Latest / Finding New Waters / Fame, Addiction, and the "Orphanage Protocol" | Edwin McCain

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Fame, Addiction, and the "Orphanage Protocol" | Edwin McCain · Finding New Waters

0:00
I remind myself regularly that the 15 year old I once was would
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literally crawl through a river of fire and to do what I do now
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like I I he would have absolutely done anything on
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earth to get to be the 56 year old I am.
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So shut up and go to your gig and enjoy the playing on the
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stage with these people that you love because you know you're the
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you're the one in a billion. All right.
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Well, welcome back to another episode of Finding New Waters.
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My name is Bea Reeves. I'm the Director of Business
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Development here in New Waters Recovery in Raleigh.
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Sitting here with our CEO, Justin McClendon and very
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excited. Got a very, very special guest
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today, Mr. Edwin McCain. Welcome, Edwin.
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Thanks for having me. Thanks for coming on man.
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Where are you right now, Edwin? I'm at home.
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Where's home? Oh, Greenville, SC sorry.
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Nice. Well, yeah, I I knew you.
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I know you're from there. I think of you as a Hilton Head
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guy, though. I mean, I, I think we kind of
1:13
talked about this for a second before I the first of all, do I
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want to give credit where credit is due to our mutual friend,
1:20
Kendall Meyer. I went to high school with
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Kendall up in Alexandria, VA, and she had, you know, when I
1:26
got sober, she, you know, kind of mentioned you and reminded me
1:31
about you, you know, that not that I'd forgotten you existed.
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I mean, I've been listening to your music for 30 years.
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But but then just recently, I ran into her and I just said,
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hey, you think Edwin would be willing to do our podcast?
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And 10 minutes later, we had this thing set up.
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So thank you to her and thank you to you for being so
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accommodating. And yeah, and she's a Hilton
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Head person. And that's kind of how I, I, as
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far as I remember, I first saw you there at the old post office
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in the early 90s. So that's what.
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Yeah, and as I've referred to Hilton Head, in those days, I
2:03
used to call it the Isle of Wight.
2:07
Yeah, for good reason. Different spelling.
2:12
Yeah, man. So you're, you're, you know, I,
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I did a little bio research. So you grew up in, in, in
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Greenville and sounds like you had some college, went to a
2:23
couple places. Tell us about your you know,
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where you grew up in your kind of personal life before you got
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into the the biz. So I was born in Greenville, SC
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and was put up for adoption and was in an orphanage until about
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5 months old. And that was basically how they
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did it back then. I guess I'm not exactly sure
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what that why the protocol was that way, but they they would
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keep kids for five months and then adopt them out.
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And I got supremely lucky and got adopted by the town
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pediatrician and, yeah, you know, which means we got the
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worst medical care of any children in the county because
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he was done by the end of the day.
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You had to be bleeding from your eyeballs to get medical care
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from my father by the time he got home from work.
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I'm, I'm totally joking. He he is beloved in the
3:22
community. In fact, if I go to the grocery
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store with my dad, like, people mob him, like they they just,
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they love it. He's still, he's still alive and
3:31
kicking. You know, I, I would say pretty
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typical Southern upbringing with the addendum that I was terribly
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ADHD and dyslexic, so I couldn't read.
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I had a hard time in elementary school.
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And you know, if you can't read in elementary school, it's going
3:50
to be a little rough. So very early.
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And like a lot of kids, we were all in church choir because
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church choir is basically like Southern daycare.
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You know, that was just the answer for everybody.
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And I had an aptitude for singing.
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And you know, when you're a kid, like if you suck at one thing
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but you're good at another and it seems to make the adults
4:17
happy when you do the thing you're good at, then that's what
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we're doing. You know, And immediately being
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musical was eclipsing anything I could ever do in a classroom.
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So I think the die was gas pretty early on, honestly.
4:37
But, you know, it's interesting as you get into the whole
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recovery journey, it forces you to do a pretty serious autopsy
4:46
of your life and an accounting of all those sort of milestones.
4:51
And I can, I can point back all the way back then to and like
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what everybody in in recovery will tell you, there was kind of
5:03
that, you know, moment where you started feeling inadequate or
5:08
you weren't enough or whatever it was.
5:11
And you know, the pressure of that, you know, cracks open that
5:16
God Jay Toll or you know, the, the thing that we, we, we start
5:23
trying to throw things into. And so I, I feel like that was
5:28
sort of the I can go all the way back to the beginning of my
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story way before any substances were ever introduced.
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So, and I think most people can, if you go, if you're being
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honest about the, the assessment, but in the same
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breath. And as it turns out, it's not
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all bad, right? So there's some of those things
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that happened that put you on a path that actually, as it turned
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out, ended up being OK. So it, it, it's that, you know,
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it's that yin Yang dynamic that that we that we have to
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constantly be. Aware of, Yeah.
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I mean, I love that, you know, turning what we perceive defects
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and shortcomings and traumas into assets, if nothing else,
6:24
but sharing them and helping other people with them.
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And so you were knew early on that music was your calling.
6:32
You were good at it. School was not coming naturally
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to you. How, how old were you when you
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started playing? Like, you know, in bands or kind
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of out in the, in public basically?
