August 13, 2025 • 10 mins
On this episode of Our American Stories, addiction kept Ryan Stewart at a distance from nearly everyone around him. For years, he tried to manage it alone, convinced that asking for help meant losing control. But when things began to fall apart, the people around him stayed. Friends, counselors, and even strangers showed up in ways he never expected. Recovery came slowly, marked by setbacks and quiet progress, but each step forward was built on trust and a willingness to let others walk with him.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we returned to our American stories. And up next,
we're going to hear from Ryan Stewart, who's been on
our show before and told us the story of how
he became a professional dog walker in New York City. Today,
Ryan shares with us the importance of simply helping other people.
Ryan struggled with addiction for a majority of his life
(00:31):
and it was only through the help of others that
he was able to come out on the other side.
Here's Ryan with his story.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I suppose I could say I used to be an alcoholic,
but supposedly that means you're an alcoholic for the rest
of your life.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So if you're.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Reflective, you can look back and you can see the
markers that were always there, Like when we got introduced
to beer in the seventh grade, who was the one
kid who drank too much and acted like a fool?
It was me, right like all the other kids seemed
to be able to get drunk or whatever and not
destroy anything. So the markers were always there that alcohol
(01:11):
wasn't good for me. But I didn't really totally spiral
out of control until like maybe in my thirties. I
drank too much, but I somehow was what what's called functional.
And then I slowly start drinking more, and I start
drinking more. And then when I get in trouble drinking,
you know what I mean, Like let's say I'll get
in a bar fight, you know, I'll get arrested or
(01:32):
something like that, then I have that to deal with,
that type of shame, you know. And then so that
adds to it. I was in a dark place, you know,
I'm drinking and drugging and not liking myself. And then
I got these ideas that happiness was was maybe being
famous or rich, and I was in a haze like
(01:54):
for decades, you know, like trying to be an actor
and a dancer. The reason I wanted to be a
dancer was because I watched females when they watched guys
who moved well, and they liked guys who could move well.
So I'm like, okay, I'll be a dancer. So New
(02:17):
York City is the center of the dance world, and
so that's where I'm going to go. So I came
to New York City very quickly, and I decided to
go to this Alvin Ailey School, and I got a
scholarship there. I was, you know, I was pretty good
as whacked out flexible, which helps, you know. Then I
talked with my primary ballet teacher, who is David Howard,
and another mentor I had named Hillary Cartwright, and they're like, well,
(02:40):
we know Benjamin hark Harvey over at Juilliard. You know,
he's the director of the dance program, and so they
sent me over there. I got to meet him, and
then I started doing the interview, you know, the process
to matriculate into Juilliard. I was taking an adult ballet
class at night, because you know, you take the professional
classes during the day, but if you're studying and you
(03:01):
want to be the best, you keep on taking classes
all day long. And so at night the adults came
in and one of them was a doctor, and she
noticed this bulge from my neck and she said, I,
you know, why don't you come in for you know,
and come and let me check that out for you.
And I laughed it off and said, oh, you know,
like I don't have any money. You know, I don't
have any money or any insurance. And she said, don't
(03:23):
worry about that. I went to her hospital and she
somehow waved me through everything. You know what I mean
like I just went in and got a chest X
ray and was out in a busy hospital with no
insurance and no money. And that night I was taking
class and then the pianist stayed and played for me
(03:44):
so I could do like practicing, you know, big movements.
And she came in with the big yellow envelope you
know that has my chest X ray and she said,
I think you better sit down. And that's when I
got my cancer diagnosis, and she said, we're going in
tomorrow to Memorial. I know someone at Memorial Sloan Cattering
and she got me into the best hospital like in
(04:06):
the country for cancer. So I did fourteen months of chemotherapy,
you know, lost all my hair. But it was probably
the happiest time of my life. It might seem odd
to be diagnosed with cancer and have it the happiest
time of your life. But I didn't have to worry
(04:26):
about becoming something, about being successful, you know that pressure
that you know, what what am I supposed to do
with my life? Who am I supposed to make happy?
