actually stopping drinking once you get the hang of it is the easier part of it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's fighting that fucking itch and that weird discontentment and that weird neediness and fucking, you know, I mean, that's the evolution, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:But I get to the – I'm at a point now where I don't know.
Guest:I mean, though I subscribe to the notion that alcoholism is a disease and if it's treated like a disease, we will recover from it like it's a disease.
Guest:I think with me it's not a disease.
Guest:I think with me it's a character description.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:A description.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm a personality type.
Guest:What's your personality type?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Alcoholic.
Guest:Some people are winter.
Guest:Some people are summer.
Guest:I'm a fucking alcoholic.
Marc:And alcohol covers a few different things.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's just what I am.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So I can no more be cured of my personality.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I can't be cured of my personality.
Guest:I've tried.
Guest:Right.
Guest:By drinking.
Mm-hmm.
Marc:So you don't drink anymore?
Marc:I don't.
Marc:Really?
Marc:No.
Marc:Like nothing?
Guest:Well, in 1997, I started having seizures.
Marc:From drinking?
Guest:From drinking, and also I was on speed for a while.
Marc:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Trying to get down to a nice Hollywood fighting weight.
Marc:Were you obsessed with the weight thing?
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:That's always been a big thing.
Marc:So you're taking speed and drinking.
Marc:It's a great diet, the speed.
Guest:Well, there's no time for eating after all that.
Marc:Like crank or like old style speed?
Guest:Diet pills, like prescription pills, but they were on par with like the best cocaine you've ever had.
Guest:It was like getting up and doing...
Guest:Six.
Guest:No, it was more because it was like I can't explain it.
Guest:It was like it was like a cocaine high and it lasted for 12 hours.
Marc:Right.
Guest:You're just kind of like really tense.
Marc:Like Benzedrine or something like that.
Guest:It was well, it was Fen.
Guest:It was Fen Fen without the second Fen that used to bring you down.
Guest:They used to give it as a cocktail.
Marc:I remember when everyone was doing that for a while.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Everyone thought it was the answer, but all it was doing was basically making your heart race so that your body would just kind of like process calories really fast.
Guest:And then everyone started getting like heart problems and dying and then they made it illegal.
Guest:So I had it like when it very first came out before the downer cocktail.
Guest:So it was just the up all day long.
Guest:So there's a lot of like...
Guest:Smoking and staring out the window and not blinking.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cleaning.
Marc:Some cleaning.
Guest:Oh, a lot of cleaning.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A lot of folding of shirts.
Guest:A lot of shopping.
Marc:Uh-huh.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I was just, I wasn't eating.
Guest:So then I was just, I replaced it with shopping.
Marc:So this was when you were in LA?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were trying to, what, get on TV?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you thought, yeah.
Marc:And so had you had this weight obsession when you were younger as well?
Guest:No, up until I moved to LA, I didn't realize how fat I was.
Guest:I didn't, it never really came up to me.
Guest:I mean, I wasn't, I knew I wasn't thin and I knew that was what I was quote unquote supposed to be, but it didn't bother me as much.
Marc:So what ultimately ended up happening?
Guest:Well, I was having seizures at night and I didn't know it.
Guest:So I would wake up with like a really bitten tongue or like I would wake up on the floor.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's so weird.
Guest:I once had a dream.
Guest:I was a spinner dolphin and I was just having seizure, basically.
Guest:So the big, you know, the big climax of that story came when I woke up.
Guest:Well, I woke up one morning and I immediately got on the phone and was talking to somebody.
Guest:And I was like, God, I keep biting my tongue.
Guest:And my tongue is so bitten.
Guest:And I turned and looked back.
Guest:And the wall of my bedroom had just huge spray of blood on it.
Guest:Like this crazy.
Guest:And then I just was like, I looked at it.
Guest:And I was just like, I can't deal with that.
Guest:There's no way.
Marc:I don't even know what happened there.
Marc:You had no idea what happened.
Guest:Yeah, I didn't know why it happened.
Guest:It looked horrible.
Guest:It looked like a mini murder.
Guest:And I had no capacity to deal.
Guest:And this was literally when I was getting up in the morning and walking into my kitchen and grabbing a bottle of Jameson's and taking a huge swig.
Guest:Like in my mind, I knew things were getting really bad.
Marc:That's bad.
Guest:But at the same time, like when you're a comedian and you go out every night and drink, there's this weird kind of normal, it normalizes it.
Marc:Yeah, we don't live in a normal world.
Marc:It's not a normal environment.
Marc:And, you know, we all know people that were worse or more fucked up.