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Yeah, yeah. My uncle gave me a guitar when I
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was like 10 or 11. And, you know, the only people
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that taught guitar and Greenville at that time were
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like church ladies. And I didn't really care much
6:56
about learning Michael Row your boat ashore.
6:58
So I bailed on that pretty quick.
7:02
And you know that at that time, Van Halen, it was it, right?
7:11
You know, and every kid wanted to get an electric guitar and
7:15
try to learn how to play electric guitar.
7:16
But yeah, which was a weird moment because there was every
7:23
kid out there very quickly learned that you're never going
7:26
to be able to play like Eddie Van Halen because there's only
7:29
one of him. And.
7:31
And so I know for me, I was like, oh, I better fall back to
7:38
songwriting because this, you know, being an electric guitar
7:42
player is not going to be it. And, you know, we started
7:47
playing in bands. I think I first band I got into,
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I was probably 15 or 16 and I got asked to come do some
7:55
rehearsal and what they said was we need a a singer, but we also
8:01
need a bass player. So if you can do both, that
8:05
would be great. And I was thinking, well, how
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hard can it be to play bass? So I ran by this pawn shop
8:11
called Dixieland and bought a three quarter scale SG bass on
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my way to this audition and like faked it like horribly as I
8:20
remember. I remember just it was, I should
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have just gone in there and auditioned to be the singer.
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But I went in there, just hacked my way through this audition and
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I I think eventually I got kicked out because of my bass
8:33
playing. But but you know, that's not I,
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I look back on all those things and it's so ridiculous now.
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If you think, I mean, I think about it, I think about how
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ridiculous it is, but also it's so charming to me because
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sometimes we forget to have that unbridled self-confidence of a
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15 year old. You know what I mean?
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Like 15 year olds just believe what I just believed I could do
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anything, you know, and, and and we were raised so hands off.
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We didn't have anybody tell us we couldn't like, you know what
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I mean? I didn't have some overbearing
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father go, you don't know how to play bass, you know what I mean?
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He didn't even know where I was. I didn't.
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And in in 15 we had driver's licenses.
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So yeah, of course I can go buy a base and go join a band.
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I mean, and I think that was that's one of the things that I
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see now like social media. I think it it it sort of
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squelches a little bit of that unbridled optimism because
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there's just so many people doing so many things.
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And so kids go, well, why would I even try?
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You know, they see people on social media that are just great
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at whatever they're doing. So they don't want to look
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stupid. So they just don't go out there
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and do it. And my generation, we, we look
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stupid, but we didn't know we we thought we were awesome and.
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Then there was. No.
10:00
Documentation of it either, right?
10:03
Yeah, no, I mean I, I, I, I So I, I kind of remind myself a lot
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at 56. I remind myself regularly that
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the 15 year old I once was would literally crawl through a river
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of fire and to do what I do now, like I, I, he would have
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absolutely done anything on earth to get to be the 56 year
10:31
old I am. So shut up and go to your gig
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and enjoy the playing on the stage with these people that you
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love because you know, you're the you're the one in a billion.
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And the timing was so incredible.
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You know it. I, I, I, I most of my life is in
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is basically paying homage to the idiot 15 year old that I
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once was. Because this is his.
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This is his absolute dream right here.
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I love to hear that you're still just, you know, you still have
11:16
that 15 year old in you. And it's funny because I, when
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I, when I got sober, it took me a little while to sort of be
11:23
able to articulate this. But it, it may, I realize that I
11:26
felt like I say this all the time.
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I, I hadn't felt this when I had kind of a spiritual experience
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when I was in treatment and I felt a voice tell me I was going
11:34
to be successful. And I didn't take that to me and
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like, I'm going to be like Edwin McCain, like rich and famous,
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but I just felt like I was going to be OK for the first time
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since I was about 14 or 15 years old.
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And I kind of, you know, I don't put in those terms every day,
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but that's kind of how I feel almost every day.
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You know, there are days that I'm not as spiritually fit as
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others, but that's kind of where I hopefully revert to on a daily
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basis is before I started to have all these perceived
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shortcomings and not, you know, not not where I was supposed to
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be in life. In that case of the supposed is
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in the what is in the shouldas and the couldas.
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And so I I totally hear you. And, you know, we were talking
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before we started recording, Justin and I and Solomon about
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how, you know, the the 90s when you kind of came up as it were,
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it was just this amazing time in America where, you know, it's
12:26
pretty peaceful, economy was good and all this just
12:30
unbelievable music. Yeah, that wasn't totally Top
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40. I mean, you ended up having some
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huge hits. I mean, I think you had a top
12:39
five hit. I mean, like real hits, but in
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general, you, I've, I personally think of you more in that like
12:44
like I, I think the first time I ever heard a song of yours and
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I, you know, my chronology could be off was one that aware,
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remember those compilations aware and and solitude and I and
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I don't know what year that was, but that was kind of been there
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with those bands like from good homes and the grapes and like
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more like alt rock college, almost like jam band adjacent.
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We were in, yeah, we, we were in that world.
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And. And it's so funny because, you
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know, I was playing gigs with Bob Weir and Warren Haynes and
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The Allman Brothers and. We were.
