Parenting is the Art of Poorly Calculating Risk: Can We Keep Kids Safe and Should We Try?

Joshua David Stein and Jason Gay discuss their different approaches to managing risks and danger. Eager to hear from an extreme risk-taker, they call up legendary base jumper and skier Matthias "Super Frenchie" Giraud, who is raising a 5-year-old competitive vert skater. Then, looking for a counter-example, the co-hosts speak to David Sheff, author of "Beautiful Boy," about what types of risks really need mitigation.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:15):
My name is Joshua David Stein. Welcome to the Fatherly Podcast.
I'm joined by my co host Jason Gay Say hello, Hello,
thank you. This is an episode all about risk. The
game the board game. Yeah, the board game. Now, it's
about the terror that I think a lot of parents

(00:36):
have raising kids who are themselves individuals and entertain their
own levels of risk and how far you can go
to help them and what you can do to support them,
and also about being a dad who takes risks. So
we have two guests for you today. The first guests
we're gonna talk to, uh in a second is Matthias Jaou,

(00:57):
who takes enormous as a parent. Yes, next level risk taker.
He basically jumps off cliffs. Yeah. I think the list
is about between broken bones and ligaments and big injuries.
I think it's about twenty six damaged, traumatized or broken things. Yes,
beyond what you and I two middle aged dudes with

(01:20):
you know, worrying about bike rides. This guy is you know.
And later on we're going to talk to David Chef,
who is the author of the memoir Beautiful Boy, and
a new book out with his son um Nick Chef,
called High you know, I think risk is part of
the definition of being a parent. David's story is on

(01:41):
the other end of risk, where his son Nick is
told in Beautiful Boy and through Nick's own memoir, had
a pretty harrowing journey through addiction, um through all sorts
of drugs, but I think ultimately meth was the culmination
of it. And in his memoir David talks about the
bits of what a parent can do when their child

(02:03):
is engaging in risky behavior and how much of it
and at what point do you just say, well, I
can't control. Then Welcome to the Fatherly Podcast. I hope
you're enjoy this show. What's your take, Jason, I was

(02:27):
a nervous child, Joshua. My wife is much more adventurous,
and thankfully the children have followed her lead much more
aggressively than my nervous lead. And I have to admit,
like there have been elements of their child wearing that
I was very nervous about, you know, whether it's you know,

(02:48):
their first time running around outside and you know, riding
a bicycle or anything like that. I was probably the
person who wanted to bring it along a little bit
more slowly. I now really as the error of my ways,
and that my wife was truly onto something in terms
of not just building their ability to do things, but
a confidence to do things, which I think is the

(03:10):
basis of risk taking. Right. It's like confidence and confident
or who wasn't that said, everyone has a plan until
they're punched in the face. Great Like, I agree, I'm generally,
I would say more on your wife's side of things,
I take. I grew up taking like physical risks. I

(03:31):
take physical risks now I encourage my children to take
many more physical risks than my wife would would like.
She says that I allow, I'm reckless and I'm dangerous,
and in my viewpoint, I am fostering a sense of
confidence and daring in the world. That said, all of

(03:53):
my children's both broken bones have come like under my watch.
But then you have the intangibles like how many scooter
trips you know, like they're confident on the scooter now,
or they're outgoing, or they're engaging in the world. But
that that push and pull feels like uh A sort

(04:14):
of like a statistics game. It's like, do you want
to spend of your life at ease and confident and
then just freaked a funk out for that five percent
when things go sideways and you have no plan, that's
my view. Or do you want to be worried of
the time and keep the leash tight and then that
five percent when things go south, well maybe you can

(04:36):
bring that down to two or three percent. You know. Also,
we're both at an age now or a pardon parenthood,
that we've seen the effect of what hardwiring is. Like
when you do build a nervous child and you have
a kid or a friend of your kids that you
know is quite nervous about interaction and being out there

(04:59):
and so on, and it's its own headache. Yeah. I
mean my son's my older son, Achilles, is a very nervous,
very sensitive, tentative kid. I think because he was the
first one we put me like really we really we
were intense laser beans on him. And my other son, Aggie,

(05:19):
who's five, is like his own like lazy fair he does.
He climbs up things, he gets into stuff, he falls down.
He rough houses really really fucking rough, like a bruises
all over from him rough housing, but a rough house back.
I mean, like you know, he's out in the world.
So we have a sort of comparison within our households

(05:40):
interesting and then seeing how they interact. That's actually kind
of beautiful to see the siblings push each other. And
so you're doing it a long term study on your
two children. I mean that's all that any father can
really do, treat their family as a demographic to experiment on.
I myself feel like I want to borrow a little
bit from my children. I like my children have made

(06:01):
me more of a risk taker. I mean I don't
not just like a you know, I was not just
a nervous child and a nervous early parent, just a
kind of nervous person in general. I was not the
person who, like you know, wanted to like go Uh well,
I've never skydive, but I just was not the person
who was typically wildly adventurous. And I find seeing the

(06:22):
joy that it brings my kids and brings you know,
my wife, uh, it makes me want to do it.
And I feel like it's brought out of side of
me that I didn't know existed before. I'm in nearer
to physical risk. I take physical like I ride a
bike through the city, fixed gear bike, and and um,
I don't necessarily put myself in super risky situations, but

(06:44):
I don't feel physical danger that much at all. Yeah,
there's bone explain to the world who might not understand
or no or even conceive that this is within the
realm of human activity. What do you do? What do
I do? I? Um? I jump off stuff for a living.

(07:08):
How high stuff you jump off of? Well? Uh? Anywhere
between two and fifty feet to four feet when I'm
jumping out of a plane. Um, and uh I do
jump off lower stuff too with with my skis on,

(07:29):
I'm a professional skier and base jumper. Give us the
inventory on the collateral damage. What have you broken over
the years. I've had two A C l s and
terrior cruche ligaments in my knees. I broke four meniscus.
I had four micro fractures in my femur. I broke
my tiber plateau. I had a double fracture on my

(07:50):
left femur, collapse my right ankle. I cracked my right
heel in half, broke three metatarsals. I broke my sternu
four times, cracked my nose, cracked my nose, and then
you know the brain bleeding, coma, concussions, things like that,

(08:10):
you know, So, yeah, I think the list is about
between broken bones and ligaments and big injuries. I think
it's about or six damage, traumatized or broken things. And
how does somebody make a living at this? UM, Well,

(08:31):
you know a lot of it or sponsorships obviously UM
and I work with several companies that UM are supporting
my adventures and want to be part of my adventure.
Is more importantly, UM, I've through putting a parson on
my back and skiing and base jumping, I've I've been
able to do a lot of first and UH. I

(08:51):
used to compete as a skier. I stopped in two
thousand seven. I was tired of skiing for judges, you
know where it was really subjective and it felt unfair.
I want to do my own thing and leave my
own mark in in the world of mountain sports. And
UH and I started Yeah, ski based jump, did Firs
ski based jump of Manhood, ski based jump, the Iger. Um,

(09:12):
I'm not the first one the Iger, a few other
guys I've done it before me. Even then was the
first one on the mat on the meadow Horn. I've
done a lot of first distance and first ski based
joans which UM. Yeah, I've been kind of like the
highlight of my career, and so I'm very fortunate you
have companies support my adventures. And the other thing that's
happening simultaneously is the growth of social media and YouTube

