Today's episode features a very special guest: me. Since I'm releasing episodes that contain stories from my live storytelling show, Hammer(ed) Time, and I perform in this show, sometimes these episodes are going to feature—well, me. (By the by, the show, which takes place every other month in LA, has been an LA Weekly pick of the week and is being developed into a video series.)
The story I tell here is about how, the first time I got drunk, I confessed my love to the big man on campus. What happened next shocked even unshockable me.
It’s one thing to be open about your addiction when you’re a writer in LA—aka a person most people assume WOULD be an addict.
It’s quite another when you’re a high-powered attorney.
But Lisa F. Smith is a trail blazer. The author of the hit book Girl Walks Out of a Bar is also probably my favorite person I’ve never met. (Side note: I’ve slept in her bed despite not having met her; it’s not as sexy as it sounds but that’s something we get into in the interview.)
What’s fascinating about Lisa’s story is that she was so high functioning that the day she got sober was just like any other day where she was headed to work—although instead of going to work, she went to detox.
In this episode, we discuss her fear around coming out, the way addiction can start with food and how she feels when men in AA are called sexual harassers, among many other topics.
(BTW, Lisa is featured in my Guide to Becoming a Light Hustler, where I profiled the people I know who have taken their darkest experiences to share their light and in some cases built careers off of it. If you want to be one of them, be sure to get the free guide here: www.annadavidcoaching.com.)
NOTE: This episode is from a Facebook Live interview that we did, which means that the audio isn’t as sharp as it is on regular episodes. Please bear with that! And please tune into my regular Facebook Live interviews, which take place at 4 pm PST on Tuesdays (unless I have a conflict, in which case I reschedule but announce the change on my page. Make sure you Like my page so stay up on the info!)
Today's episode features an absolute doll of a human being: Greg Behrendt.
In it, Greg tells a story from my live storytelling show, Hammer(ed) Time, which takes place every other month in LA, has been an LA Weekly pick of the week and is being developed into a video series.
His story captures, perhaps better than anyone ever has before, exactly why being sober is so uncomfortable.
When he's not making Hammer(ed) Time audiences nearly pee their pants with laughter, Greg is performing (both as a comedian and musician) or writing (oh yeah; he's the guy who co-wrote the seminal book He's Just Not That Into You, among other bestselling books).
Taryn Strong was sitting atop the largest resource for women in recovery and keeping a secret: namely that in between hosting retreats in places like Bali, where she and her mom Dawn Nickel were getting women to open up about their recovery, she was doing coke. She'd been honest about her past up until then—about self-harm, about co-dependency, about a drug phase when she was younger—but coming clean about the fact that she was also an addict required a new level of bravery.
In this episode, Taryn talks about the SheRecovers brand—the retreats they host, the malas they sell, the coaches the certify—and so much more.
NOTE: This episode is from a Facebook Live interview that we did, which means that the audio isn’t as sharp as it is on regular episodes. Please bear with that! And please tune into my regular Facebook Live interviews, which take place at 4 pm PST on Tuesdays (unless I have a conflict, in which case I reschedule but announce the change on my page. Make sure you Like my page so stay up on the info!)
Lindsay Adams is no joke.
Yes, she tells jokes but the seriously funny comic also got sober when she was a teenager after surviving—well, some pretty horrific shit. And she bakes! She has a baking show on something I'm too old to understand called Twitch.
In this episode, Lindsay tells a story at my live storytelling show, Hammer(ed) Time, which takes place every other month in LA, has been an LA Weekly pick of the week and is being developed into a video series.
When she's not charming Hammer(ed) Time audiences, Lindsay is performing at the Laugh Factory, Improv and Comedy Store, being featured in the TBS Just for Laughs comedy festival, appearing on Oxygen and Fox or performing with Mortified in LA, Chicago, and San Francisco. She also produces Heat: A Comedy Show and Full Moon: A Gathering of Comedy and the Metaphysical.
Angela Gulner is not your typical actress.
