Speaker 1: Hi everyone, I'm Stephanie Wilder Taylor and this is Drunkish
the podcast. But you knew that the goal of this
podcast is to have fun conversations about sobriety without preaching,
just real. Please go rate and review if you have
a minute or five today. I'm really excited. I have
a comedian, Zach Noe Towers. He has a special on
YouTube called Twink Death, which is really funny. He's on
Jeff Lewis's radio show once a week. He tours all
over the place. He opens for huge, big name comedians.
But most importantly, he is here and we got into.
Speaker 2: It, all of it. So let's go.
Speaker 1: Hey, Zach, welcome to Drunkish. I'm so happy that you
agreed to do this. You're so funny.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, thank you.
Speaker 3: What a great starts a little compliment my way.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I saw Rosebud did the pod and any I'm a
follower of Rosebud to the ends of the earth, so
I'm like, you know, if she's if she's in the
Stephanie Crewe, get me in there too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, Rosebud. Rosebud gave me a blurb for
my book, for my memoir about getting sober drunk mush.
Speaker 2: Yeah, god, wait, how is the book? Is the book out?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been out for a couple of years.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll have to I will look for it because
I love reading about people. I love reading memoirs especially,
but like for it to be like a sober thing,
like that's exciting.
Speaker 1: I tried to be one of the few people that
was writing a memoir about getting sober about you know
what can be a dark topic, as you know, but
with joke, yep, why do we have to be so
fucking serious?
Speaker 3: I mean, I have found that because alcoholics and drug
addicts have seen the worst of human nature and their
human nature like oftentimes like they are the best, like crowd,
like not saying a crowd, Like I speak at recovery
meetings and like I tell dark ass jokes about like
almost having died or whatever, and they can laugh because
they're like same girl, same girl plus worse, you know.
Speaker 1: Right exactly. So I did the math based on your
social media and I'm I'm you have over like ten
over ten and a half years of sobriety.
Speaker 3: I have definitely over ten. Oh maybe it is still
over ten and a half by sobriety. It's like November, Yes,
November twenty seventh, twenty seventh, twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: Wow, Okay, I did my research.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're a little you're an internet stocker girl who
can like be like I met a guy in a
red shirt at Trader Joe's and you're like, I'll find him.
Speaker 1: Well, you made a post about somehow I saw a
post about you, you know, your sobriety date, and I
read the post and it was from last year where
you were talking about how your sobriety date is even
bigger to you than your birthday. And I really related
to that.
Speaker 3: Is your birthday? How long have you been sober? If
I might ask, seventeen? Wow? Oh yeah, okay, and then
when your belly button birthday July fifth, coming up, Oh
my gosh, okay, okay, So I'm that's exciting. Actually, I
like it the way I have it because my my
natal birthday is like six weeks before my sober birthday,
So the natal birthday feels like a wind up and
I'm like, oh my god, my sober birthday's coming up,
like let's go. But yeah, it's like we had very
little to do with our birth dates. Like our natal
birth dates, but like my sobriety date is something I
hold on to with pride especially. I don't know how
you ful phil A felt hitting the ten year mark,
but it did feel like, oh, this is real, Like
this is actually like a portion of my life. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I really agree with that. When I first got
sober and I want to hear about yours, I just
remember thinking like ten years seemed absolutely insane, like sane.
I would have to be very old when I got
to be ten years sober. To me, I remember being
eleven days sober and meeting somebody, a guy who had
nine months, and I was like, whoa, how does that
even crazy? Nine months?
Speaker 2: That's insane, bonkers a baby. I could have had a baby.
Speaker 3: I could have made a human being in the time
you have not put a drink to your lips. I
am one of those people too, who like, I don't
know why because now thinking of this sentence, it really
doesn't make sense to me. But I'm one of those
people who heard the phrase you never have to rink
or use again, and it changed my brain chemistry.
Speaker 2: I had never.
Speaker 3: Thought that that was on the table, Like I was
so drinking and Drugging was like so part of my lifestyle,
and it was so part of everyone I hung out
with lifestyle that to me, we were the cool kids.
We were living life, we were doing it, and like
alcohol and drugs were just one of the many benefits,
you know, Like to me, it felt like, oh, I'm
about to lose like a badge of honor. Like I like,
it didn't make sense. And then when someone's like, you
never have to drink or do drugs again, I was like,
that's crazy.
Speaker 1: That's where were you doing stand up when you got sober?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was probably not well because I've been doing
zena like fifteen years and I've been sober ten So
the first five were very much me like, you know,
a shot before my set, a beer during my set,
sometimes more if there was a green room with like
high qual alcohol. I was hitting it hard. I definitely
remember going up on stage and being very drunk, but like.
Speaker 2: Always skating by.
