Why Sobriety Means Letting Go of Control : The Road to Freedom From Addiction With Tom

On this episode of Recovering Out Loud, Anthony sits down with his returning guest and good friend Tom to have a brutally honest conversation about addiction, recovery, and the daily struggles of staying sober. Tom shares his story of biking through harsh winters to meetings, the crushing weight of ego and self-destruction, and how learning humility was one of the biggest gifts sobriety has given him.

They dive into the common but deadly "fuck it" moments that lead addicts to relapse, the fantasy of freedom that drugs and alcohol promise but never deliver, and the importance of outside support and community in staying on the path. Tom also talks about his creative career struggles while drinking, his journey with ADHD medication, and how he's learning to relinquish control and embrace help.

This episode is a heartfelt reminder that addiction is universal, that everyone’s story is different yet similar, and that real recovery comes with daily work, grace, and hope.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, reach out. You’re not alone.

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The Recovery Journal

00:00 - Intro & Welcome to Recovering Out Loud

00:43 - Tom’s return & biking as early recovery therapy

02:10 - The motivating power of doing hard things in sobriety

03:20 - Surviving addiction: weight gain, injury, and denial

07:10 - Anthony opens up about losing his job and ego hits

09:20 - Comparing lives and giving oneself grace in recovery

13:00 - The power of authentic support and cutting toxic people

15:00 - Ego, humility, and learning to ask for help

18:40 - The "fuck it" moments that lead to relapse

21:00 - Sobriety’s inverse progress and personal achievements

23:20 - The fantasy of freedom vs. the reality of addiction

26:20 - Alcoholism’s preparation rituals & life consequences

29:00 - Responsibility and accountability in recovery

31:30 - The power of hope and community in staying sober

35:00 - ADHD, medication, and outside help in recovery

38:30 - Addiction’s impact on creativity and career

42:00 - The ongoing process of recovery and humility

45:00 - Closing thoughts and encouragement

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hi there, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud
Podcast, the show where we get real about mental health and
addiction. I'm so glad you're here.
If you or someone you love is struggling with drugs or
alcohol, please reach out for help.
Send me a message on all social media platforms at Recovering
Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at [e-mail].

(00:26):
You are no longer alone. Tom, my good friend Tom, welcome
back to Recovering Out Loud, buddy.

(00:48):
I'm so glad you came back and you know, didn't I didn't scare
you away the first time, so. No, man, I just worry I'm
showing a bit too much. Chest hot outside today.
Chest here, yeah. You bike everywhere.
Don't. You I bike everywhere.
Sometimes I catch myself like ontransit.
Like if you want to fix that, that's.
What do I do? It looks just go like this.
Yeah. It looks OK.
Yeah. That's pretty good, right?
Yeah, yeah, Yeah. Sometimes I catch myself like on

(01:10):
transit and I'm like, wow, It's kind of like a vacation for me.
Yeah, look at these people. You do this every day.
My legs aren't moving. Oh, this is kind of nice.
The worst is when I decide, OK, I'm not going to ride my bike
and then I hop on a Street car or something and I'm sitting
there and I see all the bikes going by and I'm like, yeah,
'cause he's flying right now. Exactly that drives.
Me nuts. I do that a lot.
Yeah, it. Was a it's a huge I try and tell

(01:32):
people early in recovery too. They're like, what should I do?
I'm like get a fucking bike, man.
Because I mean, first of all, like I got back into biking in
my 20s and it's exactly what it feels like when you're a kid and
I became a bike messenger because of it.
I just fell in love with it but also in early recovery worst

(01:53):
looking for any reason not to goto a meeting.
And for me, when it's winter transit, I'd be like, no, I'm
not going, but like I will ride across town in a Blizzard to a
meeting. And that's like one of the high
points of my week. I've seen you do it, yeah.
Yeah I live ride all year. Absolutely.
I mean I live across town from Cork town and the first like 2

(02:16):
months of I got sober in December and so all winter I was
riding it. It was just like this is my
penance. You deserve this.
I deserve this. And honestly, like, it kind of
helped. It helped motivate me, you know,
because you feel like such a piece of shit when you first get
sober. And those little things about
trying to, you know, show yourself that like, Oh no, I'm

(02:38):
capable of doing hard stuff oncein a while, you know?
So anyways, thanks for having me.
Yeah, of course. And I even put on a shirt for
you today. Nice.
Me too. I'm soaked.
I'm soaked. It's air conditioning here, but
it's it's a toasty. Which wasn't always the case.
We had one guy in here that was not air.
The guy was fixing the air conditioning.
So I'm grateful for air conditioning today.

(02:58):
Oh God, I love it. I love air conditioning so much.
I I spent my first four or five summers in Toronto without air
conditioning and then when I gotair conditioning, I was like
subletting some loft or something for a year.
That summer, I didn't leave Alzheimer.
Turns out that they deliver booze and cocaine.
Yeah. And cocaine, too.
And I was the only thing I was eating was popsicles.

(03:21):
And I gained 35 lbs not eating food.
I wasn't eating food, I was justeating popsicles.
Yeah, the sugar, yeah. Fuck, I don't when you're it,
it's baffling how you're not eating anything, but somehow
you're you're like, I'm like, ohman, I'm like drug chic and you
look at yourself and you're likejust puffed out and just looks
like death. I was looking at a, a video of I

(03:43):
I'm, I'm happy that I've taken abunch of my videos of myself,
like in addiction, because that's a good reminder of like,
and yeah, to your point, it's like the first thing I noticed
is like the bags under the eyes,right?
And then the puffy face and justthe despair in my eyes, right?
Like you can just see it. I.
Love it too because I've looked at some of them and remembered I
thought it looked good in this photo and I've just.

(04:05):
I'm so fat. I saw I just actually posted to
my sober channel practically sober.
Check it out. It was like 3 weeks before I got
sober and I was on a plane and Ihad a broken shoulder flying
back from Florida I think and I remembered taking it and
thinking this I look good in this and if when you see it I'll
send it to you. I look like a Teamu version of

(04:26):
myself. I don't even.
I don't look anything like me. Yeah.
But to your point, it's like, yeah, I'm I'm fine, everything's
fine. And then one of those drinking
escapade injuries that we, you know, we seem to accumulate in
in active addiction and and alcoholism broken.
How'd you break your shoulder? I was staying on a boat.

(04:47):
I was, I was shooting a band, but it was out of, you know,
rich musicians. I was down in Fort Lauderdale
and I showed up and was like, OK, what room am I in?
They're like, oh, you're in the yacht parked Outback and I'm.
Like there's a. Bar in the yacht and, and I, I
just, there's lots of steps in aboat and I turned all the lights
off and it just fell and dislocated my shoulder and it

(05:09):
cracked And the first thing I thought was I didn't get travel
insurance. I'm like, what do I do?
What do I do? And I, it was out for a little
bit and I was like, I'm going tohave to go to the airport and
fly back to Canada with a dislocated shoulder because
otherwise it's going to cost me like 30-40 thousand dollars or
something. And then I just grabbed a
curtain rod and popped it back in and I'm suffering, man.

(05:32):
Like it hurts right now. To this day, you're still paying
for. It Yeah, I'm going in for some
free Canadian Mris in two weeks so.
It's a beautiful thing living inthis country.
I love Canada, I love it. You too, man.
Some days I I really have to remind myself that I have it
pretty good. Or when I'm talking to people,
sorry, when I'm talking to people about trying to get them
into treatment and they're complaining about the free rehab

(05:54):
that we have in the waiting lists, it's like, yeah, it
sucks, but I mean. I'll wait.
It's free. Yeah.
I mean, I booked these Mris, what?
I don't know, two months ago. That's fine.
They're not. I got a hernia right now.
It's fine. You know, they're like, it's you
can see it. It's right there.
It's my little buddy. And they were like, I don't
know, you want to get it fixed? I'm like, is it fine?
He's like, lose some weight. That's that's OK.

