Speaker 1: We are back with Margot Rose. We left you yesterday
on kind of a cliffhanger. But to catch you up,
you got to go back and listen to part one.
Don't be stupid and just be tuning in now and
thinking you're going to understand the story. You understand nothing.
Go listen to part one. I like to be rate
by listeners.
Speaker 2: They enjoy I like it.
Speaker 1: So uh you you were sober, but your marriage had
come to.
Speaker 2: In the end.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you were doing you were doing okay. You
guys had agreed you were was it was?
Speaker 2: I was I regread and moving. I moved out in
the last in their last year of college. It's a
way five and it's away five minutes away, you know,
And I thought I was going to come back, and
I thought, you know, I was wrong, you know, and
I regret it more than anything else in my life
because of what happened.
Speaker 1: Then why did you Why did you move out? Were
you just like fine, I'm going to just go beyond my.
Speaker 2: We we dealt with our different, crumbling relationship for a
number of years, and at a certain point the kids
were getting older, they were even more. There was more visitation,
There were a lot of other court things that happened.
They were still legally ours, but they were split up
a lot, and and my self esteem was was non
assistent because our dynamic was such that I was the
one that was she was the alpha dog. It wasn't
her fault anymore than you know it was, that's just
the way we ended up. And uh, And it just
got into my head that if I, if I moved
my physical being and have my own space and the
kids are going to their senior year of high school,
it will be better. I will be a better parent,
I will be a better person. I'll start working, you know,
I'll be working on my on my acting, I'll be
working on my writing, I'll be all this stuff. And
it was really it was almost like a geographic I
think I was sober, but I thought that thing could
solve it, you know. And I was seeing somebody. PAT
was seeing somebody. I was seeing somebody. Everybody was out
in the open about it, and nobody was going along
in the in the shadows. In retrospect, I wish I
hadn't hadn't seen that person, because it didn't you know,
I mean, I mean, I don't wish I hadn't seen
that person. I wish that I'd had more, just more
consciousness about it, you know, because I jump into things.
I'm impulsive. I think, well, this is going to solve
all my problems. And even though I was sober, and
even though I'm sober now, I have a tendency to
do that. You know, I have I'm a quad diagnosis,
you know, I have. I have I'm an alcoholic, and
I am I'm also a lot of physical stuff and
and and I have ADHD very badly, and and you know,
I abandonment disorder, all sorts of things I've been diagnosed with.
So I have to I have to ride that pony,
you know, I have to. I have to ride that pony.
The thing I know now, after all this time and
all these things that have happened, is that you just
hang on tight. And they say that at the beginning,
but sometimes it takes a lot to get to that.
So I moved out. I regretted it right away. I
missed the kids. Will was okay with it. Nora was
angry and that that was awful.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: We had a very hard time. And then I was
not myself when I was with her because I felt
insecure and oh, she's mad at me. Will would stay
over every once in a while, Nora almost never. She
never did. She did once did once in twenty eighteen.
So time went on. They graduated from high school. Will
got into Texas State to performing department at Texas State,
and Nora got into UCLA Musical Theater, which was very prestigious.
She wasn't all that happy. She'd wanted to go to
the East Coast. She wanted to go to Emerson, she
wanted to go to the Ivy coveredly. You know, they're
both enormously talented. Nora was a triple threat. She was
a beautiful dancer. She sang and she wrote songs and
she acted. I mean, she was extraordinary. You met her,
didn't you. Yeah, she meet her. Yeah, you met her.
And we did meetings at our house on Hesbie sometimes,
and whenever we were there, the kids would be running
through the back and forth. And so there are all
sorts of people that I know from them that I
still know that didn't know her well but had met her.
You now, had been around her. They were so adjacent, Yeah,
sot exactly. Anyway, So so I had moved out so
in two thousand and eight, and I was struggling. I
was struggling to find my footing to I was still sober,
but I was seeing somebody and that wasn't working very well.
And I just didn't know where to land, you know,
I didn't. I didn't realize I really had. My place
was with my family. So twenty eighteen goes by. Nora
and I are getting better. We spent some time in
the summer. She's at UCLA and it's Thanksgiving. I have
a tough Thanksgiving. I go up to my sisters because
I don't know where else to go. My relationship with
this other person has gone South pats with her relationship,
and the kids have gone to their dads for Thanksgiving.