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Totally accepted in the jam band world, but as soon as you have
13:24
any kind of commercial success, when a song is on the radio or
13:28
or video on MTV or VH1 or whatever, like you immediately
13:33
become verboten. And it's a weird dynamic that
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occurs in that jam band world where they love you and your
13:42
music, but they do not want you to be considered in commercially
13:46
viable for the masses because for some reason that taints your
13:52
authenticity or something. I, I've never been able to
13:54
figure it out. Like say, I mean, it wasn't that
13:57
bad for us because we were still coming up, but like Blues
14:00
Traveller got absolutely hamstring.
14:03
Like they were huge in the jam world and they had run around
14:07
and it was just like abandoned ship.
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It was like it wasn't fair. I mean, it was, it was strange
14:13
to me that that was the thing, but it kind of is.
14:17
And and I go, I go back to this timing thing all the time.
14:24
Malcolm Gladwell has this book called Outliers that I think
14:28
perfectly encapsulates the importance of timing and and it
14:33
also creates some context in in forcing a little bit of humility
14:41
on people that are successful. Because as much as you want to
14:43
pat yourself on the back, the fact is we would never have
14:48
happened if we hadn't been in the timeline we were in.
14:52
Because grunge ended. Everybody was tired of feeling
14:55
bad. And then Dave Matthews and
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Hootie were on the tip of the spear.
15:02
And if it wasn't for those two bands sort of out right out
15:08
front showing, showcasing this indie music scene in the
15:13
Southeast, the labels would never have showed up.
15:17
I mean, the the labels were, you know, the last time they had
15:21
signed a Southern band was maybe the B50 Twos or R.E.M.
15:27
And that had been a minute. So, you know, they showed up on
15:33
Mass and with Dave Matthews sold 10,000 copies of Remember Two
15:37
Things. And I think Hoodie sold 10,000
15:40
copies of Coochie Pop. And then every label on earth
15:43
showed up and started signing S southeastern bands and and then
15:47
it was OK, well, now how do we stay?
15:51
You know, there there's 300 bands from the southeast side of
15:56
major label deals. How do we how do we
16:01
differentiate? How do we stay in the mix?
16:04
Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny you
16:06
mentioned that the Malcolm Gladwell book, because I was
16:08
just about to mention there's a Chuck Closerman book called the
16:11
90s and he kind of says that the the decade, the 90s really
16:16
started with the fall of the Berlin Wall and really ends.
16:19
So it really started in 89 and really ends in 2001 with 911.
16:24
And and the book is just about Gen.
16:26
X and like, and what you just touched on is so interesting
16:29
that, you know, you're so right. Like in in that jam band world,
16:35
you're everybody loves you until you become a may have commercial
16:39
success. And and Chuck Klosterman's one
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of his theses in that book is that Gen.
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X was the first generation to kind of have this concept of a
16:47
sellout be so important. And so that's yeah, I mean,
16:52
exactly. And that's and happened to
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happened. Yeah, I used to laugh.
16:56
I used to laugh about that because like, so you don't mind
16:59
selling us selling out concert tickets.
17:01
What you do mind is US selling out to advertisers or, you know,
17:08
money's being exchanged, but it's a specific type of money
17:12
that you want to see. And, and, and, and for a, for a,
17:17
a group of people that celebrate authenticity and diversity, they
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sure do have a uniform, You know what I mean?
17:27
Like it's, it's like, it's crazy.
17:29
Like the, and I love them. And my favorite thing in the
17:33
world was the Bob Weir parking lot.
17:36
Like I was on tour with Bob all summer and the parking lot at
17:41
the Weir show was the I mean, I just every afternoon I just hang
17:45
out in the parking lot and kick hack a sack and eat burritos and
17:48
just like the people are fantastic.
17:50
But it also occurred to me, and I said it one time to Bob, I was
17:54
like, Bob, why don't you just book 25 nights at a theater and
17:58
just play 25 shutters? Because it's all the same
18:00
people. Like they could just pack up and
18:03
go to the next place. It wasn't I knew all the same
18:06
people. We were playing the same side of
18:07
the venue and it was all the same people every, every night.
18:11
And I was like, we, you know, you can, we can save a lot of
18:14
people. We weren't riding around towing
18:16
the entire fan base, but you know, that's the fun of it.
18:21
It's an adventure. It's a caravan and it's a
18:24
community and they absolutely love each other and it, and it's
18:30
a microcosm of society too. Because I would say that all of
18:35
the archetypes are represented because there are the truly
18:39
altruistic kind humans and then there's some French shitty ones
18:44
that are stealing and robbing and doing all the things.
18:48
And it's, it's, it's basically its own little universe.
18:51
But all of the archetypes are represented in in the
18:54
corresponding percentages from my vantage point.
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And we loved, we loved playing for the dead heads because when
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we didn't know how they were going to accept this either.
19:09
I remember the first night in Denver, I was like, how's this
19:11
going to go? Like, they don't have a clue
19:14
about us. They've never heard my name.
19:16
I'm going to walk out here and do this weird little songwriter
19:19
thing that we do, but it's not jammy.