(09:34):
and all that because this parallel track allows you to
share this with people. I mean, had this happened to
generation ago, you'd just be a storyteller telling people stories
they probably wouldn't believe unless there was someone following with
a movie camera. But now you can show people in
real time and with go pros and all kinds of uh,
you know, fantastic technologies to share it with people. So

(09:56):
I imagine that as a huge part of this too. Absolutely.
Um you know, to back in the day, my first
ski based jump was on Manhood, which ended up being
a first ski based jump on Manhood ever, and it's
the second most climate in the world, so you ended
up being all over the news. Got on CNN Good
Morning America. That was really cool. That was the first
big exposure that I got in my career. But it's

(10:18):
still regular TV. It's not like people go back online
to watch the video, right, you know, on YouTube exists
ability I hadn't boomed at that time. And then um.
Then you know works got on Good Morning America again
the following year. Blah blah. This is really cool, great exposure.
But what social media is allowed is to have for
people to almost have a connection, be closer to the
action and and and get as much of a taste

(10:40):
as they could without actually doing it right. And um
back in two thousand. Uh Tannis started working with go
Pro in twenty eleven. Uh so, I I outrun an
avalanche by based jumping of a six d foot cliff
with my parachute and filmed the whole thing. The video

(11:01):
when viral, and it was right when YouTube was booming.
It was the first viral go pro video ever. And
uh yeah, and so that definitely helped my career tremendously.
How many views does that now have? Do you know?
Roughly this video on YouTube? I think it's about eight million.
But but yeah, we got it on like TV shows.

(11:22):
It was national news in I think thirty or forty
countries all over the world. So it's at this point
it gets to that level, it's almost impossible to count
how many views overall the video like that has it received.
You know, So the video I what I watched yesterday
on YouTube was a little miniature documentary about a pretty
terrible accident you had um while your wife was in

(11:48):
labor with your son. So, from what I understand, labor
yet having subtractions. It's not to put too fine to
pine on it. Um. So the story goes, how old
is your son now? My son is uh five and
a half. It's five and a half. Okay, So five

(12:11):
and a half years ago, your wife was very pregnant
with your son. You thought it would be a good
idea to base jump off a cliff and which you do, which, no,
no judgment, that's rad um. And your wife was saying
your wife was at home having these contractions, but she
was like, go, go, go if you have to do it,
you know, just do whatever you have to do. So

(12:32):
you go. Um, something goes wrong with your lines, right you.
You hit the cliff face a couple of times, lose consciousness,
end up in a coma for a couple of days,
and when you awake, you're being filmed and you say
something along the lines of like, now I'm going to

(12:56):
you know, now I have to be a dad. My
son needs a father, and that's the most important thing.
And and I was kind of left with the impression, Okay,
maybe he's going to take a step back from from
these sort of risky behaviors. But that's five and a
half years ago, have you or is this still what
you're doing? It's still what I'm doing. Uh. It took

(13:19):
me about I mean, it sounds terrible when you put
it on like that and sized me quickly in thirty seconds. Sorry,
it's so good. Um no, so yeah, I um, it
took me about three months to be able to start walking.
But since I you know, I started walking three months later.
Then sky having four months after my accident based on

(13:41):
bi jumping took about six months. Was there every question
to you about whether you would go back. Well, when
I woke up from after three days in the coma,
I remembered all my dreams, and all these dreams were
about amazing, you know, skiing in the tree eason with
powder flying everywhere and doing big back flips. And then boom,

(14:03):
I wake up and I mean, you know, just got
out of the comma, and I mean this hospital environment
and so it was pretty brutal. But I right there,
I knew that even in a comma, I'm still dreaming
about skiing. So obviously, it's it's this thing that is
so important to me, that is, it's my direction in life.

(14:23):
And you it's it's you know, it's not easy to
do this stuff, especially more mentally than than than than
even physically, because you you have to commit so much
and and and and accept the consequences, and the consequences
could be so dramatic, and especially when you have a
family and all that. But but at the same time, UM,

(14:49):
I don't think we really have the choice right one
of your life once and the time is now, and
you've gotta have the courage to do what is fulfilling
and meaningful to you. We'll be right back after a
quick word from our sponsors. Would you say that it

(15:10):
takes more courage to do what's fulfilling and meaningful to
you or to not do what's fulfilling and meaningful to
you so you can be there for the people who
depend on you. Ah, that's a very good question. Um
My dad for example, which is you know, your dad
is very important. It's the first, uh figure of of man,

(15:31):
especially when you're a boy. It's is that the first
figure of of manhood that you have in your life,
right and and and and my dad was a doctor.
He did his military service in the French commandos, had
jumped out of planes blah blah blah. But always it
was yeah, you just gotta yatta jumping out of plane. Well,

(15:55):
he wasn't born in nineteen thirty nine, you know, he
was a war baby. Then after the war he was
you know, the thirty glorious years had to you know,
it was passionate. He was fascinated by science and and
just was studying robology and geology. He wanted to be
a fighter pilot, but he couldn't pass the physical because
he had he blew his ear druma free diving in

(16:16):
the Mediterranean Sea when he was a kid. And uh,
and so anyway, he just kind of ended up becoming
a doctor, right, and he loved his job. But my
dad always had a life of regrets. He always talked
about the things that he didn't do and what he
missed and and I was like, wow, this is so sad,
you know, like this, and my dad is brilliant, he's
super smart, and uh, and he he was still living this,

(16:40):
this this life of regret. And then um and then
at four years old, you know, then I do my
first jump on skis, and at six years old, I
jumped off my first high dive and and all of
a sudden, I just realized this, all this stuff out
there that is so powerful that I, yeah, I I
have to do it, and this is what I chose
to dedicate my life to at an early age. And

(17:03):
later on, when I was eighteen years old, unfortunately, my
sister committed suicide. And uh, and I remember being at
her funeral and seeing all that sadness around, and it's
almost like I was a witness to the scene. As
good as it sounds, you know, but right there it
kind of allowed me to have a little bit of perspective.
Another thing is going on. And it was the first

(17:23):
year I had my big injury skiing, you know. I
I blew my knee and so I was out for
a few months and during my rehab and blah blah
blah and um. But they're seeing all the sadness around
and also reflecting on what my my sister had done.
And she was brilliant by the way. She had a
master's in in history, masters in later at sure she

(17:44):
was going to get a masters in journalism. She spoke
seven languages of five languages, sorry, seven of my other
sisters and uh, and so that had nothing to do
obviously with her level of intelligence. You know, she was
beyond me even on that level. But the one thing
that I had that she didn't have is that thing

(18:07):
that is so much more important than whatever struggle or
or or tough moment that you're going through. And um,
you know, a few months after her funeral, I read
a book called Man Search for Man, Search for Meaning
by Victor Frankel. Victor Frankel was this um, a Jewish
psychiatrist and neurologist, uh that survived the concentration camps he

(18:33):
was sent to outress, so pretty much the most horrible
human experience anybody can go through, right, And in his
book he talked about how um I think he said,
he who has a way to live, can bear almost
anyhow because he realized what he was in the concentration