Marc:And we just didn't have to answer to anything.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was fucking great.
Guest:So anyway, eventually Kristen Barrett came and stayed with me, Greg's sister.
Guest:And she woke up one morning and I was having a seizure.
Guest:Like my lips were blue and I was totally out.
Guest:So I woke up one morning to a couple L.A.
Guest:firemen sitting on my bed saying, do you know your name and do you know what day it is?
Guest:Get out.
Guest:And I'm just wearing a Dodgers t-shirt and no pants.
Guest:And I was just like, you guys.
Guest:And they were amazing looking, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you didn't know if it was a dream or.
Guest:Yeah, it was very surreal.
Marc:Someone had called them because you were in.
Guest:I was like blue lipped.
Guest:Like she was.
Guest:It scared the shit out of her.
Guest:Was she sober at that time?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:So was she staying with you to sort of check in?
Marc:Was it a mild intervention?
Guest:No.
Guest:Well, if it was, she didn't do anything because she had just moved to town.
Guest:So I think she was just like getting settled and figuring out what she was going to do.
Marc:So she buzz killed your seizure party with the fireman.
Guest:I was having such a great time.
Guest:And she she called the man.
Guest:No, I mean, I think it was one of the worst ones I'd had because I was actually I was out for a really long time and whatever.
Guest:But that could have been happening for a while.
Guest:And I just didn't know.
Guest:uh so anyway i went to the hospital you know i had like it was crazy it was like there was no liquid in my body it was it was all that shit of like when you're drinking too much and then um but the seizure part they thought it was purely literally a doctor said to me the seizures are just from alcohol withdrawal and i said but i've never stopped drinking yeah
Guest:Which is really one of the saddest things I've ever said.
Marc:You had gotten to that level of alcohol intake that you couldn't make it through a whole night without a seizure?
Guest:Well, no, no, no.
Guest:The seizures happened when I was sleeping.
Guest:That's what I mean.
Guest:So I didn't know.
Marc:But you were going into withdrawal that quickly?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Well, I but that's what doesn't make sense is because and here's the thing that that theory doesn't prove out because I still have seizures to this day.
Guest:Oh, you do?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I am on medicine that controls them.
Guest:But anytime I've like I had to get my wisdom teeth pulled a couple years ago when the Vicodin made me.
Guest:Like just throw up and I couldn't keep my own medicine down and I had a seizure then.
Guest:So I still have them.
Guest:So it's not, it's not, it has nothing to do with the levels of alcohol in my system.
Guest:So I think, I personally think it's the diet pills screwed something up in my system.
Marc:Oh, do you think that was the cause of them to this day?
Marc:That's something...
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Wow.
Guest:I do, but it's just all theory.
Guest:And, like, I've gone to a ton of neurologists, and all they can do is say, like, I've had CAT scans and stuff, and they're like, there's no reason that you should be having seizures.
Guest:Huh.
Guest:But I would do.
Marc:Were you working?
Guest:When this all happened?
Guest:No.
Guest:You know what's funny?
Guest:This was, like, the weird period in between when I was still trying to act and do stuff, and kind of after that is when I started writing stuff.
Marc:For Mr. Show?
Guest:No, I never vote for Mr. Show.
Marc:You didn't?
Guest:I was just a cast member on it.
Marc:Yeah, but you were in a lot of things, right?
Guest:Uh-huh.
Marc:But you didn't get to write?
Guest:Mm-mm.
Marc:Was this before or after that?
Guest:I don't remember.
Marc:How'd you get in with those guys?
Guest:Laura Milligan used to have that show at the Diamond Club.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That she would do, I think it was every week.
Marc:I kind of remember that.
Marc:I kind of remember doing that show.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Is that possible?
Guest:Yes, I'm sure it was.
Guest:It was right on Hollywood Boulevard and everybody did it.
Guest:And Bob and David.
Marc:She did it with a band, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And Bob and David did their first couple sketches together there.
Guest:And we also did that cabaret together.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So I just, it was like we basically from hanging out with Laura Milligan, she was friends with Janine.
Guest:You know, she was friends with David.
Guest:Laura had already lived in LA for a couple of years.
Guest:So she kind of already had that group of friends.
Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you work with those guys.
Marc:So what happens?
Marc:So you go to the hospital, then what do you do?
Marc:You go to rehab?
Marc:No.
Marc:No?
Guest:It scared it out of me.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:Yeah, I just stopped.
Marc:Yeah, nothing.
Marc:Cold turkey, and now it's gone.
Guest:No, like, I would have champagne at, like, a wedding or whatever.