19:23
But it's not not jammy. It's just like you said, it's
19:27
sort of strange jam adjacent. And I started, we started our
19:32
first couple songs and about halfway through the second song
19:36
I saw something fly past my head and I was like, oh crap, they
19:40
hate us. And I was like, wow, that's
19:42
weird for divide. Like I, I would never expected
19:45
Deadhead crowd to throw shit at the openers.
19:49
And then I looked down and saw that it was a film canister.
19:52
And I was like, Oh no, they like us.
19:54
That's that's good, that's good. And film canisters just rained
19:58
in from the crowd with weed and which I wasn't a weed smoker,
20:03
but I it was the happiest my drummer ever was on the on tour,
20:08
I can say. Like every night.
20:10
Just like picking up Easter eggs and figuring out what was in
20:15
them and you know. That's hilarious.
20:20
And on that note, I mean, being on tour with Bob Weir and being
20:24
involved in, you know, just seeing in general and coming,
20:28
you know, being, at least to me, associated with with, you know,
20:31
Hilton Head, AKA the Isle of Wight.
20:34
What was that scene like for you personally?
20:37
And I mean, I'm, I don't want to assume, but I, you know, talk
20:39
about how it kind of led you to where you are today in terms of
20:42
your own story. Well.
20:43
I mean, I can rewind all the way to 15 because I think that was
20:46
the first time I smoked pot or or did cocaine and you know,
20:52
being ADHDI specifically, remember cocaine settling my
20:57
mind down and thinking wow, this is great.
21:02
So and as it turns out, you know, obviously clinically it
21:07
isn't, but it it's a pretty effective treatment for ADHD.
21:12
Terrible for you. It's a not recommended, but it
21:16
works or it worked for me, but I didn't I didn't become like a
21:20
regular user for a long time. It was real sporadic.
21:26
I mean, it was all it was always alcohol, mostly when we were out
21:30
on the road because that's just what alcohols around everything.
21:34
But, but I had, I was very disciplined as far as not
21:37
drinking before shows. So I probably would have
21:44
imploded a lot sooner had I not had that rule in place.
21:49
But I, I, that was one of my sort of hard and fast rules.
21:54
And I didn't break that rule until much, much later.
21:59
And, and I had one of those gigs where I got wasted during the
22:02
day and then tried to walk on stage and, like, hack my way
22:06
through it. And it was so bad that I
22:08
actually about the third song, I just dismissed the band.
22:11
I was like, yeah, there's no way I can make them sit up here and
22:15
deal with this too. So I let them evacuate.
22:18
And then I just sat up there and drunkenly stormed through the
22:21
rest of the songs. And, and the, the, the, the
22:25
downside of that is, and this is part of our business.
22:28
And I think I heard Jason Isbell say something funny about this.
22:31
You know, the audience didn't really care.
22:34
Like there wasn't a huge penalty for being so unprofessional.
22:40
Any other any other job profile you'd have been fired is to But
22:46
in our job, you could show up when a Viking helmet in a Tutu
22:50
and everybody's like, wow, it's going to be an interesting
22:51
night. And so, so you get away with a
22:56
lot of bad behavior that nobody else would, right.
23:01
And then if you, if you're lucky enough to have some success in
23:07
our business, you start to be, you start to generate enough
23:11
money to where the apparatus around you will just endeavor to
23:17
keep you alive, not clean you up, like just just keeping them
23:23
out there, right? The, the, you know, and it's not
23:27
because I witnessed this happen all the time, because I, I help
23:29
people in our business regularly that have that generate millions
23:36
and millions of dollars who are clearly in crisis.
23:39
But they're the management and all the people around them don't
23:44
really intervene because that would, that would stop this
23:49
massive flow of money. And everybody, you know, they're
23:54
conflicted because what do you do?
23:56
You got a whole, you got a crew, everybody's got families, you
23:59
know, the promoters, you got relationships.
24:01
I mean, I understand the, the difficulty, but.
24:04
And, and what we see as a result is some people die.
24:10
Yeah, and but some people live, but some people die.
24:16
And that's the, that's the trade off.
24:21
I mean, I remember, I, I, I, I can't, I can't quote him
24:24
specifically, but Jason Isabel found himself at the same
24:30
crossroads I did, which was, no one's going to stop this but
24:35
you. And you're the one that knows
24:38
deep down in your heart that this is where this is headed.
24:42
And I did for sure. And, you know, because there's a
24:49
weird thing where I know that in the sort of tail end of my
24:53
story, there was this voice in back of my head going, why won't
24:56
somebody stop this? And it was like, hey, dumb ass
24:59
nobody. It's not their job.
25:02
Yeah, it's not their job to do it.
25:04
Stop it. You have to.
25:08
And but then the, you know, the problem is my idea of stopping
25:13
it included, you know, ammunition.
25:15
So that wasn't, that wasn't good either, You know, OK, I'm
25:20
clearly, this is clearly. I remember sitting there, I had
25:24
checked the life insurance policy.
25:26
I remember at the end, like at the end of the day after I
25:29
checked the license insurance policy, I was like, this is the
25:33
most ridiculous series of events I've ever included myself in.
