Speaker 1: Hey everyone, I'm Stephanie Wilder Taylor and this is Drunkish.
I wrote a book called Drunkish. I'm sure you know
by now where I told everyone my sobriety story because
I love to overshare. But now I have a podcast
so I can talk to other people and let them overshare.
Today's guest is no exception. It was a great, great episode.
Her name is Rosebud Baker. She's a talented touring comedian
with multiple comedy specials out. The latest is called mother
Load Netflix came out in February. Plus she just finished
a multi season stint as a writer for SNL and
she has a book coming out as well.
Speaker 2: And here she is.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the show. Rosebud, thank you so much. I'm
really excited to talk to you.
Speaker 3: To you, Yeah, me too, me too.
Speaker 2: I feel like I know.
Speaker 3: You already, really, I know. I'm like, I feel like
I know so much about you already because I read
your book and I loved it and it was like
Bonnie Bonnie and McFarlane sent it to me. I was like,
would you be willing to read this and write a blurb?
And I was like sure, sure, And normally if I
do that I'll like read like I'll read like the
first chapter, in the last chapter, and then like write
a blurb about that I read your entire book in
a week. And I am not a book reader. I
don't I don't like reading books.
Speaker 2: Oh that's such a compliment.
Speaker 1: Yeah it was great, and then you feel like you
know way too much about me. It's the It's the
thing about being a podcaster being a writer, Uh, having
the brand of being unfiltered. You just you can't. If
you're going to write about getting sober, you just got
to write. You got to write it all. Yeah, you
really do, and then people can judge it or either
people relate and they go, hello, friend, you know you're
reading my mind, or they go, wow, that person's really sick.
Speaker 3: I know. It's like you can't really walk it back
after it's in an after It's like in writing in
a book, you can't be like, you know, it wasn't
actually that bad.
Speaker 1: Well, the funny thing is that the point of writing
the book at first was going to be that I
considered myself and I'm not at the time that I
wrote it, but throughout my years of being sober, I
considered myself, you know, high bottom, like very high functioning.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I was originally breaking some news here. I was
originally calling trying to call the book high Bottom Girls,
and the publisher didn't like the title because they're like,
we don't know what that means and we don't think
people get it. And I was like, well, I'll explain
it in the subtitle and in the book you'll get it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: But it's funny because, as I wrote, like the really personal,
not pretty stories, like you know, trying to smoke heroin,
at one point, you know, people's attitude in the reviews
was like, not that like high bottom really, you know,
I thought.
Speaker 3: I know, that's so funny.
Speaker 4: People are like, okay, actually, and it's like that that
experience of like when you first get sober, I mean,
especially if you get sober in the rooms, which I did,
you know.
Speaker 3: I was like, I don't think. I mean, my story
is not bad at all. I was like, this is fine.
And then the more I more feedback I got on it,
I was like, oh, okay, right, yeah, I guess I
guess denials a real thing, right right, right?
Speaker 2: Well, I uh, I tell this story.
Speaker 1: I didn't say this in the book, but I used
to do at the beginning of my experience in the rooms,
I would talk a lot about like I don't know
if I belong here, Like I don't know if I'm
like a true like a high bottom, the whole thing.
I would I would love to share about that, about
my feelings about being like possibly not that bad. And
one time this woman came over to me and she
was like, yeah, I hear you share a lot about,
you know, being high functioning. And she said, I don't know,
driving drunk with your kids in the car, have that fancy.
Speaker 5: Yeah, You're like, oh, there really is nothing quite as
humbling as like somebody that you in the back of
your mind.
Speaker 3: Like looked down upon coming up and giving you a
reality check. You're like, oh, all right, exactly. Hey. I
actually said, you know, because we were talking about this before,
but I just finished writing my own book, and I
I say, there's one point in my book where I say, like,
there's literally nothing worse than someone you dislike being right
about you.
Speaker 2: That is so true. What is your So? What is
your book?
Speaker 3: It's felt fully baked. It's like it's a memoir. It
started off as a series of essays that kind of
I was writing the whole thing while I was going
through like miscarriage and IVF, and then I got pregnant,
you know, two months after completing IVF, and was like, oh,
I guess I'm going to do this now. And it
wasn't an ideal time to be pregnant. I was working
at SNL, I was touring. I felt like this was
like an important time in my career, but I also
felt like it's an important time in my biological like
fertility windows. So I was like, I'm just going to
do it. And so I ended up, like during my pregnancy,
getting all these like flashbacks throughout my life, and each
time one of those happened, I would write an essay
about it, And so it kind of becomes this like, oh, sorry,
my dog. It becomes this thing where it starts with
a moment in my pregnancy or a moment before or
after my pregnancy, where I go into a flashback of
my past life, you know, and what that what it
was like growing up and shit like that. It was
basically just became a memoir by accident. I love that.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of memoirs become memoir by accident.
I was writing more essays, but then as I was
putting them in a linear way. I was like, oh,
I guess this is.