Guest:But my thing is, I just knew in my mind, like, I don't want one drink.
Guest:I don't want three drinks.
Guest:I want 12.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's just, I know that about myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, and just if I do that, because I had a couple people tell me like, you can still drink.
Guest:It's not that big of a deal or whatever.
Guest:But I just knew if the problem was with my brain and I was filling, replacing the liquid in my brain with alcohol, that's bad.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like anything, it scared me so badly having those seizures.
Guest:I would do anything to never have them again.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:And so, yeah, it didn't seem like, I mean, every once in a while, I'll say it if I'm at a bar with people or whatever, it's like, I would just love to have a pitcher of Budweiser and drink the whole thing myself.
Marc:Yeah, cold.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Cold Budweiser.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you're actually just scared straight?
Marc:No, you didn't do any system, program, nothing?
Guest:No.
Marc:Wow, that is some Irish fortitude.
Guest:It is fortitude, but then it's also like it's a test to the power of how scary it is to have a seizure.
Guest:It's like dying or drowning.
Guest:It's a really horrifying experience.
Marc:Do you come from a drinking family?
Guest:My parents drink, but they were not drunks in any way.
Guest:They were, you know, our working class people.
Guest:They got their stuff done.
Guest:But, you know, my dad always has a Budweiser in his hand on the weekend.
Guest:And they enjoyed themselves.
Guest:And they were like 50s cocktailer type of people.
Guest:But my mom had, both of her parents were alcoholics.
Guest:And she had a terrible childhood.
Guest:So we definitely got it in our family.
Marc:It's wild, isn't it?
Marc:How that shit travels?
Guest:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:How long have you been sober?
Marc:It'll be 10 years in September.
Marc:And what was that bottom like?
Marc:When did that happen?
Marc:Was that after the three-day night you threw a rib?
Guest:No, I have so many stories that end with, and then I continue to get fucked up for another year.
Guest:But no, that wasn't the, I mean, that was a bottom.
Guest:I think people traditionally think of it as, in terms of a bottom.
Guest:No, it's like a year.
Guest:I had like 11.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:And I tried to get sober a dozen times, and I could put together two months here, three months here.
Guest:I would always get sober for movies.
Guest:I cared more about that.
Guest:And in between movies is when it got really dangerous.
Guest:And then basically what happened, as Favreau was in here, right?
Guest:So I did this movie Zathura that he directed right after Elf.
Guest:And I knew I had to get sober to do that movie.
Guest:And so I thought, oh, I'm going to go to Hawaii and have this one last week vacation.
Guest:And I chose Hawaii specifically because I thought, well, there's no cocaine in Hawaii.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So it'll be safe for me to go.
Marc:What are you talking about?
Marc:It just seems so far from everywhere.
Marc:Okay, sure.
Marc:They can't get it there.
Guest:That was my assumption.
Marc:That's your drug logic.
Guest:I was honestly debating between going.
Marc:There's probably more coke in Hawaii than you could ever imagine.
Guest:No, it was hard to find, but I found it.
Guest:What I did is I didn't underestimate the amount of Coke there.
Guest:I underestimated my willingness to search it out and find it.
Guest:So I went there with a friend, and a couple of things happened, but I got in a car accident with this local dude.
Guest:What island?
Guest:On Kauai.
Guest:On Kauai, the nicest island.
Marc:I'm there with my— This one street in Kauai.
Guest:Everyone's a newlywed except for my buddy and I from Detroit who are there to get fucked up and, you know—
Guest:Where were you staying at?
Guest:Some place I got on Orbitz was like airfare and the hotel and everything.
Guest:You did that?
Guest:Absolutely, I did that.
Marc:You didn't just go to the one up on the north?
Marc:No, no, no.
Marc:That beautiful place?
Marc:I would now, but this was 10 years ago.
Guest:I'd done three movies.
Guest:I was still living in a one-bedroom apartment, stockpiling every penny because I thought I would never work.
Guest:So I was still looking for bargains.
Guest:I think the whole trip was a grand.
Guest:Were you at the Hyatt?
Guest:No.
Guest:Yes, I was like at a Hyatt or something.
Guest:Right by the airport.
Guest:You leave the airport.
Guest:Five minutes later, you're at the place.
Guest:There's chickens running around all over the property.
Guest:There's roosters everywhere.
Marc:Roosters everywhere.
Marc:Like on Poi Poo Beach or whatever.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:That's such a visceral memory.
Guest:So we're at a bar.
Guest:We're drinking with locals.
Guest:I've already done Punk'd.