25:37
Like I had that moment where I was like, what the hell are you
25:41
doing? Hey, maybe, and I'm just
25:44
spitballing here, maybe let's try treatments.
25:47
I mean, just so you, you, you know, the haze that you're in,
25:54
it's, it's funny to look back on it now because it's like a Monty
25:57
Python sketch. It's just the stupidest thing
26:00
you could consider. And I was seriously like
26:04
organizing my path to being a hero for stopping this freight
26:10
train of, of alcoholism. And, and I guess again, what's
26:18
interesting is, is it I felt like I was so unique in this,
26:22
you know, this endeavor. And I, I got to treatment and I
26:26
was like, OK, well, I should tell somebody that I was going
26:29
to kill myself. And, and they'll be, you know,
26:32
they'll be horrified, you know, this.
26:34
And I was in a men's group, like 30 guys, you know, I mustered
26:39
the courage to, to admit my terrible secret.
26:43
And I finished telling him that I had this plan to kill myself.
26:45
And like, this dude sitting next to me goes, yeah, welcome to the
26:49
club, asshole. And I was like, wait, what?
26:52
He's like everybody in this room, that's what this is.
26:56
And I was like, oh, oh, and, and when you start to hear the
27:02
similarities and the error messages that everybody had
27:06
signed on for, it immediately clicks.
27:09
You go, Oh, well, this is a trackable, nameable pathological
27:14
brain disease that and if you can name it, we can fix it.
27:19
Ah, this ought to be all right. Just tell me what to do.
27:21
And I just remember that day going, oh, great, this is
27:23
completely out of my hands. So the people that understand
27:26
how to, you know, understand the mathematics of this, these
27:29
doctors and the psychologists, and just explain to me this
27:34
disease in very specific detail and show me all the diagrams.
27:38
And then everybody can tell us all the stupid things they were
27:41
thinking. And we can all agree that we
27:42
were all thinking the stupid shit.
27:44
The same equivocations, all the same excuses, all the same
27:48
things that we're not supposed to have the same story.
27:51
So all right, great. I'm so glad I'm not driving
27:55
anymore. Please just tell me where to get
27:57
off the exit and I'll do whatever it is I'm supposed to
28:01
do. And I stayed at Talbot for like
28:04
120 days, clearly understanding as much of this as possible so
28:10
that I don't have to do this again.
28:12
Right? And that was the, you know,
28:17
that's the Cliff Notes version of what I needed to do.
28:25
Totally glossing over the smoking crater of wreckage that
28:31
I I foisted on to all my loved ones in the process right?
28:36
The people that care about you and, and in some cases inflicted
28:43
permanent damage on relationships that will never be
28:47
repaired. No matter how many mea culpas
28:53
amends, no matter how many years of, of good living and, and
29:02
reciprocal philanthropic efforts, There are some people
29:07
who will never, ever allow me in their lives again.
29:12
And you have to be OK with that, right?
29:15
That's, that's your penalty, right?
29:21
And I, I, you know, I, I kind of, I had, that's the part where
29:29
I always have to remind myself that you got to own that one and
29:34
let it go. Because the narcissist in me is
29:36
like, oh, come on, we can get him.
29:38
We can get him back. Yeah, we had a great, we, we
29:42
were really good friends back then.
29:43
And we can get him back. No, you can't.
29:45
You know, the way you, what you do now is you show respect by
29:49
not showing back up ever, you know, and that's a hard one to,
29:56
but it's part of their, our process.
29:59
I, I, I, I literally have these conversations with families and
30:04
family members where they have somebody in their family that's
30:09
in crisis and they start telling me what's happening.
30:11
And I can't help but just go, yeah, that's what I did too.
30:16
And they want me to have some magic combination of words to
30:20
tell their loved one that'll make them go, oh, yeah, I should
30:23
go to treatment. And it's never that, as you
30:27
know, explaining the concept of detaching with love and putting
30:32
you up boundaries is so sort of antithetical to what everybody
30:35
knows of what help looks like. You know, go in no contact with
30:42
somebody and shutting them out of their life and refusing to
30:44
even pick them up when they call is feels so opposite of what
30:50
help looks like. But that silence when people
30:54
stop picking up the phone was that was the bell that rang
30:58
loudest for me, that made me go, OK, we really have a big problem
31:06
here. This is this is way bigger than
31:09
I wanted to admit. And and it's and it's especially
31:13
hard for mothers. You know, it just they're every
31:17
instinct, every father of their being is to protect their
31:21
children. And and it it that that tends to
31:26
be some of the hardest things I deal with.
31:32
But also, I mean, I say hardest, one of the challenging things I
31:37
deal with. None of this necessarily hard.
31:42
I know. And you probably feel the same
31:43
way that like the reason, I mean, immediately say yes to
31:47
doing stuff like this is because that's the only answer that we
31:52
get to give, because we have the fortunate benefit of being able
31:56
to be a living example and not a dead example.
32:00
Because it's really the only two choices we get.
32:04
Once you get into this thing, you got to make a choice, you're
32:08
going to be a living example or a dead example.
