February 6, 2024 • 47 mins
Dave Manheim joins us from the Dopey Podcast, your source for drugs, addiction, and dumb sh*t. Dave and Nzinga share a deep love that goes way back. Listen while Dave takes us through his addiction journey, beginning with marijuana. Don't think weed is addictive? WRONG.
Check out the Dopey Podcast: https://dopeypodcast.com/. Subscribe on Spotify / Apple: https://spoti.fi/3HTyqzG / https://apple.co/3udWtGJ
Follow Dopey on IG, YouTube, Twitter (X): @dopeypodcast
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Dr. Nzinga's Harrison's book, "Un-Addiction: Six Mind-Changing Conversations That Could Save a Life" is OUT NOW! Order it here: https://www.nzingaharrisonmd.com/
Find Nzinga on Threads and X (Twitter): @nzingamd / LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nzingaharrisonmd/
Follow us on IG @unaddictionpod.
If you'd like to watch our interviews, you can catch us on YouTube @unaddictionpod.
Have a question for Dr. Harrison? Email us at: unaddictionpod@gmail.com
___
If you or a loved one are experiencing addiction, have questions about recovery, or need treatment tailored to you, visit eleanorhealth.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Unaddictioned the Podcast. My name is doctor Zinga Harrison.
I'm a Board certified psychiatrist with a specialty in addiction
medicine and co founder and chief medical officer of Eleanor Health.
On this podcast, we explore the paths that can lead
to addiction and the infinite paths that can lead to recovery.
(00:24):
Our guests are sharing their own experiences, the tools that
have helped them along the way, and the formulas that
allow them to thrive in recovery one day at a time.
I am so excited to tell you about my book, Unaddictioned,
six mind Changing Conversations that Could Save a Life, is
now available from Union Square and Company or wherever books
(00:46):
are sold.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, this is Jada. I am the producer of on
Addiction Pod, and today we have Dave Mannheim of the
Dope Podcast. Shout outs to Dope Nation. He is a
good friend of the pod. He and and Zinga go
way way back, and I love this conversation so much
because you can totally feel the love and as Dave
(01:11):
will let you know in just a few minutes, he
is just a big old softy, So I really hope
you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. That
being said, just giving you a little bit of a
warning that there's some F bombs and S bombs being
dropped in today's episode, So continue with care.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Oh wait, I have to go get my dopey hot
hat for the clips. Hold on, hold on, nice, Yes,
I have to rep.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes, well, it is like impossible to keep my kids
from stealing.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Nice dope hat. How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm good. I can't complain.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm sure you could.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I could, but you know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, all right, So first of all, I'm gonna complain
about myself because why was Dave Man. I'm not the
first person I thought about to come on the show
when I was like, I'm gonna do a podcast, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
That's a deep that's a deep question. I didn't. I
didn't want. I didn't. I didn't want to ask you that.
I was thinking, should I should I start with that?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Just start with that. What's the empathic confrontation?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Well, it was more like, so, doctor Harrison, what was
it about me that made me not seem Is that not?
That's too confrontational.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
You can ask that question.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I'm just saying it was not anything about you.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
No, I listen. I see the Unaddiction podcast popping up
all over the place. I see a bunch of people
on it. And then when I saw Aaron Carr before me,
I was like wait. I was like, wait a second,
this is I mean, I can accept the other people,
but well, it's nothing against Aaron. Aaron and I are
(02:53):
very close. But then but then I was like, I
don't know, I felt a kind of way that you
went Aaron for me. I know I'm a very petty person.
I can accept that, but.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was that when you texted me when you heard
Aaron's So first of all, let me turn this back
around on you. Before you heard Aaron Carr on the
pat on the pod, you had no desire to come on.
But then you heard Aaron and you were like, oh,
let me text in Zinga immediately.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
No, no, no. I was respectfully distant until I saw Aaron.
And then I was like, I was like, what can
I curse on this show?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, you can curse data, Jada will make me give
a language.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I'm not going to curse. What what the f? How
could how could it? How could it possibly? I just
I was just like, as they say, hell no, you
know what I'm saying. I was like no. I was
like I can accept this, this, this and this, and
then it was this and I was like no.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
But so for me, once you text me, it was
purely how was Dave not the first or one of
the first people that I called?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
And what did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I didn't come up with anything, honestly.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Can I give you? Can I hit you with the
Jewish Guild?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah? Hit me even though.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
After all these years, after all the shows, the hats, the.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Socks, Oh, the hats and the socks.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So Okay, here we are.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I'm so happy to have you. So we go way back.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
You can tell by this this do you call it?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Deep love, playful banner, all of those sort of things.
We go way back, all the way to end recovery
with doctor Harrison. You helped me cut my teeth on podcasting.
So I'm super excited to have you here. Okay, the
Unaddiction podcast. We started it to bring awareness to the book.
Did you get your book?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I got the book?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Know not. Did you buy a book? Did you get
the book that I sent you?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I got the book. I have it. I got it,
it arrived, it's downstairs.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Okay, great. Did you see my message to you on that.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I didn't see it. No, I didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
But I'm meant to put a sticky note so that
you would know that I actually signed your book and
wrote a thoughtful personal message.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Should I run and get it and read it? Yeah,
hold on, give me one second.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh, Jada said, Dave, you absolutely can curse. She said,
do not send to you.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Okay. The best shows that the producer is a character,
a minor character.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
He's holding the book, he's showing it to me.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
First of all, it smells delicious. It smells like that
new book smell amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And I'm also taking note that, in fact, there is
a sticky note.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
There is, But I'll tell you it's like I got
the book.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Because you have not actually opened the book at all.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I cannot tell a lie. I put it. I put
it on the table, and my lovely wife like, I
have lots of weird addiction books obviously all over the place,
Like I have some book like called dry Humping about
like sex, like sober sex. I have like weird addiction
books lying around, and my wife gets nervous that our
(06:14):
kids are gonna look at the addiction books. I didn't
think an addiction, this beautiful book would be bad for
the six mind changing conversations that could change, yeah, said,
she said, don't you think it's inappropriate? I said, no,
it's doctor that's in the single book. But she She's
stuck it under the table, so I never got to
see it. And I'm going to read this deep note.
I was expecting some treaty deep it's Dave. You know
(06:38):
the love runs so deep? Toodles and zan, I love it,
thank you, I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
The love runs deep, and so tootles was obviously for Chris.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
So why don't we jump in?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Dave?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Will you?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Although I feel like you have such a big voice
in the recovery community, a lot of people have probably
heard your voice and know who you are. But the
purpose of this podcast is that we know they're an
infinite number of paths to addiction.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
We know they're an infinite number of paths to recovery.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Everybody's path is different, and so I'm just like talking
to people who have had their journey, so you can
share what your formula is today, what it has been,
what it was when you got started. In case somebody
thinks I might try a piece of that formula, So
will you just tell us who you are and whatever
you want us to know, and then start talking to
(07:29):
us about your journey.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Sure. My name is David, and I am a drug addict,
and I am a podcaster, and I work in a restaurant.
And I was you know, I was on heroin and
methadone and xanax, and I was on weed from probably
ninety three to twenty and fifteen straight.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Which you know, and how old in ninety three? How young?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I was nineteen? So I smoked pot every day from
nineteen to forty one, unless I was in jail or
detox or Yeah. I got into kind of rock and
roll culture around the same time. I was a musician
(08:19):
and I wanted to be like my heroes, and I
also really liked the mix of drugs and music and
that culture. I enjoyed it, and I got into psychedelics,
but it was also scary, So I didn't get crazy
into psychedelics. I just I took them enough. I mean,
I had a few trips that weren't fantastic, but I
(08:41):
never swore it off. And I just I kind of
tripped and smoked weed until I don't know, Like, I
had a girlfriend who wanted to do coke and we
wound up doing some coke, and coke never mixed with
my with my brain chemistry properly at all, And I
did do it, but it didn't make me feel good.
(09:02):
It would make me uncomfortable. But what I noticed was
that they would often take benzos to come off of
the coke, and the benzos really mixed good with my
brain chemistry, and the weed, like, the weed was ideal
for my brain chemistry. I was like the kind of
like I was born to be a stoner. I was
born to It relaxed me. It didn't make me feel paranoid.
(09:24):
It softened everything, It made things taste good. It made
things easy for me because I was such a neurotic Jew,
you know what I mean. I just grew up this ridiculous,
neurotic New York City Jew and so afraid of what
people thought of me, so afraid of like how did
I look in this situation? And I never like did
(09:46):
anything about it. I just worried about it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
I wasn't like, I didn't like do anything to make
myself better I just worried about it until I found weed,
and then I was like, oh, weed solves this problem.
And then I just smoked weed, and I you know,
I would I would try whatever came my way. And
like I loved ecstasy, and I loved acid, and I
loved mushrooms. And then I didn't like coke, but I
(10:10):
loved Benzo's. And then I tried heroin in college and.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I liked how it was at a party with some people,
no big deal.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
No, no, we didn't. I wasn't a partier. Like I
was the kind of drug addict, drug user that loved
to get high in my room. I like to get
high in my room with my friends or like one
friend or two friends. And we were like losers.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
We'd listen to music or play video games or play
music and we would just stay or watch TV, you
know what I mean. Like we weren't like partiers. We
were like losers.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
You had a room, you had a small intimate pack.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Always always, That's just how I how I relate. And
I tried heroin. I was in art school. There was
like my roommate was from Upstate York and one of
his childhood friends was in a band that was pretty successful,
and he had become a heroin adict and he but
he didn't. He wasn't like an ugly heroin aict. He
was like a beautiful young heroin addict who didn't know
(11:12):
that it was a problem yet, you know, the problem
wasn't real. And we were like, should we try it?