So I'm like. I went to my sisters in Napa
and I came back. Will was going out to Texas
North staying in town. So I got back and it
was it was a November twenty fifth, right after Thanksgiving.
She and I texted. She asked me to take her
if i'd take her to school in the morning, to UCLA,
and I said yes. I'd loved taking her to school
because you drive with your kids and that's when they talk,
you know, that's when they talk. Just some sort of
miracle and we were getting better with each other and
the relationship. And that was November twenty fifth, and I
was sitting in the girlson's parking lot and i'd been
texting with her an hour before, and well, I don't
talk about this, but then she called and I answered,
and there was nothing there. And she called again and
I answered there was nothing there to go the third time.
So we don't know what that was because it was
after the accident happened. So it was about seven point
thirty on a Sunday night, and I got a text
from her dad saying she's had an accident and she's
at Northridge Hospital. And right when I got that text,
a siren went by. It wasn't the same I was
in Studio City, but something in me dropped out, and
just dropped out, and I drove over there, you know,
in a panic and praying the whole time, saying please
please please, just please please please. It was something in
me that new. And I got there and she'd been
in a catastrophic car wreck and she had been pinned
in the car. They had to get her out. She
had a terrible head injury. The doctor at Northridge it
was it's a drama. Hospital had done surgery on her.
That gave permission, he had said afterwards, he said, I
wouldn't have even tried, except she was young and healthy.
So he did surgery, and she was in a coma
and she was admitted to the critical care unit. And
for a while there was there was enough brain activity
to to make it make sense to keep her on
the machines. And then the third day the brain activity
pretty much stopped. She was the rainstem. And you know,
she was beautiful in that bed because there was all
on the side of her head was bandaged, but the
rest the rest of her was beautiful and perfect. So
it was, you know, at best, surreal. So we were
all there. Well, we got in touch of Well, we
got him back from Texas. He got there the monday,
and so everybody, the dads, the moms, will a couple
of people that that that we let in, but not
many people came into the room itself. Were there, and
and my friends and sisters in sobriety were there. Somebody
found out and somebody told everybody they were there. Were
I remember I think it was deb and Vicky and
you know, there were four and Kelly and somebody else
that were at the emergency room with supplies and food
and you know, what do you need? And I got
texts constantly and I knew that everybody was there. And
on the fourth day, our fifth I mean, she came
in on a Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, the decision
was made to turn off the machines. And now we
turned off the machines. You know, that was seven years ago,
over seven years or seven years and two months. And
I can't even explain what it was like, Steff. It
was just I was alone too. I was living alone
at my apartment. Sophie, my pitbull Selfie saved my life.
She saved my life. And I went to our big
Saturday meeting two days later. Or picked me up and
took me and why well, I mean, fifteen minutes or
so into the meeting, I couldn't. I couldn't do it.
I was sobbing, and she led me outside and I
fell on my knees. I just fell down on my
knees and I was it was Greek, you know, I
was just, I was just. I mean, you know how
in meetings it brings up your emotions anyway, and stuff
that you've been holding on to just bubbles up and
suddenly you're crying or suddenly you're you know, And that's
what happened. And I'd been, you know, crying and beating
my head against the floor before, but that something erupted
that was huge, and I was just wailing on the street,
and one by one, by twos, by whatever, all the
women in all the women in that meeting came outside
and held me. There was a circle of women around me.
That's what sobriety was. They all knew, everybody knew you,
all knew you all came and surrounded me. And despite that,
you know, I couldn't any longer figure out how I
fit because things that we say, like acceptances everything, No,
I don't accept this. I don't accept this. I'm still
looking for the easy button. I'm still looking for the magic.
I'm still looking for the time travel. That went on
and on and on. Everything is not in my own making,
you know. All the things that people say were like no,
and suddenly I felt different. I felt outside of it,
and ps I couldn't. I didn't know how to go
home to my empty place and didn't know how to
do that even with my wonderful dog. I just I
could not do that. And over the course of a
couple of months, I'd been taking CBD for all my
fibro and everything. Over the course of a couple of months,
it started including PHC, it started including psycho you know,
active drugs. And I never drank, but I started just
doing edibles, doing you know, gummies.