32:11
And the truth is both save lives and, and, and because every time
32:21
somebody dies in this thing, I see other people get sober as a
32:25
result. And I'm not being flippant about
32:28
it. It's just the truth.
32:30
So all recovery does for anybody is give you the choice to be a
32:38
living example, because that's it.
32:41
That's all that's I mean for, for most of us, you got to the
32:47
end and you had to make that. You got to make that choice and
32:50
it sucks and it's never over, right?
32:54
That's the other part too. I work with a federal judge down
32:58
in Charleston. She has this program called the
33:01
bridge program where they intervene on behalf of people
33:03
with substance use disorder. And she she doesn't have any
33:08
experience with recovery. She didn't, she does now.
33:12
But when she started it and I sat her down at the beginning
33:15
and was like, listen, prepare yourself to lose people that
33:18
you're fond of because you're going to get fond of some of
33:21
these people and you're going to see them start to improve and
33:27
they're going to break your heart by dying.
33:29
But the only solace you can take is it if that happens, other
33:34
people will be saved and I'll be damned.
33:39
She hasn't lost anyone yet and it's been 10 years.
33:45
I mean, it's she's. Outpaced every every actuarial
33:49
I've ever seen in this thing. But I think that also speaks to
33:54
how well her program works and also how much the recovery
34:01
community has changed as far as its rigidity around standards.
34:09
Like when I first kind of got into a A or NA, I was kind of
34:14
doing both. I had a A and NA and, and they
34:17
were sort of like they were, they mistrusted each other and
34:21
they're like all these old school guys.
34:23
They had rigid rules. And then favour came along with
34:27
this idea of harm reduction and everybody in the a, a NA world
34:33
lost their minds. You know, we can't even say harm
34:39
reduction. And, and at first I was one of
34:42
those where I was like. Yeah, I, you know, I'm.
34:46
Asked and it's only and, and enough time went by and enough
34:51
data came back from Johns Hopkins and all these other
34:56
places where you where you kind of had to.
34:58
When I was counseling people, I would say, you know.
35:01
It would be disingenuous. For me to tell you that people
35:06
haven't successfully modulated with marijuana, now I can't do
35:12
that. I'm being transparent with you.
35:16
I can't do that. But lots of people have and it
35:21
would be dishonest for me to say anything otherwise.
35:24
And so that's a tricky thing we find ourselves in, except to say
35:31
now the pharmacology is coming along that and for years it was
35:36
like, well, everybody mistrusted any idea that we were going to
35:40
include pharmacological interventions to help us in in
35:44
sobriety. And I know for me, being
35:48
properly medicated for my ADHD is why I'm sitting here today.
35:53
Because two years after leaving Talbot, my prefrontal cortex was
36:00
fully back and my ADHD was a maelstrom of you drinking and
36:06
using thoughts like every 5 minutes and.
36:10
I was under. Siege and I turned my turn to my
36:12
wife one day. I said I'd rather die hopeless
36:14
alcoholic than live inside my brain like it is.
36:18
Then I went and saw it and a doctor that specialized in this
36:23
and he gave me a a tiny dose of Vyvanse and 20 minutes later I
36:28
was like oh shit this is what normal people feel like and I've
36:33
had the same dose for 16 years. I've never changed my dose and I
36:38
live a productive normal life now.
36:42
When I left Talbot, they. Would have screamed bloody
36:46
murderer about introducing an amphetamine based ADHD Med into
36:52
my system, right? But that's not it.
36:56
Just not true in my case. It's been an incredibly helpful
37:01
part of my recovery. And so I'm real honest with that
37:06
see, because a lot of them, I think what happens in our, our
37:08
business too is there's a lot of comorbidities or cross
37:13
collateralization with psychiatric conditions that
37:16
people are medicating. And unless we figure out what
37:18
those are, it, it doesn't matter how many meetings you go to,
37:22
right? You know, you got to treat what
37:27
you know, the, the underlying issue 1st.
37:30
And I, but I'm also very encouraged too with they
37:33
accidentally discovered that GLP ones are helping people with
37:39
cravings and alcohol, especially alcohol cravings.
37:44
So I think we're probably, we're getting pretty close to some
37:51
pretty good medical interventions, especially for
37:53
people that are chronically relapsing.
37:59
And, you know, and you probably, you both know how helpful that
38:04
would be just to get to get somebody to have a gap between
38:09
the relapses that were that was long enough for them to start
38:13
using the front part of their brain to be able to input enough
38:16
information. Because when that frontal cortex
38:19
is dark, man, it's impossible. You just, it's not driving, you
38:25
know. Yeah, exactly what you're
38:27
saying, Edwin, I mean. Like, you know, even the idea
38:29
you mentioned cravings and like the use of GOP once and stuff
38:32
like that. Like, you know, I, I think we
38:34
can all agree and we've, you know, even lived some of it.
38:37
But you know, the rigid, rigid, you know, dare we take say kind
38:42
of old school, if you will, thought process of like, you
38:45
know, it's abstinence only. And that's the only thing that
38:47
works well, You know, how many how many times have we seen
38:50
people that have like, given, you know, early recovery, like a
38:53
good honest try, but they can't quiet those cravings long enough
38:57
to like just be able to be successful a little bit.