(06:17):
It's like then we can throw it on the list.
It's fine. It'll be free.
So because I broke in like 30 bones in my life and I haven't
paid a dime for. Any of them?
Most of those were drinking related no like.
Just no. Almost none of them actually.
Well, OK, here's the thing. I mean, I was drunk all day,
every day for 20 something years.
So I was drunk for a lot of them, but it wasn't because it

(06:41):
was because I was skateboarding,because I was looking at a girl
on my bike and I hit a tree. Some of them were were drinking
related, getting punched in the face.
That would have been me running my mouth when I was drunk, yeah.
Which you probably wouldn't havedone.
So and I got a punchable face, so I think I said unless.
I don't think so. OK.
I mean, yeah, no, you probably said that, but I don't.
I don't think you have a punchable face.

(07:02):
Wow. I've seen some pretty not.
In Toronto, back in Vancouver, it was apparently the number one
punchable face because I was just getting hit by strangers on
the street. I love it.
Yeah, man, it's, you know, todaywas a tough one Today I was
telling you outside I got fired from my other job, which I was
like driving here today and I'm like, should I talk about this?
Should I not talk about this lay?

(07:23):
It on me. Yeah.
And I, I don't like, I don't come on here and try to get
like, although it would be greatto get pity, right?
Because I love people feeling sorry for me.
Yeah. Oh, no, stop.
Keep going. In my veins.
Yeah, right. But it's like, I got to be
honest. And I started this podcast to be
fully honest, and I knew I was going to get fired.
I, I saw it coming, you know, itturns out when you don't put in

(07:45):
100% effort, like people notice,right?
And I knew it was coming. I was spending too much time
doing this stuff and it just, ithurts still, you know, it still
hurts when your ego takes that hit.
And we were talking about it outside.
It's like, you know, I'm not doing any of the work.
I'm not meeting my responsibilities, but you
should, I should still be getting paid.
You know, it's like, what the hell, man?

(08:05):
No, you, you, you got yourself in this situation and now it's
time to navigate yourself back out, right?
So there's a lot of positives. I can spend more time on my
other job, right? It's gonna be OK, you know?
But it's still, it's scary, right?
Especially living in Toronto. You have to pay.
Yeah, it's the the uncertainty of not being a very wealthy
person. I'll say.

(08:27):
Yeah, when those things happen, I honestly like I use my OK.
So the other day I'm, I'm hanging out with two old friends
who went to film school together.
We're in their one of their fucking penthouses over on
Roncey overlooking Sororin Park.And, and my buddy Doug, he's
he's in town from LA and they wouldn't let him back in the
country. Yeah, he lives in, in Santa

(08:49):
Monica. But, you know, one friend he,
you know, produces all these bigmovies for Netflix.
And then Doug has Emmys and stuff.
And I'm sitting there and I'm like, this made me feel bad
about myself. And I had to catch myself and,
and remember that like, look, mylife is my life.
But also they didn't have to go through 25 years of crushing

(09:12):
alcoholism, you know, like, and I use that as not as an excuse,
but also just like a reason for me to go easy on myself.
You know, like one thing I've been thinking about a lot lately
is just the commonality, like the, the how common it is for,
to be alcoholic. Like I just put on a video the
other day, it's like, we're Alcoholics and that's fine.

(09:34):
Like it's OK. Like it's not what we think it
is. We're not special.
There are, I don't know, hundreds of millions of us, like
hundreds of millions of us around, around the world.
And, and it's completely fine, fine to be an alcoholic.
And so for me, understanding that, it means that I can give

(09:55):
myself a break. You know, like, no one gets mad
at someone who gets fucking throat cancer.
And they're like, weren't you doing better in your life?
It's like, well, a good box. Why do you keep keep having that
cancer? It's really annoying.
Exactly. Do you know what that's that
cancer is doing to my productivity?
You know, No, it's, it's we got to give ourselves a lot of grace

(10:18):
to be able to say, just accept where we are, say mistakes were
made and and where do we go fromhere?
As long as we're doing the rightthings, then, you know, just
keep moving forward. That's what I was going to say,
man. It's like it, it's really hard
to get mad at somebody that's trying, you know, And I can

(10:38):
honestly say I spent, yeah, the better part of, you know,
probably 8 to 10 years in activeaddiction, not trying, like,
like really not trying, not working on myself.
And yeah, it's very easy for me to, to go back and well, you
know, I was in active alcoholismand addiction.
So like, poor me, it's like, so were millions of other people.
Exactly right. And as we speak right now, as we

(10:59):
sit down here, I went through a tough morning.
There's millions of people out there going through way worse,
right? It's all subjective.
And like trauma's subjective. Like at least the bomb wasn't
dropped on my fucking country. I was just going this morning
going through footage of kids inUganda looking so happy in
schools put on by this nonprofitthat I've been doing work with,

(11:20):
and I'm looking at them and they're just having a fucking
blast. And I'm like, yeah, this is
fine. What's going on with me right
now? It is, it's completely OK.
But yeah, those people, it is hard to, and I've seen it,
definitely seen it throughout 'cause I was constantly trying
to get sober, you know, I just wasn't, I didn't know how to do
it. And one of the comments that
I've gotten gotten a lot from people since getting sober is

(11:41):
like, I'm so happy that you got there because I, I watched you
trying for years, which. Is like the hardest thing.
Exactly. And, and, and it wasn't good
enough because I was trying to do it my own way, but I, the,
the I aspired, I so aspired to get sober and like the idea of

(12:02):
I, I seal and I had to cut people out of my life who they
saw that. And they're like weak.
I'm like, you're way worse than I am.
And you're like using me as this, this example of like
failure or something. You're not even trying.
OK. And like, cutting them out of my
life was easy, if that made sense.

(12:23):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, 100%.
You're, I always say this, but it's like you're just, your
motives were different. Your, you know, preferences
change, right? And yeah, I try to, I always say
this, I try to surround myself with people who are working on
themselves. Yeah, right.
That's that's it. You know, I don't, I don't care
about how successful you are. I don't care about no, you know

(12:43):
how important you are, how famous you are.
If if you're working on yourself, right.
And you're being a good person, you know?
You're trying. Fuck man, come hang out with me
like you know. So I had a mom reach out to me
last week, totally overwhelmed, not knowing how to help her 15
year old son. She picked up What's Wrong with
My teen after I had mentioned ithere and messaged me a week

(13:03):
later saying she finally felt seen.
That's why I bring stuff like this up.
If you're a parent in the thick of it, confused, scared, or just
tired, this book is a great place to start.
Check the link in the show notesbelow.
What's funny is I thought it waskind of a liability.
Like I I didn't really even tried dating for my first like 2
years of sobriety and the big problem was like I'm going

(13:25):
through like dating apps and looking at all these things and
I'm like they won't like me. I don't drink anymore.
Every time, and it's. Like I'm not good enough for
this, whatever. And then I, I took a break and I
came back and I went and I met this now great girl that I've
been seeing for a little bit. But one thing I've I've heard
since, I don't know, just havinga bit of a perspective shift is

(13:47):
people are attracted to you if you're working on yourself.
And I thought they would be attracted to me because I was
life of the party. You know, it's like, no, that
was, you saw where that went, you know, and that's so a lot of
the feedback that I'm getting just from people in my life and
stuff because a lot of people reach out, you know, it's saying

(14:08):
like it's so great to see that you're working on yourself.
They just want authentic Tom. Right.
Yeah, My family likes that. Yeah.
Yeah. Because I was not really out
that day. I was, well, I was.
I was a version of me. It was just a monstrous version
of me, you know, took up, took up a lot of space.
Like a taker too, right? Like what can I get out of this
situation? Yeah, purely, purely selfish.