Speaker 1: You wanted to feel altered, like I don't.
Speaker 2: I had to feel altered. I just couldn't do. You know,
I don't even want to hear like the.
Speaker 1: I shouldn't have I it's not. It wasn't. I wasn't.
So like who fucked that? Like?
Speaker 2: This is? Yes? I agree?
Speaker 1: Was this is what we want to do?
Speaker 2: Who?
Speaker 1: Who? Who wouldn't want to alter? I mean I want
to I want to take a thc edible right now
hearing the story, let alone, it's like right, but yes,
and yes, just be reasonable with ourselves, like you did
what you needed to do to get through what you
needed to get through.
Speaker 2: Yes, and I and I've really worked hard not to
have shame about it, because I think think that's a
thing that takes us back out a lot.
Speaker 1: I've seen it, and it makes people not want to
be in a program if they feel like people are
going to judge or even that we need to judge ourselves,
like it doesn't it's okay.
Speaker 2: But you know me, yeah, thank you, thank you. I've
always known that, Steph. I've always known that you don't
have that, you know that that judgment. And most of
the you know, most of the women I'm close to,
people I'm close to, don't you know. There's so many people,
all the women, all the moms, you know, they're like,
can't imagine, you know, whatever you need to do, you know.
And and here's the thing. I went out because we
lost her and I could not figure out how to live.
And I came back two plus years later because I'd
written a show for her and it wasn't really finished.
I continued to work on it for another three years,
but for another almost four years. I mean it was
I worked on it for six years total, through four
surgeries and a pandemic. But I'd written this thing. I'd
promised her. I had promised her that I would be
the artist that she wanted me to be, because she
used to she used to she used to get right
on me. She used to say, I don't I don't
talk about this. I do, but not too much. She
was just she said to me a couple of different
times when she was like eighteen, I think our daughters
become our mothers sometimes they get wiser. And she said
to me, Marm, Marm, I was, marm, you have the
most talent of all of us. You could do anything.
What the fuck is the matter with you? Why don't
you you know? It's like, well, you don't know what
from it is. You don't know what this is, you know?
And I didn't even say that. I was just kind
of floored that she would say something like that. But
when she was in her coma a friend of ours
from the progressive school they'd gone to, and I was
talking about I didn't want to do anything anymore. I just,
you know, I don't know how to live. And I
told her that story and about what Nora had said
to me, and she said, well, that's what you have
to do. And she was like, iron about it, that's
what you have to do. You have to promise her
that you will do that. You have to promise her
that you will be the artist she wanted you to be.
And I did. I went in and spoke to her
and I told her that, and you know, you can't
break that kind of promise. You can't. So I started
working on this show and not knowing what it was
going to be exactly, you know, weeks after and Anne,
who was also a programm I talked to her before
that about helping me with this other show, and so
she knew what had happened, but we hadn't spoken. I
called her two a couple of weeks after and said,
and I still want to work with you, but it's
not the same show now, and she said, yeah, I know.
And she you know here it is this person in
our meeting that came to me and became my dramatoric
for the first year. And but you know, I slipped out.
I was doing edibles. I never drank. I hardly ever
even smoked a joint. It just seemed too much to me.
But the way that I got along was poppin' edibles
and they absolutely got me high. I mean, there's no
you know, were you just.
Speaker 1: Out of curiosity? Yeah, this is like a sobriety story podcast.
Were you going to like weed stores and like, were
you starting to think about it the similar to the alcohol.
Were you like, oh, okay, I'm going to have my
gum me it's funny.
Speaker 2: Oh honey, all right. First of all, as time went on,
At first it really was like a drug deal because
I always went to the higher half because they were primo.
And I would drive and of these weed star names,
oh my god, and I would I would order. You
could order call up or order online, and then you
would drive the back you know, the back way and
pull up to the back of the store. So it
was liked, and they would run out with your little bag.
And then after a certain period of time they started delivering.
Are you kidding? It was like Heaven delivering now. Ps.
I can't tell you how much money I spent because
it was a lot. It was several hundred I mean
at least one hundred dollars or and more a week
by insurance. What not covered by insurance?