Speaker 3: Like people were rebooking me, probably because I was like
a twenty six year old gay slut and like they
were like he was fun, Like he was unhinged, but
he was fun. And yeah, so I definitely like I
used to think that drugs and alcohol made me like
calm in my body and like more in tune with
the room. Little did I know it was absolutely doing
the opposite. It was putting up a wall between me
and the room. It was me on my journey, them
on theirs. And so when I got sober, it was
very uncomfortable being on stage at first. But then I
was like, oh, I'm picking up on this girl's side
eye when I say this one thing, and so I
get to zoom in on her.
Speaker 2: But it never even noticed there was a girl sitting
in that chair.
Speaker 1: When I was drunk, you know, yeah, yeah, It's funny
because I had this a similar I mean, I did
stand up for a lot of years and I loved
I had it down to a science. I was like,
I have one drink for you know. At some point
it was a glass of wine and a half a Xanax,
and I was like, that puts me in my body, calm,
able to do, able to quiet some of the voices
that are like I don't know how the set's going
to go. I don't know how this audience. I was like,
it's cool, it's cool whatever it happens, even if I bomb.
But of course sometimes I would miss that mark and
have like two glasses of wine and then be And
then sometimes I got the feedback that I was a
little big ess or a little slurry or a little whatever. Yeah,
but that first time doing stand up without anything was like,
uh oh yeah.
Speaker 3: Actually, one of the first times I did stand up
after getting sober new sobriety was it was the first
like I was part of a pilot episode of an
MTV show about this show called Brewhaha, which was a
very popular show on the East Side. It was in
the backyard of this like house in in Los Felis.
They had like free beer and it was a drinking
game and the comics didn't know the rules, so like
you were unknowingly breaking rules. The audience were like, oh,
drinking and stuff. So I got booked as one of
the comics on the pilot episode for MTV's version of this,
and I was like, I can't drink, and they were like, Okay,
we'll put you up first, and we'll have someone drink
before instead of you. We shot this pilot in San Diego.
It was outdoors at a brewery or like a beer
garden for nine in front of nine hundred people. And
I was shaking, like I was so scared. I didn't
have my tool to be comfortable. I didn't know how
the crowd was going to react. I made a joke
about being sober and how I'm a loser for it
or whatever. That went over well, and it wounded being
a great set And it's just like it. Yeah, so
the first time on stage is just like it's so different.
Speaker 1: So it sounds like you loved drinking and using and
thought it was part of your identity. So can you
tell me what led to you quitting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did think it was part of my identity.
Speaker 3: I'm definitely one of those people who like when I
was young, I saw my like my male family members
like uh uncles and people like that, they were like
Irish Catholic. When they got a little loose, like after
a couple like brown liquors and stuff, they got a
little bit more friendly, a little bit more fun, a
little bit less threatening, and like the fact that I
couldn't have it made me want it even more. So,
like alcohol is very much like this, Like okay, it's
like fun, it's silly, it's off limits in movies and TV.
It's sexy, you know, So like when I had my
first drink in high school, like my first drunk rather
and then, like you said earlier, the voices quieted, like
being a scared, you know, gay kid in the Midwest,
Like I was so on edge the whole time, and
that went away, and.
Speaker 2: It really did drop my shoulders down.
Speaker 3: It it gave me the courage to like go to
the parties, to talk to the boys, to be silly.
I thought it made me funnier. It just it was
like it was magic. My drinking also follows that path magic, medicine, misery,
and like it was in magic that those first I
don't know, five to ten years, you know, and then
it was like, oh, I need this to go into
the bar because I feel uncomfortable in my own skin
and my body's adjusted to this and now this is
the new normal. But it happened slowly, right like as
someone said, like I don't know.
Speaker 2: Why I'm an alcoholic.
Speaker 3: I it must be that at some point I drank
too much too often. And I do think about that,
like how like our lives are so delicately on the
path that they're on. And it's like maybe if I
had had like a near death experience and when I
was in high school driving around drunk, I may have
been scared straight, but like that didn't happen. I was
like touched by an angel until the day I got sober, like.
Speaker 2: I should be dead.
Speaker 3: I'm sure you maybe feel the same, like several times over,
like rationally speaking, I should not be alive, and like
it just became part of my lifestyle because there were
no massive consequences. I'm realizing now the longer I stay sober,
the consequence was missing out on a lot of potential
for how I could have been living my life. I
know we don't regret the past or which to shut
the door on it, but I think about how greatly
my life is improved in ten years, and how it's
aligning with the hopes and dreams of little Zach, the
version of me that had never experienced drugs and alcohol
and just had these kind of like pure dreams. Like
I think the consequence wasn't losing my leg in a
motorcycle accident or killing a family on the highway. It
was bearing so far off path that I had to
claw my way back.