(14:30):
I was thinking about this in a meeting yesterday.
You know, I love that when you're hearing someone talk and
it just, you get this memory that you thought was completely
lost. I remember being like 12 or 13,
lying in my bed and thinking, amI the main character?
I think I'm the main character. I think the world actually
revolves around me. I think when I go to sleep,

(14:51):
everything shuts down. And then I soon after that
started drinking and it's like, oh, that kind of arrogance, like
people grow out of that. You go into alcoholism where
it's like that is just selfishness bottled.
You know that that what did not serve me well.
You know, that self importance carried on for the longest time

(15:15):
and, and it, it made me think about like when youth have so
much ego and, and you, you thinkyou're, you're so important in
the world. That's so much work.
That is so much work. A lot of pressure, too.
So exactly, it's so much pressure and getting sober and
learning humility for the first time, almost 40 years old was
like true humility. You know, humility is such a

(15:39):
load off. It's it's acknowledging like,
hey, I don't know what I'm doinghere.
Not just in recovery, like everything being like, I don't
know how to do this. Can you tell me how?
Because it for me, it got rid ofthis.
Like I need to boost myself up so much and I'm so important.
And I do have a job. Like I've been directing films
and stuff, not great ones, but for a long time.

(16:00):
And I always thought like, yeah,I have to play the part, you
know, fake it till you make it, that you're the man and you know
everything. And now I'm like, I want to go
be a camera operator. Like I want to take lower roles
now that, that four years ago, if I, someone told me that I'd
be like going and working as a camera operator or somebody
like, well, my life failed. And now I'm like, I want to

(16:21):
learn from other people. I want to, I want to see how
every, how everything works. I also want to have more fun
too. I want to, I, I don't need to be
in control of things. I, I'm going to relinquish
control to somebody else and say, Hey, boss, what do I do?
And like, to me that provides like a lot of freedom.
And that's just one of the joys of one of the gifts of, of
sobriety, you know? Is that not recovery in a
nutshell? Absolutely.

(16:43):
It's a great metaphor. You know, I don't know what I'm
doing. Hey boss, higher power God, you
know, even you know, mentor, sponsor, just.
People in the fucking progress. People doing with more time than
me. People who have what you want
Exactly. That's that's basically it.
I mean, that's one thing I try and tell younger people is
simple is and and I've got a spawn seat now.
It's like he couldn't quite get it.
And then we met and and I hope this doesn't sound arrogant, but

(17:06):
he was like you. You're cool.
He's like, I fucking, I want what you have.
And I was like, gotcha. I fucking gotcha, man.
Because then right away he was like, tell me what to do.
And I was like, let's, let's fucking get into it.
And he is thriving. And you've been in that exact
situation. Man, we've all been right there
and when you're when you're fucking five days in you First

(17:27):
of all, we think we're special. Nobody could understand what I'm
the worst. Problems.
Oh absolutely. I'm just, for me, I'm the main
character and he's just a bunch of guys sitting back and they're
like, have a seat. Really, buddy?
Yeah. Have a coffee, have a seat.
Tell us, tell us your your story.
You're like, well, you guys wouldn't get it.
You're like pretty sure everybody in this room gets it.

(17:49):
Try. US, yeah.
I was listening to a guy, he's ascientist down in the States in
a meeting the other day and he was telling his story and he's
like a nuclear physicist. And I didn't I didn't his, his
his life was so different from mine.
But every time he came to this like inflection point in his
life and he made a certain choice, like don't the alcoholic

(18:12):
choice, I was like, I would havemade the same choice.
Like, I associated so closely with his thought processes, and
that made me so happy about, like, this is the commonality
with everybody. You know, we all come from
completely different paths, but we have the same coding, you
know, like, I can you hear someone who's like, well, yeah,

(18:33):
it was robbing banks and I endedup in jail and I got out.
I had to do a heist. And I'm like, I couldn't be more
different. But I get it when you hear the
why behind there. Exactly the why, the motivation.
The motivation. Do you have an example of
something that comes to your mind when you know the alcoholic
choice? I love that.
I've never, you know, I haven't heard it said like that.
You know, I come to a point in my life, I'm drinking, I'm

(18:54):
drugging, I'm pissing people off, I'm stealing, I'm cheating,
I'm lying. What does an alcoholic choice
look like? Fuck it, that's it.
I think it's those two words. Fuck it.
I know this is the wrong thing to do.
I know that the better thing would be to do the responsible
thing. I like.
I've got a huge thing I need to do tomorrow morning.
I've been looking forward to it for so long.
I know that I shouldn't have a drink.

(19:17):
Fuck it, fuck it. It's going to be different this
time and it's never different any time at all.
And then you just ruin. I just had a birthday a few days
ago, 2 days ago. And I, I was in a meeting last
night and I ran into an old sponsor and I was just saying
it's like a perfect day. He was like, what would it have
looked like if you were drinking?
And I said, well, I wouldn't have slept yet.

(19:39):
I would still be up. And also, no, I would have drank
the night before and then ruinedthe whole thing.
I would have had to cancel all the plans that were made for me
by friends who love me, you know, like, and, and the two
guys I was with, they're like, yeah, me too.
Like, that's the alcoholic choice, you know, ruining your
birthdays, ruining other people's birthdays.
And then the worst thing is we make it through by the skin of

(20:02):
our teeth. We don't create a really bad
problem, you know? And then at the end of the day,
we're like, fucking did that. And we're like, now I know I can
do that. So I'm going to do it again.
You know, that's that's how I always looked at things was like
if I made it. Through if I didn't.
Die. If I didn't die and I made it to
my bed at some point and and I think I got through relatively

(20:23):
unscathed, it's like I use that to level up my debauchery.
Like, let's test the limits evenfurther next time.
What? Else can I get away?
With That's why I like, you know, in my last three years of
drinking and using drugs, it waslike the longest I stayed up was
like 2 days or something. By the end, the longest I stayed
up was two weeks. Like, because it was like, oh, I

(20:46):
made it to four days. Oh, I can do five days next time
I can do 8 days. And like, that's not, that's not
progress. That is progress from the exact
opposite direction, you know. And and to your point, I look at
that and I can't help but think we come into recovery, we get
sober. Why can't I do that?
Inversely, you know, you got to do, son.

(21:08):
You want to stay sober. You go into whatever recovery
event meeting, whatever you want, whatever you do to get
sober. You're talking to your sober
community, talking to a therapist, Anthony, you need to
do this, this and this. You need to try a meeting, talk
to your therapist, try praying in the morning.
And then I'm like, well, I don'treally want to do that.

