Today’s episode features the one and only Ally Weinhold.

Ally is a Los Angeles-based comedian, writer, and alcoholic. She hosts a monthly stand up show at Bar Lubitsch, called Awkward & Aggressive and recently co-produced a pilot called Murder Roommates with her sketch team, BadAssKnitties, and WhoHaha.

This story is about the time she realized she needed to get sober and so she did the most logical thing she could think of to bring on the spiritual experience that she thought getting sober would require: she took a bunch of acid.

Want to know what happened next? You best listen.

In a rather short period of time, Joe Polish has become one of my favorite people around.

The genius marketer (who presides over The Genius Network) and I met in early 2017 and connected over the fact that we were both trying to change the message around addiction. (Related: we also connected over the fact that we were both once active drug addicts.)

And so we partnered with Hal Elrod and Honoree Corder on creating a book in the Miracle Morning series that focused on addiction recovery. You can get it here!

If you're not familiar with The Miracle Morning, it started as a book written by Hal Elrod. Published in 2012, it quickly became one of the highest rated books on Amazon, with over 2500 five-star reviews.

The premise: changing your life starts with following certain habits and tactics every morning. I'll be honest: when this opportunity first came up, I thought, "Look, I already meditate and pray in the morning. What could this book tell me that I don't already know?" Well, here's what I learned: the day after reading it, I changed my morning routine, incorporating movement, affirmations and much more into it. There's something magical in Hal's message—perhaps because he's one of the kindest people ever, perhaps because he's experienced events that would have destroyed most of us...and come out with the most hopeful attitude I've ever experienced.

Here's the concept of our particular book in the series. As many of us know, addiction can be fatal, and while it may sound glib to say something simple like attending to your morning can magically influence the course of your recovery, implementing this Miracle Morning practice can help you transform any area of your life...all before 8 am. The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery outlines cutting-edge research, all designed to support your recovery.

Here's some of what we cover in the book: Why mornings are critically important to an addict’s success, how your alarm can be a gift, challenge, and opportunity, the Five-Minute Five-Step Snooze-Proof Wake-Up Strategy, how the Six-Minute Miracle Morning can be the remedy for an overly packed schedule and much more. (Bonus: we've included morning routines from some of our favorite folks in recovery, including Recovery 2.0's Tommy Rosen, Wes Geer from Korn, actress Mackenzie Phillips and more.)

In this episode, Joe and I interview each other about our respective morning routines and how we strive to live miraculous lives.

You could call Tina Alexis Allen an actor. After all, she recently starred in the hit WGN series Outsiders.

You could call her a playwright. After all, she wrote and starred in the critically acclaimed solo show Secrets of a Holy Father and the 12-character one-woman show Irresistible.

You could also call her a writer. After all, she's the author of the un put down-able new release Hiding Out: A Memoir of Drugs, Deception and Double Lives.

But really the most interesting thing about Allen is her life story: the last of 13 children from a religious Catholic family, Allen ended up becoming her father's greatest confidant. This started with them each acknowledging that they were gay, moved on to wild notes out doing poppers at all the gayest clubs of DC and ended with...well, you've got to read the book to find out.