Speaker 1: No, it was dark necessary but not covering.
Speaker 3: You, you know.
Speaker 2: And and I think I said this when I shared
the other day, and I do believe this that if
I that doing you know, doing THC, getting yourself altered,
you know, whatever, would have been okay to do instead
of Xanax and a bunch of pharmaceuticals. If I, if
I wasn't an alcoholic. If I wasn't an alcoholic, it
would have been a great plan because then I could
stay away from all the farm pharmaceuticals. But this horrible,
unimaginable thing happened and I could get along doing that
for a while. But you know, if I wasn't an alcoholic,
I could have I wouldn't have progressed. I wouldn't have
started doing more and more and more.
Speaker 1: There's all these there's people that I know that are sober,
but they do take teaps, take gut, take edible, no edibles.
I'm saying, not people that you and I know, but
there's people. There's people that they could they consider themselves.
Speaker 2: Sober or California sober.
Speaker 1: Yeah, California is sober and they take edibles. And used
to trigger me a little bit because I would think like, well,
that's not fair, Like I want to I would.
Speaker 2: Like to do that too. Why can't I do that? Right?
Speaker 1: Like, why can't I just be California's sober? I won't drink.
But the thing is, once you know about yourself, once
you have admitted to your innermost self, I know for
a fact I would also be like that. I would
be that I would be thinking about it in the morning.
I would be like, I can't wait for.
Speaker 2: Tonight, and it would creep, which like, yeah, I plan
the same way I talked about thought about alcohol a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It just you know, and it escalated. First it was
five million ten, you know, and it escalated. I never
you know, my wreckage was was not as noticeable as
it would have been. I never drank, and you know,
and I think my recovery because by that time I'd
been around for a long time. I think my my
recovery was up here all the time. You know, I
didn't forget that this. I didn't drink. I didn't you know,
do other drugs.
Speaker 1: Were you going to meetings during that two years.
Speaker 2: I did for a while, and and it was all,
you know, pandemic zoom. So I didn't go to in
person meetings, but I would go to meetings and just
kind of sit back and not share, and you know,
and after a while it was like I kept going
for quite some time, and then I just couldn't because
I because I won't. I wasn't going to say I
was sober, you know. At a certain point, I was
just like, I'm not going to do that, so I wasn't.
I don't even think sporadically after a while. But here's
the thank Stefph. I went out because of the loss
of my child, but I came back in twenty twenty
one because i'd finished a first draft. It, you know,
went through a lot more, but I'd finished a first draft,
and at that time I was supposed to go to
New York to do a a solo festival, and I
didn't because I this terrible thing happened. I got an
obstruction in my in my stomach, and they had to
put me in the hospital. It was like last minute,
all of a sudden, they collapsed and they took me
to the hospital. Was whatever God or my body saying
you're not ready to do this. But before we started
really getting into it, rehearsing and you know, singing the songs,
doing the things, trying to get it directed, I knew
I couldn't do it if I wasn't sober. I knew
that I would talk to my kind of tempt sponsor
Bird you know, she wasn't really my sponsor, but I
talked to her all the time and say, I know
I can't do this if I'm not sober, and I
set a date, you know, September seventeenth. Okay, that's it,
because then I have to start rehearsing. And so I
went out because of losing her, and I came back
because of the promise that I made because I had to.
I had, I knew I had to be sober. I
couldn't do this eighty five minute, you know, like I
couldn't a million years. And that's and I got sober.
And oddly enough, I guess because you know, that's all
i'd done is pop edibles. I mean, I can't say
I didn't think about it, and I don't still sometimes like,
darn it, darn it. I like that, it's a TV.
Speaker 1: I like that.
Speaker 2: Blah blah blah. I love it. I love it, but
I'm not at the edge of doing it. And as
long as I when I when I stopped on September seventeenth,
twenty twenty one, it wasn't hard again, just like when
I stopped drinking, it wasn't that hard. I maybe because
I had purpose, you know, maybe because I had to
do this thing. I don't know, you know, because because
every day is still hard, you know, it's never ending.
When you lose a child, but I don't know, maybe
because of that unimaginable wound. When I got sober again,
I feel like I've been more conscious, more willing, just
more honest and different than even my other sobrieties were.