(21:28):
And it's like, you start to do it right?
And it's like, well, fuck, I didthat pretty easily.
And then you put together a certain amount of time and then
the exact inverse can happen where it's like, what else can I
do? I got a job that I've always
wanted. I got a job that was, you know,
never thought I would get. I got a promotion at work in
sobriety. It's like, holy crap, I can do

(21:49):
anything. I ran a marathon in sobriety.
Yeah, like it's because we were,were sinking before, you know,
we're going down below ground and we, we like it like we're
getting closer to the grave and we're like, I'm cool.
Look at me. I'm further down than the other
people. Soon as you get up for for air,
you're just like, and if you're ready for it, you know, then you

(22:12):
it's like, OK, well, I've atrophied.
I need to learn how to walk and stuff.
But then you start picking up speed and, and luckily, if
you're, if you were really fucked, you start looking
around, you're like, holy shit, why didn't anyone tell me?
This is actually really great uphere, you know, and then you
start doing it. But it, it takes daily
maintenance, you know, Otherwisethere's still a part of me that

(22:34):
says like when I see someone maybe dead on the street, like
passed out with a bottle of whiskey and a stairwell, a look
at them. And part of my brain still goes
lucky fucker, because it's in there, because I'm an alcoholic
and I've accepted that that willhappen to me.
And when it does happen, I'm like, yeah, it's like flicks me

(22:54):
and I'm like, I get it. I know you're still here.
And that's fine. You know, it's just a matter of
like, not being mad at the fact that I am an alcoholic.
What's the fantasy for you? Because I, I have that thought
too, where it's like that, you know, fucking guy, you know,
middle of the day for me, it's middle of the day in the
elevator. I see some guy like constantly,
you know, and I'm automatically assume he's, you know,

(23:16):
responsibly using cocaine and having a great time.
That's my first thought. And I'm like that motherfucker,
like he's getting away with it. What's your fantasy in that?
Like what does that look like? The fantasy?
What do you mean like? Yeah, so you see the guy on the
street like drinking and and I don't know.
I saw, OK, I saw a guy riding his bike holding a fucking

(23:36):
Pilsner the other day. Just looked like a bike
messenger kind of guy. And I'm behind him riding and
I'm like that fucking guy. It's the middle of the day.
He's riding along fucking College Street and I'm, I'm like
that guy's, that guy's so happy.Living the dream.
Living the dream. And then I see move, and then I
come around him and I look at him.
I'm like, I don't think this guyslept.

(23:59):
This guy is, he looks miserable,but in my head, I'm like lucky
miserable. Fuck yeah.
You know, that's it just happensto me, you know, it did when I
was out with friends on my birthday.
It's like a guy, he got my friend.
He got a rose and I'm like, I'm,I'm at, there's people drinking

(24:21):
all around me, you know, and it's, I don't want the alcohol.
I want the freedom to be able todrink the alcohol.
That's, that's what I that's what I crave.
And that's, that's my alcoholismsaying maybe you can.
And I have to always remind myself like, no, I can't.
You know, I just like if, if I'mallergic to bees, I'm not going
to eat bees. I'm not going to, I'm not going

(24:45):
to be like, oh, I just got some fresh bees.
Let's make them angry. And then it's a different brand.
Stick it on my face. You know it's.
A different brand of bees. Yeah, exactly.
This one won't hurt me. Yeah.
I know it's new bees. Yeah, yeah, there's.
I keep hearing this ad for this thing.
It's like a it's on all all over, you know, politics
podcasts anyways, fucking what'sit called?

(25:08):
Pod save America and stuff and bulwark.
It's a it's this pill that some fucking MIT I don't know,
scientists figured out that getswhere the enzymes that make you
hungover. So you take it before you drink
and apparently it's great. And I always go back to just
like, well, that's why I stoppeddrinking.

(25:29):
Was it, I mean, I was just hungover all the time.
Maybe I could, maybe I could trythis.
Maybe I could. Maybe just based on a feeling
and an ad, I'll throw my life away.
And you know what? It wouldn't do work.
It wouldn't work, man, because that's for normal people.
That's for people that have two or three drinks.
Or two or three hangovers a year.
Exactly. They're like, well, I went out

(25:51):
and I had three martinis and, and exactly I'd be like, what's
a martini? You'd be like, I I don't have a
martini. I drink a box of wine.
Martini takes too long to make. That fucking hose into my mouth
that like this four years ago, that backpack, there would be a

(26:11):
box of white wine and it and by the end of the day it'd be gone.
Because I was responsible. By responsible I mean have all
the booze on me at all times. You're prepared of.
Course I was prepared. I have never produced anything
in my life as well as my alcoholism.
Like there was never a time whenI would run out of anything like

(26:32):
those. I used to set 3 alarms on my
phone, say on a Friday night, soI'd be with friends.
The 8:45 alarm meant that the liquor store was closing in 15
minutes. The 9:45 meant that the wine
rack was closing and the 10:45 meant that the brewery is
closing. And so I would get the alarm and
I'd look around and be like, hey, we're good.
And we're good to be like, yeah.Then come 1045, I'd be like

(26:54):
everyone fine. And they'd be like, no, we're
good. And I'd look around, be like,
no, we're not. We are not fine.
We're going to be partying all night.
Give me $600. Alcohol went up.
I'd throw in my Courier bag and and buy, buy 200 beers and come
back. And then there'd always be extra
wine stashed in my room, extra drugs, all those things.

(27:14):
I knew where every liquor store was, where when it closed, how
much to the penny was in my bankaccount because there wasn't
much and. You need to keep track.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, as long as $100 bill came
out of that bank machine. Yeah, nothing else mattered.
I didn't need to look at the thethe balance, right?
Or a drug dealer that fronted. Me yeah, that happened a lot too

(27:36):
Oh yeah, I. Don't know if it was $2000 tabs.
Yeah, I don't want to know. Tell me later.
Just sweep it under the rug, right?
That's what I was doing. I'll call it sweeping everything
on I. I love there's this one episode
of The Simpsons written by ConanO'Brien when he goes back to
college and they say, oh, Mr. Simpson, I can't like you're
your exams in two days and you haven't studied.

(27:58):
What are you going to do? He says, I got a plan.
I'm going to hide under a pile of coats and hope everything
works. Out.
That's alcoholism. That's.
Alcoholism. Exactly.
That's why I ignored my taxes for 12 years.
Turns out they don't like that very much.
And then when I did reach out tothem, they're like, we figured
you were dead or you'd left the country.

(28:21):
By the way, you owe us $100,000.So that was a part of your
amends process or I did that in in.
I went bankrupt. Yeah.
And it was lovely. It was wonderful.
And it was funny because people were like, well, what about your
credit? I'm like, here's what my credit
is. It got ruined by Blockbuster
Video because I lost Night at the Museum.

(28:45):
So that's how long I've had bad credit.
So I don't care. Now I've got a credit card.
It's great. And I, when I first got the
credit card, they raised my limit to like fucking $3000.
So I was like, I couldn't sleep.I was like, what do I do?
And I talked to my dad. He's like, that's what normal
people have. That's in case bad things
happen. You know, I'm like, oh, right,

(29:05):
responsibility. I'm a responsible citizen now.
So I'm still I'm still baffled by the benefits of.
Not living, Yeah. It's wild, you know?
Man, you mentioned responsibility there and it's, I
like that one because it's like,you know, you, you talk about
the fantasy of freedom, this illusion of freedom that alcohol

(29:26):
and drugs bring for me, for me, a misnomer.
Yeah, 100%. It's lack of responsibility,
right? Like essentially when I, that's
what I miss the most is like, I don't want to wake up and be an
adult today. I don't want to deal with all
that stuff out there. I just want to fucking please
Anthony. Yeah, I want to be.
I want to be a child. Yeah, yeah, I my whole first

(29:47):
year and I still worry about this.
It's the stupidest shit. My whole first year I told
myself you're allowed to drink if you win a lottery, more than
$10 million. So I'm playing the lottery every
week, getting a lottery ticket. I'm like, please don't win.
And like that is one thing that like might me now I've got over

(30:08):
2 1/2 years of sobriety. This.
Might make me relapse as if I got this massive windfall of
money. You know, I've even planned it
out like that's the hypotheticals.
OK, Mom. So if I win the lottery, I'm
trying to get over to you. It's like, yeah mate, let's
worry about you winning the lottery.
First, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it's probably

(30:29):
going to happen because I'm the main character by hearing people
who do get sober and then and then get a lot of money and make
it through it. You know, that's, it's like
everything our, our sobriety. For me, my, the strength of my
sobriety comes from hearing other people's stories and
saying, Oh, they could do it. So I guess I could probably do

(30:51):
that too. And and if I'm worried, I'll
call that guy, I'll say, hey, I heard you speak about this and
you made it through this. How did you do that?
And everyone's fine with saying,yeah, I just did it like this.
And, and call me everyday because that's what that's what
we do in recovery. You know, we keep each other
sober. It's a big, a big part of I do
tell new people this is like, and it was so huge to me was

(31:17):
going into meetings and hearing people tell their story and
seeing them and, and they're like, they're so put together,
you know, and they're telling their story.
It's like, so I'm living in a tent and I'm smoking crack and
all these things. I'm like, are they lying to me?
Because I, I just can't picture it and hearing their story and
seeing where they are. That's where the faith came for

(31:37):
me. I was like, holy fuck, there is
nothing special about this person.
They just did like they honestly, this person, I think
they have an IQ of like 98 and they're doing great.
And so why it's, it's not like, why can't I do that, do this?
It's I can do this. You know, it's this perspective

(31:58):
shift of why can't I, why can't I get sober?
It's like, well, I can get sober.
Just show me how to do. It I just don't have the tools
yet. No, because I thought I did.
Thought if I wrote enough lists,yeah.
Plans, yeah. How am I going to do this?
How am I going to do this? Listen to enough Self Help Books
podcast. Yeah.