Speaker 2: And like that's still I've got off pretty easy, you know.
Speaker 3: And and I will say now like, I am deeply
grateful for being an alcoholic because it's led me to recovery.
It's led me to rooms of recovery, it's led me
to so many of my best, purest relationships, and like
it's given me God, which I grew up Catholic. I
never had a God, like I was so vehemently against
anything that sounded like God or you know, had a
mouthpiece for God. And like, yes, it's been a bumpy road,
but like, damn, things have been good for a bit now,
and I think they're going to keep getting better.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to you were saying growing
up as a gay kid in the Midwest, I feel
like a lot of us. I'll say, I'm not gay,
but I have other things, you know, other childhood trauma
stuff that I feel like when I drank, it just
made me feel less different, less like people were going
to figure out that I am not lovable whenever that
thing is. And then if you start at a young
enough age because I was fourteen when I started drinking,
and you don't have consequences, which I also didn't really
have in high school except horrible hangovers, you know, waking
up with regret, but also everybody. All my other friends
were doing it too. So it took me until I
was forty two to get sober, just because of what
you're saying, just no real consequences. And for so long
I felt like, well, this helps me, this helps me
be braver. This you know, the first time I did
stand up, had I have like six rum and cokes
an open mic night. There's no way I could have
done that, No way. I was so scared. Right, So
for a long time, it's a tool, right to feel good.
And maybe maybe I don't know, if you were out
in high school, I'd love to know, like what that
was like, was that was did you need the alcohol
for that?
Speaker 3: You know, I had a soft coming out at sixteen,
I was obviously gay.
Speaker 2: Like looking back, I was obviously gay.
Speaker 3: I literally took ballet and stuff like that, and like, I, oh,
this is crazy you. I haven't had long hair since
like high school, and so I had like long, swishy hair,
and I like dressed cute and like, but I didn't
get bullied really badly.
Speaker 2: It was like.
Speaker 3: Underclassmen who didn't know who I was might like toss
a f slur at me occasionally, but like I started
the gay story alliance in my high school as a
straight person, Like it was like not as bad as
other kids had it, like because I'm from Saint Louis, Missouri,
not like rural Missouri. But it's like it's in in
some it's tool. It was a tool, and I think
about how it was kind of like a like a one,
one size fits all tool, like because I don't know
about you, like I didn't grow up with like therapy
really on the table. I think I went to see
a child therapist when my parents got divorced for like
one and a half sessions, you know, like but it
felt very foreign, felt very weird.
Speaker 2: My parents weren't really about mental health.
Speaker 3: But because it wasn't a thing in the nineties, I
don't think to really like dive into okay, like how
are you coping with this one bully or like how
are you feeling about being out at school? Like it
was like good luck, kid, you know. And so drugs
and alcohol were the tool. It's like you know, taking
aspirin for fever aches, body pain, you know, headache, not
is this just like okay, this is this is it?
Speaker 2: You know, I'll just do more of it or less
of it and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that and that's the point where it was
magic because I was like, oh, and I look cool
when I'm doing it, like I'm a rebel. I'm like
a bad kid, Like I'm straying away from like the
young life Christian friends, like I'm going to go drink
with my musical theater friends.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It's like smoke a cigarette and not inhale it and everything,
and like it like led to community, like being this
is the other funny thing, Like drunks really do show
up for you, like show up for other drunks like
they will. They will puke and rally, they will cover
for you at work. They will like because they know
what that life is like. You know, I wouldn't trade
them for my support system now. But like it is,
it is a community alcoholism. There is a community there,
and I think it just gets to the point where
those hangovers last longer, the emotional hangovers last longer. You know,
people are maybe drinking less than the people used to
in college or whatever.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean, Like your community kind of
thins out.
Speaker 3: And I did forget how we got to me saying that,
But you said something about what was like being gay
in high school, I think to just piggyback on your word,
are you bringing up tools? It was alcohol was the tool.
It made me feel calm, It made me feel funny,
it made me feel sexy. All my first sexual experiences
were with drunk, straight guys. You know, in the end
of high school being into college. College is when I
officially like came out and there was like a big
community and it was very I've made friends very quickly
and blah blah blah. But yeah, in high school it
was the year was in the driver's seat and alcohol
was the thing that could like rip it out, rip
the steering wheel out of fear's hands.
Speaker 1: And the thing about drinking is that, like, let's say
you go to college, you're meeting lots of other gay people,
but yet you still have to use the alcohol cause
there's you don't just go like, oh, I guess I
don't need this anymore. It was cool Now, No, you
just use it more. That's the thing. It's progressive, as
we know. But like for me, I kept thinking, well,
once I'm not stressed out about whatever the thing is
that's happening in my life, then I'll naturally drink less
every single time. It just got it just escalated whatever
the until the next thing happened. You know, there was
a period of time where I wasn't drinking as much
when I was younger, but that's because I was then
in like an eating disorder. Sure, but like I look
back and I go, oh, so you were just doing
something else.