I didn't have to worry about any of that. I
just had to go to sleep at night and get
better and all that's what everyone told me, you know,
the doctor's like, you know, just get better. And that
made my life really simple. All the nurses and doctors
(04:47):
knew me. You know, it's like cheers, like everyone knows
your name.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
There.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It was a happy time in my life. It was
a lot different, yeah, like from having everyone care about
you to taking SSI, you know, because I was disabled
due to my treatment and I was still getting some
checks for it. And one of my friends says, how
could you take that money? Look at you. You look
(05:12):
like you can work, and he shamed me, and he
was right, you know, I could work. And so the
next interview at the office, when they ask you, like,
are you feeling bad? You know, alhah blah bla blah,
how do you feel, the guy sort of encouraged me,
you know, to like keep the checks coming. You know.
He says, you're only like a few months out from
cancer treatment, you know what I mean. And I said, no,
(05:33):
like I don't want any more checks. I can work,
and he was in disbelief, like in disbelief. But my
friends had shamed me, and so I took myself off SSI.
And you know, that's the contrast of like everyone caring
for you to having like your friend saying you're a
lazy bum. You can't take money, you can work. When
I left the hospital, the my doctor said, you cannot
(05:56):
because you took a cardiotoxin as one of your chemotherapies.
You cannot lift really really heavyweights, and you cannot take
drugs that accelerate your heart rate. So I disliked myself
so much that I joined CrossFit that's weightlifting for crazy people,
and I became a cocaine addict. So that's how much
(06:18):
I loved myself. For a lot of people, it's something
really terrible happens, like they get a DUI and they
go to jail for the first time in their life,
and they're shocked out of it, you know, like some
one moment happens to them. For me, it wasn't like that.
It was just like, at one point I just thought
to myself that there's nothing left to me, Like I'm
(06:40):
just a tumbleweed now just blowing in the wind. There's
nothing left to me, and I knew it was time
to quit. There's a reason people don't quit, even though
they're ruining their lives and they're killing themselves. It's not
easy to quit. The first ninety days. That was the
hardest thing I've ever done, going ninety days without drugs
or alcohol. I always thought, like you see people accept
(07:05):
awards or whatever or talk about their career and how
like they worked so hard and you know they did
a lot on their own, blah blah blah. That wouldn't
be what I say. I would be saying, like every
step of the way someone helped me. And do anything alone.
You know, it's like the peloton, you know the beauty
of the peloton, which is a group of riders. When
(07:27):
you watch the Tour de France, it just pulls. The
people in the front do the work because they hit
the wind and so they're working the hardest and they
go until they're tired, and they then they drift to
the side and someone else takes their place, and they
come and they drift back to the middle of the
pack or the back of the pack, and then they
rest there and everyone takes their turn. You know, like
hitting the wind, there's people who will step up and
(07:47):
help you and want nothing back from you. And now
I know the path forward is to always help others.
And I'm not doing it to try to be nice,
because I'm not really a nice person. I'm quite a
jerk sometimes, But if you hold the door open for someone,
(08:10):
or you help someone with with like a heavy load
or something like that. Like you know, you're walking on
the street and someone's like struggling with something, you help
them for maybe five seconds or ten seconds. You forget
your own problems and your own concerns and you help
that person, and that person forgets their own problems, and
they're like, someone's helping me, and both of you are
(08:30):
just in the moment. You're not in your own head
thinking about yourself being alone. You're in the moment with
another human being. Through let's say, a lifetime of messing
up and just face planting right into the pavement and
really having a miserable life that I brought upon myself,
(08:51):
I somehow retain the ability to learn from it, Like
I learned from this, And I've had fantasies before about
being rich and famous and wearing nice clothes and having
a nice car, and you know what, it's not me.
I was able, with God's grace to remember who I
truly was at the core, and I only made it
(09:14):
out by letting other people help me.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And a beautiful job on the production by Madison and
a special thanks to Ryan Stewart for bearing well bearing
just about everything he talked about his early time and struggles,
bar fights and of course arrests. And that's a struggle.
When it starts hitting arrests, you're in trouble. I was
in a dark place. I was drinking and shrugging. By
(09:42):
the way, it simultaneously had this tremendous talent. You don't
just stumble into Alvin Ailey and Juilliard. We have some
people here who've been involved in the New York theater
and know what those institutions are. And this is the
best of the best of the world. And there's this
lady who notices something wrong with this young man and
she's a and as he said, she just waved me
(10:03):
through everything. And the cancer diagnosis came, and he said
it was the happiest time of his life because he
wasn't working on anything else but being better. And then
of course he just kept going until he hit bottom.