(32:19):
Not like this one, no. Yeah, No.
It's a good point, man. You know, we come in here so
broken, and then there's that hope that that gets instilled.
It's like, if that guy can do it, why can't I do it?
Hope that girl can't do it. Yeah.
Absolutely. Hope is, you know, fucking Andy

(32:39):
Defrane got out of Shawshank, you know.
Wait, that was about alcoholism,wasn't it?
Stephen King. I'm embarrassed but I haven't
seen it in a while. I got to.
Go over, get get get busy livingor get busy dying.
And Stephen King, when he wrote that, he was an he's an
alcoholic. Yeah, that's right.
Yeah. Nice.
Yeah. You haven't seen that in a long

(33:00):
time. It's been a while, yeah.
I love Stephen King though. I've read a lot of his books.
I haven't read any of his books.Yeah, I'm not.
You have ADHD right? Or yeah.
I just popped Vyvanse before I came.
I'm feeling pretty good now. Yeah, actually I'm feeling
nothing now, which is. Which is.
Which is a good thing. Like fucking.
I didn't take one a few days agoand I was like, what's going on
in my brain? Yeah, that's a funny one for me

(33:22):
because when we've talked about this before, but, you know,
outside help is really important.
Sobriety, recovery, 12 step is not going to fix everything,
right? You need, you need outside help.
And I went down that path of, oflooking to fix my ADHD.
I've come to realize that I don't have it because I was
getting high of Vyvanse, you know, and and I've come to
realize that people that have ADHD and are taking Vyvanse and

(33:44):
taking other medications that, you know, whatever this ADHD
medications, it's the normal. It just fixes their brain and it
calms them down. Yeah, You know that's.
What it does to me? Yeah, I never had that
experience, right. And so that was a little back
door that my attic brain had planned for me.
And that's essentially what led me down to my my year long
relapse from hell. It came from meds.

(34:06):
Yeah. Yeah.
Steroids first. Oh, really?
Yeah, steroids first, and then I'd open the door for
medication. As long as I get a doctor to
approve it, yeah, I'm good. It's allowed.
It's not my slippery slope, man.Yeah.
And we love going skiing. Yeah, I love skiing.
Yeah. If you know what I mean.
Yeah, exactly. He hit his nose.
Yeah. Slalom anybody?

(34:26):
Moguls, my whole life, it was, there was no easy skiing.
It was moguls. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, I was really freaked out because I got diagnosed with
ADHD in about 6 months and it was, you know, proper way.
And the doctor, the psychiatristwas like, we got through an
addictions clinic and she said, you know, you do the test, gave

(34:48):
it to my parents. And then I did it.
And she was like, yeah, you haveADHD.
And but then she asked me, he's like, So what do you think?
Adderall? He's like, if you want me to
fucking die, like that's a partydrug.
Like I, I, I saved Adderall specifically for when I'm in
Manhattan because a buddy of mine, so much Adderall.

(35:10):
I had the Vyvanse for a few weeks because I was worried it's
an amphetamine man. And I, I'd never done
amphetamines, but then I, you know, took 1 and I was like, oh,
I don't feel anything. I feel so much calmer.
Then I went up and up and up. Then I got too high and was like
too much. So I, I came down and now if I
feel like it's a bit too much, I'll open a pill and empty a bit

(35:33):
out. And because that's how different
my life is now. Like I got a little thing of
white powder from emptying out pills and it's because, oh,
that's been too much drugs for me.
Yeah, I was going to say insteadof taking ten of them, you're
you're rationing, which is a foreign.
Concept for us, I put it into some caps and gave it to a buddy
who's got a newborn because he'she's going through it right now

(35:55):
and he needs a little oomph, so whatever.
But to your point, it's like I Idid not follow the process
properly. I lied on my test, you know, and
I was manipulating and, and doctor surfing and doing all the
things. So I mean, there is a right way
to do things. The most important thing, I
think is that you told someone about it, right?
And that's what I failed to do is like I would tell people 10%

(36:17):
of the the truth. And I had a one of my favorite
counselors in Utah always used to say this is like, you know,
if you're Rob Anthony, if you'rerobbing banks 10% of the time,
but 90% of the time you're not robbing banks, you're still a
fucking bank robber, you know, and it's like you're not a biot
bank robber. Bank robbing light.
Yeah, I have to be 100%. Honest today I'm felony 0.

(36:40):
I have to be 100% honest today, right?
And that's, you know, it's important.
I want to jump back to the analogy of like the director
because I think that that's so such a good analogy for
addiction. It's like my I, So I'm the
director of the, if you put it in the analogy of like the
Shakespeare play, right? I'm the director, I'm the actor,
I'm the guy cleaning the floor. I'm the sound guy.

(37:01):
I'm everything. You're one man band.
One man band. I can't pass off anything to
anyone else because don't you know, I'm the main character?
Like you said, I love that. I did that in my career.
I, I've been making documentaries for a long time
and I had to be a one man band. I did sound, I, I produced it, I
directed it, I shot it, I editedeverything because a control.

(37:24):
I thought I was the only person who could do it properly and B
bringing someone else in that the jig would be up if I brought
someone else on my I did I tour with bands and, and made, you
know, bike messenger documentary.
Like all of these things where first of all, it was fine for me
to be drinking. If you're with musicians and

(37:45):
you're like, oh, it's beer o'clock 2:00.
You know, it's like, well, they don't know I'm nine beers in.
But also if if someone else cameon who was not an alcoholic
working with me within a day, they'd be like this guy.
He's he's not allowed to do this.
Don't go anymore. Don't give him any more
responsibilities. And but the work, it was good,

(38:09):
you know, like I was put puttingout good shit and and I was
having fun with it. That's one problem with being in
the arts and getting fucked up all the time is like you use it
as it's like, oh, it's not drugs.
It's like I'm expanding my mind and I'm, I'm looking at things a
different way. You know, it's a creative
process. It is.
It was my creative process. I I'd be before shooting

(38:29):
something, I'd be like, hold on,hold on.
I'm just two shots and be like, should you be doing that?
It's part of my process. Get out of here.
If I'm shooting on tour with a band or something, I'd have
beers stashed all over the stageto be a big stage sometimes and
I had to be able to dip in, takea swig and and and move on.
And now I've made amends to a lot of the crew members with

(38:50):
tour managers and stuff like that because I was a lunatic.
Did a lot of them know? Like was it?
Obvious or Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely, 100%.
But a lot of times it was kind of like, what are you going to
do, fire me? You need me people.
And unfortunately, the cat they did.
I can relate. People come in here sometimes