Speaker 3: More of a memoir. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there anything about getting sober in the book?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well tell me your story, tell me your history, your past.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So, I I grew up in d C. Outside
of d C, I was like, my grandfather was Secretary
of State under George Bush Senior, so uh, you know,
architects of Reaganomics, just like Unknowable emotional Fort Knox, and
so were all of my you know, my dad and
all of his brothers. And I talk a lot about
my dad's side of the family because it was so
overpowering the mindset of that side of the family. And
I think it had such a huge impact on my
psychology because I was, you know, like many alcoholics. I
was born and immediately was like, yeah, I don't I
don't feel like I fit in here and too. And
you know, I think there no matter what environment you
grow up in, if you if you have that feeling,
it will be uh, it'll be pronounced. But it felt
especially pronounced for me because of this very strict behaviorally. Uh.
I don't know, moderated environment that I was in where
it's like you know, you put on a dress to
go see your grandparents, you put on a dress to
go out to dinner. You but it's like this, everything
was very like image conscious and uh. And I was
kind of out of control. And by out of control,
I mean when I look back, I'm like, that's just
a child, but you know, in that world, it was
considered out of control. So I just kind of grew
up with that sense of like I am not right here.
I've I've somehow ended up in the wrong family or
ended up in the wrong home, or something went wrong,
some paperwork got mixed up, you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah,
And so I tried really hard to kind of like
fit in. I sort of mourned that I wasn't like normal.
I can remember like falling falling asleep at night, like
crying and asking my mom what was wrong with me
at like a really young age, and being like, something
is wrong with me, something I'm too sensitive or I'm
too something's going on. And I was like asking her
for answers I really wanted. Like I was like, whatever
it is, I can fix it, you know. And my
mom I was like heartbroken, like just confronted with her
kid being like, hey, I can fix myself if you
guys just tell me what you know. So I was
put in like therapy and all stuff at like a
really young age, but all of it no matter what,
Like it felt like the more attention that was paid
to this problem, like the more out of place I felt,
and it just kind of snowballed. In high school, I
was they were like, you have to pick an after
school activity that'll help get you into college. My grades
had always been like shit, and so I was like,
all right, well I don't there's nothing artistic here, so
I don't know what to do. And they were like, well,
cheerleading's like dance, and I was like okay. So I
did cheerleading and I was kicked off the cheerleading squad
and I was I was like benched and then just
kicked off. I think it was something it was like
a combination of things. I think it was like benched
a few times for smoking weed and then like uh
and then like eventually was just kicked off because there
was this one girl who was like, I think, talking
shit about me or something, and I confronted her and
was like you're ugly, and like just was like basically
basically just was like, you're an ugly bitch and I
don't you know what I mean. Like, and so I
was kicked off the squad and and then just kind
of like leaned into this. You know. It was really
kind of funny looking back that I thought I was
like this huge rebel for being kicked off the cheerling squad,
you know, like when really it's like, I don't know,
it's like being fucking kicked off of like a church
team or something. You don't have to be like a
bad Perton, you know what I mean. But I was like, yeah,
like kicked off the cheerleading squad, you know, like leather
jacket and fucking cigarette and like really feeling myself and
like I was like, I'm gonna lean into this fucking
ex cheerleader rebel and uh was like just smoking a
lot of weed and I don't know, man, I I
got into college like kind of by the skin of
my teeth. I got into Emerson. I auditioned for their
like musical theater program, which was at the time. I
was like, oh, I could do really well with this.
I had, you know, I was a dancer throughout high
school and through elementary school, and I loved singing, and
I loved theater, and so I I got in as
a musical theater major. And then right before I left
for college, my parents divorced. And then in the same year,
my sister passed away. My younger sister, she was seven
years old. She drowned in a hot tub right before.
It was at a graduation party for my graduation, but
at a friend's house. So like we were all graduating, and
we went to this family's this family friend's home. And
when I say that she drowned, it was like her
the drain, her hair got caught in the drain and
no one could pull her up, and just like horrible, horrible,
horrible thing to go through. And I, you know, I
hadn't been drinking up until that point. I was like,
I'm not going to drink because my mom was sober.
And I was like, I have this feeling like maybe
I might have that, you know, I'm and I I
would hide. I would hide like food under my bed
and be out playing with friends, and all I could
think about was like going back to eat the food
by myself. So I was like, there's things that I had.
I had little clues about my own mentality, and I
was smart enough to know, like whenever my mom would
talk about AA or talk about being sober, I was like,
it seems like I you know, when something just brings
like a tuning fork in your stomach.
Speaker 2: Had she always been sober like your whole childhood?
Speaker 3: No, so you had her drink. Yeah, I had seen
her drink. I didn't know she was drinking until we
got like in an accident, had drunk driving accident. And
then my mom got sober right after that, and we like, uh,
she started going to AA and she lost her license
for a year, and we had like, uh, a nanny
that would like drive us, you know, to and from things.
We hit five kids, so it was like a lot
of a lot of stuff to organize, and I had
I paid attention to that, but I was also kind
of at an age where I was like, I'm really
just trying to focus on my friends and what I
got going on. You know, my mom she obviously went
through something, She's figured it out. She you know, we
should be fine from here, And I was like, I'll
take it from here. I got it, Like my life is.
I got it. And so you were refraining from drinking,
but I was refraining from drinking and I was just
smoking plot and part of that was literally like I
can smoke pop, but I can't drink, so I'll just
smoke pot. So I was managing my drinking before I
even started, Like I knew enough about alcoholism for it
to kind of ruin my experience of drinking from the jump.