(18:54):
camps that you know, the Nazis are destroyed all his work,
and he realized that his goal to finish his work,
and that helped him survive this daily hell where he
would see people that were more physically fit to survive
than him technically you know, being being you know, skinny intellectual,
they would probably be some some forces of nature left

(19:16):
and right that are just falling like flies. And he's like,
why am I surviving? And why are these guys not?
And he's realized that he was surviving because he had
this one goal past any kind of suffering that he
wanted to reach and achieve, right and for me, so
it was a lot more um, I guess um, you know,
beautiful in the sense that he was developing a whole

(19:38):
um um concept called logo therapy to help people find
meanings to the existence blah blah blah, which is therefore
the name and search for meaning. What I'm doing is
a lot less noble. I'm just jumping off stuff but skinning, yeah, exactly, exactly.
It is a hy and I exactly And so I

(19:59):
I made a packed with myself that this is how
it's going to live. And so I guess my question
to answer your question is do you want to be
a hypocrite or do you not want to be a hypocrite?
Can you live live by your own rules in your
own terms? Is that the best example that you can
show your son? Or do you choose to actually kind

(20:20):
of be a coward and be like I'm not going
to do this, But you're not a coward in the
sense that you're providing for your family and you're doing
the right thing for them and all that. But at
the same time, what kind of lesson what kind of
legacy are you are you leaving behind? What? What are
you what are you children going to learn from that?
Are they going to learn that you're actually choosing to
live a life of regrets? Are you actually gonna pack

(20:43):
pack as much as you can in your life? And
That's what I'm trying to do. But are there any
kind of balance as matias? Are you doing anything a
little differently as a parent, like in terms of just
measuring you know, risk versus reward, versus repercussion, Um, you know,
it's parents, and just just change people a little bit.

(21:03):
And I have to imagine that there are some things
you might do a little differently. I still do very
daring things, but I think I'm a lot more calculated
about it. I live a little more room for air.
And if there is no room for error, I'm gonna
I'm gonna go so hard at it, and and that
I know I'm gonna do it, and I'm going to
do it properly, right, But these situations you don't want

(21:25):
to do. You don't want to be in these situations
all the time. When you there's no margin or margin
of error. You you have to pick your battles a
little bit. Um. It's it's it's a question of um probability.
It's not if it's it's it's it's uh, it's when
there's gonna be a problem. And when there's gonna be
the problem, can you recover from it? Can you fix
the situation? So? What how are you approaching risk with

(21:49):
your own son in terms of the risks that he takes.
He's a skateboarder, right, Yeah, my son is five and
a half and uh he's dropping into six at half
fives and sticks with bulls, carving the walls, doing front
side and backside airs, and uh yeah, I'm pretty proud
of him, you know. And then we come home and
we read Looputty Passe and he's all stoked on it.

(22:10):
So he's, uh, he's my son is a renaissance man.
But when you know, you taking risks is one thing,
it's your your choice, and you have your own internal
um logic for why you're doing that. And I have
to say coming into this interview, I was pretty um, well,

(22:32):
let's just say it was a little judgmental after having
watched the documentary, because it does seem to me that,
in my view, the responsible thing is is not to
take those risks when you have family. That is, before
I really understood that that's not just you're searching for adrenaline.
You're searching for a meaning, and that's a totally different
search and with different ethical implications. That said, parenthetically, you

(22:56):
taking risk with your own logic is one thing, but
watching someone you love taking risks is another. And how
does being a father watching loved one take a risk
differ from you taking your own risks? Well, um, I'm
obviously terrified. You know, sometimes they see him drop some

(23:17):
stuff and I'm like, whoa, this is a little daring,
But um, I guess it's it's it's it's uh. It's
also based on trust, right, I trust that he can
do this stuff. And also what I'm trying to do
as a father, As being a father is one thing
you want to you know, you want the safety or
your offspring. But I think the more rewarding royal role,

(23:39):
I think is to be a mentor because a mentor
is truly gonna help you achieve your true potential. A
father might not necessarily do that for you, right, and
because the father is there for safety. But so I'm
I'm mentoring him in that risk management process. Already I'm
a horrible skateboarder, so I can't take teach him all

(24:00):
the technical skills should be a good skateboarder. I can
skateboard with him, but that's about it. I'm not going
to teach him how to do front side and back
side here is that's the role of his coach. But
what I can do to help him, well, his his
coach is very you know, a great, uh, great skateboarder
with a really good skateboard academy ten or at ten
minutes from my house. And so he goes twice a

(24:21):
week there and skateboards a lot. But I'm attending every
single lesson and I'm there on the side and I'm
helping him. And yesterday he was trying to do a
tail tap with his skateboard and the six ft half
pipe on the coping and he was really scared, and uh,
and I was like, scorn, that's good. Being scared is
really good. And why is he good? And then he
looks at me, he's like, well, because he means that

(24:44):
you have to pay attention. It's like exactly, And what
do you have to pay attention? Because it's dangerous exactly.
But if you pay attention and you do it right,
is he gonna go bad? Or or is he going
to go well? It's like it's gonna go well as exactly.
So he's already learning this process of constant traation and
visualization in order to have perfect execution. And this is

(25:05):
this is what I'm teaching my son already and it's
it's uh, it's really rewarding. Now we've established that you
are a wild exception to modern parenting, which you know
and we know has veered significantly in the other direction
of over protection and sort of helicoptering over these kids
and denying them risks that very often parents took themselves

(25:27):
when they were children. Um, what is your feeling about
that You must see it when you're out about with
your son and meet other parents and so on, of
parents being just hyper protective of children and what is
the risk there? Well, you know, first of all, helicopters
are made for one thing. Just on top of the Mountain. No,

(25:47):
I I absolutely, uh completely disagree with the modern trend
of of over protecting your your children, you know, I
you know, protect your children and pray for oblivion. That's it,
you know, just you know, it's give them the power,
given the tools to survive and thrive as an individual,

(26:10):
instead of doing everything for them, of over protecting them.
You have to protect your kids. I'm not saying you
have to just wrot and let them run you know,
wild like little wild animals, but you know, give them
a safe frame. But then you have during church them
taking chances and trying things and and this is how
they're going to become accomplished individuals. If you do everything

(26:33):
for them, if you walk them by the hand for everything,
they're not gonna be able to do anything because they
don't know how. I mean, I agree, I agree with you.
This is Joshua the helicopter. Um. I agree with you,
But I also think there is and I'm sure you
must agree that's a laudable goal and an alaudable philosophy

(26:55):
that doesn't but there is still actual risk, Like there
is actual risk it your son could get seriously hurt,
that you could get seriously hurt. And that must be
something that you walk around with that that's just when
you look at the risk verse reward, it's more rewarding.
There's more of a reward for allowing that risk to
exist than in not engaging in that risky behavior at all.