(39:11):
and even when I talk to them in recovery and sometimes they're
like nobody knew and I'm lookingat them like bullshit.
Have you asked them? Seriously, that is one thing I
asked them is like, OK, you got a bit of time.
Do you know they're like every time I'm like, yeah, like when I
I meet some guy, like in a meeting or something and he's

(39:31):
like, how you doing? He's like, oh, I got two weeks.
Like, I don't think you do. Like, I'm not going to say that,
but oh, that is the most terrifying thing.
You we're so cute to the smell when you get sober.
I don't know if regular people are, but if regular people are,
I wasn't fooling anybody. Nobody, I thought, because I was
drinking a vodka rock star. Like just smelled like rock

(39:51):
star. No vodka.
I smelled like vodka If. Anything.
It's even worse. Yeah, those.
Two, I remember the day in high school when I discovered that if
I wash my hands and I put visingin, nobody can know I'm high
because I was high in school 24 like every class and I that was
one of the most dangerous like revelations of my life.
It was like, OK, because think of how much time and energy you

(40:14):
put into. Maintaining like God, that I
didn't realize that I was about eight or nine months sober and I
had that realization and it was like, that is one of the reasons
I've got so much extra space in my head.
You get rid of these these things that are that are such a
huge part of part of your daily life that take up so much of

(40:36):
your energy hangovers, trying tojust maintain that you're sober.
Like all of these things, you take them out.
It's like there's so much space to fill now Also like you get
sober and your your time triples.
Like it My days are still like if anyone's looking at this and
and you're worried that your life is speeding by get sober.

(40:56):
It slows right down in the best way possible because.
You have all this. Time you have all this time like
your days double or triple sometimes.
I want to ask you about, I'm curious about like the creative
process and how that's changed now for you.
Did did you? Did you at any point find that
you were you felt like you were missing that creative juices
when you were trying to do it sober?

(41:17):
Yes, one time I was shooting a some musicians on stage and it
wasn't a big deal. I was shooting it was something
for a non profit. It was down at Yonge and Dundas
Square and like I had shot hundreds of shows, you know,

(41:38):
hundreds over the decades and I couldn't figure out what was,
what was wrong. I was like, these just don't
aren't looking. And I realized I don't have
those the guts. Like I was reckless in my
shooting. You know, I've been shooting
since I was 19 or 18 or something.
And so it was like I had balls, like I would go on stage, you
know, I got, I went on stage once in, I don't know where it

(41:59):
was fucking. It's the ping pong festival in
Europe. I went on stage while Rammstein
was playing. That's a heavy metal.
Yeah, there's. 4 metal fire coming out of their face.
I got so much trouble, but like I had those kind of balls and
then when I got sober at the endof the day, I was like, I, I
clocked it near the end of the day and I was like, that's what
it is. I was like, all right, recognize

(42:20):
it. And then I went and I shot with
a band, big show, I don't know, 5000 people or something at a
casino maybe a month ago. And I shot with him so many
times, first time shooting him sober.
And I, I recognize that. And and when I was on stage, I'm
like, you know what you're doinghere?
Overcome that. Fear.

(42:42):
That fear and I went in and I was like, that's the best
fucking show I've ever done because, and I was worried about
this for a while. Was my reckless courage about
shooting stuff, throwing myself into into things, you know, like
the we, we try to conquer our our fears so much in recovery.

(43:05):
But like, it's almost like, I don't know, it's hard to
explain. Like, yeah, it's just one of
those. I feel like, I feel like you're.
Just overall, it's a net game. I just feel like you're more
responsible, like you don't takethe risks exactly because you're
like, it's not worth it. The reward's not worth the risk.
Where is like, there are some things in life where risks are

(43:27):
good, you know, like reckless, like a lot of the things I've
made could not be made by made by a responsible person.
They just like I made a whole film about bike messengers.
I was drunk on the back of a dirt bike flying through
traffic, you know, like just reckless stuff.
And I would have been too scaredto do that sober, you know, for

(43:49):
good reason. Yeah.
I mean, some of the films where I'm, I'm putting myself into a
group of people or something that it's like dangerous, like a
dangerous like, and I'm going inwith a camera and, and, and
trying to put, put people at ease.
It's like I wouldn't, I was reckless in my 20s or 30s or
something. And like, there's no way I would

(44:10):
have done that sober. No way.
I'd say, hey, look at me, I'm drunk, let's go, you know, And
that got me a lot of access cause film, documentary films
access. Anyways, we're talking about my
work. What are we doing?
I wanted, I wanted to ask you just about like, 'cause I'm very
fascinated by your, you going back out because you were, you

(44:33):
had years when I met you. 7 1/2,Yeah. 7 1/2 years and then when
you went back out, I remember you when you just gone, just
come back and like, what was overall, 'cause you're doing
great now. And like I, I see you every now
every few weeks or something andI'm like, oh, he's like, you're
calmer and calmer and calmer andcalmer, you know, and you look

(44:53):
so much healthier than you did before too.
And what what's it's? What's my question here overall,
what did that do to? You.
The relapse, The relapse and nowbeing back.
Yeah. How is it different?
I get emotional thinking about thanks for saying that, by the
way, because some days I feel like I'm not making any

(45:15):
progress, you know? And it's good to hear that from
an outside source because I trust you and I love you.
But also it's like I. Love you too.
I, I forget about and I'm particularly thinking about that
one Monday where I went to that meeting I.
Just said day one, yeah. Yeah, Well, that one too.
That was when I told you you looked good outside the meeting.
Yeah. Yeah, that was that was one.

(45:36):
And then, but I'm thinking aboutthere was one where I was just
like, I must have looked awful. And, you know, back to what we
were talking about. I thought it was fine, right.
I thought it looked OK. I'm just coming back, you know,
And it was it was when I had been trying to come back
constantly and I was constantly relapsing.
And I was, you know, I was with Michael, our good friend Michael
a lot working with him. And I just couldn't get it.
Like I couldn't get it together.I couldn't, I could, I would get

(45:57):
a couple days and then I would go back out and, and it was all
ultimately the, the mess and thefake Adderall and stuff like
that. I just, it was just like, I
don't know, it was, it was stillserving me.
I know exactly that. Yeah, I was.
I was stuck in that, that for almost a decade.
Yeah. Yeah.
I honestly believe today I'm not.
I am. I do not regret it.

(46:18):
You know, I feel really bad thatI had to pay and go back to
rehab and and take out loans andget help from my family again to
go back to treatment after goingfor the second time.
Like, I really thought I was done, you know, but I I vividly
remember still kind of having cravings in in Utah.
Yeah. And I must have had a
reservation coming out of there,man, like that.
I still would. And this was ultimately it.

(46:39):
I still thought that I could just safely use ADHD medication,
it's conditional and be OK conditional.
You said this in a meeting that you spoke at a while ago and
that that stuck with me. I made a video about it called
Sobriety Can't Be Conditional. And it was inspired by what you
said there. It cannot be fucking
conditional. Like, and it's so hard because

(47:02):
the only way we're going to do it is, is if we just say you
give up, you give up the fight 'cause we're, it's, we're
fighting against it. Part of us is fighting against
getting sober. And, and if there are too many
things on that side that are fighting against you getting
sober, it's not going to work. You have to be able to
deconstruct all of them and justRIP them all down.