It's just deeper. I don't know if it's being older
or because of her, you know, because of having a
broken heart, but it feels stronger than it's ever felt.
And I've got not quite four and a half years now.
I think that's amazing.
Speaker 1: And I've watched you deal with this and be brave
and show up at meetings even when I know you
didn't want to be there. And I mean it's kind
of overused in trite, but it's inspirational to think that
you can still be sober even after the appsolce worst thing.
There couldn't be anything worse that could happen, and you're
a person who's been through that, still going through that.
It doesn't go away. We've talked about this, but the
fact that you're even trying, I mean, you are sober,
but I'm saying the fact that you would even try,
I just I just feel like it would be so
much easier to just go, Like why why am I
going to feel that every day? And I mean, you
know this is we drink because we're alcoholics, right like,
I mean because it works, because it worked when I
was fourteen, and I'm sure it would still work now.
It's just that we.
Speaker 2: Like being altered. We love it, love it, love it,
love it.
Speaker 3: We're not people that don't want to be altered, or
you don't like being altered like pot and all that
much more in comparison to being sloppy drunk.
Speaker 2: But but I love to be altered. I loved cocaine,
I loved edibles, you know, and I loved when I
got drunk. It was just that was something that I
could handle better when I was younger, and it never
has appealed to me since. But man, I love to
be altered. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: The problem is not that we didn't want to be
altered anymore the problem is that it doesn't work to
be altered because we can't function in our lives. Like
you reach a point where you're like, look, I was
relating to and maybe this was in part one, but
that idea of like a window cracked open, you know,
my bottom, and it sounds to me like in both
your cases, the bottom. It's not that the bottom was
so low, It's that I just had a moment when
I recognized that I was not functioning and this was
going somewhere bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think we're similar that way, because we're
both what could be called high bottom trunks. But one
of the things that you know, I've come to realize
and believe is that there's kind of no such thing.
I agree, no, yes, well, because everybody's bottom is what
it is, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But that that bottom for me was like the
window opening was going, oh here, I've done this thing
that uh I couldn't imagine myself doing, and yet I
did driving in the car after having many drinks, and
then I had to. I had that epiphany of like, oh, well,
I will do that again, because why wouldn't I Because
this is how I am when I'm drinking. I think
things make sense. I think I'm way more sober than
I am. That was my big thing. I always felt
like I'm fine, and I don't understand people looking at
me with judgment like I'm drunk, right, I'm.
Speaker 2: Not just right.
Speaker 1: So I had a moment the window opened, and I
was like I could stop. I could I mean, it's
gonna be hard. I could ask for help and stop
this behavior that is clearly risky for me, and I
don't know. It was like jumping off a high dive
because I was like, I don't know all that it's
going to entail. It doesn't seem great, like having to
realize stuff about myself, but I need to do it.
So I the window opened, I climbed through it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think my window open too, but I
feel but I think back on it, it was more
like it was more like I was hypnotized or something
because because she said that, you know, said you're an
alcoholic on the phone, and something just went blink, you know,
like like star trek into my brain, like you know, bink.
And I hung up and I was like, okay, I'm
an alcoholic, and you know, I was sweeping and sobbing
and calling Gwen and saying yea, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: But I also just like went to a meeting. I
found a meeting. I went to a meeting, and it
was sort of like I was in a trance almost
and I wasn't as conscious about like now is the
time and I have you know, it was just like
all the tears come. Oh, I see I go to
a meeting and then and then something is lifted, and
that's I feel really fortunate about. You know, I've never
particularly I mean, yeah, sometimes it looks good and all
that kind of stuff, and especially with edible sometimes yeah,
I like, but I don't white knuckle, and I feel
really like I'm a very I don't think you do either.
Speaker 1: No, same, Well, it's I think I reached a point
where I was like, if I do this again, and
even when I think and romanticize, like but all the
people that are California sober, maybe I could do that too.