(27:18):
I understand what you're saying, but I think we need
to also define risk. This is I don't think. I
don't see it as risk. I see it as uncertainty.
And when there is uncertainty, you have a lot of
variableity your fingertips and and it's and it's and that
you have to evaluate and to to hopefully execute properly

(27:40):
when you're trying to achieve It is a complicated problem. MA,
what does scare you? If anything? What does scare me?
I'm actually probably the most scared person you've ever met.
And really everything phobia is like what kinds of things
uh close to phobia? Tight space? This? Uh? After my

(28:02):
accident and actually I had a couple of episodes of agoraphobia,
and I think that was probably from having a head trauma,
having over stimulation by too many people around me, I
started freaking out. Um, I'm really scared, but that's from
um my personal history I'm really scared of phone calls
because that's how you always get a terrible news, right,
And so when I see my phone ringing, and whether

(28:25):
it's for you know, business or or or or personal reasons,
my first reaction is, you know, and I'm really alert
because I'm like, oh, got something happened, and um, but yeah, no,
I I I'm actually, um, I'm actually scared of heights too,
Believe it or not. I've just you've overcome that. When
it gets high it's just like I will do anything

(28:47):
to get low again. What's the fastest way exactly get
me down there? Um? No, I think it's it's Um,
I've learned to use my fear as a tool. The
fears always going to be there, right, you know. You
know people keep telling you that you got to conquer
your fear and this something, and I think it's I
think it's b s because the fear is always going

(29:07):
to be there. It's what you do with it. You
either shut it down or you manage it, or you
can actually use it as a tool to propel you
and empower you. My friend actually wrote a whole book
on this, called The Art of Fear. Her name is
Christian Omer. She was probably the biggest female pro skier
in the nineties and she she broke down that whole
concept of fear. And he was very eye opening for

(29:27):
me reading her book, because I think I was already
aware and practicing a lot of these skills, but I
hadn't verbalized it, and seeing it all written like that,
I was like, oh, wow, it don't make sense, you know. Um.
But yeah, so that gets that answer your question, hopefully unfear.
Well here's our last question. What's the next thing you're
going to jump off of? Well, my next thing is

(29:49):
I'm going back to the Alps and I'm gonna ski
the mount where I crashed five years ago and actually
do it properly this time. So that's my next big project. Um.
But until then, I'm going to do a lot of
base jumpings to a lot of base jumping to practice,
and a lot of skiing to train, and some ski
based jumping. But that's my next big project on the

(30:09):
list for sure. Well, Mattia, thank you so much for
joining us. I don't know what you tell a base
jump or not break a leg, but good luck, thank
you appreciate it. It's a good time tiding with you. Guys,
than have you ever forgotten to turn the camera on
trying to wrap it up? That's a good question. Um,

(30:32):
I I think it's happened, maybe once or twice. But
you know, it's very interesting because I'm a I'm a
creature of habit and I think this is why I've
been able to survive based jumping for so long now.
And everything has to be I apply your process to
everything right and have to immerse myself in a sequence
of things. Like when I go skiing, I'm not superstitious,

(30:52):
but I put my right boot before my left ski
boot and this I just kind of go through on
my checklist and have everything out of the way. And
this way I know that when it's time to go,
I go. And and the fact that the action of
turning my camera on is is almost a sign that
that's it. We're going. And I turned my camera on,
and then the next step is to check my chest,
drop legs, drop my powder chute, which is what opens

(31:14):
your parachute, and then give the count three to one
and then you go. So I mean I've shot so
much that I've incorporated the camera as part of the
sequence and uh so, of yeah, I think I've I've
maybe forgune to turn it on maybe a couple of
times before, but after maybe being on a big training
trip when I'm just doing a lot of jumps, but

(31:35):
on projects, I never forget because it's part of the sequence. Cool.
Thank you, Thanks for having you guys, have a good day. Tears.
Thank you. That answer he gave about his backstory about
his dad and then his sister and then Victor Frankel.
I think like those things combined put a whole new

(31:56):
light on the risks he takes. He doesn't see it
as he sees it as a necessity for reasons that
I didn't hitherto understand. He sees it as the fullest
expression of himself. And I think that you know, people
in the world of risk and extreme risk like that
they are different kinds of people in the same way
that people who are you know, aw tours and great

(32:20):
musicians and great athletes are they just that they're they're
living in a different kind of frequency than the rest
of us. Did that? You know you said earlier that
you were like a nervous kid and still a little
bit of a nervous individual. Did that or risk averse
individual and somebody's Did that alter you the way you
think about things? Or is that just like a nice
character that you understand, but doesn't I mean, I can't

(32:43):
see myself now adopting his lifestyle, that's what you're asking, um,
But are you going to take the elevator down? It's
a somewhat analogous situation. A couple of months ago, I
was around a bunch of people in the Bonnavel Salt
Flats and Utah who are attempting to break a land
speed record, and this is just who they are. They

(33:06):
are doing absurd, absurd things because it makes them feel
the fullest version of themselves, and for us to sort
of render judgment on it from our kind of you know,
view from above doesn't work unless rendering judgment is our
fullest version of ourselves, rendering judgment exactly well, you know,

(33:28):
I think that is kind of the currency of the culture, right,
just kind of like crapping on everything. Yeah, sadly, no,
I thought, I think that's a good point. But I
really did walk away from that thinking significantly differently about him,
just because I hadn't. I didn't know that. I mean,
that's the other thing is you look at these people
and they're doing these things, and yeah, you filter it

(33:49):
through your own narrative, in your own personal history. But
then hearing his personal history, you realize that the actions
he's taking today are just the tip of a much
longer narrative of his life. That is what he does
with its own menus. The inventory of injuries was spectacular.
I mean, I cannot imagine. Maybe we can do it
one of those like radio lab like fade out and

(34:10):
then like a fadeback. Anyway you're taking off. But I'm
gonna go up and see David Chef. Um before you go,
do you what questions would you like me to ask?
Do you have any I one thing that you know
is fascinating about their story and going public with their
story and of course now there's the movie. Um, you

(34:31):
know I have to imagine that. Um, they have become
not just you know, storytellers, but you know, advice givers
and advocates for people. And it seems in this country
there is an awakening happening around the idea of addiction.
And you know, um, you know, normalizing is not the
right word. It's kind of a weird destigmatizing thank you, um,

(34:55):
And just what that's like to sort of transit from
being someone who's telling a personal story to now being
looked upon as you know, UM, an advice giver, you know,
as an advocate, and what that transition has been like
for them. I will ask that alright, Jason, UM, thank
you for hanging out again today. We'll see you soon.

(35:17):
Not sure, you're sure I'm not getting sacked. No, no,
we have great chemistry. We do. Yeah. Yeah, I felt
a captain and to nail thing going all day. Love.
I'm going to say goodbye to Jason, say goodbye to Mattias,
and head up with Max to a hotel room in Midtown,
Manhattan to talk to David Chef. David is the author

(35:38):
of Beautiful Boy, a memoir about his son Nick's addiction
is Long, addiction and coming back from that. You might
have heard a Beautiful Boy because it's now a movie
with Steve Carrell and Timothy Shallom. David was in town
to promote his new book with Nick, called High Everything
you want to Know about drugs, alcohol, and addiction. I
wanted to know about the other side of risk and

(35:59):
not to father engaging in risky behavior like Mattia's, but
the father watching his son engage in risky behavior. Like David,
it's a prospect which is terrifying as a dad myself
of young kids. And I think it's a something that
a lot of fathers wrestle with. You know, I think
risk is part of the definition of being a parent. Uh.