Speaker 3: Well, and this is like the whack a mole of
it all all and it's something I'm still experiencing ten
years sober. I catch myself in these like food blackouts
where I'm just eating. I actually do not feel good
in my stomach, but the pizza is still there, the
ranch is still there. My mind goes into the fuckets
category and then I'm like, Okay, well I did that.
Let's also do a brownie Sunday. Oh I don't have brownies.
I'll find myself walking to seven eleven to get brownies
and ice create. It's like that, like disease still wants
me dead. It still wants me like exhausted by carnal pleasures,
and it wants me distracted, and it still wants me
to be Like, you're not comfortable. I know it would
make you comfortable for a little bit. What if we
lose ourselves in dominoes and it's just yeah, it's so
it's so interesting because in that way, it's like, wow,
I guess it'll never end. But that's why I thank
God for sobriety. I'm I'm picking up tools still, like
I don't know about you. I don't drink that much water,
and like I know that water will make my life better,
I resist it. I'm like, hmm, diet coat, m my
Celsius the Red Bull. Maybe that'll give you a little tingle,
you know. And uh so it's just like this thing
of oh, I'm gonna be playing this game seven trash can,
six lids maybe till I die. But like, hopefully I
stay in my recovery program. I stay surrounded by winners.
I give myself more evidence that eating salad is more
satisfying than eating fries like that, and so I'm using
foods of it. I'm so sorry you just eating disorder,
and I think I like latched onto it. But it's like,
you know, cake cash Hawk, cake cash cock, Like I'm like,
those are my my things. I'm like, well, is there
a boy who likes me? No, you're less than you're
you're pitiful, you're ugly, you're evil, you know, loose some
white batty, you know, like and then it's like, oh,
this isn't working. Maybe I'll eat the whole cake that
my friend left here after her birthday. You know, it's
just like our brains.
Speaker 1: My daughter brought home a like a half a cake,
and yeah, I'm with seventeen years sober. My daughter brought
home half a cake from something. She was like, I
had like one one piece of it thing, but they didn't.
They were going on a trip the next day. So
she brought it home and it sat on our stove
and I just kept going back to it and opening
it up and like I'm just gonna have one bite.
And then I'd be like I'm just gonna have a slipper.
I'm just gonna have one piece of it, and couldn't
stop until it was gone.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're like, let's get well, let's get the fuck
out of here. Let's just eat it.
Speaker 2: Is it in my head?
Speaker 3: I'm like, well, one bad night is better than three
bad days. And like I'm not gonna throw it in
the trash can, like I know, might he's Dizzy's well
enough for that. I'm like, okay, let's talk about this
because it's you're right, I'm not gonna spray it with
wind decks, Like I'm not gonna do it. I'm also
probably not gonna ask a friend to come over and
help me. So it's just like my best solution is
like scarf it now, Oh, go to bed, wake up,
brand new day, start over.
Speaker 2: But if that funny too, because it's like.
Speaker 3: We could have had a sliver for five days in theory,
like there is a world in which and that's not
that bad.
Speaker 2: A sliver of cake is like not that bad.
Speaker 3: But I think the disease kicks in and they're like,
you know, it's better than a sliver, you dumb bitch.
Five slivers right now? Yeah, well, I have to do everything.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've talked about this before on this podcast,
but before I got sober, I remember getting a prescription
for Vicodin for a breakthrough migrain pain, and I somehow
got a hundred of them and I had to take
I mean, I would you know, it's start out, take
a couple. Oh, I have vicodin. Take a couple. Then
it's like, oh, well, now I don't feel that as much.
Let me take a couple more. And like I could
be through that in a week.
Speaker 2: Did you also think did you also go like, is
it is it headed coming on? Yes? Is it okay? Better?
Speaker 1: Is it really gone to?
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, let's let's really put it to bed. I
get it, I get it. I it's it's a bummer
that we can't be trusted with our with ourselves.
Speaker 2: But it's so much better than it was, you know.
Speaker 1: So when okay, so when it started to become misery,
I love your I love your thing, magic medicine, misery.
When it entered the misery portion, what was that?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 1: I mean was it were you waking up with horrible hangovers?
Were you doing things that you kind of regret but
not getting a DUI? Like? What was life?
Speaker 2: Yeah? It was all the things that you just mentioned.