But I, you know, after my after my parents got separated,
I had my first drink because I was like, well,
this is like this is like in a movie, you
know what I mean. It was like, oh, my parents
got divorced. I'm gonna go. You know, first I get
kicked off the cheerleading squad, which makes me a fucking rebel,
and now I got divorced parents, which is like, you know,
suburban street cred. So I was like, I can go.
I can go, like drink at my friend's house and
I was got blackout drunk, woke up in the backyard
of her house next to my own throw up, woke
up to the dog eating it the next morning next
to me, and was like, I don't know what the
fuck just happened, but I gotta do that again. That
was awesome, Like I was like, I I feel like
I found what my purpose is. Like, this is the
thing that I'm going to be good at, and this
is the thing that makes me feel good about myself.
This is the thing that like is giving me what
I've like searched for my whole life, which is a
sense of like confidence and a sense of knowing who
I am and knowing where I belong. You know, alcohol
and bars and people who like to drink and people
who like to get fucked up were my kind of people.
And that's what I wanted. I wanted like a community
of people that I felt understood by and a world
that I like could exist incomfortably. So it gave me
all of those things. So, you know, and then when
my sister passed away and I was like off in
college and I had all this like trauma that I
was not I didn't want to address because I was
going to college and this was supposed to be an
exciting time in my life and it's you know, everybody says,
like college is the best years of your life. I
went to college in like a thick fog of grief
and ah and shock and just physical mental trauma that
I had been through. Uh, Because I do think that
when you go through like a sudden death, especially the
death of a child or the death of sibling, you know,
there's like a physical toll to it. And so I
went to college. I was like, I'm you know, I'm
a I'm an acting major. I'll use all of this.
And I got there and I was like, oh, I'm in.
I'm in the musical theater program. And I was like,
I don't I got a dead sibling. I'm like, I
don't really feel like doing jazz hand right now, you know.
So I shifted my major to just acting, and I
felt like this is more my vibe. You know. It's
kind of like the actors were more like they were
like masturbatory goths, Like it was like emotionally gothic, and
I felt like this is this is more, this is right,
and so you know, I pretty much I held it
together for like three years where I was like, I
was like, I think I'm good, you know, I know,
I did really well in a school that was based
on the in the arts, and I felt like I
belonged there. Obviously, everybody drank and everybody loved to drink,
so that no problem there. And then year four I
really just kind of spun out. Like it was like
once we were leaving, I really spun out. I stopped
eating and then I was drinking to feel normal, but
also like wasn't eating, so it was really like eating
disorder bus alcoholism. And it became it was like violent
outbursts that would happen. I would like, you know, run
into a friend on the street. I'd be like, what
time is it, and maybe like I don't have a watch,
and I just like deck them, just like hit them
in the face. It was like horrible like street assaults,
like my friends and nobody wanted to talk to me.
Everybody just pulled away. I was like alone on campus
and rightfully, you know, like I wouldn't have I wouldn't
have wanted to be anywhere near me. I was like
I was almost like a you know those performance artists
that you kind of like you're like hm hm, and
you're like slowly back away because it's just uncomfortable to
look at. I felt like one of those. And uh, I.
Speaker 1: Think you were just like having depression and anger issues.
I think there was like a lot of repressed like trauma,
like real PTSD shit because it was again around graduation,
right it was like my first high school graduation. Literally
four years later, I was graduating college and I just
sort of I mean, I never really put it together
at the time, but when I think back, I go, well,
that's a.
Speaker 3: Very easy link psychologically, and I look at it and go,
of course my drinking like spiraled out of control then,
and of course it was paired with like the trying
to control the food stuff. So it was like this
feeling of just being out of control and then having
to like begin my life when I really didn't know.
I hadn't really thought about what my life would be.
I hadn't really thought about what it would look like.
And it was really terrifying, you know, to face life
as an adult because I felt very much stuck in
this place of like however old I was when my
sister passed away, and so I came to New York
and that's there was like there's like a long period
of time after graduating where I was like in Europe
and having my sister like Western Union money to me
and ran out of money, and my family was like, Okay,
you need to come home, like you we will send
you to rehab, and I was like, I don't want
to go to I was like, okay, fine, you know
the alcoholic where I was like okay, great, yeah, no,
that's a good deal. So I'll go to rehab if
you send me money, and then I'll book the ticket
and we'll i'll and I'll book the ticket to rehab,
and they were like okay. So I booked a ticket
that stopped in New York, where conveniently a guy I
was dating lived and brought a carry on plane stops
in New York. I get out of JFK, I take
a cab to his place, call up my parents and go, hey,
I'm not coming home. I'm not going to rehab, but
I will go to therapy. And here is my boyfriend
to vouch for me. So immediately made my boyfriend my
caregiver and it just made his life absolute hell. For
the next like two years, the violence kept getting worse
every time I would drink. It wasn't every time, but
it was like I noticed that when it did happen,
it got worse and worse, and it started to become
more directed at myself, like punching walls, hitting myself, you know,
trying to run off the edge of a roof, and
then like coming out of a blackout, like running full
speed at the edge of a roof, just things where
I was like, oh, I'm starting to get a little scared.