(36:23):
Constant terror, constant worry, uh navigating that line that you're
describing of of of um, risk you know, for your kid,
risk for yourself, and how it changes all the time
because of circumstance, but also of course as kids get
older and older. UM. And it was uh it's one

(36:47):
of the things that parents, UM, I think have the
hardest time with. I sure do as far as um
how much control we can have, how much we can
protect our kids. I mean, I think when our kids
are born, you know, something kicks in and it's this primordial,
sort of primitive instinct that is all about protecting them.
And at some point you realize now there's so much,

(37:09):
only so much you can do, and that is heartbreaking
and the way it's also liberating. UM. But you know,
I think it's a constant struggle. It doesn't end. I mean,
my kids, it happens when your baby is born and
and and you know, all you want to do is
is protect them, and then as they get older, you
have to decide how far back you can step from them,
you know, I mean, I I know, this just popped

(37:31):
into my head, but you know, there's there was. Beautiful
Boy obviously was named after the John Lennon song who
I interviewed actually before before he died, and I watched
and record the song Beautiful Boy, and one of the
lines in there let's you hold my hand when you walk,
this when you cross the street. And it's all about
trying to protect our kids, but you know, encountering limits

(37:54):
all the time. Yeah, the story of Beautiful Boy, You're
the memoir is, to some extent, the way I read it,
a story of finally realizing and coming to terms with
I think you call it, or it is called the
three c's the alan on I. I didn't cause it.

(38:15):
I can't control it, and I always forgot too it's
I can't cure it. I can't cure it, which is
I can't imagine anything more terrifyingly, it's like blank terror
to realize that you love this little creature who was
a little creature is out there, I mean, and at

(38:37):
the end of the day. Whatever demons your child is
wrestling with is their's to wrestle with. Although you, as
a parent, also have the I also have the obligation
to do as much as you can. And that kind
of is to me the tender heartbreak of the whole
shebang is you know you can't cure it. You know

(38:58):
you didn't cause it, and you know, shit two out
of three, Yeah, you can't control it yet, And why
do we want to control it? I mean, not sure do.
I mean, I don't know if fault parents are like
I am, but I'm pretty much um. You know, I
try to control everything in my life and I'm a
complete failure doing so. But I try and try and try,
and of course that's one of the hardest parts. When

(39:19):
somebody you love is addicted or have any other disease.
You know, there's only so much you can do. I
have two boys, they're five and six years old. You
have three kids. You have Jasper who just left the
hotel room. Yeah, Jasper twenty four, he'll be twenty five
next week day, Daisies twenty two, and Nick is thirty six,
which is hard for me to fathom. I mean, I

(39:40):
feel like I should be thirty six. I'm sixty two,
but yeah, having a thirty six year old son is
really inconceivable. And of course with Nick, it feels like
a miracle because you know, as I write in the book, um,
you know, there was a time that I didn't think
he'd make it to twenty one. I just couldn't get
over the reminder. As you're going through the book and

(40:00):
you're in rehab, and well, he's in rehab, he's out
of rehab, he's you feel like he's hit rock bottom.
He hasn't he comes back And then in one line
and it was his nineteenth birthday in the sense that
he was going through all of that. It's such a
such a young age as a dad is I said,
I have a five and six or two boys. It's
like in the in the front of that book, you

(40:23):
are describing these walks you have with your son and
these moments that I'm having now with my boy and
my boys, and that's a blank terror is Look, I
can't I don't know what the future will hold for them.
I hope it doesn't hold the suffering that it held
for Nick, and the you know, hopefully the redemption as well.
But regardless of what that risk is. I still you

(40:46):
still just love into the void, you know. And and
for you as a dad, the three cs hold true.
And still you you try because there's no option not to.
That's our That's what it means to be a dad.
That's true. Yeah it does. Uh, We'll enjoy your young kids.

(41:07):
And the truth is, even though you know, we experienced
just terror for ten years when Nick was you know,
the older teenager until he was in his mid twente
is actually late twenties. Um, you know, I'd never give
up being a father, but I do wish that there
was a way that you know, when your kids are
five and six, it's great and easy and relatively easy,

(41:28):
it's still challenging, but you know, teenage years, you know,
I wish there was a way we can sort of,
you know, lock them in a closet and left. I
mean not really, but you know that sounds pretty extremely
kind of gruesome, but I didn't. I just mean we
want to. Those years are tough anyway, and of course
one of the things that they have to navigate as
well as you know, there's so much they have to navigate,

(41:50):
and it's harder to be a kid now. I think
they're navigating technology, you know, but not it's not just
bowling at school but cyber bowling and all the you know,
the very real fear of missing out thing. And then
I mean there's just so much going on added to
the stresses of academics or the stresses of family at home,
you know, whatever is going on at home, and um,

(42:10):
you know, whatever else is going on giving people learning disabilities,
people with the psychological disorders that are not being treated
well or at all. Um. So you know, it is
a continual struggle, and there is a you know, there's
just no guide book that's useful. I mean, there are

(42:30):
a lot of parenting god books, but um, you know,
they're all such broad strokes because every kid is different,
every family is different, every parent is different, every um,
every you know, I was gonna say every year, but
every week it's different. Every day is different. But I
also think that, um, in some ways, it's like a
mantra that the words themselves in terms of the guidance

(42:52):
that you're getting can be true, right, but you need
to invest. You need to invest those words with meaning
for it to resonate. And I feel like you you know,
you um through the Alanan and through the other treatment centers,
whether it was the three c's or they keep coming back,
or the whatever platitudes or truisms were given to you there,

(43:18):
unless they're endowed with your own meaning and your own
hard earned experience that only you can bring, and you
suffer for those They're just words, and I feel in
some ways trivial, and they did to me. And in fact,
those three c's I sort of rolled my eyes when
I heard them, because, first of all, I I never

(43:38):
believe the first part that says you didn't cause it,
because I am aware as a parent about how I
feel responsible for everything, and we are responsible for a
lot of what happens to our kids, and I wasn't.
I mean, I made a lot of mistakes, and I
think the hardest thing I subjected Nick to a very
very very traumatic divorce from his mom when he was
really young. UM, which you don't really spare yourself from

(44:00):
in the memoir at all. Well, I feel like, first
of all, in writing, I feel like, you know, I
just determined at the beginning that I was just gonna
tell the truth if the story was going to have
any meaning at all. UM. But the other part of
it is UM, I feel that, you know, it's a
really important thing to explore. You know, parents are very

(44:21):
very I mean this is a whole side direction, but
the whole thing about divorce. UM, I know from being
there and I know from other families experiences that when
a parent is going through it, it is really really hard,
It is really stressful. So when I was going through it, um,
and I kept pretending in my mind that I was
taking care of my little boy, uh, and I was
on one level, But the truth is is that I

(44:43):
was really in turmoil. I was not very sane. I
was not very able to be sort of even the
kind of parent that I I wanted to be and
wish I had been. UM. And a child is left
in the middle, and it was really traumatic for nick. Um.
Kids are the peripheral damage of of of that the

(45:07):
word um collateral damage of of a divorce. And so
you know, did I cause it? You know, no, that's
not going to cause a kid's addiction, but stresses trauma contribute.
So you know, I don't completely left my let myself
off the hook for that. See the idea that um,
I can't control it. UM, I shorten believe that when

(45:31):
I first heard it. I learned that it's true, but
I even now don't completely accept it because though ultimately
you can't control anybody else, You can't control the decisions
people make. You can't control you know, forces in the
world that just you know, just happened. Um, there is

(45:51):
a lot. I mean again, it depends on how you
think about control. If it's control, you know, being able
to make sure everything works the way that you want,
that doesn't work. But in terms of controlling, this idea
that that that you don't give up, that you keep
trying to do the best you can, that you keep
trying in a way to control things, not in an obsessive, crazy,
you know, way of trying to manipulate or anything like that.