Or manytimes that you've been sober sixteen years, like maybe
I could handle it now, Like I got sober when
my kids were really young. Like this is just sometimes often,
but sometimes my brain goes or I hear about somebody
or I see something and I go, you know, my
kids were so young, I was having I was a
very stressful time. I had postpartum depression. Like maybe I
could drink. All I have to do is remember how
I was before, right before I came in, how I
was when I was fourteen, and I'm able to go like,
why would you possibly think it will be any different
there's never been a time. You've never had an example
in your license you started drinking of a time where
you just drink because you just enjoyed it, you just
handled it well. Never from the first time it went
it went sour the very first time I drank. It's like,
there's so all I have to do is think about that.
It's the think through the drink, and then I go, Yeah,
probably not a good idea for me to take even
one edible with THHC. Because I will enjoy it.
Speaker 2: I will love it. I will love it. I will
love it, I will want to do it again.
Speaker 1: I will not be able to stop very easily.
Speaker 2: Be able to sell them now and then I won't
get any of this. How am I going to have
a podcast?
Speaker 1: How would you do a show?
Speaker 2: I won't be able to share it? Right, right? I would?
I would not in a zillion years be able to
do this, this thing that I'm doing where I'm on
a stage for eighty five minutes and it's all my
words and music and songs, and how in God's name
does that happen? I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so tell me tell us about the show.
Speaker 2: It's called Unconditional and you know, I I describe it
as sort of a love letter of my family, and
uh and and and.
Speaker 1: By the way I've seen it, it's beautiful. You have
a gorgeous singing voice, and it's so moving you're gonna cry.
Go see it, Yeah, going.
Speaker 2: Go see it.
Speaker 1: I'm sure different.
Speaker 2: It's our story. But there's a lot I mean, the
thing that I worked really hard on and worked with
Ann on too, I wanted to have I didn't want
people to walk out, you know, want to slit the wrists,
and it is, it is, it is hard sometimes, but
I wanted to put in a lot of what was
even with all the turmoil, you know, even with everything
between me and Patton, with all the dads and all
that stuff, what was magical and lovely and you know,
just the best thing I've ever done with my life,
you know, absolutely the best thing. And and I wanted
to have that on record, you know, I wanted and
I wanted to make it a lovely thing, you know,
a lovely thing that was sad in times, but also
just magical and whimsical too, you know. And so I
mean that's you know, there's a lot of stories about
the kids when they were kids, there's you know, there's
you know, there's when they were born. There's what it's
like to you know, to be a gay couple and
have this happen when you're in your forties and you
know how crazy is that and what it's like to
have to stand up. And I mean, I think there's
so much that we all can identify with with how
do we go on? Because people there's so many losses
are I mean, you know, loss is loss. You know,
loss is loss. And then we wake up and find
ourselves in fifty pieces on the floor, and you know,
it's like, how do I go on today? How do
I fit these pieces? Oh? This is actually my leg
it goes over here. You know, how do we put
ourselves back together? And just one every day at a time.
Not it's never done. It's never done for any of us.
I don't think it is.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: I think we wake up every day, whether we're alcoholic,
whether or not, and just like, how do I do
this today? Especially now with the world the way it is,
you know, and especially with all the people that died
in the pandemic. I mean our world is tough, you know,
So I guess I think that's what's What I want
people to take away from it is is, yes, resilience
is I don't have the right to waste what was
taken away from my daughter. She didn't get this life.
You know. I wake up and it could be just
a fucking nightmare, or it could be really lovely and magical.
So it's it's a gift beyond measure to be able
to wake up in the morning, you know. And she
didn't get to happen after nineteen years.
Speaker 1: So, Margo, I love you. I love this conversation. I
love your business. I love how kind you are but
also funny and with some edge and edge.
Speaker 2: We love edge.
Speaker 1: I love this episode, these episodes, and I just think
I can't thank you enough for taking the time.
Speaker 2: I'm so happy that asked me. I'm so happy it's
about time.
Speaker 1: And so tell us again. Okay, do you have dates?
You have dates for the show.
Speaker 2: That I can put on the just we have one
date at the LGBT Center in Hollywood, and I'll have
postcards and stuff and all that is it? Is it
February twenty.
Speaker 1: Eighth, February twenty Okay, I will put it in the
description of the episode. I'll even do I'll do a
link for the tickets. Uh yeah, And I will see
you probably in the next few days.
Speaker 2: Yes, I will.
Speaker 1: Okay, I love you Today, everybody it's got
Speaker 2: In line is good, good again.