Speaker 3: And I basically woke up on my thirtieth birthday and
was so depressed because not only was I in a
stranger's bed, covered in DNA, probably dehydrated, head pounding, already
late for work, probably have to call out, you know,
a job that I didn't like, three living three people
in a two bedroom, and I was so depressed for
the younger version of myself, who like did not need
any of the things I thought I needed mere hours
ago and physical pain, mental pain, emotional pain, spiritual pain
what I now would identify as spiritual pain. And I
just had to have this come to Jesus moment where
I was just like, I don't have a dimmer switch
when it comes to this, Like I cannot drink a
glass of wine. I don't have any interest in a
glass of wine. I want to split a bottle. Then
I want to go to out liquor. Then I want
to do some coke, and then I want to have
sex with a stranger who thinks I'm super hot. Like
and if I don't get all those things, I'm depressed,
I'm lowering the standards for those things. I'm I'm just
scratching at an itch that will not go away. And
alcohol and drugs I finally identified as a hurdle that
I was putting in front of myself and I because
up until this point I done all the I think
classic bartering that we are wont to do where it's like, Okay,
no dry month, no alcohol for the month. I'd make it.
It would be the best month ever. But Day thirty one,
head in a toilet, throwing up from too much Franzia
and it's like, I I didn't. It's so crazy looking
back and being like I didn't even realize that, like
it was a great month not drink it because I
celebrated by getting drunk and being like, oh, okay, it's
not a problem.
Speaker 2: Life is not that bad.
Speaker 3: I was being dramatic and then reset, you know, so,
like the misery of it all is just so scary
because it's so funny. You said you're having comedians on
to be funny. I feel like I haven't said anything
funny this.
Speaker 1: Whole year, but so funny. First of all, yeah, I'm
gonna give you that validation that we all need. You're
saying you're very, very funny. I don't. I didn't mean
like just make a lot of hard jokes about it.
Speaker 2: I just really a little lighthearted.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and also that obviously I blame everything on my
disease too, my disease, and back in the backpackling me
like you're boring her, Oh.
Speaker 1: But stop boring. Well, okay, you know what my brain goes.
You already told that story before, stop interjecting.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, no, I get that too.
Speaker 3: And of course, like one listener will leave one review
like she talks about herself too much, and out of
one hundred reviews, you'll you'll memorize that one. But so
the misery of it all was I did not trust
the words that came out of my own mouth, and
that was so depressing, so scary. Also, I was dealing
with depression and anxiety, which runs in my family, but
I wasn't medicated for it. I was too scared to
find a therapist because I was like, that costs too
much money.
Speaker 2: I can't afford it. Like I don't want to be
dependent on a pill. How scary? What if I run
out of the pills?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: Anxiety? Anxiety, anxiety.
Speaker 3: But like the idea that I would wake up in
the morning be like, Okay, I work my serving shift.
After that, I get off at two pm, I'll go home,
I'll work out and then I'll write or whatever the
thing was, the productive thing that my path was calling
me to do. I'll prep for the show tonight, I'll
write some new jokes, whatever it was. But then towards
the end of the shift, my coworker goes, do you
want to have our shift drink? Because our our place,
let you have a free drink? After the shift and okay,
as in West Hollywood, it's a diner, it's cue, there's
gay guys there, have a drink.
Speaker 2: Well, do you want to go to a trunks? It's
a dive bar, you know, you know, half a mile away.
We just go one.
Speaker 3: It's a happy hour, it's two for one, like just
you'll be home by like dinnertime. And then cut two,
you know, sticky and van eyes in a stranger's in
a stranger's bed looking for a piece of mail to
find out their name. Where I am, and like I
didn't do the thing I was dead set on doing.
And so it's like who changed the plan. And it's like,
oh the disease did the part of me that succumbs
to that, the part of me that believes that voice
that like, yolo, this is what life is about. Making
out with the guy in an alley, like this is living,
Like yeah, you know, it's cutting, baffling. Powerful is something
you know that's said, and it's just like I so
many mornings woke up regretful, so many mornings woke up
not remembering what I did, or so many mornings waking
up wondering if I still had friends and like again,
because the consequences kind of ended there. Besides maybe wasted potential.
I just kept getting over them until it was finally
too much. And I think it was honestly thank God
for turning thirty, because I was like, there's something a
voice that another voice that came in and said said,
it's not cute anymore. It's not cute like what you're doing.
It's it's not cute. It's not it's not what would
make little Zach proud. It's not something to brag about
at a function, you know, start showing up like let's
get let's get real, So would you do so? At
this point, I had like rage quit my serving job
because I obviously thought I was the smartest person in
the room.
Speaker 2: And if you're.
Speaker 1: Speaking my yeah, I feel every word of that. I've
with so many waiting tables jobs, yeah, and thought I
was the smartest and was like, they don't know how
to run this. I yet, no one ever wanted to
make me a manager of anything, but I knew better
than everybody had to run a restaurant.