And that's what happened. And then the pathway back serving others,
getting out of yourself, getting great people around you. We
(10:24):
love to tell stories of hope like this, redemption like this,
and God's grace as he said in the end, and
feeling gratitude for who you are and where you are
in life. Ryan Stewart's life. We love stories like this
here on our American Stories
And we returned to our American stories. And up next,
we're going to hear from Ryan Stewart, who's been on
our show before and told us the story of how
he became a professional dog walker in New York City. Today,
Ryan shares with us the importance of simply helping other people.
Ryan struggled with addiction for a majority of his life
(00:31):
and it was only through the help of others that
he was able to come out on the other side.
Here's Ryan with his story.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I suppose I could say I used to be an alcoholic,
but supposedly that means you're an alcoholic for the rest
of your life.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
So if you're.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Reflective, you can look back and you can see the
markers that were always there, Like when we got introduced
to beer in the seventh grade, who was the one
kid who drank too much and acted like a fool?
It was me, right like all the other kids seemed
to be able to get drunk or whatever and not
destroy anything. So the markers were always there that alcohol
(01:11):
wasn't good for me. But I didn't really totally spiral
out of control until like maybe in my thirties. I
drank too much, but I somehow was what what's called functional.
And then I slowly start drinking more, and I start
drinking more. And then when I get in trouble drinking,
you know what I mean, Like let's say I'll get
in a bar fight, you know, I'll get arrested or
(01:32):
something like that, then I have that to deal with,
that type of shame, you know. And then so that
adds to it. I was in a dark place, you know,
I'm drinking and drugging and not liking myself. And then
I got these ideas that happiness was was maybe being
famous or rich, and I was in a haze like
(01:54):
for decades, you know, like trying to be an actor
and a dancer. The reason I wanted to be a
dancer was because I watched females when they watched guys
who moved well, and they liked guys who could move well.
So I'm like, okay, I'll be a dancer. So New
(02:17):
York City is the center of the dance world, and
so that's where I'm going to go. So I came
to New York City very quickly, and I decided to
go to this Alvin Ailey School, and I got a
scholarship there. I was, you know, I was pretty good
as whacked out flexible, which helps, you know. Then I
talked with my primary ballet teacher, who is David Howard,
and another mentor I had named Hillary Cartwright, and they're like, well,
(02:40):
we know Benjamin hark Harvey over at Juilliard. You know,
he's the director of the dance program, and so they
sent me over there. I got to meet him, and
then I started doing the interview, you know, the process
to matriculate into Juilliard. I was taking an adult ballet
class at night, because you know, you take the professional
classes during the day, but if you're studying and you
(03:01):
want to be the best, you keep on taking classes
all day long. And so at night the adults came
in and one of them was a doctor, and she
noticed this bulge from my neck and she said, I,
you know, why don't you come in for you know,
and come and let me check that out for you.
And I laughed it off and said, oh, you know,
like I don't have any money. You know, I don't
have any money or any insurance. And she said, don't
(03:23):
worry about that. I went to her hospital and she
somehow waved me through everything. You know what I mean
like I just went in and got a chest X
ray and was out in a busy hospital with no
insurance and no money. And that night I was taking
class and then the pianist stayed and played for me
(03:44):
so I could do like practicing, you know, big movements.
And she came in with the big yellow envelope you
know that has my chest X ray and she said,
I think you better sit down. And that's when I
got my cancer diagnosis, and she said, we're going in
tomorrow to Memorial. I know someone at Memorial Sloan Cattering
and she got me into the best hospital like in
(04:06):
the country for cancer. So I did fourteen months of chemotherapy,
you know, lost all my hair. But it was probably
the happiest time of my life. It might seem odd
to be diagnosed with cancer and have it the happiest
time of your life. But I didn't have to worry
(04:26):
about becoming something, about being successful, you know that pressure
that you know, what what am I supposed to do
with my life? Who am I supposed to make happy?
I didn't have to worry about any of that. I
just had to go to sleep at night and get
better and all that's what everyone told me, you know,
the doctor's like, you know, just get better. And that
made my life really simple. All the nurses and doctors
(04:47):
knew me. You know, it's like cheers, like everyone knows
your name.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
There.
Speaker 2 (04:51):
It was a happy time in my life. It was
a lot different, yeah, like from having everyone care about
you to taking SSI, you know, because I was disabled
due to my treatment and I was still getting some
checks for it. And one of my friends says, how
could you take that money? Look at you. You look
(05:12):
like you can work, and he shamed me, and he
was right, you know, I could work. And so the
next interview at the office, when they ask you, like,
are you feeling bad? You know, alhah blah bla blah,
how do you feel, the guy sort of encouraged me,
you know, to like keep the checks coming. You know.