Where Like when I would wake up and I was sober,
if I went near a window, there was this feeling
in me of like I can't go near a window
because I'll jump. You know, it was this I didn't
trust myself anymore. I didn't trust my own instincts. Even
when I was sober. I felt like there was someone
there was someone else inside of me trying to ruin
my life. And that's really what it felt like. It
really felt like the Exorcist or something.
Speaker 2: And so are you going to therapy like you promised?
Speaker 3: I was going to therapy, but I was lying to
my therapist, so it didn't matter. You know. It was
like I was going to therapy for like eating disorder. Shit.
Nobody even knew that I was like in the therapy,
you know that I was like, I was really struggling
with alcohol and and I wasn't good. I wasn't about
to tell them because in my mind it was like
the alcohol isn't really the problem, you know. I was like,
the alcohol is not the problem. It's all this food stuff.
You know, it's like my sister, it's my parents. It
was like all this, you know, it's all this stuff
I've been through, and I don't know what happened, Like
I don't know. It's like I went from understanding alcoholism
and knowing that I was one of them to being
like to having all of this evidence that I was
one of them and being like, nah, it's not it,
you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean, Like it's so relatable though, don't they say,
like alcoholism is the only disease that tells you you
don't have a disease.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And it was. And I knew going into it
that I had one. And I knew like from that
first night that I drank. I was like, Okay, I'm
gonna wait like two weeks before I drink again. And
I got drunk the next weekend. So I was breaking
I was making promises and breaking them to myself from
the moment I drank, like it happened. And immediately I
thought because I waited to drink, that I would have
like outsmarted it or like delayed it, you know, delayed
the onset or something. But it was literally from that
first time for me that I just started lowering my
standards to accommodate my drinking. And it wasn't until you know,
I broke up with this guy because every time we
I would drink, we would get these huge arguments and
really really bad and cops would be called, and like,
you know, we would like lie and say that we
were like rehearsing for a play. It was like we
had a whole thing. We had like scripts out and
we could like hold up the scripts and be like
we're rehearsing, you know, and like it's like two in
the morning. But we got in a fight one one
night and I or one day and I walked out.
It was like right when he addressed my drinking for
the first time, which is like the most scary thing
for a codependent person to do is to be like, hey,
I think you have a drinking problem. Because the second
he mentioned it, I went for a walk. I called
my dad, right, being like a fucking privileged suburban asshole
called my dad on this walk and was like, hey,
you know, I'm really getting my shit together, trying to
like start over. I broke up with my boyfriend. I
need my own apartment, and I got a new job,
you know, it was just sort of like saying whatever
it was that my dad would need to hear, and
he was like, would you help me out with a
security deposit? I was like, all right, fine, you know,
and I literally found this apartment on the walk that
I went on after this discussion about my drinking with
my ex, so come back. I look at him and
I go, I'm moving out. He's like what. I was like,
I'm moving out. Sorry, it's not going to work out, like,
you know, you don't understand me. I don't understand you.
I just need to start over and be on my own,
you know. And it was like he you know, he
just looked at me like incredulously because I had put
him through such hell. And then I just walked away
and it was you know, I look back at that,
I go, that's that was like so heartless and I
just didn't even think about it. I was like, it
never even occurred to me that I was hurting him.
To me, I didn't even understand why people were so
bent out of shape about me. I was like, I'm
hurting myself. I'm not hurting anybody else, you know, But
it never occurred to me that it would hurt them
to watch someone they love hurt themsel else because I
was so self centered that it never would have occurred
to me to care about somebody else or their well being.
I mean, that's how self centered I was, So I uh,
you know, I stayed in my own apartment for like
a year, and it was really helpful because I isolated
myself to the point where I couldn't point fingers at
anyone else. I was so isolated. I couldn't be like
it's him or it's her, or it's this job, or
like it was just me and my apartment and like
piles of mail and dirty fucking clothes and like just
to living in this way where I was like, I'm
furious all the time and there's no one around me
to be doing this, like to be causing this anger.
So what is this? It has to be mine? You know.
I got involved. I put myself up for like acting lessons.
I did this work study program at William Esper, and
I remember going into interview for the Bill Esper Studio
and him being like, you know, asking me about myself,
and I was like, you know, I sort of I
was saying, like I don't really need this, you know,
I'm kind of like I'm an acting major, you know,
I already got the college degree, so but I'm here,
you know, and if you want me, I can be here.
And it was like, like I had no understanding of
the fact that I was interviewing for a spot, and
he was like, well, you might as well, uh, you
might as well do the class, and I was like yeah, probably.
He was like, I mean, what else are you going
to do? Like sit around and think about yourself all
day long? And I I sort of paused because it
was the first time that he had said something that
was like mine, like sort of insult thing, but it
was also extremely accurate because that was my favorite thing
to do, was like sit around and think about myself
all day long. So were you working like a regular
job at this point. Yeah, I was working at like
hold on, I was always working at like some kind
of job. But I was also constantly getting fired from
whatever job.
Speaker 1: I was getting fired a lot too, probably around the
same age as you are.
Speaker 3: Yeah, just fired like every three weeks or or you know,
or like or it was like I was late and
I was afraid of getting fired, so I would just say, hey,
my stepmom died and I can't come in anymore, and
it was like, like I was. It was like if
I was late more than twice, I knew that I
was about to get fired. So I was like, let
me just be the one to cut this, cut this loose,
and I'd kill off a family member or two just
to just to kind of cut time without any questions,
which still I'm like, so psychotic.