Speaker 3: Of course, and god forbid a customer gave me any
sort of sass towards the end, Oh baby, I will
ruin the rest of this meal, and I'll you know,
I'll make you pay for this, which it just like.
And I also think i'd been serving. I've been like
in customer service for too long, and it's like, you hit.
I think you hit. You have a life expectancy in
in that field where I just couldn't. I couldn't bend
over anymore. I was just it was a storm.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: When I was I waited table still. I was twenty eight.
I got my first like I got a TV writing
job at twenty eight, but prior to that, I'd only waited.
I'd waited tables for over ten years, like since I
was sixteen. And the last six weeks I got fired
from three serving jobs within six weeks. And then I
was like, I gotta do something else because no one
will hire me. Who's going to hire me? I have
no references at this point. Yeah, it was bad. I
got my next script. I got fired from the last
one in one night. The first night it was an
Irish pub and yeah, anyway, anyway, oh, like this.
Speaker 2: Is your gross, this is bad, how stupid?
Speaker 1: So you had rage quit your job.
Speaker 2: My serving job. I posted on Facebook.
Speaker 3: I needed work and three people reached out to give
me work. I since I in the year coming found
out that they were all in a recovery program, which
I thought was beautiful because like I didn't really have
anything to do with recovery.
Speaker 2: I kind of thought those were losers.
Speaker 3: I thought those were, you know, people who lived under
bridges with you know, brown paper bags. And one of
them let me clean his Airbnb property and he would
just listen to me tell my little sad stories. And
he took me to my first meeting meet, a recovery meeting,
and it was big and loud and filled with a
mix of people. I of course latched onto the like
the like the rougher looking people, and then like, well.
Speaker 2: This isn't me. Obviously, this is not me. I shouldn't
be here. Thank you for reading me.
Speaker 3: But no, but then this, this speaker at this recovery meeting,
really he made me laugh and he made me cry,
and it gave me like just enough faith to like
go check out another recovery meeting.
Speaker 2: And that was the beginning of it.
Speaker 3: Like, I thank God for recovery in LA too, because
there's recovery meetings all over of different different plans or whatever.
Differ like groups, different sects of recovery sects, and I, yeah,
I made I made recovery meetings a big part of
my I still go to like a meeting every day
for the most part. Like wow, it's like how I
start my day. It's like when I'm really happy, I
go to a meeting. When I'm really sad, I go
to a meeting. When I'm feeling regular, I go to
a meeting. I'm really stressed in this today, and I
almost my disease of course, is like we'll skip the
meeting and like go for a walk instead, which wouldn't
have been the worst thing, but like I was like no, no, no.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 3: I like I know better than to listen to that voice.
And so it was like, yeah, it was a slow,
slow thing. And the only thing I did perfect the
whole time since you know, November twenty seventh, twenty fifteen,
besides not drink and do drugs, is I've made my
bed every day. And it's like an esteemable act, you know,
they say, and it's like it's.
Speaker 2: This is bringing it back to what I just said.
Speaker 3: Self esteem is built on doing the things you say
you're going to do when you say you're going to
do them, And that was not how I was living.
I was not doing the things I said I was
going to do period sometimes, but I especially wasn't doing
them when I said I was going to do them.
Like I my word meant nothing to others, but not
even to me, you know. And like when I tell myself,
you are making your goddamn bed, you dumb little bitch,
which is like you know, that tough love voice, but
said with love. I make hotel beds now like I can't.
It's it's a compulsion. There is no reason I can't
do it, zero reason, and not made exquisitely. I'm not
tucking and folding, and but I'm pulling. I'm I'm aligning.
I'm pillows. That's all, and that's all it needs to be,
you know what I mean. It's like showing who's who's
Who's whose boss? Me I am, And you're going to
make the bed. I love everything you just said. I
was wondering what would you say to people, because I
feel like you and I have a lot in common
that rebellious thinking.
Speaker 1: The I don't want to go to these meetings. These
people are all going to be losers like they couldn't
handle it, they couldn't make it work.
Speaker 2: Yes, they couldn't handle it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go on, yeah, I mean it really is as
they say. For me, it was last house on the block.
I don't want any part of this. I don't want
to I don't want to hear these slogans are just
like make my skin crawl, like, oh, I don't want
for god, yeah, I don't want to be like these people.
So and also in my mind for for quite a while,
and I would constantly share about this, I'd be like,
I mean, I'm just not convinced it's not a cult,
you know. So that was in my head. So what
would you say to people? I mean, I know what
I would say to people, But what would you say
to people that are like I don't want like people
have an image that they go, well, there's a lot
of haf dos, and there's a lot of group think
and the there's a lot of it. I don't that's
not for me.