For one, the Harvard grad is a multi-talent, having created and starred in the binge-worthy series Binge. Secondly, Binge is about something most people don't talk about—that is, binging and purging. And then there's the fact that Gulner is incredibly open about the fact that this series is based on her life.
While I'm not normally a plot summary gal, the plot of the Binge pilot is too hilarious not to spell out. It opens with Gulner waking up hung over in her car and then agreeing to have sex with the guy she clearly hooked up with the night before so long as he gives her his coffee mug. Then we move into a storyline about how she's blackmailed into checking into treatment for her eating disorder by the sex addict she met when blacked out. The episode ends with her destroying her best friend's dinner party for her future mother-in-law by announcing that the man she had sex with that morning for the coffee mug is the future mother-in-law's boyfriend.
In this episode, my new girl crush and I discuss just when the roots of her eating disorder started (spoiler alert: the age of six!), what parents can do to prevent their kids from developing issues like this and why she went the indie route when it came to getting Binge made, among many others topics.
NOTE: This episode is from a Facebook Live interview that we did, which means that the audio isn’t as sharp as it is on regular episodes. Please bear with that! And please tune into my regular Facebook Live interviews, which take place at 4 pm PST on Tuesdays (unless I have a conflict, in which case I reschedule but announce the change on my page. Make sure you Like my page so stay up on the info!)
Today's episode features the very funny Jessica Sele from one of my live storytelling shows, Hammer(ed) Time.
In her own words, Jessica Sele is a "deeply weird human being and stand-up comedian." She's performed at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival and SF Sketchfest and was described by Bitch Magazine as a “hilarious and talented queer woman.”
The story she tells is a basic how-to if you want to know how to get wasted and shame everyone in the vicinity.
Therapist Kelley Kitley could have kept quiet about her own past.
She had a thriving practice—first in Santa Monica, then in Chicago—and didn't need her clients knowing about her own experiences.
Instead she decided to spill all...in her memoir, My Self: A Story of Survival, a memoir which details her experiences being sexually abused, developing an eating disorder and then struggling with addiction (she's now sober four-and-a-half years).
In this episode, she talks about how her clients reacted to her own confessions, what happened when she told her father she was being abused and why "Get it Girl" is her motto, among many other topics.
NOTE: This episode is from a Facebook Live interview that we did, which means that the audio isn’t as sharp as it is on regular episodes. Please bear with that! And please tune into my regular Facebook Live interviews, which take place at 4 pm PST on Tuesdays (unless I have a conflict, in which case I reschedule but announce the change on my page. Make sure you Like my page so stay up on the info!)
Today's episode features a very special guest: me. Since I'm releasing episodes that contain stories from my live storytelling show, Hammer(ed) Time, and I perform in this show, sometimes these episodes are going to feature—well, me. (By the by, the show, which takes place every other month in LA, has been an LA Weekly pick of the week and is being developed into a video series.)
The story I tell here is about how I went from chain-smoking derelict to sanctimonious ex-smoker who only tried to quit smoking in the first place because a guy I liked went to a certain Nicotine Anonymous meeting.
(And if you smoke, just know I'm not talking about you!)
Garrett Hade is a guy who usually sits behind the scenes. As the right (and left) hand(s) of prominent recovery advocate Ryan Hampton, Garrett is the one by Ryan's side as they travel across the country interviewing people in recovery, visiting jails and in short doing everything they possibly can to change the way addiction is perceived and treated.
Though Garrett and I have become closer over the past year, getting him in front of a camera and mic was a serious treat. In this episode, we talked about the struggle he had about publicly sharing about his addiction and recovery and what he's learned as a result, among many other topics.
NOTE: This episode is from a Facebook Live interview that I did with Jesse, which means that the audio isn’t as sharp as it is on regular episodes. Please bear with that! And please tune into my regular Facebook Live interviews, which take place at 4 pm PST on Tuesdays (unless I have a conflict, in which case I reschedule but announce the change on my page. Make sure you Like my page so stay up on the info!)