Guest:I'm kind of popular among that crew.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The first two days at the bar, it's really cool I'm there.
Guest:The third day, I start realizing it's worn off.
Guest:They're going to kill us.
Guest:It's not fun that these Howleys are drinking at this local bar.
Guest:But I met a guy who said, yeah, I know where to get Coke.
Guest:Okay, great.
Guest:Let's go.
Guest:I go with him and his girlfriend.
Guest:We're driving.
Guest:It's raining.
Guest:This guy's driving way too fast.
Guest:He's got his shirt off.
Guest:He has a beer between his legs.
Guest:I'm in the process of telling him, you've got to slow down and turn on the radio when we go through a left-hand turn.
Guest:He loses control.
Guest:We spin.
Guest:We hit a guardrail.
Guest:Cars are fucking flying off the road to avoid us.
Guest:We somehow end up going straight.
Guest:We drive out of it.
Guest:He thinks it's great that he's like, I fucking drove out of that, bro.
Guest:I'm like, fucking slow down.
Guest:I got the radio down now all the way.
Guest:We come into the next town.
Guest:Cop passes us, sees the smashed up back end, flips a U-turn.
Guest:We pull into a gas station.
Guest:We're getting pulled over.
Guest:I'm looking at myself in the rearview mirror.
Guest:I'm in a cutoff T-shirt and a cowboy hat.
Guest:I don't know anyone in the car.
Guest:The cops are coming up, and I'm like, I've been in Hawaii three days.
Guest:This is where we're at.
Marc:Where's Ashton Kuster when you need him?
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:I need him to come up and tell the cops they've been punked.
Guest:So they let this guy go.
Guest:They make the girl drive who's just as drunk as all of us.
Guest:We continue on to the drug house.
Guest:It's not Coke.
Guest:It's crystal meth.
Guest:I buy it anyways.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:Why not stay up for a few days?
Guest:Absolutely.
Guest:So we go and me and my buddy smoke crystal meth for three days.
Guest:I get to a point where I get that feeling where you're like, I got to get this out of my body.
Guest:It's toxic.
Guest:I've been up for three days.
Guest:I need to go for a jog.
Guest:I jog on the beach in front of the Hyatt with the roosters going.
Guest:And it is 100 degrees.
Guest:And I jog probably three miles.
Guest:The fact that I didn't die.
Guest:I came back to the room.
Guest:I sweat for like four hours.
Guest:Still not the low point.
Guest:Go out.
Guest:The night before we fly back, I get so drunk, so on everything.
Guest:And I had a layover, again, because this is a bargain flight.
Guest:I have a layover between Kauai and L.A.
Guest:in San Francisco.
Guest:And I'm at a bar in San Francisco because I'm so physically sick.
Guest:I cannot make the flight from San Francisco.
Guest:go to LA unless I get at least four Jack and diets in me.
Guest:So I'm sitting at this bar in the corner of the bar because I'm so afraid someone from AA is going to see me because up to that point I had three months.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm sitting at this stool in San Francisco convinced that everyone walking by is in AA and knows me.
Guest:I am staring.
Marc:That's the best speed by, you know, like usually the paranoia that comes with staying up and fucking your brain up is not the good kind.
Marc:No.
Marc:You think you're going to get caught by AA spies.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:So you were aware.
Guest:Oh, my God.
Guest:So the actual moment moment was here I was.
Guest:I was about to start this Favreau movie.
Guest:I had just finished Idiocracy with one of my heroes, Mike Judge.
Guest:I was in a movie that came out a month before that was a hit.
Guest:And I was sitting in the corner of this bar literally hiding that.
Guest:And I had accomplished all these goals I had and dreamed about for 10 years and worked to get.
Guest:And I was afraid to just be in public at this fucking airport.
Guest:And I was looking in the mirror there.
Guest:Oh, you were at the airport, right.
Guest:I was looking in the mirror and I was like...
Guest:this is not it.
Guest:This is not, you're doing this wrong.
Guest:This is really, you're afraid to be you and you've gotten everything you wanted.
Guest:It was just very, very profound.
Guest:So I got sober for the movie, which was easy.
Guest:I did that before.
Guest:What was hard is when the movie wrapped in three months, I said, I can't do it again.
Guest:If I have another stretch like the Hawaii trip, I'm not going to make it to the next movie.
Guest:And I was able to get over that hump, that three-month hump that was so elusive to me.
Guest:And then it's been pretty easy since then.
Marc:That's great, man.
Yeah.
Guest:If me five years ago saw me now, I would be unrecognizable.
Guest:Why?
Guest:How much were you drinking?