Speaker 3: I would say, Well, first of all, addressing the cult thing,
the easiest thing you can tell people is like, well,
we don't have a leader, and we literally all talk
shit about ourselves and the and the program itself all
the time.
Speaker 2: So like immediately not a cult. Also, zero obligation.
Speaker 3: Also, the only requirement is a desire to stop drinking.
You literally don't even have to stop drinking. Sit your
grass in the back row.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 3: If something really offends you, leave you. We all still
have free will. But what I will say is my
our best thinking got us to where we were. That
was us, that was us doing our best. So I would,
I guess, dare people to put their ego aside and
be open to the fact that millions of people of
different walks of life, of different economic backgrounds, of different ethnicities,
of different sexual orientations have found a magic sauce in
this program, so maybe give it.
Speaker 2: This is the other thing too.
Speaker 3: It's like it's like the person who goes like, oh, meditation,
I meditated for a week straight. It does not work,
blah blah blah. It's like, well, that's you didn't do
it right, Like it's a practice. You just keep doing it,
you know what I mean. It's like if you're going
to go to one meeting and say, well, they they
mentioned fallen women, and how dare they speak disparagingly about
It's like, yeah, no, I do hear you. I do
hear you. But if you talk to another woman in
that meeting who maybe has some time, she could probably
give you a very easy work around to that moment,
you know. Like so it's just like it's that thing
of like whatever you're looking for, you're gonna find. And
so like when I was first going in there, I
was like, Okay, I'm looking to prove that these are
losers and that they are that they're losers.
Speaker 2: And that this is god, like this is religious.
Speaker 3: And pretty quickly you hear a speaker who goes, I
won my first Emmy when I was you know, when
I was still drinking and use and I know we're
supposed to speak vaguely, but like they'll say something like
you know, and you recognize them maybe they're an actor
or something, and you're like, I won my first thing
when I was drunk and I didn't work for ten years.
I got sober and I won ten more things, and
I was living in such lack because I only thought
I was worth this one thing. And so they're speaking broadly,
but you're like, oh, okay, wait, they're not all losers.
Or it's like a girl who like was sexually assaulted
a bunch as a teen and basically sex trafficked, and
like now she runs, you know, a company or a
charity that helps women do this, and she takes meetings
to women who have lived this. I'm like, oh my god,
these people are high performing. These people are smart, these
people are like doing great things. And thank God I
saw that because I saw that the people were cooler
than I thought they were before I was relieved of
the burden of God, and so I saw even if
I'm not an alcoholic, which I don't think I am.
I think I just like I was just in my twenties.
I drink a lot. And who doesn't like cool people?
Speaker 2: All do?
Speaker 3: These are this thing is making people better versions of themselves.
So I think part of me was like, give it.
It's fair shot, and that's what I would say to
anyone else, Like hopefully you're given the gift of desperation,
they say, Or like you were stubborn enough to know
that alcohol is no longer the solution. So maybe you
don't land in the popular recovery program. Maybe you land
in a different program or a harm reduction program, or
maybe you stop drinking and you never go to a
meeting and you never drink again, Like maybe you go
for ten years and then you started to drink again
and you live a great life. I've learned all of
that is speculation. The only thing I can control is
where my feet are right now, and right now, it
feels good to go to a meeting and show other
people that we're not all crazy losers, that we're like
getting better, that there's a lot to be had. I'm
still scratching the surface of this program.
Speaker 2: I couldn't I couldn't tell you.
Speaker 3: I don't think I know even ten percent of the program,
and I don't know how we feel about talking about
the Verram. I haven't saying the words because like I
like don't know what the rule is about talking about
recovery program.
Speaker 1: This works because people that need to know what we're
talking about. I think know what we're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, okay good.
Speaker 1: My feeling too, is that, I mean, I just came
into it with so so much you know, you know
what they say, rejection with a before investigation, you know, right, content,
prior to investigatation. Yeah, I had a lot of what
I thought it was going to be, and I was
really ready for everybody well, and this is I talked
about this in my book. But many years before I
got sober, I went with a friend to a meeting
to support him because, you know, he had a really
bad problem. And I sat in the back and I
took the ru uh do you have a drinking problem quiz?
And according to them, oh, it was a very bad problem.
Speaker 3: I answered, yes, quiz is so funny, it is so crazy. Sorry,
very rigid. It's a very rigid test.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, I mean if by the letter
of the law, I guess I have to answer yes.
But there was a lot of insinuating circumstances, like come on.
So according to them, I answered like twenty out of
twenty two questions yes, and they're like, oh, you definitely problem.
Speaker 2: And I was like to a hospital.
Speaker 1: But it was another like ten years before I quit drinking.