(46:12):
But you know, in the example of Nick being addicted,
I did try to control him, and one of the
ways I tried to control him over those years was
always to get him back into rehab, no matter how
off the deep end he was, no matter how how
how it was, no matter what dangerous situations he was in.
So you know, ultimately, yeah, I couldn't control him. He
made the decisions about whether he was going to use

(46:35):
or not, and ultimately whether he's gonna live or not. Um,
And then I guess that the same thing about cure him. Um,
definitely couldn't do it. You know, I'm not a doctor,
and even doctors can't necessarily cure this disease, although they
they can actually more and more. But um, it wasn't

(46:56):
the kind of thing I could, you know, wave a
wand and he would be okay. But the way that
I could stay involved is the same way you might
try to cure somebody that you love who has cancer.
You can't ultimately cure them, but you can get them
to the best doctors that you can. You can follow up,
you can stay on top of it, you can make
sure they take their medicine. You know. That's sort of
the way that I came down in all those three c's.

(47:20):
Here's another brief word from our sponsors. Yeah, I mean
it's a it feels like a a groundlessness in between
knowing that ultimately it rests in your child. It's it's

(47:40):
another person and they hold the responsibility and they hold
the cure themselves. But that doesn't absolve you, right morally, ethically,
or even from an emotional the fact that you love
this person from trying. Yeah, you try and you try,
and you try. And actually the other part of that,
though that just popped into my head when you said that,
is that the other messages that I you know that

(48:06):
there isn't one factor that causes addiction or you know, suicide,
whatever it is. You know that we're trying to protect
our kids from And I hear from parents all the
time who tried everything and they can't absolve themselves because
the fact that whatever they did wasn't enough and their
child ended up dying. And I know that there are

(48:29):
circumstances where you can do everything right, and there obviously
always isn't a right and wrong way to approach a
lot of things, including this um and sometimes people just
don't make it. So it's not about fault uh and
yeah and right, And that's not a referendum on I
suppose at some point it's a referendum on the efficacy

(48:50):
of what you've done, but not on the validity or
the or the yeahs. Actually know what it may not
a little bit of the efficacy and the decisions. But
to tell you the truth, the most this is really
the frustrating part. And this is the part where you
can't control. Is that such a big factor was luck

(49:10):
for us, only luck because I know people people have
said have've seen, have read Beautiful Boy, and even more
for some reason when they've seen the movie of the book. Um,
you know something about the reason Nick is alive is
because he came from a family with at least enough
privilege to be able to get him into treatment ten times. Uh.

(49:32):
And yeah, I mean we were lucky. I had good insurance,
as mom had insurance that kicked in in one place.
I was able to find a treatment program that let
us pay over time. But you know, we're not rich,
Whereas there are people who are very, very very wealthy
who I know and I've met, who have spent hundreds
of thousands of dollars sending their children over and over
again to the best rehabs in the world, best psychiatrist,

(49:55):
best of everything, and their kids died. So you know,
there's no magic formula and there's only so much. Again,
going back to the thing, there's only so much we
can control. Um, how as a you know Nick is
but Nick is an author. Nick corote Well an author

(50:17):
not only of his own memoir, but co author of High,
the book that just came out, which is more geared
towards from my understanding, Yeah, that's for young adults. Yeah,
for young adults to understand what's going on. Um. And
he also has written his own his own work as
well for you. He's not for you. But in general

(50:37):
he's always in recovery. I mean, from my understanding, it's
not like a relapse that that will always be part
of his brain chemistry. He'll be at risk for it.
That's what he feels and says. I mean, I know
that there are people who for whom that's not maybe true. Um,
people do get sober once, um, and they stay clean

(50:59):
for the rest of their life. And um, even some
cases you know, they can they do end up, you know,
having a glass of wine and it's okay, most people
can't do that, and so it's a risky assumption. Um.
But Nick has shown himself to be and talks about
very openly the fact that he is not one of
those people. He says that, you know, there were times
when he thought, Okay, I can just drink. I know

(51:19):
I can't do crystal math, shoot heroin, but I can
just drink. And he said that as soon as he
would have a sip of alcohol. You know, the brain
thing would click on and then he was out scoring
hard drugs the next day. Um, then he thought, I
can just smoke pot. It'll sort of take the edge off,
and I'll be okay with that same thing, you know.
So he now says that he has like this patchwork

(51:42):
puzzle of of of whatever, of the pieces that help
him allow him to stay sober, and they include, um,
his work you mentioned. You know, he's a TV writer
now and he writes movies and he's doing great there
and it's something he's always loved. He's married to this
amazing woman who was his best friend when he was
in six and seventh grade. He goes to a meetings

(52:05):
a lot, has a sponsor, is really committed to that.
And maybe the most important thing, or at least one
of the most important things, um, you know, in that puzzle.
I think a really big piece of it is that
he finally worked with the psychiatrist who determined that he
has bipolar disorder and depression, and that once she diagnosed

(52:25):
those things and put him on medications, he stopped relapsing
because so much, I mean, we now know that so much,
so much of his drug use was related to those
psychiatric problems. He was always trying to feel better when
he was depressed or feel less crazy when he was
feeling the bipolar disorder kick in. And the only way

(52:45):
he knew how to deal with them, not treat them,
but to try to treat them was getting high. And
you know, Nick and I have talked about this. If
somebody had diagnosed him and if he'd been put on
medication as a child, you know, would you have almost
died a bunch of times because of drug use? And yeah,
we don't know, but I kind of feel like it's
less far less likely that he would have become addicted,

(53:06):
at least to that level. I'm curious to hear what,
you know, an adventurer says about how things changed when
they have kids. I saw a film about oh Man,
a guy who did I forgot even what you call it.
You know, you jump off of like yosemble and it's
a o they call a squirrel suit, then you go
flying and um. And he had these little kids and

(53:29):
his wife didn't want to do that anymore, and somehow
he rationalized doing it. I kind of think that if
you've got little kids, that's maybe not the most responsible
thing to do. Like when I was a kid. We
just had this conversation. Well, just to answer, Mattia says
that this is what this is what gives his life
meaning basse jumping, and if he's going to be responsible,

(53:50):
if he's gonna be a good model to his son,
he has to be who he is, and that is
who he is. Well, I would argue with him, but
it's his life. I would only agree with him because
you know, yeah, it's cool what he's saying. But you know,
if he dies, then the kids are gonna be growing
up without a father and said all of his philosophies,
And yeah, they might know that, but I don't know