He says, you're only like a few months out from
cancer treatment, you know what I mean. And I said, no,
(05:33):
like I don't want any more checks. I can work,
and he was in disbelief, like in disbelief. But my
friends had shamed me, and so I took myself off SSI.
And you know, that's the contrast of like everyone caring
for you to having like your friend saying you're a
lazy bum. You can't take money, you can work. When
I left the hospital, the my doctor said, you cannot
(05:56):
because you took a cardiotoxin as one of your chemotherapies.
You cannot lift really really heavyweights, and you cannot take
drugs that accelerate your heart rate. So I disliked myself
so much that I joined CrossFit that's weightlifting for crazy people,
and I became a cocaine addict. So that's how much
(06:18):
I loved myself. For a lot of people, it's something
really terrible happens, like they get a DUI and they
go to jail for the first time in their life,
and they're shocked out of it, you know, like some
one moment happens to them. For me, it wasn't like that.
It was just like, at one point I just thought
to myself that there's nothing left to me, Like I'm
(06:40):
just a tumbleweed now just blowing in the wind. There's
nothing left to me, and I knew it was time
to quit. There's a reason people don't quit, even though
they're ruining their lives and they're killing themselves. It's not
easy to quit. The first ninety days. That was the
hardest thing I've ever done, going ninety days without drugs
or alcohol. I always thought, like you see people accept
(07:05):
awards or whatever or talk about their career and how
like they worked so hard and you know they did
a lot on their own, blah blah blah. That wouldn't
be what I say. I would be saying, like every
step of the way someone helped me. And do anything alone.
You know, it's like the peloton, you know the beauty
of the peloton, which is a group of riders. When
(07:27):
you watch the Tour de France, it just pulls. The
people in the front do the work because they hit
the wind and so they're working the hardest and they
go until they're tired, and they then they drift to
the side and someone else takes their place, and they
come and they drift back to the middle of the
pack or the back of the pack, and then they
rest there and everyone takes their turn. You know, like
hitting the wind, there's people who will step up and
(07:47):
help you and want nothing back from you. And now
I know the path forward is to always help others.
And I'm not doing it to try to be nice,
because I'm not really a nice person. I'm quite a
jerk sometimes, But if you hold the door open for someone,
(08:10):
or you help someone with with like a heavy load
or something like that. Like you know, you're walking on
the street and someone's like struggling with something, you help
them for maybe five seconds or ten seconds. You forget
your own problems and your own concerns and you help
that person, and that person forgets their own problems, and
they're like, someone's helping me, and both of you are
(08:30):
just in the moment. You're not in your own head
thinking about yourself being alone. You're in the moment with
another human being. Through let's say, a lifetime of messing
up and just face planting right into the pavement and
really having a miserable life that I brought upon myself,
(08:51):
I somehow retain the ability to learn from it, Like
I learned from this, And I've had fantasies before about
being rich and famous and wearing nice clothes and having
a nice car, and you know what, it's not me.
I was able, with God's grace to remember who I
truly was at the core, and I only made it
(09:14):
out by letting other people help me.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
And a beautiful job on the production by Madison and
a special thanks to Ryan Stewart for bearing well bearing
just about everything he talked about his early time and struggles,
bar fights and of course arrests. And that's a struggle.
When it starts hitting arrests, you're in trouble. I was
in a dark place. I was drinking and shrugging. By
(09:42):
the way, it simultaneously had this tremendous talent. You don't
just stumble into Alvin Ailey and Juilliard. We have some
people here who've been involved in the New York theater
and know what those institutions are. And this is the
best of the best of the world. And there's this
lady who notices something wrong with this young man and
she's a and as he said, she just waved me
(10:03):
through everything. And the cancer diagnosis came, and he said
it was the happiest time of his life because he
wasn't working on anything else but being better. And then
of course he just kept going until he hit bottom.
And that's what happened. And then the pathway back serving others,
getting out of yourself, getting great people around you. We
(10:24):
love to tell stories of hope like this, redemption like this,
and God's grace as he said in the end, and
feeling gratitude for who you are and where you are
in life. Ryan Stewart's life. We love stories like this
here on our American Stories
Host
Lee Habeeb
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