And I was like, yeah, let's I mean we do
everything else, let's try it. And I didn't. I liked
how it felt for a second, and then I got
really nauseous, like really sick, vomited immediately, maybe like fifteen
minutes in. Yeah, and I and at the end of it,
(11:34):
I was like, I don't want to do that. Like
I like smoking pot, I like being like hungry and
it being gentle and not worrying about anything. So I
put it aside. And then I like did a million
weird jobs, and I settled into television production and I
excelled at it. And after like a couple of years,
(11:56):
I was I was a host on TV and I
was producing TV shows. I was I was associated producing
and then I pitched a music show that I got
to do and I was the host of the show in.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
The first time. I'm hearing of this show and I
find archives.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Just on YouTube. It was bullshit. It was a bullshit
tiny show that was it was. It was owned by
Lauren Michaels, who ran Saturday Night Live, and it was
it was before YouTube, so it was like ninety eight,
ninety seven, ninety nine. I was in that period, and
they would distribute this network to college campuses around the
(12:34):
country by VHS tape. Wow, so you get it was.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Like an amazing story. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
And I was a production assistant and I was I
mean also, when I was in high school, I was
on MTV, like I was actually on mt I was
an internet MTV, and I wound up on MTV in
high school, and I was like, I could be a
TV star, you know, and that's what I wanted to
be when I was a kid. I wanted to be
a talk show host, you know, That's what I wanted
to be. So when I settled in at this place,
(13:05):
I was a production assistant and they thought I was funny,
so they let me start hosting segments and then I
pitched a show idea. They had a music video show
and they didn't like the way it was being run.
And I was like I could do that, and they
were like okay. And then I looked in the box
of videos and the first video I found was a
krs one. It was a kros one video and I
(13:28):
looked and I was a huge music person, and back
in the day in New York City, if you looked
at the Village Voice, you saw the shows. I mean
you go right to the shows. And I see a
Tramp's KRS one is playing and I was like, and
now I have this TV show where I'm showing this
kras one video and I was like, why don't we
go see if we can interview KRS one. So I
(13:52):
contact his people. I had some book and I found
a way to contact his people and they were like, yeah,
come down. So we went to Tramps and I interviewed
caras One and we shot the show. And they were like,
you don't need to do the music video show. You
could do whatever show you want. So we created this
music video. It was good and it was fun, and
it was like it was like the idea. It was
(14:12):
going to be a music magazine show and I was
going to cover whatever acts I could get a hold of.
And since we were in New York and it was
a time where, like of opportunity, we could do it,
and they gave me a contract. And at the time,
I was like twenty three years old, and it was
it was and I lived in public housing. I didn't
need a lot of money, and they gave me a
bunch of money. And at the same time, I was
(14:33):
living with this kid that I had gone to college
with that I had done a ton of drugs with,
and he was delivering weed on his bike and he
would get coke all the time, and we would do coke.
And I went on a job for that production company,
and when I came home, the kid was in my
living room with like five other kids from my college
(14:57):
buying coke from this delivery guy. Me being like this
savvy New Yorker, I was like, you're making all this
money in my apartment, what are you going to give me?
And he takes out two bags of heroin and he
throws it down on our coffee table and me and
my friend Todd sniffed the heroin and got high and
(15:19):
didn't get nauseous, and I felt amazing. I felt amazing,
And then the next morning I was still high and
I felt even better. And I woke up and it
was like do do do?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Do? Do?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Do?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
It was like what I wanted my life to look like.
Is how I felt when I woke up and I
had this job. I had this contract. I was making
money and it wasn't a lot of money, but it
was like as a twenty three year old who never
had any money, I was like, and this is how
stupid I was. I mean, all of my heroes were
(15:53):
multimillionaires who became Heroin addicts that couldn't handle Heroin. And
I'm fucking twenty three making like ninety grand and I'm like,
I can do it. And I and I remember, I
was like I'm going to do it. I'm not because
I would I would find myself using here and there,
and then I would feel a little shitty and I
would be like I can't use it. I'd spread it out.
(16:15):
And then when I got that contract, I was like,
I'm going to do this, and I just like and
I also liked the romance of being this TV producer,
TV host doing Heroin. I liked the it was pathetic,
but I liked the romance. I became addicted really quickly.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
And really quickly, like put a time frame on that
for us, what's really quickly?
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I mean, we were fucking around with it for half
a year. But then but then I'm like one of
the people, and I know how you like to pronounce
uh literally, how do you say it a literal? Literally?
I think I think you said in a different way
back literally. I literally decided that I was going to
(16:59):
do it every day. I like decided, like I was like,
I'm in I want to feel like this every day,
and I want to really not give a fuck. I
want to be like a t I want to be
like I'm cool, like I'm I'm like cool TV producer
because I'm a very soft person. Like I'm a very
soft person, very sensory person, and like I mean I
(17:20):
am that's a compliment.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I love that about you. I'm very soft and I'm
very genuine and caring and sensitive.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
But I wanted to be harder, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Wanted to be like the in the movies music producer something.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
You know. I had some kind of romantic idea that
I wasn't a good I wasn't good, you know, the
way I was wasn't good right, and heroin like, And
it's funny because a little bit of heroin you don't
go bananas. But once you're doing a lot of heroin,
your personality really changes and you become insufferable, unreliable, pathetic,
(18:00):
you know. And I loved making my show, but within
a year I signed a three year deal. I don't
think I made it. I think I made it halfway
through the second year and I checked into a detox
and I had this decision to make was I going
to tell the company or was I going to tell
my parents? And I decided to tell my parents. I
(18:21):
don't know why. And the company fired me because I
was in breach of contract. But if I had told
the company, they would have had to send me someplace nice.
So that's one of the decisions over my life that
I've been like, why did I do that? And from there,
I don't know, like I just thought I was getting
away with it. I don't know, Like I don't know
(18:42):
what my logic was. I do know I was twenty
four years old. My parents were, you know, sixty year
old Jewish school teachers who were at the theater that night,
and they wound up coming directly from the theater to
the public detox and on fourteenth Street in Beth Israel,
and my mother was wearing like a silk scarf and
(19:02):
smell of perfume and I'm fucking in the hospital. Shit,
and like my parents had no idea, like because they
really didn't at all. They had no idea, and I
remember very well like they were aghast. But I remember
talking to the counselor and she was and she said
exactly the wrong thing to me. She said, you're young,
(19:25):
you can get past this, You'll be okay. And to
me that said go home and use heroin immediately, which
I did. And this is the preamble to a fifteen
year drug addiction, you know. And that was the best
it was. And from there, like it was just one
bottom after another. I went to Florida, I lost my
(19:47):
I mean I grew up in public housing in New
York City. My mother put me on a list to
get a cheap apartment when I was eleven. I got
it when I was twenty two wo and I lost
it when I was twenty six, and it was three
hundred dollars a month. Whoa, I know. So that was
the second big regret. But from there, like I moved
(20:08):
to la I started doing meth all the all the while,
like bopping between method and clinics and just like you know,
losing my life, you know, basically one one detox to
the next, one reab to the next, with stretches of
using whatever I could afford.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And one of the things, one of the things we
talk about in the book, Dave, is you don't know
what rock bottom is until you hit the ultimate rock bottom,
which is dead. And so like you said, just now,
like just hitting rock bottom after rock bottom after rock
bottom a young twenty three year old, like, were you
shocked how bad it could get? And I think this
(20:48):
is the worst, and then it can get worse, worst, worse, worse.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I think I'm always here for you. I think like
I knew. I was at an AA meeting this morning
and I was sharing about this, Like I'm a bougie
Heroin addict, you know what I mean. Like I think
like I wouldn't have survived with it. I wouldn't have
been I would have gotten sober if someone like took
(21:15):
away my cable TV, like I needed cable like and
snacks to really enjoy Heroin, Like I needed cigarettes, I
needed like oatmeal cream pies. I needed fucking cable like
I would have gotten sober. I would have gotten sober
so much earlier. But I had a lot of people
supporting my addiction along the way, and so for me,
(21:36):
it was like I mean, like the first bot, I mean,
like I The thing I'm not talking about was I
suffered seizures, many, many, many grandma seizures before I even
left New York, before I went to Florida, because I
was so addicted to Benzo's and I would stop taking them.
I had seizures where I fell out of my loft
(21:56):
bed onto a glass bong, cut up all over. The
cops had to drag me out of my apartment. I'm
like holding the doors so they won't take me out,
like waking up in a hospital, like just like over
and over, Like I had seizures on a plane. I
had seizures in detox, I had cazures in rehab. I
had seizures at work. So like that was like not good,
(22:17):
you know what I mean, as four bottoms. Then I
lost this apartment that I kind of planned on living
in that neighborhood my whole life. You know, my dad
still lives there. It's a beauty, It's like beautiful over there.
So I lost that. I lost my career, you know,
And I always thought I could get it back. And
I always thought that I was the person who thought
I could get away with shit, like I wanted to
(22:39):
be Ferris Bueller as a kid. And I always thought
and I could charm my way through shit and con
my way through shit and line my way through shit.
But that wasn't really true, you know, Like once I
lost the TV gig, nothing ever happened again for me
until I was sober, Like I didn't, I mean, I
popped up with a TV job. I moved a lot
(22:59):
of sat Angelus, became a matheatic, got a TV job
there I was. I was such a bad junkie in
LA that I had this TV job. There was a
bathroom we all used and I kept there was like
a drawer in the bathroom that I just kept needles in.