(54:10):
if they're gonna Well they would have made that choice. Um,
because when I was when I was a teenager, actually
I just started college. My first year of college, I
was hitchhiking with a friend and somebody picked me up
on the side of the road. Uh no, no, we
were driving. Somebody was hitchhiking and we picked her up.
And because she was cute, I think we agreed when
she said, uh, do you want to stop at this

(54:32):
place I work and live and have a skydiving lesson?
And so we of course we did it. And we
were young enough to be um just kind of fearless
and stupid. And the instructions consisted of, you know, fifteen
minute conversation about what pulling in your reserve shoot and
get and smoking joints with it, the guy who was

(54:53):
going to bring us up in the plane, and so
we did that. When I jumped out of the plane
my first time, and my parachute didn't open, the main
shoot didn't open, and somehow in that fifteen minute conversation,
they said, will you pull your reserve shoot? So I
pulled my reserve shoot. And what I didn't know I
was supposed to do is you're kind of supposed to
push the reserve shoot away so it comes up and

(55:14):
doesn't get entangled in the lines of the first shoot
of the main shoot. So I didn't do that. Mine
did get entangled. I was falling, and I was very
conscious of the fact that there was nothing else I
could do. Talk about control. I had no control, and
I was going to die. Just miraculously, like seconds apparently
before I would have hit the ground, the shoot, you know,
the reserve shoots, sort of unwound really quickly and slowed

(55:34):
me down enough, so I was okay, um uh, that
kind of risk. When I became a dad was not
in the picture at all, so you would even yeah, exactly.
So the clearer thing for me is like my role
or my relationship with risk, I'm I just feel like,
you know, there's too much at stake, and I guess

(55:56):
I feel like, um for my you know, impulse of nous,
which I definitely have, I mean, if you know, rain
it in a bit, because I want to be there
for my kids. Watching the kids take risks as a
whole other thing, because there's the question of, you know,
wanting to let them grow up and want to let

(56:18):
them be individuals. I want to let them figure out
who they are. And I guess I've lived with the
knowledge that all my all three of my kids surf
and in the waters off of where I live in
San Francisco or near San Francisco, the water is frigid. Um.
The waves are completely unpredictable. It's not like someplace where
there's you know, sort of general waves. It's it can

(56:41):
be really really really dangerous and crazy. Um. And of
course famously you know they're they're great white sharks swimming
around um, and UM, it's you know, it was kind
of hard for me to let go enough to really
feel comfortable when they're out there, and so to the
champion them, cheer them on. UM And I do that now,

(57:04):
and I feel like, you know, they're um. They're taking risks.
You know, they love it. It's good for them. It
connects them with nature, connects them with the water. It
is about you know, freedom, it's about confidence, it's about joy.
You know, they just experienced nature in a way that
you know, I don't think many people do. UM. And

(57:25):
I have to go with the statistics that you know,
that shark might be swimming out there, but you know,
the likelihood of some problem with the shark is I mean,
you can get hit by lightning ten times is more
likely than getting hit by a shark. But you know,
I do may make a conscious effort to live with
that kind of a risk. And it's not that I
really even have a choice. I mean, when they were

(57:46):
really young, I could have said no, you can't, sir,
if you can't go out there, not today, the waves
are too big. I mean I did that, I guess
when they were really little. But um uh, so you know,
at a certain point they're gonna make those decisions themselves.
So when Nick started dabbling with drug use, you know,
marijuana and drinking and that kind of thing. Um, you

(58:08):
could maybe say it's analogous to surfing in the sense
it wasn't your this wasn't your experience of how your
life unrolled. But a lot of people, you know, as
a parent, you're like, oh, well, and I think you
were as well. Well, he should explore himself and he
needs to gain freedom. And so that's the plus side.
And then the risk is, well, what if it leads

(58:29):
to harder drugs and harder drugs and as is the case,
what if it is a gateway two years of suffering
and near death. And I think that's a very common
and really difficult and sort of unsolvable ambiguity that parents
have to live with. Is is well that you know,
that's something that I've learned about. And I actually feel

(58:51):
very you know, very differently than I did. I I
don't have that sort of lays a fair idea about
just let letting our kids alone and letting them experiment
with drugs and all that stuff. And it's not that's
because I'm sort of become some you know, like Reagan
ask sort of you know, like um, conservative about drugs.
I mean, I I know about the ubiquity, and I

(59:12):
know the temptation to use them, and I know why
people use them. But I also know that, you know,
kids brains are are very vulnerable. Their brains are developing
at a time you know, between you know, through their
adolescence until they're about twenty five, more than they ever
will throughout their lives. And I also know that there
is a percentage of kids who will become addicted h

(59:33):
And there are a lot of risk factors that increase
the likelihood that someone will become addicted. And so somebody
who starts really young is much more to become likely
become addicted to next eleven years old. I wouldn't look
the other way if my kid was eleven years old.
I tried to jump in there instantly and figure out
what's going on to try to stop them. Um, you know,
if kid has bipolar disorder like Nick did, other mental illnesses.

(59:53):
You know, if a kid is struggling in school, struggling socially.
I mean, there's a lot of things that we know
increase the likely they're going to become addicted. And so
I don't like again, you know, you can't you can't
decide ultimately for them, but you certainly can decide ultimately
about yourself about what kind of stand you're going to take.

(01:00:14):
And I don't um, I don't think it's sort of all,
you know, stand back and what happens, what's going to happen. Um. Yeah,
there's a lot of pressure on kids to use drugs.
There's peer pressure, there's you know, there's yeah, you have
a standing here, which there's a study which I thought
was really interesting about how the the neurochemistry of teenagers,

(01:00:35):
how what fires when there's an audience versus what not
like they have, they derive much more pleasure from an
activity when people are watching them as opposed to how adults.
And that to me was really enlightening and like you said,
a little bit of a little bit terrifying, exactly, my

(01:00:56):
kid will do that regardless of you know, in your
case as well, regardless you have And this is what
you go into in the book you had. You mean,
you mentioned that addicts come from great families and families
with trouble, and like there's no one variable but that

(01:01:16):
your kid is going to be out there a little
flame flickering and you can't protect them from every gust.
You know, yeah, that's right, and you just try it.
And I guess the point they're about, you know, not
about realizing that drugs are dangerous. That's stupid, sounds stupid,
I guess to a lot of people. But you know,
you do is look in the paper today and you
realize how many kids just try and go out and
they try a pain pill once. You know, if I

(01:01:37):
could interest oxy cotton and mix it with something else,
and then you know, they like it and they go
back and they get more, and suddenly, you know, a
person that probably never would use heroin is using heroin almost,
I mean, and then they overdose and die. So you know,
to say that it's it's cool and it's fine, and
you know kids are gonna do it. If they're gonna
do it, it's just it's too dangerous of an attitude.

(01:01:58):
When Nick was going through you that his most his
most dire period. I think it was before the opioid
epidemic really hit. It was. Yeah. So now ten years on,
a little bit more than ten years on, I mean,
are you racked with foreboding or do you feel optimistic?