(47:23):
And in that little window when there aren't any, just like get
me sober. And and that's, I think that's
the timing thing of everything. The little willingness, the
window, little window of willingness to do whatever it
takes. Complete defeat.
Of, of, of, like I said it, it'swe are in a war.
We're soldiers in a war that we are not trained for, you know,

(47:45):
and we think we can do it ourselves.
Like we didn't go to basic training, we didn't do any of
these fucking things. And we're trying to fight it
ourselves. Like, it's like me going up and
like saying, yeah, I could pitchfor the Blue Jays, why not?
Why not? I think I can do it.
I had a dream about it, so just give me a shot.
It's like, OK, I break my arm, Iget hit with a ball, I get

(48:07):
laughed, laughed at, You know, like we're not trained for that
kind of shit. And it's, it's, yeah, it's not
to like, it's, it's there's an important distinction here.
It's not that you can never, ever do that, right?
It's like you can't just go blind into something with no
training like you said right? Totally.
Like I, I've been thinking a lotabout skateboarding lately
because I grew up skateboarding and it's like sobriety is so
like recovery is so much like it, you know, when you start

(48:31):
out. I know for me it started way
back in the 90s when I started, I just was like, it was so like
magical to me, but I didn't knowwhat it was.
And then I saw someone do a trick and I was like, how, how
do you do that? And they showed me, you know,
and I kept going and going and going, but I didn't then fucking

(48:53):
say, all right, I know how to Ollie.
I'm going to Ollie down this tense there, you know, no, I
built up. I built up to things or else I
was going to get really fucking hurt, you know, And and it is
those two recovery in the community and everything, the
anarchy of it all too like of the program that we're in and

(49:13):
stuff is so much like skateboarding to me.
It's all about people helping each other and nothing but
support and like you can go anywhere.
And if you just see someone elselike skateboarding, you're just
like, I see you, you know, and, but it takes daily work and you
can't want to be sober and, and want to be a good skateboarder
without working, without doing it, you know, because I know for

(49:37):
me, and like my first sponsor said this to me, he's like, he
said, you're very much like me. Like you came in and said, fix
me and I wanted to be fixed. And I truly in my head believe,
like I heard people saying, well, I've been coming for, you
know, 1518 years. I have 11,000 days, blah, blah,
blah. I was like, why?
You're fixed, You know, what areyou, what are you still doing
here? And no, it's, it's, it's the

(50:00):
maintenance of it all. Like it's not the maintenance.
Like it's like you can't just get everything you want right
away. And it's the journey.
It's the journey of it. It's learning new tricks.
You know, I wouldn't give up. And I'll remember to the day I
die, the day I first landed a kickflip, and then the first
time I landed a frontside flip and a 360 flip.

(50:23):
And like those were Seminole moments in my life.
And if if you had just told me, hey, you're a pro skateboarder
now, I would have missed all of those things, all those
beautiful moments. And it's the same same way that
like in my recovery, the first time I realized I went to a
baseball game and I realized I'mnot only am I not craving beer

(50:44):
right now, I don't have to drinkanymore.
It's not like don't drink. It's like I don't fucking have
to do that anymore. Like those little things, they,
they blow your mind, you know, you're like, I didn't think I
was capable of this. For so long, the only choice was
to drink. Yeah, right.
And then it's like you finally have a choice to drink or not
to. Drink that is like crazy.
That's still crazy to me. I freedom.

(51:05):
You have to give yourself so much credit sometimes because
when people tell you they're like, you're doing so great, a
huge part of us just doesn't believe, Yeah, we're just like.
Why are you saying they want something I?
Thought we were friends. Why are you lying to me?
And that's I do that all the time, God.
Fucking you know what they should put it like at the at the

(51:28):
beginning for new people, learn how to take compliments because
it's a tough one. The further you get in sobriety,
get like buckle up because it's all compliments all the time.
People when you run into people and they say, what happened to
you, look at you right now. Like God, I've run into people
at the gym or just old friends Iused to party with.
They're like, what the fuck happened?
It's like I got sober. They're like, Oh my God, you

(51:50):
look so great and you're just like, no, you look so great.
Shut up. I got to go.
Yeah. Like it can't take a compliment.
Yeah. They must think I'm fat.
So yeah, you know, they're just.I have to make me feel bad.
I have to deflect. Yeah.
Yeah, That's so true. I want to just circle back to
that conditional surrender pointbecause it wasn't my.
I wish I thought of that, but I heard it somewhere else.
I'm taking a quick pause to just.

(52:12):
Yeah, go, go. I mean, yeah, you can.
I'll probably put this in here to show how cool.
No, yeah, don't do it. Sorry.
I'm very addicted to addictive. Yeah, it's a tough one.
The the nicotine buggers. I tried to quit.
I was like, I'm going on the patches, doing the whole thing
around New Year's and I went three months.
I didn't vape, I didn't smoke. I was just doing the Garmin

(52:35):
patches. And then I was like, all right,
I'm ready. I went.
I cycled through the patches. The day after I went off the
patch I had the first real craving for booze.
Like over a year. Oh wow, for alcohol.
Yeah, wow. And it shook me so bad and I
couldn't quite. And it was in a meeting.
I was sitting in a meeting when it hit, when it hit me and the

(52:55):
next day it was still there. And the day after that it was
still there. And it was kind of like I, I
looked at it like it was in the windstorm, like in, oh, what's
that like Interstellar, the movie where it's all the dust
storms and all the dust comes in.
It's like a window open and all this dust came in and I had to,
it took me a time to sweep it out, but I quickly, you know,

(53:16):
told my sponsor about it and he was like, why are you quitting
nicotine? I was like, no reason, like
really no reason. And, and since they, when he was
like, well, I was like, should Igo back on the patch?
He's like, well, yeah. And I realized like, Oh my God.
Like my recovery is #1 above anything, friends, family,
everything. I am no good unless I'm sober if

(53:37):
the responsible thing for me to do is to start smoking again.
Oh, life has been so good since then and I'll try again in six
months. Exactly.
Maybe it's just not your. Time.
No. Why?
Because I wasn't ready. I was rolling up to that fucking
10 set and I I wasn't prepared to do it.
And I took that leap. And honestly, when if we look at

(54:00):
it, our recovery is like if we drink, we die.
That was the closest I've been to death in a little in some
time. Quitting smoking almost killed
me. Yeah.
That's going to be the tagline for this episode, yeah.
Get the thumbnail man. It's.
Actually a good idea. But to your point, it's like,
yeah, you weren't ready yet. And but what I liked about that

(54:22):
story is you did the most important thing and you told
somebody about it. And I always reiterate on here
to to do that because that's thebiggest mistake I made, man, was
again, back to that temp. I'm going to show you 90% of the
truth, Tom, but not this little fucking fire back here.
Yeah, I feel like drinking. I feel like drinking.
I feel like drinking. I feel like drinking.
I'm drunk. Yeah, because I'm not telling

(54:43):
anyone about it. I'm not telling all myself.
So, I mean, that's the answer, man.
It's worth and it's it's so worth just deconstructing why,
why, what is this about? Why, why, why am I afraid to
tell somebody about this? And for me, a big part of it was
like, I had some shaky times after I started sponsoring
people because, well, I'm fucking show.
I'm talking to these guys all the time.

(55:04):
And like, I feel like I should be above this.
And so I would get a craving andI'd feel shame about it.
And I had to be reminded. You're an alcoholic.
Like, of course you're thinking about booze.
I was like a year and a half sober or something.
Of course it popped up once in awhile and it was just about
telling my sponsor. Of course I did.
I have a sponsor that I switched.
Oops, switched sponsors, but I was afraid to tell I I had I it

(55:28):
wasn't a good match my first sponsor because I didn't want to
tell him things because of what then he would really dig into it
in the way that I wasn't responsive to.
So I switched sponsors to Jason and do we bleep that?
No, no. Just don't say his last name.
Yeah, I love Jason. Jason, my boy Jason, I have no

(55:51):
problem telling him stuff. I say this is what's fucking me
up because he's super supportive.
He's like, yeah, man, like this,That's great, you know, and and
you got to surround yourself with people who you were
completely open and not. And you get addicted to to being
truthful. That's the thing I got addicted
to saying. I don't know.