And I didn't tell anybody I had like a box
(23:21):
I just in comic books. That's how pathetic, That's what
a child I was. I had a tissue box full
of needles next to a stack of comic books in
a public bathroom where I worked, you know what I mean,
Like I don't, I don't know how I was. That's
how I I mean, and I think I'm similar to
that now sober like I'm a little I don't give
a fuck. I like doing dumb shit. I think it's funny.
(23:44):
But then it wasn't funny, and it was it was sad.
And I was enabled, and I took advantage of every
person I could, and I lied, and I stole and
and I did.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
What was the turning point?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Turn point was I was on one hundred and fifty
milligrams of methadone and and and a ship ton of
clon and pen still addicted to still smoke, worked at
a weed dispensary. They paid me in weed somehow. I
was the security to guard at a weed dispenser in California,
and they paid me in weed.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
First of all, that was definitely during the time that
it was only medical marijuana that was legal, So paying
someone in marijuana was definitely not part of the plant.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
But how about hiring me, how about hiring me as
a security? Yeah, like what kind of business planet this
soft junkie? You know, like it's not I'm not the
ideal security for us, for them.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Or you were, But go ahead. That's why I don't
I have a hole. I won't take us down, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I don't. I don't think I could be a really
effective security guard, you know, eight and a half years
sober either, Like I don't think that's not my thing.
But anyway, I'm one hundred fifty milligrams of methadone, you know,
like eating like ten, like twenty milligrams of colonup in
a day, like just eating it, living, like doing as
(25:11):
much heroin as I could afford, which was very little
at the time, smoking as much weed as we would get.
And and my mom called me up and she had
gotten diagnosed with leukemia, and she told me she thought
she was going to die. And I was very much like,
I can't stay here like this. So I went to
(25:35):
the methadone clinic and I said, I need to detox,
and they offered me a blind detox where they they
they wean me off methadone for a year without telling
me my doses. And I wasn't clean, you know, I
was using the whole time. And when I said, tell
me when I get to thirty, they told me when
I got to thirty. And I went to detox and
(26:00):
and I got kicked out of detox. They were using
heroin and Detox and like I was on now Trek
Zone and some like it was crazy, like I'm on
I'm on now trek Zone in Detox, you know, public Detox.
Like the guy who slept next to me had been
an Alaskan crab fisherman and he was also a drug
dealer in downtown LA that I used to buy Klonopin from.
(26:23):
And he had a tattoo on his hand that said
pay here, and he had gotten in his crab fisherman days,
and like he would give me saraquill and I would
give him cigarettes. And we were both on now Trek
Zone and some Armenian kid comes in and like somebody
smuggles him some tar heroin. Everyone in the place uses it,
(26:46):
even like somebody busts a syringe out of like the
post and the bed in the Detox. I wasn't going
to start sharing syringes at that point, but I put
it up my nose even though I was blocked. I
get kicked out, totally sick, and I move an The
next day, Me and my girlfriend moved to Vermont from
California because my parents had a house up state and
(27:06):
I knew I could see my mom and when I
got there. My mom was like, I'm gonna die soon.
And I was off of methadone. I was still smoking weed.
I got a job, got a job in a Delhi.
I left left, my girlfriend left Vermont, got a job
in a deli, kept smoking weed. My mom died, met
(27:27):
this other woman started dating her, knocked her up, She
gets pregnant. I'm not I'm just smoking weed. And I
relapsing and my mom dies right right in there, and
and then I start relapsing on heroin again, and uh
and using like and using more maybe than I ever had,
(27:48):
because I had more money than I ever had waiting tables.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And you have more grief than you ever had with
your mom just died.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And this baby like pressure, pressure, pressure, and I was
just literally off the wall, like total insanity.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And this is what year by now.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Two thousand and seven, you know, And I'm working in
this deli and I'm using three hundred dollars a day,
and I'm taking benzos and I'm smoking weed and I'm
shooting dope and I'm and I have this kid, you know,
And my wife finds out we never got married and
she leaves me, you know, And then my addiction gets
(28:29):
much worse, and I'm alone and just sad and like pathetic,
but still like I wanted to get away with it,
like I didn't want to get sober. I mean, so
where are the bottoms everywhere? My mother's dead, my baby's gone,
I'm a child. I'm living in a subletted apartment in Manhattan,
(28:50):
working as a waiter. It was crazy. And then I
think I got hi. I literally or literally walked into
a wall broke my nose, and I called my daughter's
mother and I was like, I need help, and she
helped me find a spot to go to and I
went to this spot in Canaan, Connecticut called Mountainside, and
(29:14):
that's where I met Chris and I got sober. I
got sober for a year, and then I started smoking
wheed again and taking pills again and trying to work
it out with my daughter's mother and trying to get
my family back together, and I never could. And then
(29:34):
she's like, you know what, let's go on vacation together.
And I was like, okay, and me, Linda and our
daughter Nora go on a trip to an amusement park
in Pennsylvania and Linda takes a little bit of annex
to help her sleep, and I knew that, and I
steal all of it and she goes crazy and she
goes now, she's like, we're not getting back together, You're
(29:56):
losing custody. And I'm just like dem at that. And
I found myself in my kitchen, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed,
writing this letter to my daughter's mother, saying I can
be a good father, I can be a good partner.
Just let me smoke weed, you know. And I see
(30:18):
my hands writing this email and I'm just like, I'm like,
this is ridiculous. I was forty one. I was living
in the sublet of apartment working as a waiter, and
I was like, I have to consider something else. And
the next morning I found a meeting. I went to
the meeting and there was a kid there and he
(30:39):
was celebrating ten years and he was like a good
looking kid, like tattoos, and he looked like he had
his shit together. And I'm such a jerk off. At
the end of the meeting, I wanted to go up
to him to tell him how annoying I thought it
was that he was young and got ten years. I
thought that was funny, you know, And I went up
to him and I I Before I could even get
anything out of my mouth, he said how much time
(31:02):
do you have? And I said I don't have any time,
and he goes, well, did you use today? And I
said no, and he goes, oh, so maybe today is
going to be your first day. And I was like,
that's that's an interesting idea. And I was like, I'm
going to make today my first day. And I called
my best friend and I had a weed in my
(31:24):
I had like a stoner's paradise in my apartment. And
I gave all my weed to my best friend, and
I gave all the edibles to the guys I worked
with at the deli. And the next morning I found
another meeting that was seven thirty in the morning, and
I went there and the guy and I told this
story of how obsessed I was with getting my family back.
(31:45):
And I had heard that the obsession could be lifted,
and it was always the obsession to drink could be lifted,
the obsession to use could be but I heard obsession,
and I was obsessed with fucking up the situation with
my beautiful daughter and my beautiful daughter's mother. And I
was just like, I'm down. And I told the story,
(32:05):
and a guy in the meeting said, we'd love it
if you came back tomorrow, and I said okay, And
it turned out it was a seven day a week
meeting seven thirty in the morning. And then the next
thing I heard was, rarely have we seen someone thoroughly
follow this path and not achieve these results. And I
had never thoroughly followed any path besides using. And I
(32:27):
was fucking desperate as fuck, you know, So I did
it like I did it full on. I did ninety
meetings and ninety days. I spoke at ninety meetings like
I was just in and it all worked. And at
the same time, I was talking to my friend Chris
because he had just gotten sober, he had pulled it off.
(32:47):
He was a horrible drug addict and he had gotten
a year and a half through AA and I started
talking to him very often. And when I was working
at this deli, I had made this web series called
The Last Jewish Waiter, which was the It was a
video about a waiter who hates waiting tables and he
wants to have a talk show, so he does a
(33:08):
talk show while he waits tables. And it got like
a bunch of preths and people liked it, and Chris
was like, I want to do something like that, and
I was like, well, we could do a podcast, and
he goes, what's a podcast and I was like, I'm
not sure. I think it's like a radio show. And
he came down to my apartment and I was like,
(33:29):
it's just going to be war stories. And I was like,
it's just going to be war stories and we're going
to call it war Stories and oh.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
And so it was first called war Stories.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah, well it was supposed to be, but then we
looked up war stories and there was a podcast like
about actual war stories, and then, like, I mean, we
were trying to figure out what to call it. And
you know, I lived on the Lower East Side and
every day I would walk on Clinton Street in Manhattan,
and there one day I walked past some kid and
(34:02):
he's wearing a black hat with these gold like actual gold,
you know, like metal letters on his hat that said dope.
And I was like, and I thought of my my grandfather,
and I imagine my grandfather looking at this kid and
he'd be like, who's this fucking dope? And then I
just thought about like dope, Like you know, when I
(34:22):
grew up in the nineties and the word dope meant
cool and I like that. I like that, And then
and but then I also like hippies calling we dope.
And then I like my grandpa calling idiots dopes, you know,
And I was like, why don't we call it? And
then Chris goes, we should call it, uh two dopes
talking about dope, and I said, no, let's just call
it dopey. And that's that's when it all started. Yeah,
(34:45):
and that's a long winded story.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
No, it was a beautiful story. I love it. First
of all, you crack me up calling me doctor Harrison.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I like it. It feels good. I'm enjoying.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yeah, I'm enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
David David Manheim, I won't get too psychiatric. But I
don't think it's a coincidence that the first time you
were in Detox you called your parents.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Your mom and I get down.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It's a coincidence that when your mom called you, that
was the first kind of like earnest, I'm gonna come
back and try this, even though it didn't work quote
that time. And then that it was family again that
brought you to the meetings that ultimately started your sobriety journey.