Speaker 1: But I got a fire from a job one time
on my first shift for getting in an argument with
a customer.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I got a cocktail waitressing job and the first night,
one of the customers was drunk and like being rude
to the bus boy, and I was like, thinking, I
was very self righteous.
Speaker 3: I was like, yes, I cut her off.
Speaker 1: I told her to get out, and then she was
friends with the owner and they brought me into a
back room at the end of my first shift and
they're like, yeah, it's not going to work out.
Speaker 3: I did that too. I tried to kick out a
customer as a waitress. They weren't friends with the owner,
thank god, and the restaurant was such shit that I like,
they didn't care, but it was I did the same thing.
I remember the manager coming over and being like, yeah,
you can't do that. That's not your position here, like
go saying, she can't fucking talk to me like that,
you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, all right.
Speaker 1: I was positive I was smarter than all restaurant managers.
It was funny because I was a waitress, but I
was definitely smarter than everybody. Could run the restaurant way
better than they could.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean sometimes I look back and I go,
if I could just get like a little bit of
the confidence that I had when I was an idiot,
you know, when I was like a true moron. I
just I would just love to get a little bit
of that confidence back, you know. And now it is
helpful because I find that the more confident somebody is,
the dumber they are. I will that is like across
the board. I can pretty much, and I'm talking outward
showman like show pony confidence, that kind of confidence. I'm
not talking about unshakable self worth that's a different thing, no,
but like kind of show pony confidence that you see
a lot in comedy. I go, that's a dumb ass
that right there, dumb guy. I mean, because I've had
it and I was dumb, and you know, I kind
of envy them, but I digress. I don't know what
I was talking.
Speaker 1: So, so you worked at jobs, but now you auditioned
for this acting for the acting studio.
Speaker 3: Yes, and my first class, I was like, where are
my drinkers? You know? I was like, oh, I need
people to drink with. So I was like, where are
my drinkers? And you know, everybody was like, oh, I
drink you know. I was like, let's all go get
a drink after the show. So we went after the class.
So we went out, we got odd drink. Everybody got
a drink and they left and I was like, what
the fuck? And it was one guy who I'm still
friends with who was like, I'll go out with you,
and so we went out until four am and I
don't even know where he went. I lost him. At
some point I ran into some girl on the street.
I was like, you should come drink with me, and
she was like, oh no, I'm in I'm in AA,
and you know my mom was in AA. So I
was like, oh, yeah, my mom's in AA. I totally
I know all about that. And she was like, well
you should, you should. If you ever want to, you
can call me. And I was like, I took her
number because I was like, I don't want to look
like I'm in denial, so I'll like take her number,
but I don't need this, you know. And the next morning,
I I blacked out. The rest of the night, I
don't remember it, but I did take her number, and
I don't know how I got home, but I woke
up on the floor of my apartment and I got
a phone call from a job that I had not
even been hired at, Like I was still training for
this restaurant job, and I was fired before I had
my first day, Like it was, I was still and
it was just as a hostess in a restaurant where
there were like twelve tables and six on one side,
six on the other. It counted one to six up
the right side and six to twelve down the other side.
And I couldn't get it right. I couldn't. My brain
could not keep track of like the path of the numbers,
so I kept sucking up the number of tables. Anyway,
they were like, this girl can't count, so we can't
hire her, Like we don't even know how she got
a college degree, because she literally can't count twelve. So
I get fired from that job. I wake up. I
get noticed that I'm fired, and I tried. I remember
lying on my floor in my apartment trying to cry
so that and I don't even know who I was
doing it for, Like I remember being like like like
trying to like but no one was there. And I
looked at myself in the mirror and I was like,
who who are you doing this for? Like You're the
only one here, no one's watching you, no one feels
bad for you, And and something about nobody being there
to feel bad for me made me go, I got
a problem, like something's wrong and I don't know why.
I I was like it was that and then the
combination of this girl like giving me her number, where
I was like, oh, I should call this girl, you know.
And I didn't have any plan to get sober or anything.
I just was like, you know, I'll treat I'll treat
it like a confession, like I'll go in and I'll
confess my sins and then you know, like in a
meek or something, I'll go I'll go out and I'll
have like one drink and it'll be fine, like I'll
be normal. And I went to a meeting that night.
I remember I spent the entire day like wandering the city.
I probably spent like five or six hours picking an outfit,
and I spent the next six hours just like wandering
around the West village waiting for this meeting to start,
because if I didn't, I was like, I will drink,
I'll change my mind, or I'll drink. So I just
kind of circled the block where this meeting was going
to happen, and I went in and I heard people
like telling talking about their life and what and the
way they felt, and just putting into words things that
I had lived with secretly for so long that I
genuinely believed I was the only person who experienced these feelings.