39:00
And yeah, I mean, like, if we can give somebody a medication
39:02
that can just give them a little bit better chance, it's it's
39:05
success. I mean, like, why would we, you
39:08
know, why would we deprive someone of that opportunity?
39:11
I guess, right. And I'm I'm.
39:12
Really encouraged by there's so many studies that Johns Hopkins
39:17
has done about the therapeutic use of psilocybin as far as
39:22
healing trauma and helping people in that way.
39:28
Because, you know, I, I, my story didn't really, I mean,
39:35
there obviously one of the things I had to get next to was.
39:42
Trauma. Can be real or imagined like.
39:47
That blew my. Mind right, because you know
39:51
people people develop our brains are amazing because we can
39:57
develop sort of these stories that sort of organize our
40:03
worldview and the way that our lives so in a way that they make
40:07
sense to us but if if if part of that is.
40:11
Is not true, but you've been telling yourself this for a
40:15
decade. You know you people
40:17
inadvertently give themselves trauma with stories that they
40:21
made-up in their heads and it's no less damaging or, or or it
40:27
does so it's not just like, hey, that's not true.
40:30
Snap out of it like it's just as traumatic.
40:33
And that was a revelation to me too, because I saw I saw those
40:37
people in Talbot and and tablet was such a great experience
40:42
because there, the way that model worked is that it allowed
40:48
people to fail and everyone would fail in front of everybody
40:54
else. And so you could really see it
40:56
in real time. You and you could see it.
40:59
And if you were smart and they call it a mirror image, if
41:02
you're smart, you'd see it in yourself and go, wow, I do that
41:06
too. And so it was, it was a
41:09
collective sort of effort. And but you can see it when when
41:16
people's disease was really pronounced and sort of
41:20
insurmountable, it, it became, it was right out there in the
41:26
open and it made it made people believe it.
41:30
I guess it's really because that's the sort of the final
41:32
hurdle is that secretly you harbor some little belief that
41:37
you know, and and it's always hardest with the most
41:39
intelligent people because they absolutely refuse to let go of
41:43
the idea that they can out think it.
41:46
I I. Cannot you know?
41:47
And, and Talbot was great because I was the dumbest person
41:51
in the room. This is all doctors and lawyers
41:53
and, you know, airline pilots and the occasional WWE wrestler.
41:57
But you. Know.
42:02
I, I mean it, it was helpful for me because all my, all my
42:09
roommates were, they had they, they, they were incredibly
42:13
intelligent. One of my roommates died.
42:17
He graduated and then overdosed the next night.
42:20
And he was a, a neuroscientist, like one of the smartest humans
42:24
I'd ever met. And that was one of those things
42:26
where when he died, all these other smart ass doctors were
42:30
like, holy shit. He can't out think it.
42:32
Well, then maybe I can't either. And about 20 people in my orbit
42:38
like woke up and went to work and are all still sober because
42:45
of that, because the the guy that passed away in my Dome was
42:50
truly one of those. He was one of those molecular
42:54
biology guys that get he know, he go, you know, you know why
42:59
they call it freebasing. And then he draw the molecule
43:01
and show how, you know, when you cook it, it frees the base.
43:05
And he'd draw it all out on a whiteboard.
43:07
And we'd be like, thanks for, you know, intellectualizing our
43:10
horrible addiction. Great.
43:13
But these are the people I was with.
43:15
So I there was never a minute where I was like, yeah, I'm way
43:19
smarter than all these dummies. So that was in that was good for
43:24
me. The guys a lot of itchy drop it.
43:28
Tons of people like added. New waters and in my own
43:30
recovery, just people who are, you know, brilliant minds and
43:33
they think they can outsmart it. And I, I loved what you said
43:35
earlier because it's, it's, I don't think that gets said
43:37
enough because it's kind of, you know, I guess I'm just morbid,
43:40
but it's true. There were people, you know, we,
43:43
it helps in two ways. Either we live to tell how we've
43:46
recovered and stay in recovery or, you know, people die and
43:50
that also helps people like it did with your your kind of your
43:53
class or cohort at Talbot. And it's a.
44:01
Prior to this, you know, before I went to Talbot, I, I had for a
44:08
sort of ignored death. Completely.
44:12
I mean the. Occasional funeral here and
44:13
there, but in recovery you're just kind of surrounded by the
44:19
mortality all the time. And so, so the you know, I find
44:27
myself out in the car compartment penalize a lot
44:30
because it doesn't help to be an alarmist.
44:37
You know, like I don't, I don't, I don't approach people like
44:40
when I'm trying to help people into recovery.
44:42
Like, I don't want to approach it like a 5 alarm prior.
44:44
Like it is like, you know what I mean?
44:46
It is a 5 alarm fryer and you want to run in there and go,
44:49
what the fuck are you doing? But that doesn't help.
44:52
It's not helpful. So, so I, I find myself having
44:56
to be completely opposite of who I am because I overreact always.
45:01
Like that's my standard move. And so I had to implement this
45:05
four day rule when I'm and and really I it's across the board
45:11
and I try my best to, I wish I'd to do it all the time, but for
45:15
the most part, like if something happens where normally I'd be
45:17
like what? The I'll fix that and.