(35:28):
So like we're always asking people to look for what
is that thing that's bigger than you, that's like more
important to you than yourself, and over and over and
over in your story, it sounds like you believed it
was your career, but it sounds like it actually is
your family, right.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I mean in the end, it was it wasn't my
daughter as much as like I couldn't handle not being
able to be there yeah for her. Yeah, Like like
I like, in the end, like.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
You want it more from yourself, I.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Wanted more for myself my dad. My dad would have
to drive me to my visitation and like everyone would
talk to him about my custody and it was so demoralizing,
but it was also like very fitting because I hadn't
been a responsible adult at a moment of my life. Yeah,
(36:21):
and I and it was in the end, it was
like I just I want to show up for this kid,
you know, And that's that was I mean, I wanted
to show up for my mom. Like me and my
mom like had a not a good relationship because I
was a drug addict for so long and before that
I was just such a defiant person like she and
(36:43):
she was such a controlling Jewish mother like I just
like we had problems. So when I found out she
was dying, I was like something inside me said I
got to go home, which was deep. And then when
I recognized that I couldn't take care of my child
and my parents took care of me, that was so yeah,
I agree with you. Family is the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And so then it was a kernel of hope from
this good looking, tattooed young kid with ten years that said,
maybe today it'll be your first day. And then it
was warm arms of compassion at the next meeting where
they said we hope you'll come back. Yeah, And that
started your ninety days ninety meetings and ninety days was
the beginning of your formula.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
So what's your formula today?
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Well, I mean we started making Dope when I had
six months sober, yeah, and now I have eight years
and six months, you know, basically, and I'm still making
the show. So I think dope is a is a
you know, I always say that dope isn't a part
of my recovery because I also say dope doesn't help people,
Like I say a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily true.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
As you know, I mean, that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Right, My recipe is, I mean number one is twelve
seve you know, like and I never wanted that. I
would much rather be like some some like you know, Buddhist,
you know, some like Buddhist intellectual. But I needed, I needed,
I mean, I needed twelve Step and it it totally
(38:15):
saved my life and and really participating in it saved
my life and doing every bit of it like drinking
the kool aid, because the greatest thing about twelve step
is at its core is that love intolerance is the code.
And if love intolerance is the code, what can go wrong? Really,
(38:37):
you know, and if and the promises if it says
we have ceased fighting, love intolerance is the code. The
goal is to be happy, joyous and free. Uh and
the only way you can get there is by being honest,
open minded and willing. I found that all of those
things were what I wanted in my life. So it
set up exactly. I never but I didn't want to
(38:58):
be a member of fucking alcoholics anonymous, Like I didn't
want it. But I didn't want to be a member
of alcoholics anonymous. I wasn't even I didn't even drink,
but when I heard like what are you willing to do?
I was willing to say I'm an alcoholic, Like who cares?
You know what I mean? Like, and Chris was always like,
you're an alcoholic anyway, even if you didn't drink, and
(39:20):
like that's a whole other debate. But I every morning
I say I'm an alcoholic, you know, and I don't
care because it's saved my life. It's like, these are
the moments, like I'm very interested in what you're talking about.
A thousand ways in thousan infinite ways in infinite ways out.
We've talked about that for years and I needed this way,
(39:40):
you know. And I was talking to a friend just now.
It's like so many people can't get sober because God
discuss them scares them, you know, it doesn't resonate with them,
and they're not willing to say I'm an alcoholic and
like so it's like I want to offer, you know,
like you do. I want to offer other paths, but
(40:02):
it's like is I think for me the magic was
the willingness, you know. For me, it was like what
are you willing to do? I'm willing to do that
and then I'm doing it, like I'm willing to make
a decision to do that, then I'm doing it and
then like it's like like it's like that's the secret sauce,
that's the magic. Like if you ever processed it.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Go, Dave, tell me the code again?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Which code?
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Oh? Love intolerance, love intolerance.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I think no matter, yeah, I think, no matter what.
Path kind of just innately neurologically, as pack animals and
human beings, love and tolerance has to be the code
of the path, right, and.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
So isn't amazing. It's like people don't fucking talk about
that at all. It's like they talk about twelve step,
but you don't hear everybody being like, love and tolerance is.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Right, right, literal applies to every thing in life that
ails us. I am o in my opinion, I am
in case you didn't know what I am, I am
O A w.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Wait, but in my opinion as well, ah boom, Yeah,
the neurons were slow to fire, but they came. They
came to the party.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Listen. I mean I I it's I love love intolerance,
Like I think it's just the best. You know, It's
like because because like I'm personally like bursting with love
all the time, and I and like and when I'm not, like,
there's a problem, Like you know what I mean, So
you have to figure out how to tap into it.
And and and even if you don't love somebody, how
(41:42):
do you find love in the situation? And then if
you can't, it's like and that's where surrender comes in,
you know what I mean. That's where surrender, that's where
higher power, like I didn't, I mean my dad when
I told my dad I was doing AA and talked
about higher power and stuff. My dad was he called
himself an Orthodox atheist. You know, he grew up in
an Orthodox Jewish home. He was big in synagogue, and
(42:07):
then he got really into science and evolution, and when
he found out the two didn't really coexist, he chose
science and now he like hates religion and things like
my dad. I mean, my dad is a very loving person,
but I can imagine, like he would never wear a
shirt that said God is for suckers. But I think
in his head he might think God is for suckers.
(42:29):
And I think for a multitude of reasons, he didn't
need it. Number one and number two, he hates the
idea of religion keeping people apart. So it's like I
get that. For me, God is I mean, there's a
passage in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that says
God is everything or God is nothing. And I always
took it as a very snarky thing, like either you
(42:52):
put God in front of everything or you don't have
God at all. But then I came to this other
interpretation of it, which is just that God is everything,
and I can relate to that. God is everywhere. God
is the universe, and it's not Jesus and it's not Allah,
and it's not Buddha, and it's not Yahweh or whatever
we want to call it. It's everything and I and
(43:13):
I can from my psychedelic days, or from my love
of music, or from my like the fact that we
can relate or have love. We only met once in person,
but we weread deep love, right, we had.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Deep love before we even met, because we only just
recently met a couple of months ago, but we go
back years exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But but the fact that we can experience love, I
and I sound like a weirdo, but like that's God.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
To me, you know, like spot on. But maybe we're
just maybe we're just in the same WORDO club.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Definitely it's not. And you know, I feel I feel
I feel excited that you're in my club, but I
feel sad for you that you have to have me
in yours.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Okay, listen, this time flew too fast. But we're at
the top or the bottom, whatever you want to call it.
So this is the last question I asked everybody. Dave,
we made up this word n addiction?
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Unlearn what you think you know about addiction, Undo the
stigma that's killing people. Uncover the conversations we need to
be having. So if you wanted to leave us with
with one thing that we need to unlearn, or one
stigma we need to undo, or one conversation we need
to uncover, what would it be.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
That's a hard question.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah. Sometimes I give a heads up at the beginning
of the.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
But I find you do hat I must being harassed
at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Then I had to get my dopey hat. And then
you know, there were a lot of.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
So what are my choices? What do I want to uncovering?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
You want people to unlearn?
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, what's one stigma you want people to undo or
want one conversation you want people to unco you only
have to come up with one, not one eat.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
It's all love, you know what I mean? Like, I
want people to uncover love in every situation. I want
them to undo bullshit, hate and like just like being
nasty and like just like there's no life is short,
you know what I mean. Find something you like and
stick with it, you know, and try. I mean, that's
(45:24):
the answer for recovery. That's it. I mean, like, beyond
everything else, you find something you like and don't stop
doing it and then don't use but I would just
you know, I'm sticking with uh with love, you know,
where can you find it? Uncover the love, Discover the love,
unlearn the hate. What was the other one?
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Undo?
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Undo the bullshit, just stick with the.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
That is the dopey version of unaddiction.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Wait, unlearn the hate, undo the bullshit, uncover the love.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Do you have a Mac will let you do this?
Speaker 4 (46:01):
I don't know. I have a Mac, but I don't
know if my hands can do that. It's not giving
me love. Fucking bullshit. I think this computer is anti Semitic.
It's not giving me fucking love. What the fuck.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
What do you do? Dave?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
Thank you, thank you, Doctor Harrison.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I'm coming to New York again soon. We'll get together.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Yeah, I'll read the book and you can come back
on the Old Dope Show. Yeah, boom Killer.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Thank you so much for tuning in, And if you
like this episode, please check out my book on addiction
Six Mind Changing Conversations that Could Save a Life, available
at Barnes Andnoble Bookshop, dot Org, Union Squaring Company, Amazon.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
If you like to this episode, please share it with
someone you think may need to hear it. Also, please
subscribe to this podcast and leave a five star review
that helps us reach any and everyone who may be
looking for support in the face of addiction.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
E
Welcome to Unaddictioned the Podcast. My name is doctor Zinga Harrison.
I'm a Board certified psychiatrist with a specialty in addiction
medicine and co founder and chief medical officer of Eleanor Health.
On this podcast, we explore the paths that can lead
to addiction and the infinite paths that can lead to recovery.
(00:24):
Our guests are sharing their own experiences, the tools that
have helped them along the way, and the formulas that
allow them to thrive in recovery one day at a time.