But I just remember thinking like, Okay, I'm gonna I
don't have any better ideas, so I'm going to go
to a meeting. I can't think of another way to
do this. And then I thought, oh, this is like
a cult. These people all really want me to join up,
you know, And I remember the feeling of kind of
disappointment when I was like, but when I don't go
to a meeting, how come nobody like calls me and
like tries to find out where I am, Like nobody
seemed to care. And then that was another little resentment
I had. I was like, some cult you guys.
Speaker 2: Are I'm going to believe does anyone care that's an alcoholic?
Speaker 1: Nobody's following me out to my car, going you must
stay for the end of the meeting. I was like,
these people are not into it enough apparently. So then
I had to like decide for myself, like, Okay, no,
I think I really do want this help, I do
want the support. And I realized, oh, I have to
be the one that reaches out. Oh I have to
join up. Oh I have to call people or they
will forget it. Nobody's interested in pressuring you because all
of us alki's are like interested in ourselves.
Speaker 2: And it just it doesn't work.
Speaker 3: I will say, in my experience and from what I've
seen you, it really has to be that you want it,
or part of you wants it, or part of you
is at least willing to give it a very fair shot,
because yeah, I don't know in yeah, in my experience,
it's like it's paid me back tenfold to the point
where I remember distinctly scrounging for quarters to bring a
dollar to the meeting. And like this is not me
gloating or anything like that. I fully give like five dollars,
and a part of that's inflation, but like it's more
representative of the fact that, like I have the money
to give, and I know it's because of my sobriety
and this program and that whereas you are not not
required or expected to give a dime, I want to.
I want my meeting that I go to all the
time to thrive, and I want there to be funds
there to give away big books to people who are
super skeptical, like I want, like and if it's like
one of those things like we didn't make grunt with
passing the basket, I'll toss in twenty because I'm just like,
this is worth every penny because they don't even they
don't even demand it, and you know what I mean.
It's like, if this recovery program that we're in is
like truly and I should I hope there's a documentary
about it at some point. It's like I think one
of the most beautiful things to exist on the planet.
Just like we're all servants. Okay, good, that sound like
a cult, but we're all like, you know, self supporting.
We we yes, we all drink a sweet sweet juice
every day. I mean the coffee in recovery rooms will
put hair on every part of your body.
Speaker 2: But like that's that that even got me there. At first.
Speaker 3: It was this Misspenny at my regular meeting, made this
fucking rocket fuel coffee with like French vanilla coffee mate,
and that sugar and caffeine at seven thirty am.
Speaker 2: Got my ass. And when I didn't have a car,
I was walking you know, like a mile and a
half or whatever to this meeting at seven am to
get this like this like this go go juice, you know,
and like listen and like yeah, it's just like it's magical,
I think.
Speaker 1: So tell me about before we go, Like, so life now.
So you're a touring comedian, Yeah, touring comedian. I have
a special out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh my god, I have a special called Twink Death.
It's on YouTube.
Speaker 3: I talk about sobriety a little bit because obviously it's
a big part of my life. I think the second
hour that I'm working on two will also have like
a sobriety chunk, because it really is important and I
think it's fun that, Like if you watch the special,
I am quite quote unquote dirty. I'm a little blue
in a sex forward sort of way. Like I'm not
like violent or like agro. It's like very just like
like Nikki Glazer esque, like yes, sex and dating, and
I think it is important for people to see that, like, oh,
you can be very out of pocket even as a
completely sober person, like I do think I have found
my genuine voice, whether or not the masses love it,
like I think the people who like it really do
enjoy it, and so I will always be Oh my god,
I hope I'm always sober. I never I never want
to lose the feeling I have most days. But yeah,
I always talk about sobriety a little bit. But yeah,
I'm maturing. Comic, I do my own hour on the road.
I open for people like Fortune Themester and Taylor Tomlinson.
I write, I'm on like a serious XM morning show
usually once a week, Jeff Lewis Live.
Speaker 2: He's like a provo celebrity.
Speaker 1: Yeah of course. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then I do also like I want to act.
I want to be in front of the camera. Like
it's that thing too, if it's like little Zach like
thought I was going to be on a billboard for
like a CW show, like you know, Hot Teens in
the Wilderness. But like obviously that door has closed. But
like I'm doing like things that are adjacent to that,
and like I really do genuinely love my life, and
like my problems are quite luxury problems today, you know,
and I'm holding space always for that to change. And
I'm you know, deeply rooted in gratitude for what I
have today, you know, because it's you don't always wake
up with the things you went to bed with, and
so it's just like, yeah, like let's be as happy
as we can be with what we've got.
Speaker 2: And what I've got is because of sobriety.
Speaker 1: What an amazing way to end it. Thank you so
much for being on the show, and I wish you
all the success and I'll see everybody next week.
Speaker 2: Bye, good good
Speaker 3: God