And you know, and it was like the way that
they said it was like you're not You're not. They
didn't say it in a way that made me feel
like a victim either. They were like you're not unique,
like you're not, and I was like, oh, so it
kind of felt it appealed to two different parts of
my mind, which is one the part of the part
of me that really needed compassion and understanding, and then
two the other part of my mind, which was like,
I'm not interested unless it's a challenge, like I'm not
interested unless it seems like I can't do it, Like
it's got to feel a little bit like a dare
for me to for me to sort of take any
kind of interest in it. And the way that they
said it was like you're not unique, You're not that special,
shut up and listen. And I kind of was like
fuck you, you know, and fine, and it was like
so it it was really And then I just kept
I kept going. I just kept going for like, you know,
until now, like I just I keep going and I
don't go as often as I used to, but I
will never stop because it saved my life, Like it
really saved my life. Wouldn't be where I am today
if it weren't for getting sober. And the only way
that I knew how to do how to get sober
was to was to have that community of people who
made me feel understood. I mean, that's always been important
in my life, just as a theme is, like I've
always been in search of like a community of people
that I feel at home with, like a family outside
of my family. Because again, you know, the one thing
that I really haven't been able to shake, even through sobriety,
even through ten years and years therapy and all the shit,
it's like, I don't feel entirely at home in my
own family. And that is, you know, the more I
understand about my family and the more I understand about myself,
I go, that's nobody's fault. That is just the way
it is. And I but it's beautiful because I've I
have a family on my own now, you know, I
have a family that I've created, and I have a
chosen family, and like in comedy and in sobriety, that
supports me and that I feel understood by. So it's
it's kind of yeah, I think that's that's pretty much
like the beginning to end.
Speaker 2: So what year was that that you got sober?
Speaker 3: Two thousand and six?
Speaker 1: Okay, I got sober in two thousand and nine, so
you really Yeah, so you have been sober a few
years longer than I have. But it does get easier
right as the years go on, the idea of drinking
being a solution to anything is just like further and
further away. Yeah, yeah, because you doesn't create other you
have other tools there there does There is more space
between feeling unhappy or going through changes in your life.
Speaker 2: And thinking of a quick fix being the solution.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I remember like the first time I took a xanax
and I was like, oh, this is how I'm supposed
to feel, like, this is how normal people feel. This
is how it feels not to feel the way I
feel all the time. And then I remember when I
got sober, the bad news to me, worse than not
being able to drink, was not being able to take xanex,
which I had decided was my magic elixir, my way
to feel okay, and realizing I'm gonna have to find
others I'm gonna have to sit with feeling uncomfortable, and
that was the worst news. I was like, I don't
know how anybody does it. And there were times and
now like I guess it's that when you feel uncomfortable,
or when you feel those feelings where you're like nobody
understand dancew me, you have the ability to go okay,
I'm gonna I'm gonna sit with this and I'm gonna
i'm gonna let it go by. And I guess too,
just the the getting sober and knowing there's other people
that feel the same way you do, you go okay.
Other people feel this way because I think I'm just
hearing in your story such a similarity with myself of
just like nobody and nobody gets it. If people felt
the way I feel, they would drink, they would take drugs,
they would do something. How can people just like feel
this way all the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like I was like, I'm not that. That can't
be the way that I just like live my life.
That's not that is actually unmanageable. Yeah, I'm like that
feels more unmanageable than the drinking. Like the drinking. I
can lie, I can cheat, I can I can come
up with multiple ways to fix the you know, to
like put a band aid on the problems that I
cause when I'm drinking and I have an out every
single time, which is I don't remember, you know, like, yeah,
I'm sorry, but I wasn't really there, like you know
what I mean, sounds terrible, really sorry about what you
went through. I personally no recollection. It's not ringing a bell.
So I kind of had that out to be like eh,
and it just felt like this is a this is
an easier fix than sitting with myself. That's that feels
I have no idea how to do that I have
no idea how to do that, and the idea of
like don't just do something sit there was impossible for
me really up until I was like seven years sober
and I was dating an alcoholic, an active alcoholic who
you know, it was like my turn to be the
codependent and all my understanding of alcoholism went out the window.
And I thought I could change him, and I thought
I could fix it, and I thought I could, you know,
be like an angel, I could be like a human angel.
And didn't really work out in my favor. You know,
he's like still drinking as far as I know, And
I ended up in like a domestic abuse situation with
him and was like I got to go to alan
On and like I didn't know. I really didn't know
how to like sit down and just just be in
my own life until I was about seven years sober,
and like, once I'd broken up with him, I was like, Okay,
I've made other people my alcohol like my alcohol. I
focused on them instead of myself. Well what do I
like to do? Like what do I even like? And
you know, I quit acting. I did. Uh. I was
like maybe I'll be a social worker or something. I
don't know, like I just spent a year not working out,
because the way I worked out was like punishing the
way I you know, I worked out only when I
felt like it, I ate what I wanted. I did.
It was like a year of just getting into my
own body and like understanding what I liked and what
I didn't like, and just those basic things I didn't
I needed to understand those. So I spent a year
of just like self care, really basic shit, walking my dog,
brushing my teeth, washing my face, you know, and figuring
out what my interests were. And I, by the end
of that year had done my first open mic, and
I think waited like another four months before I got
an invitation to go to a second open mic and
did that and then was like, oh, I really like this,
and I just started doing comedy over every night, and
then my whole life like opened up. So it's just crazy,
how you know, how long it took me just to
listen to my own life and to listen to my
own body and my own mind without reaching for a
relationship or a means of controlling my food intake, or
a means of you know, punishing myself for nourishing myself
which was like a major thing where it's like I
would eat and then I would like work out in
a way that was really damaging and the so yeah
I was, but I'm so grateful because I have had
this GANU and like journey through I don't I don't
even know how to put it, like like I feel
more self actualized because of how long everything took, Like
it just took me so long to learn these like
basic lessons. And at the same time, I get I
got sober young, and I hear people who got sober
later go like, oh, but you got sober young, and
I'm so jealous, and I go, it doesn't it didn't help,
you know, Like, yeah, I got sober young, but but
I spent almost a decade of my sobriety really doing
myself no favors, like really truly acting like I was
still an alcoholic. I would be like in bathroom stalls
with my friends who were doing coke, like being like wow,
looks fun, you know, just like trying to be still
cool with it and hoping that maybe they'll get sober.