I am so excited to tell you about my book, Unaddictioned,
six mind Changing Conversations that Could Save a Life, is
now available from Union Square and Company or wherever books
(00:46):
are sold.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Hey, this is Jada. I am the producer of on
Addiction Pod, and today we have Dave Mannheim of the
Dope Podcast. Shout outs to Dope Nation. He is a
good friend of the pod. He and and Zinga go
way way back, and I love this conversation so much
because you can totally feel the love and as Dave
(01:11):
will let you know in just a few minutes, he
is just a big old softy, So I really hope
you enjoyed the conversation as much as I did. That
being said, just giving you a little bit of a
warning that there's some F bombs and S bombs being
dropped in today's episode, So continue with care.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Oh wait, I have to go get my dopey hot
hat for the clips. Hold on, hold on, nice, Yes,
I have to rep.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Yes, well, it is like impossible to keep my kids
from stealing.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
Nice dope hat. How are you?
Speaker 3 (01:50):
I'm good. I can't complain.
Speaker 4 (01:52):
I'm sure you could.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I could, but you know.
Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yeah, all right, So first of all, I'm gonna complain
about myself because why was Dave Man. I'm not the
first person I thought about to come on the show
when I was like, I'm gonna do a podcast, I
don't know.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
That's a deep that's a deep question. I didn't. I
didn't want. I didn't. I didn't want to ask you that.
I was thinking, should I should I start with that?
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Just start with that. What's the empathic confrontation?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
Well, it was more like, so, doctor Harrison, what was
it about me that made me not seem Is that not?
That's too confrontational.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
You can ask that question.
Speaker 1 (02:29):
I'm just saying it was not anything about you.
Speaker 4 (02:32):
No, I listen. I see the Unaddiction podcast popping up
all over the place. I see a bunch of people
on it. And then when I saw Aaron Carr before me,
I was like wait. I was like, wait a second,
this is I mean, I can accept the other people,
but well, it's nothing against Aaron. Aaron and I are
(02:53):
very close. But then but then I was like, I
don't know, I felt a kind of way that you
went Aaron for me. I know I'm a very petty person.
I can accept that, but.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
It was that when you texted me when you heard
Aaron's So first of all, let me turn this back
around on you. Before you heard Aaron Carr on the
pat on the pod, you had no desire to come on.
But then you heard Aaron and you were like, oh,
let me text in Zinga immediately.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
No, no, no. I was respectfully distant until I saw Aaron.
And then I was like, I was like, what can
I curse on this show?
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Yeah, you can curse data, Jada will make me give
a language.
Speaker 4 (03:35):
I'm not going to curse. What what the f? How
could how could it? How could it possibly? I just
I was just like, as they say, hell no, you
know what I'm saying. I was like no. I was
like I can accept this, this, this and this, and
then it was this and I was like no.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
But so for me, once you text me, it was
purely how was Dave not the first or one of
the first people that I called?
Speaker 4 (04:02):
And what did you come up with?
Speaker 3 (04:04):
I didn't come up with anything, honestly.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Can I give you? Can I hit you with the
Jewish Guild?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah? Hit me even though.
Speaker 4 (04:11):
After all these years, after all the shows, the hats, the.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
Socks, Oh, the hats and the socks.
Speaker 4 (04:18):
I know, I know.
Speaker 3 (04:20):
So Okay, here we are.
Speaker 4 (04:22):
I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (04:23):
I'm so happy to have you. So we go way back.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
You can tell by this this do you call it?
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Deep love, playful banner, all of those sort of things.
We go way back, all the way to end recovery
with doctor Harrison. You helped me cut my teeth on podcasting.
So I'm super excited to have you here. Okay, the
Unaddiction podcast. We started it to bring awareness to the book.
Did you get your book?
Speaker 4 (04:50):
I got the book?
Speaker 3 (04:51):
Know not. Did you buy a book? Did you get
the book that I sent you?
Speaker 4 (04:55):
I got the book. I have it. I got it,
it arrived, it's downstairs.
Speaker 3 (04:59):
Okay, great. Did you see my message to you on that.
Speaker 4 (05:02):
I didn't see it. No, I didn't see it.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
But I'm meant to put a sticky note so that
you would know that I actually signed your book and
wrote a thoughtful personal message.
Speaker 4 (05:11):
Should I run and get it and read it? Yeah,
hold on, give me one second.
Speaker 3 (05:15):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Oh, Jada said, Dave, you absolutely can curse. She said,
do not send to you.
Speaker 4 (05:21):
Okay. The best shows that the producer is a character,
a minor character.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
He's holding the book, he's showing it to me.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
First of all, it smells delicious. It smells like that
new book smell amazing.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
And I'm also taking note that, in fact, there is
a sticky note.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
There is, But I'll tell you it's like I got
the book.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Because you have not actually opened the book at all.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
I cannot tell a lie. I put it. I put
it on the table, and my lovely wife like, I
have lots of weird addiction books obviously all over the place,
Like I have some book like called dry Humping about
like sex, like sober sex. I have like weird addiction
books lying around, and my wife gets nervous that our
(06:14):
kids are gonna look at the addiction books. I didn't
think an addiction, this beautiful book would be bad for
the six mind changing conversations that could change, yeah, said,
she said, don't you think it's inappropriate? I said, no,
it's doctor that's in the single book. But she She's
stuck it under the table, so I never got to
see it. And I'm going to read this deep note.
I was expecting some treaty deep it's Dave. You know
(06:38):
the love runs so deep? Toodles and zan, I love it,
thank you, I love it.
Speaker 1 (06:44):
The love runs deep, and so tootles was obviously for Chris.
Speaker 3 (06:48):
So why don't we jump in?
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Dave?
Speaker 3 (06:50):
Will you?
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Although I feel like you have such a big voice
in the recovery community, a lot of people have probably
heard your voice and know who you are. But the
purpose of this podcast is that we know they're an
infinite number of paths to addiction.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
We know they're an infinite number of paths to recovery.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Everybody's path is different, and so I'm just like talking
to people who have had their journey, so you can
share what your formula is today, what it has been,
what it was when you got started. In case somebody
thinks I might try a piece of that formula, So
will you just tell us who you are and whatever
you want us to know, and then start talking to
(07:29):
us about your journey.
Speaker 4 (07:31):
Sure. My name is David, and I am a drug addict,
and I am a podcaster, and I work in a restaurant.
And I was you know, I was on heroin and
methadone and xanax, and I was on weed from probably
ninety three to twenty and fifteen straight.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
Which you know, and how old in ninety three? How young?
Speaker 4 (07:58):
I was nineteen? So I smoked pot every day from
nineteen to forty one, unless I was in jail or
detox or Yeah. I got into kind of rock and
roll culture around the same time. I was a musician
(08:19):
and I wanted to be like my heroes, and I
also really liked the mix of drugs and music and
that culture. I enjoyed it, and I got into psychedelics,
but it was also scary, So I didn't get crazy
into psychedelics. I just I took them enough. I mean,
I had a few trips that weren't fantastic, but I
(08:41):
never swore it off. And I just I kind of
tripped and smoked weed until I don't know, Like, I
had a girlfriend who wanted to do coke and we
wound up doing some coke, and coke never mixed with
my with my brain chemistry properly at all, And I
did do it, but it didn't make me feel good.
(09:02):
It would make me uncomfortable. But what I noticed was
that they would often take benzos to come off of
the coke, and the benzos really mixed good with my
brain chemistry, and the weed, like, the weed was ideal
for my brain chemistry. I was like the kind of
like I was born to be a stoner. I was
born to It relaxed me. It didn't make me feel paranoid.
(09:24):
It softened everything, It made things taste good. It made
things easy for me because I was such a neurotic Jew,
you know what I mean. I just grew up this ridiculous,
neurotic New York City Jew and so afraid of what
people thought of me, so afraid of like how did
I look in this situation? And I never like did
(09:46):
anything about it. I just worried about it.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:49):
I wasn't like, I didn't like do anything to make
myself better I just worried about it until I found weed,
and then I was like, oh, weed solves this problem.
And then I just smoked weed, and I you know,
I would I would try whatever came my way. And
like I loved ecstasy, and I loved acid, and I
loved mushrooms. And then I didn't like coke, but I
(10:10):
loved Benzo's. And then I tried heroin in college and.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
I liked how it was at a party with some people,
no big deal.
Speaker 4 (10:20):
No, no, we didn't. I wasn't a partier. Like I
was the kind of drug addict, drug user that loved
to get high in my room. I like to get
high in my room with my friends or like one
friend or two friends. And we were like losers.
Speaker 3 (10:36):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:36):
We'd listen to music or play video games or play
music and we would just stay or watch TV, you
know what I mean. Like we weren't like partiers. We
were like losers.
Speaker 3 (10:45):
You had a room, you had a small intimate pack.
Speaker 4 (10:49):
Always always, That's just how I how I relate. And
I tried heroin. I was in art school. There was
like my roommate was from Upstate York and one of
his childhood friends was in a band that was pretty successful,
and he had become a heroin adict and he but
he didn't. He wasn't like an ugly heroin aict. He
was like a beautiful young heroin addict who didn't know
(11:12):
that it was a problem yet, you know, the problem
wasn't real. And we were like, should we try it?
And I was like, yeah, let's I mean we do
everything else, let's try it. And I didn't. I liked
how it felt for a second, and then I got
really nauseous, like really sick, vomited immediately, maybe like fifteen
minutes in. Yeah, and I and at the end of it,
(11:34):
I was like, I don't want to do that. Like
I like smoking pot, I like being like hungry and
it being gentle and not worrying about anything. So I
put it aside. And then I like did a million
weird jobs, and I settled into television production and I
excelled at it. And after like a couple of years,
(11:56):
I was I was a host on TV and I
was producing TV shows. I was I was associated producing
and then I pitched a music show that I got
to do and I was the host of the show in.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
The first time. I'm hearing of this show and I
find archives.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Just on YouTube. It was bullshit. It was a bullshit
tiny show that was it was. It was owned by
Lauren Michaels, who ran Saturday Night Live, and it was
it was before YouTube, so it was like ninety eight,
ninety seven, ninety nine. I was in that period, and
they would distribute this network to college campuses around the
(12:34):
country by VHS tape. Wow, so you get it was.