(56:11):
Oh, because I, I would never saythat until it got sober.
And like now when I realize like, I don't know anything,
like, hey, what's that about? I say, I don't know, let's
figure it out. Instead of me saying, well, I
know. And in your head you're like, I
don't know. But I hope they don't know that
they don't know. And then you just try and lie
your way through. Some fabricate a whole entire

(56:32):
story or. Lie when I was early on my first
sponsor, he said. OK, so you admit that you're
that you didn't know that, that you're wrong about how to get
sober. I was like, yeah, he's like, Now
consider the option that you might be wrong about every
decision you've ever made in your life.
It's mind blowing. I was livid.
I was so angry. How dare you.

(56:55):
And I did what was the best thing.
I sat with it. I sat with it forbid and I
actually considered it. And I was like, oh, fuck.
And it's not like thinking like,oh, maybe I maybe I was wrong.
It's like, no, but you could have been, you could have been
wrong about everything. And so if you're looking at it
through that lens about like, you know, there's a really
strong possibility that you've been wrong about a lot of

(57:17):
things, it lets you off the hook.
Freedom. It gives you freedom to find
what the real answers are. You know, instead of like,
hiding under Apollo coats. I love it.
I'm gonna hide, hide under this pile of coats and hope it works
itself out. I'll send you the clip.
Oh, that's great. It's 1 of Conan O'Brien's

(57:38):
biggest contributions to comic. That's amazing.
Let's I feel like, I feel like Ijust want to complete, you know,
around the, the corner on the conditional surrender thing,
because a lot of people might belistening and a lot of people
might not care about it, but a lot of people might be
listening. You never explained it.
So because that happens sometimes.
My wife's like you never explained what you were going to

(58:00):
go into and she doesn't sound like that.
She sounds much more. Also I'm an ADHD riddled
interrupter so. And I love you for it, yeah.
I think Trump calls it the weaveI'm weaving.
Don't ever change, man. But yeah, it's like, you know,
I'll get I'll surrender. Sure, I'll give up drinking, but
on my terms, right? It's like as long as I get AB

(58:24):
and C, I'll do what you say you.Know yeah, exactly yeah, we're
brats yeah, we want what we want, you know, ego and and the
hardest part I think is like, and it compartmentalization is
so important to me and it's not like, OK, I don't want to

(58:44):
consider not getting what I wantor I didn't used to it was like
yeah, but I had this thing in myhead and I want that so it's got
to be that way. And it is really liberating
saying well, yeah, but what if it was just something different?
Not better, not worse, just different, you know, and and
that helps me say, oh, that doesn't sound so bad, you know,

(59:05):
like, OK, you want to get sober.You can't do this.
They're like, but want to do that.
Like, what does your life look like if you don't do that?
Like oh, oh, I guess fine. I never even thought.
About never even thought about exactly, you know, it's there's
certain you just got to change perspectives and like getting

(59:29):
sober. Once you get a little bit of
time, you're able to take a stepback and getting sober is the
hardest thing because your tunnel vision, you know, like
you can't consider options. There are no where we are
fucking something happens. We react like we're not we're
not us right and and so we can'tthink of we can't deviate.
We can't deviate from what we think is right.

(59:52):
And then therefore no is right, you know, and once you get a bit
of sobriety, you take that leap and you get a bit of sobriety
then and you start opening up tolike and have people surrounding
you saying, saying, asking questions like, well, what it
what would that look like if, ifit wasn't exactly what you
wanted and actually being receptive and saying, oh, well,

(01:00:13):
it might look like this. And then them saying, what was
that that bad? You should say no, it might
actually be better. And because we can't, we're
Alcoholics. Our alcoholic brains.
They're going to put us One Direction.
We have to be surrounded by other people to help basically
workshop, workshop our lives with us, you know?

(01:00:34):
Yeah. Just pivot right pivot
perspective. And it's hard as men, it is hard
as guys like our, especially of our, I think I'm like, what,
it's 6-7 years older than you. What years?
Graduate. Graduate high school. 2010.
2010, Yeah. I'm nine years older than you.
Yeah. Growing up in the 80s and 90s,

(01:00:56):
it was, it wasn't you'd like pull yourself up by your
bootstraps. It was figure it out.
Yeah. Rub some dirt on it.
Figure it out man. Stop bugging me with this.
Figure it out yourself. That's bosses were like that,
parents were like that. Everybody was like that, you
know, and, and now it's like, that's why I love men's groups,

(01:01:16):
being surrounded by, by guys whowere just like, none of us know,
none of us know what we're doing, you know, But if we all
put our dumb ass heads together,we might be able to figure this.
Out come sit with us and we'll try and figure it out.
Together and we're going to makefun of each other while we're
doing this. There's going to be a lot of
ribbing and stuff and and don't get over overly sensitive, but

(01:01:37):
also you can be as sensitive as you want and.
Recommend meetings, but at the end of the day, we're going to
come to a solution. Together.
Yeah, let's end with this, Tom, because I always end the podcast
with this, But if you could say something to someone struggling
right now with alcoholism, drug use, doesn't know if they want
to get sober, thinking about it,drinking's starting to cause

(01:01:59):
some problems in their life. What would you say, Sir?
That's a good question. I'd say if you know that you're
going to need to get sober. I don't know.
This is tough. I don't.
I try not to be preachy. Oh, here we go.

(01:02:19):
It's not as hard, as hard as I thought it was going to be.
I had put it on this pedestal. This is going to be the hardest
thing I ever fucking did in my life because I was trying to do
it by myself and it was, it was clearly the hardest thing.
I'd, I'd failed all the time when I went to some meetings and

(01:02:40):
was like, I looked at it like everything else in my life.
If I don't know how to do something, I ask somebody, hey,
how do I do this? You know, cameras, lighting,
skateboarding, hockey, fucking bikes, anything.
I say, hey, that's cool, how do I do that?
Apply that to your sobriety. If you don't know how to do
something, ask somebody and and just buy in.

(01:03:01):
It's scary as fuck, man. It is so scary at the beginning,
just like throwing yourself intoit, but like like anything else
you're passionate about, when you throw yourself into it,
you're like, this is fucking fun, man.
Just throw yourself into sobriety.
Like everything else, every skill set that we have that we
throw ourselves into and we get good at, we're like fucking, I'm

(01:03:22):
proud of this. But like sobriety, that's not a
skill set. That's every skill set.
You know, like there is a betterversion of you inside.
Like Jason said to me, he's like, it's recovery.
We're recovering ourselves. We're recovering the old version
of ourselves and there's a lot of shit on there.
And so it is a cliche, you know,reach out for help.

(01:03:43):
Just fucking find someone who you associate with that looks
like your can of person and who's sober and say, Hey, I'm
fucked. This will say so was I come on
in and then and then go and go for it.
You know, like it's there's I was hopeless.

(01:04:04):
I was completely hopeless. My last Bender was the first
time in my life I'd committed. I I thought about committing
suicide and I thought that I hadpeaked.
I thought my life is over. And very quickly after that,
like within months, I was like, holy shit, I was wrong.
I so badly I could wish that I could go back to like that
version of be and say it's goingto be fun, man.

(01:04:27):
Just shut the fuck up, get over yourself and and go out and
fucking. I don't know, just switch your
perspective. That's basically it.
How many things did I just come?I love it.
That's great. I don't know what I'm going to
say, but here's 10 things that Idon't say.
Thanks so much for coming down, buddy.
I love you, Tom. I appreciate you buddy.

(01:04:48):
I'll come back anytime. Yeah, and we'll have.
You thanks for listening. Please help us grow the channel
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The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for
informational and motivational purposes only.
This content is not a substitutefor professional medical advice,
addiction treatment, or therapy.If you or someone you know is

(01:05:09):
struggling with addiction, please consult A licensed
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You are no longer alone.