Like me sitting in a bathroom stall was somebody doing coke.
It's like, which of those two looks more appealing on
the surface, you know, like, yeah, nobody on cocaine going,
you know, sobriety sounds nice.
Speaker 1: So so, how long after you got well, after you
started being self actualized and doing stand up, did you
get your first like TV writing job was SNL?
Speaker 2: The first couldn't have been, No.
Speaker 3: No, no. My first writing job was was the Roast
develop Baldwin Develic Baldwin and I had done a lot
of roasts and like roast battles, and I would do
like these. I think I did like sixteen roast battles
in a year because it was the only way that
I could get my my jokes in front of comics
that were better than I was. Like, you know, we're
comics that were in bigger clubs, comics that were that
were pasted at the seller that were pasted it like
bigger clubs than I was pasted in. And so I
just did as many of those as possible just to
kind of get my name out there as like a
comic who could write, and did that and then got
hired for the Roast of Alec Baldwin and which I
wrote on with Bonnie and then did that. Dann Michael Cha,
which was about maybe six or seven months later, and
then did season two of that Dan Michael Chay, and
then did the last season of Inside Amy Schumer, and
halfway through that I got hired at SNL to do
to be a sketch writer at SNL, And that was
in twenty twenty two two.
Speaker 2: Yes, Wikipedia page yeah, yeah, not always correct. But and
how was that environment?
Speaker 1: You know, you hear all the crazy things and that
it's a pretty big like drinking.
Speaker 2: Probably we'd environment.
Speaker 1: Was that hard at all to be in like a
high pressure kind of thing and be the sober one?
Speaker 3: No, not really. There's a lot of sober people now.
There's a lot of sober people at U SNL, which
I was lucky to like have that, you know. And
also I think the you know, when you're at the
after parties, but you work there, it's not like you
can really like go that nuts without it affecting things
at work. So I wasn't like, oh damn, I'm really
missing out on the part of this where we're all
acting a fool. I mean, it's like it's changed a
lot since the seventies where everybody was like really just crazy, right, Yeah,
So I didn't I never really had had trouble with that.
Speaker 1: And then how long into your I guess, sobriety, did
you meet your now husband.
Speaker 3: Let's see, I met him in twenty nineteen or twenty eighteen,
but like really like started dating in twenty nineteen, right
before yeah, yeah, right before COVID, right before COVID. And
it was like I'd been in like a five year
relationship with the with the guy who was my first
relationship after that guy who drank, and this was like
kind of a it was a little bit it didn't
start this way, but by the end of it, I
was like, this feels a lot. It feels similar in
that this person is like drink. They don't drink, but
they smoke weed in a way that makes it look
like it's we're gonna heroin, you know. And I was like,
and I never really tried to say anything, but once
I caught myself wanting to be like, hey, maybe don't like,
maybe try not to you know, if you feel like
this way about your life, maybe it's this. And obviously
that was not met with like open arms. It wasn't
like a welcome suggestion. So I also found that like,
outside of that, I was being promised things in the
beginning of the relationship like marriage and things like that,
where I was like, those are getting further and further away,
and it feels like we're not moving towards those, you know.
So eventually I did. I left, and I was like
it was it was harder to leave because there was
no big dramatic thing, but it was like, I'm leaving
because of the things that I want. And about a
year later, I met Andy or met re met him,
you know, was like interested and started dating him, and
it was like I was like, I'm gonna go into
this a little bit differently and I'm just gonna say
exactly what I want, which is like, hey, I'm looking
to get married. If you're not interested in that, I
think I need to move on, Like, you know, I
really really like you, but if that's not something that's
like in the cards for you, I gotta I gotta
keep it moving. I gotta go like start fucking other
people like stat. And so he was like, no, I
don't I don't want I don't want that. I I's
like I would consider I would consider marriage again, and
I'm I'm not opposed to it. And I was like Okay,
well it doesn't have to be. You know, I know
that this is like kind of a weird way to
walk into things. I don't I'm not saying like, hey,
marry me tomorrow. I'm just making sure that you're interested
in something like that, so that if things feel good
between us, that that's a possibility and that that's not
going to be like taken away, because that's something that
I felt with and he was like, no, no, I
hear you, and like, you know, he was also sober
and for a while and was in therapy and was
like working on himself. So it was like I felt
like I could really trust what he was saying, and
he uh yeah, he like I think he proposed like
nine months in we were like it was right. Maybe
we were like three days into lockdown, so you know,
two alcoholics don't really deal well with boredom. So we
were like, let's change our entire lives. Let's get a dog,
let's start a podcast, let's get engaged. You know. We
like we did all of it and and got married
in September twenty twenty, which was great, by the way,
because you don't have to like invite a ton of family.