Speaker 3 (12:40):
Like an amazing story. Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 4 (12:42):
And I was a production assistant and I was I
mean also, when I was in high school, I was
on MTV, like I was actually on mt I was
an internet MTV, and I wound up on MTV in
high school, and I was like, I could be a
TV star, you know, and that's what I wanted to
be when I was a kid. I wanted to be
a talk show host, you know, That's what I wanted
to be. So when I settled in at this place,
(13:05):
I was a production assistant and they thought I was funny,
so they let me start hosting segments and then I
pitched a show idea. They had a music video show
and they didn't like the way it was being run.
And I was like I could do that, and they
were like okay. And then I looked in the box
of videos and the first video I found was a
krs one. It was a kros one video and I
(13:28):
looked and I was a huge music person, and back
in the day in New York City, if you looked
at the Village Voice, you saw the shows. I mean
you go right to the shows. And I see a
Tramp's KRS one is playing and I was like, and
now I have this TV show where I'm showing this
kras one video and I was like, why don't we
go see if we can interview KRS one. So I
(13:52):
contact his people. I had some book and I found
a way to contact his people and they were like, yeah,
come down. So we went to Tramps and I interviewed
caras One and we shot the show. And they were like,
you don't need to do the music video show. You
could do whatever show you want. So we created this
music video. It was good and it was fun, and
it was like it was like the idea. It was
(14:12):
going to be a music magazine show and I was
going to cover whatever acts I could get a hold of.
And since we were in New York and it was
a time where, like of opportunity, we could do it,
and they gave me a contract. And at the time,
I was like twenty three years old, and it was
it was and I lived in public housing. I didn't
need a lot of money, and they gave me a
bunch of money. And at the same time, I was
(14:33):
living with this kid that I had gone to college
with that I had done a ton of drugs with,
and he was delivering weed on his bike and he
would get coke all the time, and we would do coke.
And I went on a job for that production company,
and when I came home, the kid was in my
living room with like five other kids from my college
(14:57):
buying coke from this delivery guy. Me being like this
savvy New Yorker, I was like, you're making all this
money in my apartment, what are you going to give me?
And he takes out two bags of heroin and he
throws it down on our coffee table and me and
my friend Todd sniffed the heroin and got high and
(15:19):
didn't get nauseous, and I felt amazing. I felt amazing,
And then the next morning I was still high and
I felt even better. And I woke up and it
was like do do do?
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Do? Do?
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Do?
Speaker 4 (15:33):
It was like what I wanted my life to look like.
Is how I felt when I woke up and I
had this job. I had this contract. I was making
money and it wasn't a lot of money, but it
was like as a twenty three year old who never
had any money, I was like, and this is how
stupid I was. I mean, all of my heroes were
(15:53):
multimillionaires who became Heroin addicts that couldn't handle Heroin. And
I'm fucking twenty three making like ninety grand and I'm like,
I can do it. And I and I remember, I
was like I'm going to do it. I'm not because
I would I would find myself using here and there,
and then I would feel a little shitty and I
would be like I can't use it. I'd spread it out.
(16:15):
And then when I got that contract, I was like,
I'm going to do this, and I just like and
I also liked the romance of being this TV producer,
TV host doing Heroin. I liked the it was pathetic,
but I liked the romance. I became addicted really quickly.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
And really quickly, like put a time frame on that
for us, what's really quickly?
Speaker 4 (16:37):
I mean, we were fucking around with it for half
a year. But then but then I'm like one of
the people, and I know how you like to pronounce
uh literally, how do you say it a literal? Literally?
I think I think you said in a different way
back literally. I literally decided that I was going to
(16:59):
do it every day. I like decided, like I was like,
I'm in I want to feel like this every day,
and I want to really not give a fuck. I
want to be like a t I want to be
like I'm cool, like I'm I'm like cool TV producer
because I'm a very soft person. Like I'm a very
soft person, very sensory person, and like I mean I
(17:20):
am that's a compliment.
Speaker 3 (17:22):
I love that about you. I'm very soft and I'm
very genuine and caring and sensitive.
Speaker 4 (17:28):
But I wanted to be harder, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
Wanted to be like the in the movies music producer something.
Speaker 4 (17:35):
You know. I had some kind of romantic idea that
I wasn't a good I wasn't good, you know, the
way I was wasn't good right, and heroin like, And
it's funny because a little bit of heroin you don't
go bananas. But once you're doing a lot of heroin,
your personality really changes and you become insufferable, unreliable, pathetic,
(18:00):
you know. And I loved making my show, but within
a year I signed a three year deal. I don't
think I made it. I think I made it halfway
through the second year and I checked into a detox
and I had this decision to make was I going
to tell the company or was I going to tell
my parents? And I decided to tell my parents. I
(18:21):
don't know why. And the company fired me because I
was in breach of contract. But if I had told
the company, they would have had to send me someplace nice.
So that's one of the decisions over my life that
I've been like, why did I do that? And from there,
I don't know, like I just thought I was getting
away with it. I don't know, Like I don't know
(18:42):
what my logic was. I do know I was twenty
four years old. My parents were, you know, sixty year
old Jewish school teachers who were at the theater that night,
and they wound up coming directly from the theater to
the public detox and on fourteenth Street in Beth Israel,
and my mother was wearing like a silk scarf and
(19:02):
smell of perfume and I'm fucking in the hospital. Shit,
and like my parents had no idea, like because they
really didn't at all. They had no idea, and I
remember very well like they were aghast. But I remember
talking to the counselor and she was and she said
exactly the wrong thing to me. She said, you're young,
(19:25):
you can get past this, You'll be okay. And to
me that said go home and use heroin immediately, which
I did. And this is the preamble to a fifteen
year drug addiction, you know. And that was the best
it was. And from there, like it was just one
bottom after another. I went to Florida, I lost my
(19:47):
I mean I grew up in public housing in New
York City. My mother put me on a list to
get a cheap apartment when I was eleven. I got
it when I was twenty two wo and I lost
it when I was twenty six, and it was three
hundred dollars a month. Whoa, I know. So that was
the second big regret. But from there, like I moved
(20:08):
to la I started doing meth all the all the while,
like bopping between method and clinics and just like you know,
losing my life, you know, basically one one detox to
the next, one reab to the next, with stretches of
using whatever I could afford.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
And one of the things, one of the things we
talk about in the book, Dave, is you don't know
what rock bottom is until you hit the ultimate rock bottom,
which is dead. And so like you said, just now,
like just hitting rock bottom after rock bottom after rock
bottom a young twenty three year old, like, were you
shocked how bad it could get? And I think this
(20:48):
is the worst, and then it can get worse, worst, worse, worse.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I think I'm always here for you. I think like
I knew. I was at an AA meeting this morning
and I was sharing about this, Like I'm a bougie
Heroin addict, you know what I mean. Like I think
like I wouldn't have survived with it. I wouldn't have
been I would have gotten sober if someone like took
(21:15):
away my cable TV, like I needed cable like and
snacks to really enjoy Heroin, Like I needed cigarettes, I
needed like oatmeal cream pies. I needed fucking cable like
I would have gotten sober. I would have gotten sober
so much earlier. But I had a lot of people
supporting my addiction along the way, and so for me,
(21:36):
it was like I mean, like the first bot, I mean,
like I The thing I'm not talking about was I
suffered seizures, many, many, many grandma seizures before I even
left New York, before I went to Florida, because I
was so addicted to Benzo's and I would stop taking them.
I had seizures where I fell out of my loft
(21:56):
bed onto a glass bong, cut up all over. The
cops had to drag me out of my apartment. I'm
like holding the doors so they won't take me out,
like waking up in a hospital, like just like over
and over, Like I had seizures on a plane. I
had seizures in detox, I had cazures in rehab. I
had seizures at work. So like that was like not good,
(22:17):
you know what I mean, as four bottoms. Then I
lost this apartment that I kind of planned on living
in that neighborhood my whole life. You know, my dad
still lives there. It's a beauty, It's like beautiful over there.
So I lost that. I lost my career, you know,
And I always thought I could get it back. And
I always thought that I was the person who thought
I could get away with shit, like I wanted to
(22:39):
be Ferris Bueller as a kid. And I always thought
and I could charm my way through shit and con
my way through shit and line my way through shit.
But that wasn't really true, you know, Like once I
lost the TV gig, nothing ever happened again for me
until I was sober, Like I didn't, I mean, I
popped up with a TV job. I moved a lot
(22:59):
of sat Angelus, became a matheatic, got a TV job
there I was. I was such a bad junkie in
LA that I had this TV job. There was a
bathroom we all used and I kept there was like
a drawer in the bathroom that I just kept needles in.
And I didn't tell anybody I had like a box
(23:21):
I just in comic books. That's how pathetic, That's what
a child I was. I had a tissue box full
of needles next to a stack of comic books in
a public bathroom where I worked, you know what I mean,
Like I don't, I don't know how I was. That's
how I I mean, and I think I'm similar to
that now sober like I'm a little I don't give
a fuck. I like doing dumb shit. I think it's funny.
(23:44):
But then it wasn't funny, and it was it was sad.
And I was enabled, and I took advantage of every
person I could, and I lied, and I stole and
and I did.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
What was the turning point?