(01:02:24):
It's well, I guess I feel yeah, I mean, I
guess I feel foreboting, not not because of my kids.
I mean I know that, you know, Nick's doing great
and Jasper, but yeah, they're there, they've lived through this,
and they kind of don't. Nobody has to tell them that,
you know, this is gonna be dangerous, and they don't
have to tell Nobody has to tell them that this
is runs in our families. Because addiction is also genetic.

(01:02:48):
There's a piece of it that that is um But
you know, twenties thirty six thousand people died the year
Beautiful Boy came out in two thousand and eight from overdoses,
and this last year seventy two thousand did. And now
two people are dying every single day. So it's hard
to feel optimistic about that. I mean, it is brutal.

(01:03:10):
And I hear because I wrote this book that a
lot of parents read, uh, and people relate to the story.
I hear from them, and parents write me, and they
go on social media and they send me private messages
and one after the other. I mean, every day, you know,
at least one and sometimes three and sometimes five and
sometimes more notes from people who tell me about the
tragedies and their families. So you know, I I just

(01:03:34):
feel devastated about that, and I feel that it is
it makes it scarier to be a parent now with
that other threat, because um uh, it wasn't the same. No,
when when I my Nick was growing up, and even
when Daisy and Jasper you know, have been growing up,
the opioid thing wasn't what it is now. Three people

(01:03:54):
Daisies now just graduated college, but so four years ago
she graduated high school and from that high school class,
three kids have died from obioid overdoses. You know, it's real.
And it doesn't even necessarily mean that these kids were
quote unquote drug addicts. It means that they might have
been partying and taking too much of of a drug
that they thought was one thing and it turned out

(01:04:17):
to be fentinel or something like that, and then there's
they stopped breathing. How do you cope with that as
a parent, Because what we want to do is lock
the doors and don't look at at night, stay home,
you know, watch TV. But um we don't want to
let them out, but we can't. We have to let
him out to and so it's really about educating them

(01:04:38):
conversations so we can figure out what's going on, trying
to get a kid help if it seems like they're struggling,
whether it's socially or emotionally or physically. UM, staying on
top of it as much as we can, you know,
listening to our kids. When I'm doing this project in
a prison in Saying Quentin prison, and I was talking
to this whole group of prisoners, and UM, I was

(01:04:58):
going that night to talk to some high school kids
about drugs. And I asked these guys, these men in
this big group of prisoners, you know, is there anyone
I'm going to talk to these kids and that which
I tell them, is there anything anybody could have told
you when you were young that would have made a
difference in your life? And a lot of the guys
had very interesting things and some wise things to say.
But then one guy, who had been very quiet in

(01:05:21):
the back of the room, uh said and stood up
and he said, you know you're you're wondering what you
should say to these kids, UM, don't say anything, just
listen to them. And I thought that was really profound.
And that's what one of the things that we can
do as parents in this really scary world is to
realize that the risks are out there. You know, we
can't control them, um, but there are things that we

(01:05:42):
can do to make too, as you said at the
very beginning, to mitigate some of the risks and to
try our best to um protect them. Wow. Thank you
for writing the book. Thank you for making yourself available,
and for connecting and holding that suffering of so many people.
I think, even from the outside from a dad who

(01:06:05):
hasn't gone through your struggles, and it does decrease suffering,
and I appreciate it. Well, thank you so much. It's
been really really great to talk to you. Okay, Well,
I'm back in the studio with Jason. Just got back
from talking to David Chef. I mean, I think the
difference for me, I don't know. I don't know how
you felt, but talking to Mattias about risk at this point,

(01:06:29):
it feels like he has a pretty healthy handle on it.
But certainly none of the stuff occurred to me about
how earlier in his life with his sister and reading
that Victor Frankel thing and his dad's own frustrated life
the deeper root causes of why he wanted to engage

(01:06:49):
in that risky behavior. There is some heartbreak, I think
embedded in that I think so. I think that's fair.
Talking to David about watching that heartbreak un old in
real life was I don't know if it was emotional
for him because he talks about it all the time,
but as a dad, listening to him recount what it's

(01:07:13):
like to see someone you love engage in that self
destructive behavior was extremely powerful, kind of like difficult to
do the interview. Going back to your question at the
top of this, do you feel now that with David's situation,
you're really talking about harmful behavior versus this idea of risk,

(01:07:33):
and you know the potential upsides and downsides of risk.
I think David's point, which he made and is well taken,
is that drugs are not risky behavior. Drugs are dangerous behavior,
and so it's not so much about watching your kid
climb uh sofa and they might fall. It's like your

(01:07:55):
kid throwing himself, you know, off a building, Like is
that self discovery? Maybe he'll discover he can fly, but no,
he'll he'll profoundly hurt himself. UM. I think that was
the most salient takeaway is properly categorizing that behavior like

(01:08:22):
Mattias and his son, his son dropping into a half pipe. Right,
that's risky, and that's fine. You can have a healthy
tolerance of risk, even for your kids. But allowing your
child to experiment with something like drugs or um maybe

(01:08:44):
even engage in behavior without under without seeing the underlying
factors and pathological factors which are driving towards that behavior,
even if it's not as um dramatic as Nick's drug use,
that's not risk. That's danger, and that's the thing that
like as parents, that's what we protect our kids from.

(01:09:08):
There's a lot of laughing in the beginning of the
show and very little laughing at the end of it.
But mm hmm. Do you think I walk away from
the show mm hmm heartbroken in some way and aware

(01:09:30):
of the tenderness and the difficulty that we have as
father's raising kids, and candidly the fragility of it. Yeah.
I mean, you know, Mattias makes a really really strong
case for you know, risk, the upside of risk, the
idea that you know, you fully express what it is

(01:09:51):
to be alive and to be human. And I agree
with you. I think there's probably an underside to his
personal story which makes it even more enlivening for him. Uh.
And then what chef like, you know, a complete different
experience there where there's not some sort of you know,
schoolhouse rock, you know, lesson at the end of it,

(01:10:13):
it's just pain. Well, that is the risk episode of
the Fatherly podcast. Kind of heavy, a little weird. I

(01:10:33):
hope you enjoyed it. If enjoyed is the right word,
I found it meaningful to make Jason, I hope you
did too. This podcast was produced by Me, Joshua, David Stunt,
and Max Savage Levinson. Our executive producer is Andrew Berman.
Our co host is Jason Gay. He's great. I hope
he's stay in touch. Uh. Subscribe to this podcast wherever

(01:10:56):
you do such a thing. And if you have questions
about parents, please do call. This is our number. It's
just not a random number. Seven three two four one
four five seven one. That's seven three two four one
six five seven one. Record a question, well answer it
on the air. You can also email me at jds
at fatherly dot com. We'll be back next week to

(01:11:18):
talk about sports. Sports. I don't know nothing about sports.
Jason is a sports guy, um. And our other guests
will be Sam Anderson, who wrote Boomtown, the book with
very long subtitle came out this year, is very good.
And he wrote that Russell Westbrook profile you read, and
all your friends read, and you probably sent to your mom,

(01:11:39):
and then your mom sent to you. It's like a
lovely family thing. Okay, talk to you later.