You can just you be like, hey, we'd love to
have you there, but we're trying to save you. So yeah.
Speaker 1: And then and then you had your baby only a
couple of years ago, so a couple of years in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but you had a miscarriage.
Speaker 3: I had. I had multiple miscarriages. Yeah, sorry, thank you. Yeah,
it was It was funny because I didn't really want kids.
I wasn't really interested in like the loss of freedom,
and I wasn't really interested honestly in like the love.
It just scared the fuck out of me. And you know,
having a sister who passed away at like a young age,
it really brings up a lot. And so I was
really terrified of that. But I got pregnant by accident
and had a miscarriage and then was like, oh, well, okay,
that's it's meant to be. It's like, you know, I
don't want kids, so but then it just kept like
it was like in the back of my mind being like, hey,
remember we got pregnant, Like that was kind of sweet,
Like it was like this thing in the back of
my mind after that where I was like, wait, do
I want this? You know? And then so we started
trying and and then we had another miscarriage, and this
time it was like I was like eleven weeks or something,
and like couldn't establish care for the pregnancy, like healthcare wise,
and so it was diagnosis of the missed miscarriage, so
like the embryo, like it hadn't made it past I
think it was like seven weeks, but my body didn't
know that I wasn't pregnant, so my body kept developing
as if I was pregnant, like eleven eleven weeks, you know,
twelve weeks. Then when I found out that one was
really devastating because I like I had I had that
and I and I had to shoot my special like
three weeks from that date.
Speaker 2: Oh wow.
Speaker 3: So yeah, So I had this miscarriage and then had
like the DNC which I had to which for some
reason couldn't be scheduled until like two weeks after the
miscarriage had been diagnosed. So I was just walking around
knowing that I'd had a miscarriage, waiting for a DNC
and finally had it, and UH had to get on
the road the next week to do a run of
shows to prepare for my special. So it was like
it was like alone in the Midwest, trying to like
run jokes for like, you know, places that didn't believe
in COVID because that was the only place you could perform,
and feeling like really out of body and crazy. And
then shot my special, which was healing in a way
because it felt like Okay, well I have delivered something,
you know, and then for about it was a long
time before I tried again. It was like a long
time before I was like I don't want anything to
do with this. I don't want kids, like forget this.
This is like too wrought with like pain at this point.
And I had this conversation with my mother actually when
I went home and was like really torturing myself because
my sister had a baby at the same time. My
sister was pregnant, like right after I had my miscarriage.
My sister was like, Hey, I'm pregnant, and then she
had her kid, and so I was just like and
my best friend got pregnant at the same time as me,
she had hers. It's like all around me people were
having their babies. And I had this feeling of like
I guess I'm just not going to and and so
I just put it away until I went home, and
my mom has this way of like drawing out whatever
like vulnerabilities I have, and so she was asking me
like how I was doing, and I was like, I
just don't know what to do. Like I I'm like,
I don't want to get pregnant right now because I
just got hired at ESNL and I just like, I
can't do that job and be pregnant. And you know,
she was like, why don't you try IVF. So I
did IVF, completed IVF, got we did great, you know,
I like it was an ideal thing for us, was
we you know, we got more embryos than we thought
we were going to get and uh and then two
months later, I got pregnant like naturally, like the old
fashioned way, and you know, and uh yeah it was.
It was kind of crazy. So I was just like,
all right, I if this is happening now, it's happening
now and turn up like I had my baby and
I went back to work and I did my last
two years to decon now as a mom.
Speaker 2: That's amazing. Okay, So now bring it home. You're you
do a podcast currently?
Speaker 3: No, no, we my husband I had one during the pandemic.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, yeah, but you just wrote a book, is it?
Speaker 3: Is it?
Speaker 2: Do you have a release date?
Speaker 3: I don't have a release date yet. I haven't like
done an announcement, like a formal announcement before yet. But
it's like I'm supposed to before November tenth, so should
be out soon. Uh.
Speaker 2: And but it is called half baked.
Speaker 3: No, no, it's called fully baked.
Speaker 1: Oh, fully baked, fully pat Okay, yeah, okay. And you're touring,
do you have any This will go up like around
the time that you're going to start announcing your books,
So do you have any dates you want to outlug?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Absolutely, let me find the second here, just got
to remember my own website. Yeah, I'm going to be
let's see November seventh and eighth. I'll be in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
I don't know if this is coming out before then,
but I'll be in Tulsa. We might miss that, okay. Rosemont, Illinois,
November twenty first three to twenty second, Wilmington, North Carolina,
December twelfth and thirteenth, Sunnyvale, California. January, Salt Lake City, Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, Charlotte, Austin, Chicago, Albuquerque. Yeah,
and there's more dates that are being added, so.
Speaker 1: So can people check your website, yes, bud Baker dot com.
Speaker 2: Okay, and your and your Instagram.
Speaker 3: Instagram's Rosebud Baker, TikTok's rosebud Baker YouTube is rosebud Baker.
So well, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Will put it in the description of the episode all
the places.
Speaker 1: I thank you so much, what a great thank you,
a great story and with a happy ending.
Speaker 3: Yeah really time might I might suck it up, you know?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Thank you, Rosebud, Thanks everybody, see you next week. Bye.