Speaker 4 (23:59):
Turn point was I was on one hundred and fifty
milligrams of methadone and and and a ship ton of
clon and pen still addicted to still smoke, worked at
a weed dispensary. They paid me in weed somehow. I
was the security to guard at a weed dispenser in California,
and they paid me in weed.
Speaker 1 (24:18):
First of all, that was definitely during the time that
it was only medical marijuana that was legal, So paying
someone in marijuana was definitely not part of the plant.
Speaker 4 (24:29):
But how about hiring me, how about hiring me as
a security? Yeah, like what kind of business planet this
soft junkie? You know, like it's not I'm not the
ideal security for us, for them.
Speaker 3 (24:45):
Or you were, But go ahead. That's why I don't
I have a hole. I won't take us down, Go ahead.
Speaker 4 (24:49):
I don't. I don't think I could be a really
effective security guard, you know, eight and a half years
sober either, Like I don't think that's not my thing.
But anyway, I'm one hundred fifty milligrams of methadone, you know,
like eating like ten, like twenty milligrams of colonup in
a day, like just eating it, living, like doing as
(25:11):
much heroin as I could afford, which was very little
at the time, smoking as much weed as we would get.
And and my mom called me up and she had
gotten diagnosed with leukemia, and she told me she thought
she was going to die. And I was very much like,
I can't stay here like this. So I went to
(25:35):
the methadone clinic and I said, I need to detox,
and they offered me a blind detox where they they
they wean me off methadone for a year without telling
me my doses. And I wasn't clean, you know, I
was using the whole time. And when I said, tell
me when I get to thirty, they told me when
I got to thirty. And I went to detox and
(26:00):
and I got kicked out of detox. They were using
heroin and Detox and like I was on now Trek
Zone and some like it was crazy, like I'm on
I'm on now trek Zone in Detox, you know, public Detox.
Like the guy who slept next to me had been
an Alaskan crab fisherman and he was also a drug
dealer in downtown LA that I used to buy Klonopin from.
(26:23):
And he had a tattoo on his hand that said
pay here, and he had gotten in his crab fisherman days,
and like he would give me saraquill and I would
give him cigarettes. And we were both on now Trek
Zone and some Armenian kid comes in and like somebody
smuggles him some tar heroin. Everyone in the place uses it,
(26:46):
even like somebody busts a syringe out of like the
post and the bed in the Detox. I wasn't going
to start sharing syringes at that point, but I put
it up my nose even though I was blocked. I
get kicked out, totally sick, and I move an The
next day, Me and my girlfriend moved to Vermont from
California because my parents had a house up state and
(27:06):
I knew I could see my mom and when I
got there. My mom was like, I'm gonna die soon.
And I was off of methadone. I was still smoking weed.
I got a job, got a job in a Delhi.
I left left, my girlfriend left Vermont, got a job
in a deli, kept smoking weed. My mom died, met
(27:27):
this other woman started dating her, knocked her up, She
gets pregnant. I'm not I'm just smoking weed. And I
relapsing and my mom dies right right in there, and
and then I start relapsing on heroin again, and uh
and using like and using more maybe than I ever had,
(27:48):
because I had more money than I ever had waiting tables.
Speaker 3 (27:51):
And you have more grief than you ever had with
your mom just died.
Speaker 4 (27:55):
And this baby like pressure, pressure, pressure, and I was
just literally off the wall, like total insanity.
Speaker 3 (28:07):
And this is what year by now.
Speaker 4 (28:09):
Two thousand and seven, you know, And I'm working in
this deli and I'm using three hundred dollars a day,
and I'm taking benzos and I'm smoking weed and I'm
shooting dope and I'm and I have this kid, you know,
And my wife finds out we never got married and
she leaves me, you know, And then my addiction gets
(28:29):
much worse, and I'm alone and just sad and like pathetic,
but still like I wanted to get away with it,
like I didn't want to get sober. I mean, so
where are the bottoms everywhere? My mother's dead, my baby's gone,
I'm a child. I'm living in a subletted apartment in Manhattan,
(28:50):
working as a waiter. It was crazy. And then I
think I got hi. I literally or literally walked into
a wall broke my nose, and I called my daughter's
mother and I was like, I need help, and she
helped me find a spot to go to and I
went to this spot in Canaan, Connecticut called Mountainside, and
(29:14):
that's where I met Chris and I got sober. I
got sober for a year, and then I started smoking
wheed again and taking pills again and trying to work
it out with my daughter's mother and trying to get
my family back together, and I never could. And then
(29:34):
she's like, you know what, let's go on vacation together.
And I was like, okay, and me, Linda and our
daughter Nora go on a trip to an amusement park
in Pennsylvania and Linda takes a little bit of annex
to help her sleep, and I knew that, and I
steal all of it and she goes crazy and she
goes now, she's like, we're not getting back together, You're
(29:56):
losing custody. And I'm just like dem at that. And
I found myself in my kitchen, smoking cigarettes, smoking weed,
writing this letter to my daughter's mother, saying I can
be a good father, I can be a good partner.
Just let me smoke weed, you know. And I see
(30:18):
my hands writing this email and I'm just like, I'm like,
this is ridiculous. I was forty one. I was living
in the sublet of apartment working as a waiter, and
I was like, I have to consider something else. And
the next morning I found a meeting. I went to
the meeting and there was a kid there and he
(30:39):
was celebrating ten years and he was like a good
looking kid, like tattoos, and he looked like he had
his shit together. And I'm such a jerk off. At
the end of the meeting, I wanted to go up
to him to tell him how annoying I thought it
was that he was young and got ten years. I
thought that was funny, you know, And I went up
to him and I I Before I could even get
anything out of my mouth, he said how much time
(31:02):
do you have? And I said I don't have any time,
and he goes, well, did you use today? And I
said no, and he goes, oh, so maybe today is
going to be your first day. And I was like,
that's that's an interesting idea. And I was like, I'm
going to make today my first day. And I called
my best friend and I had a weed in my
(31:24):
I had like a stoner's paradise in my apartment. And
I gave all my weed to my best friend, and
I gave all the edibles to the guys I worked
with at the deli. And the next morning I found
another meeting that was seven thirty in the morning, and
I went there and the guy and I told this
story of how obsessed I was with getting my family back.
(31:45):
And I had heard that the obsession could be lifted,
and it was always the obsession to drink could be lifted,
the obsession to use could be but I heard obsession,
and I was obsessed with fucking up the situation with
my beautiful daughter and my beautiful daughter's mother. And I
was just like, I'm down. And I told the story,
(32:05):
and a guy in the meeting said, we'd love it
if you came back tomorrow, and I said okay, And
it turned out it was a seven day a week
meeting seven thirty in the morning. And then the next
thing I heard was, rarely have we seen someone thoroughly
follow this path and not achieve these results. And I
had never thoroughly followed any path besides using. And I
(32:27):
was fucking desperate as fuck, you know, So I did
it like I did it full on. I did ninety
meetings and ninety days. I spoke at ninety meetings like
I was just in and it all worked. And at
the same time, I was talking to my friend Chris
because he had just gotten sober, he had pulled it off.
(32:47):
He was a horrible drug addict and he had gotten
a year and a half through AA and I started
talking to him very often. And when I was working
at this deli, I had made this web series called
The Last Jewish Waiter, which was the It was a
video about a waiter who hates waiting tables and he
wants to have a talk show, so he does a
(33:08):
talk show while he waits tables. And it got like
a bunch of preths and people liked it, and Chris
was like, I want to do something like that, and
I was like, well, we could do a podcast, and
he goes, what's a podcast and I was like, I'm
not sure. I think it's like a radio show. And
he came down to my apartment and I was like,
(33:29):
it's just going to be war stories. And I was like,
it's just going to be war stories and we're going
to call it war Stories and oh.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
And so it was first called war Stories.
Speaker 4 (33:40):
Yeah, well it was supposed to be, but then we
looked up war stories and there was a podcast like
about actual war stories, and then, like, I mean, we
were trying to figure out what to call it. And
you know, I lived on the Lower East Side and
every day I would walk on Clinton Street in Manhattan,
and there one day I walked past some kid and
(34:02):
he's wearing a black hat with these gold like actual gold,
you know, like metal letters on his hat that said dope.
And I was like, and I thought of my my grandfather,
and I imagine my grandfather looking at this kid and
he'd be like, who's this fucking dope? And then I
just thought about like dope, Like you know, when I
(34:22):
grew up in the nineties and the word dope meant
cool and I like that. I like that, And then
and but then I also like hippies calling we dope.
And then I like my grandpa calling idiots dopes, you know,
And I was like, why don't we call it? And
then Chris goes, we should call it, uh two dopes
talking about dope, and I said, no, let's just call
it dopey. And that's that's when it all started. Yeah,
(34:45):
and that's a long winded story.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
No, it was a beautiful story. I love it. First
of all, you crack me up calling me doctor Harrison.
Speaker 4 (34:51):
I like it. It feels good. I'm enjoying.
Speaker 3 (34:54):
I love it.
Speaker 4 (34:55):
Yeah, I'm enjoying that.
Speaker 1 (34:57):
David David Manheim, I won't get too psychiatric. But I
don't think it's a coincidence that the first time you
were in Detox you called your parents.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Your mom and I get down.
Speaker 1 (35:08):
It's a coincidence that when your mom called you, that
was the first kind of like earnest, I'm gonna come
back and try this, even though it didn't work quote
that time. And then that it was family again that
brought you to the meetings that ultimately started your sobriety journey.
(35:28):
So like we're always asking people to look for what
is that thing that's bigger than you, that's like more
important to you than yourself, and over and over and
over in your story, it sounds like you believed it
was your career, but it sounds like it actually is
your family, right.