Guest:I was drinking quite a bit.
Guest:I got to the point where I felt like I was going to collapse under the weight of it.
Guest:I felt very trapped.
Guest:i felt like isolated you mean well i felt certainly isolated um and i also i mean i would just very simply wake up in the morning and say i'm not going to drink today and you know by the midday i was drinking yeah oh so you really you had it pretty bad yeah i mean it wasn't a party no no it was not a party in any way did it start as a party
Guest:I think my hunch is it always starts as a party.
Marc:Right?
Marc:And then all of a sudden, I'd like you to meet the monster.
Marc:I hope you had a good time at the party.
Marc:Now you're working for this guy.
Guest:Yeah, no, exactly right.
Guest:Well, you've lost control.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I got really lucky in that I had a real moment of clarity where I said to myself, I want to be the best version of myself.
Right.
Guest:I just got really lucky that that happened.
Marc:Was it a dark day?
Guest:Yeah, it was a dark day.
Guest:I had something bad happen.
Guest:I had not been drinking for a little while, for months.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I decided, you know what, I'm going to drink.
Guest:And so I didn't have...
Guest:booze in the house for myself at this point.
Guest:I had a case of rosé for guests.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It was summertime.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I decided I'll have a glass of rosé.
Guest:Right.
Guest:One glass.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't even like rosé.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so basically it turned into a weekend where
Guest:Where by the end of it, I was surrounded by these empty bottles of rosé.
Guest:And I thought to myself, this is not for pleasure.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I don't like rosé.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:This is something else is going on.
Guest:And there's no end to it.
Guest:Yeah, there's just no end to it.
Guest:You know what the thing is about for me that I realized about booze is that I am not going to win.
Mm-hmm.
Guest:They're not going to stop making booze.
Guest:I can't drink at all.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:And for me, it's like fighting Mike Tyson.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And I realized at that point, the best strategy for me is not to get in the ring.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And it's weird that when you're introduced to that craving thing, that's the most fucked up thing about having a drinking problem or a drug problem is like the idea that like,
Marc:Okay, I can stop.
Marc:And then he stopped for a little while.
Marc:But then like that day where you're like, I'm going to drink, like that thing that wakes up in you where like that weird, like unquenchable kind of like, when you meet that thing, you're like, this is a fucking problem.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, the thing that you're not told because you don't discuss this openly, you know what I mean?
Guest:Right.
Guest:If anyone out there is like suffering or has these feelings, I don't know how I'm going to stop.
Guest:Once you say to yourself or just to somebody else, I need help.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It unfolds.
Guest:Yeah, it comes.
Guest:Yeah, it unfolds.
Marc:Just dozens of people willing to help.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Absolutely.
Marc:Well, good for you, man.
Marc:It's a great step.
Marc:And how about it when that day where you got enough sober time and you realize like, no, I don't really want it anymore.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a great day.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:I can tell you I can tell you what happened.
Guest:So this is about two and a half years ago.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, you know, you spend like the first month, two months thinking, what do I do now?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:When you when you stop drinking.
Marc:Well, just my activities.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And you were kind of like you were out in the world being drunk.
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, well, I was good at it.
Marc:Well, can I ask you a personal question?
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:Yeah, sure.
Marc:I just want some validation on this.
Marc:I heard that you got into the habit of getting on stage and just saying, is there any women that want to fuck me?
Marc:And giving out your phone number.
Marc:Is that true?
Marc:No.
Marc:That's...
Guest:That is a bastardization of a great comedy bit.
Guest:No, what it was, was I had written a song that I would open.
Guest:I opened a couple of concerts with.
Guest:I opened for Maroon 5 and I sang it once with Glenn Hansard in the swell season.
Guest:That was actually a very funny song.
Guest:So it was very nuanced.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:It was a very nuanced version of that.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:And the phone number was fake.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Oh, okay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:It's so funny how it finally got to me.
Marc:It was like, yeah, he's just fucking- He's just going for it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:He's just putting out his phone number and just like, yeah, Hollywood, man.
Guest:Well, that was sort of the desired effect, I suppose.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I'll tell you, so a month into not drinking- Right.
Guest:I was driving down the street.
Guest:I was driving back from San Diego Comic-Con.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And there was like, I was listening to the oldie station-
Guest:And all of a sudden I realized I was singing along to Rock Around the Clock.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I was like, whoa, I feel good.
Guest:I feel pretty happy.
Guest:I've seen this in movies where people sing in the car in a real happy mood.
Guest:And I've never looked back.
Guest:It was the best decision I ever made for myself.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Yeah.
Thank you.