Speaker 4 (35:47):
I mean in the end, it was it wasn't my
daughter as much as like I couldn't handle not being
able to be there yeah for her. Yeah, Like like
I like, in the end, like.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
You want it more from yourself, I.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
Wanted more for myself my dad. My dad would have
to drive me to my visitation and like everyone would
talk to him about my custody and it was so demoralizing,
but it was also like very fitting because I hadn't
been a responsible adult at a moment of my life. Yeah,
(36:21):
and I and it was in the end, it was
like I just I want to show up for this kid,
you know, And that's that was I mean, I wanted
to show up for my mom. Like me and my
mom like had a not a good relationship because I
was a drug addict for so long and before that
I was just such a defiant person like she and
(36:43):
she was such a controlling Jewish mother like I just
like we had problems. So when I found out she
was dying, I was like something inside me said I
got to go home, which was deep. And then when
I recognized that I couldn't take care of my child
and my parents took care of me, that was so yeah,
I agree with you. Family is the thing.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:04):
And so then it was a kernel of hope from
this good looking, tattooed young kid with ten years that said,
maybe today it'll be your first day. And then it
was warm arms of compassion at the next meeting where
they said we hope you'll come back. Yeah, And that
started your ninety days ninety meetings and ninety days was
the beginning of your formula.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
So what's your formula today?
Speaker 4 (37:27):
Well, I mean we started making Dope when I had
six months sober, yeah, and now I have eight years
and six months, you know, basically, and I'm still making
the show. So I think dope is a is a
you know, I always say that dope isn't a part
of my recovery because I also say dope doesn't help people,
Like I say a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily true.
Speaker 3 (37:52):
As you know, I mean, that's the first step.
Speaker 4 (37:54):
Right, My recipe is, I mean number one is twelve
seve you know, like and I never wanted that. I
would much rather be like some some like you know, Buddhist,
you know, some like Buddhist intellectual. But I needed, I needed,
I mean, I needed twelve Step and it it totally
(38:15):
saved my life and and really participating in it saved
my life and doing every bit of it like drinking
the kool aid, because the greatest thing about twelve step
is at its core is that love intolerance is the code.
And if love intolerance is the code, what can go wrong? Really,
(38:37):
you know, and if and the promises if it says
we have ceased fighting, love intolerance is the code. The
goal is to be happy, joyous and free. Uh and
the only way you can get there is by being honest,
open minded and willing. I found that all of those
things were what I wanted in my life. So it
set up exactly. I never but I didn't want to
(38:58):
be a member of fucking alcoholics anonymous, Like I didn't
want it. But I didn't want to be a member
of alcoholics anonymous. I wasn't even I didn't even drink,
but when I heard like what are you willing to do?
I was willing to say I'm an alcoholic, Like who cares?
You know what I mean? Like, and Chris was always like,
you're an alcoholic anyway, even if you didn't drink, and
(39:20):
like that's a whole other debate. But I every morning
I say I'm an alcoholic, you know, and I don't
care because it's saved my life. It's like, these are
the moments, like I'm very interested in what you're talking about.
A thousand ways in thousan infinite ways in infinite ways out.
We've talked about that for years and I needed this way,
(39:40):
you know. And I was talking to a friend just now.
It's like so many people can't get sober because God
discuss them scares them, you know, it doesn't resonate with them,
and they're not willing to say I'm an alcoholic and
like so it's like I want to offer, you know,
like you do. I want to offer other paths, but
(40:02):
it's like is I think for me the magic was
the willingness, you know. For me, it was like what
are you willing to do? I'm willing to do that
and then I'm doing it, like I'm willing to make
a decision to do that, then I'm doing it and
then like it's like like it's like that's the secret sauce,
that's the magic. Like if you ever processed it.
Speaker 3 (40:22):
Go, Dave, tell me the code again?
Speaker 4 (40:25):
Which code?
Speaker 3 (40:26):
Oh? Love intolerance, love intolerance.
Speaker 1 (40:29):
I think no matter, yeah, I think, no matter what.
Path kind of just innately neurologically, as pack animals and
human beings, love and tolerance has to be the code
of the path, right, and.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
So isn't amazing. It's like people don't fucking talk about
that at all. It's like they talk about twelve step,
but you don't hear everybody being like, love and tolerance is.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
Right, right, literal applies to every thing in life that
ails us. I am o in my opinion, I am
in case you didn't know what I am, I am
O A w.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
Wait, but in my opinion as well, ah boom, Yeah,
the neurons were slow to fire, but they came. They
came to the party.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Listen. I mean I I it's I love love intolerance,
Like I think it's just the best. You know, It's
like because because like I'm personally like bursting with love
all the time, and I and like and when I'm not, like,
there's a problem, Like you know what I mean, So
you have to figure out how to tap into it.
And and and even if you don't love somebody, how
(41:42):
do you find love in the situation? And then if
you can't, it's like and that's where surrender comes in,
you know what I mean. That's where surrender, that's where
higher power, like I didn't, I mean my dad when
I told my dad I was doing AA and talked
about higher power and stuff. My dad was he called
himself an Orthodox atheist. You know, he grew up in
an Orthodox Jewish home. He was big in synagogue, and
(42:07):
then he got really into science and evolution, and when
he found out the two didn't really coexist, he chose
science and now he like hates religion and things like
my dad. I mean, my dad is a very loving person,
but I can imagine, like he would never wear a
shirt that said God is for suckers. But I think
in his head he might think God is for suckers.
(42:29):
And I think for a multitude of reasons, he didn't
need it. Number one and number two, he hates the
idea of religion keeping people apart. So it's like I
get that. For me, God is I mean, there's a
passage in the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous that says
God is everything or God is nothing. And I always
took it as a very snarky thing, like either you
(42:52):
put God in front of everything or you don't have
God at all. But then I came to this other
interpretation of it, which is just that God is everything,
and I can relate to that. God is everywhere. God
is the universe, and it's not Jesus and it's not Allah,
and it's not Buddha, and it's not Yahweh or whatever
we want to call it. It's everything and I and
(43:13):
I can from my psychedelic days, or from my love
of music, or from my like the fact that we
can relate or have love. We only met once in person,
but we weread deep love, right, we had.
Speaker 1 (43:26):
Deep love before we even met, because we only just
recently met a couple of months ago, but we go
back years exactly.
Speaker 4 (43:34):
But but the fact that we can experience love, I
and I sound like a weirdo, but like that's God.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
To me, you know, like spot on. But maybe we're
just maybe we're just in the same WORDO club.
Speaker 4 (43:45):
Definitely it's not. And you know, I feel I feel
I feel excited that you're in my club, but I
feel sad for you that you have to have me
in yours.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Okay, listen, this time flew too fast. But we're at
the top or the bottom, whatever you want to call it.
So this is the last question I asked everybody. Dave,
we made up this word n addiction?
Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (44:12):
Unlearn what you think you know about addiction, Undo the
stigma that's killing people. Uncover the conversations we need to
be having. So if you wanted to leave us with
with one thing that we need to unlearn, or one
stigma we need to undo, or one conversation we need
to uncover, what would it be.
Speaker 4 (44:33):
That's a hard question.
Speaker 3 (44:34):
Yeah. Sometimes I give a heads up at the beginning
of the.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
But I find you do hat I must being harassed
at the beginning of this episode.
Speaker 3 (44:45):
Then I had to get my dopey hat. And then
you know, there were a lot of.
Speaker 4 (44:49):
So what are my choices? What do I want to uncovering?
Speaker 3 (44:53):
You want people to unlearn?
Speaker 1 (44:54):
Yeah, what's one stigma you want people to undo or
want one conversation you want people to unco you only
have to come up with one, not one eat.
Speaker 4 (45:02):
It's all love, you know what I mean? Like, I
want people to uncover love in every situation. I want
them to undo bullshit, hate and like just like being
nasty and like just like there's no life is short,
you know what I mean. Find something you like and
stick with it, you know, and try. I mean, that's
(45:24):
the answer for recovery. That's it. I mean, like, beyond
everything else, you find something you like and don't stop
doing it and then don't use but I would just
you know, I'm sticking with uh with love, you know,
where can you find it? Uncover the love, Discover the love,
unlearn the hate. What was the other one?
Speaker 3 (45:44):
Undo?
Speaker 4 (45:44):
Undo the bullshit, just stick with the.
Speaker 3 (45:48):
That is the dopey version of unaddiction.
Speaker 1 (45:51):
Wait, unlearn the hate, undo the bullshit, uncover the love.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
There you go.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
Do you have a Mac will let you do this?
Speaker 4 (46:01):
I don't know. I have a Mac, but I don't
know if my hands can do that. It's not giving
me love. Fucking bullshit. I think this computer is anti Semitic.
It's not giving me fucking love. What the fuck.
Speaker 3 (46:14):
What do you do? Dave?
Speaker 4 (46:16):
Thank you, thank you, Doctor Harrison.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
I'm coming to New York again soon. We'll get together.
Speaker 4 (46:21):
Yeah, I'll read the book and you can come back
on the Old Dope Show. Yeah, boom Killer.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
Thank you so much for tuning in, And if you
like this episode, please check out my book on addiction
Six Mind Changing Conversations that Could Save a Life, available
at Barnes Andnoble Bookshop, dot Org, Union Squaring Company, Amazon.
Speaker 3 (46:43):
And wherever books are sold.
Speaker 1 (46:45):
If you like to this episode, please share it with
someone you think may need to hear it. Also, please
subscribe to this podcast and leave a five star review
that helps us reach any and everyone who may be
looking for support in the face of addiction.
Speaker 2 (47:00):
E
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