45:21
Run in there and, you know, react and do all the things I
45:24
normally would do. What I do is I'll stop and say
45:28
call whoever is it it involved and say, listen, I care about
45:33
you too much to just give you an immediate answer.
45:35
I'm going to consider this for a few days.
45:37
I'm going to get back to you with the best, most reasonable,
45:42
thoughtful answer I can. And I give it a few days and
45:47
normally whatever the situation is fixes itself in like 2 days.
45:51
And I didn't have to go back, go in there and screw it all up by
45:54
yelling at everybody or being an asshole.
45:56
And, and, and that was sort of the lesson for me.
46:01
It's like when we're dealing with people in crisis, you're
46:04
not going to shock them into you're not going to yell at them
46:09
into really realizing how dangerous this is.
46:13
You. You almost.
46:15
Have to start detaching in a. Way where?
46:20
Like, look, man, I'm not going to get close to you because I
46:25
know you might die and I can't take any more of those hits.
46:30
And it's sort of like the new guy that shows up in the platoon
46:33
and nobody asks their name. Like that gets people's
46:37
attention way more than going what are you doing with your
46:41
life? You know it it just.
46:45
My indifference. My indifference towards it helps
46:50
right and it took me a while to get there because I love
46:53
everybody. I I love making friends with
46:55
people and I am instantly find things that I like about people
46:59
and it's hard when you're dealing with people in crisis
47:03
because man, it's like you want to go, you know, the impulse is
47:08
the shake on like come on, like and it's just not that sometimes
47:14
it takes years. I mean I it's there's, there was
47:17
one kid I worked with. It took five years from initial
47:22
initial contact to him finally getting into treatment and being
47:28
in good recovery. It took five years and five
47:31
years of phone calls from parents in the emergency room
47:34
visits. And, you know, eventually I cut
47:37
him off and passed him on to another friend of mine that was
47:40
sort of picked up the ball. And I, you know, I made the
47:43
mistake of I, I felt like I had him real close.
47:45
And so I made an ultimatum and man, he slipped right out of my
47:50
hands and I had to call another friend of mine and get him
47:52
included. I mean, it's, it's one of those
47:54
things you, you know this drill, it's, it is everyone.
47:59
'S. Situation is unique and while
48:05
addiction kind of follows a lot of patterns the path to recovery
48:10
is is is 1000 different ways you know the thing that finally gets
48:16
in there and it's hard to farce out that that answer Amen to
48:26
that Well, Edwin we're we're kind of up.
48:28
Against the clock here and I just wanted to say thank you so
48:33
much again for doing this. And while we still have a
48:36
minute, you know, you, I know you've mentioned you kind of
48:38
you, you've got it sounds like it a few different ways you're
48:41
helping people and you know, I want you to tell people how they
48:45
can find you and resources you're involved with.
48:48
And also especially kind of, you know, may I ask this just as a
48:53
question for like a open-ended question, What is the what is
48:57
the how are you helping musicians specifically?
49:00
Like is it a is that a through an actual network and
49:03
organization or just kind of being you as a an example of a
49:06
sober guy Now people find. Me through in our business, you
49:11
know, they know that I've got 18 years and you know, and and I
49:18
don't. I don't she.
49:21
Would not mind me saying this, but like Ashley McBride was, it
49:29
was just a simple conversation that we had in the studio.
49:32
Like I could tell she was kind of struggling a little bit and
49:34
then she asked me about my sobriety and I told her
49:36
honestly. And then we kind of just stayed
49:40
in touch over text. And it was something as simple
49:45
as that where I wasn't really involved.
49:48
I just told her my honest story and and it planted a seed that
49:53
she went on to find recovery with.
49:57
And I saw her just recently and she was giving me a lot more
50:00
credit than I, I think I deserve.
50:02
But it's as simple as that. And it's is in, it's as involved
50:07
as me spending a lot of time trying to help people find the
50:13
price, the right treatment center, passing them along to
50:18
licensed professionals for counseling.
50:22
I've done, I've done interventions.
50:25
Eric Cobb showed up at people's houses.
50:27
And it's not just music people, just people, people.
50:29
And it's kind of funny when I show up to do an intervention
50:32
like the especially if they know who I am, they'll be like, what
50:37
the hell is he doing here? And, and, and it kind of works
50:39
in my favor because it's such a weird non sequitur.
50:42
It sort of completely breaks down whatever defense they had.
50:47
Like, Liz the man, whatever you've been doing has
50:51
facilitated me showing up and telling you that it's time to
50:55
knock it off, right? You know what I mean?
50:57
It kind of works in a weird sort of way.
50:59
But I don't really have any sort of formal network.
51:06
People find me and it's mostly, you know, a lot.
51:11
Most of it is like friends from high school and people that I
51:14
know inside the music business. And I'm not really hard to find
51:19
say when it comes to that, you know, in it, it goes in waves.
51:27
I mean, you probably you know, it gets I seem to get real busy
51:31
around the holidays. You know, people Thanksgiving,
51:37
Christmas, New Year's is always gets a little sporty around
51:40
there and then all these 4th of July, right, right. 4th of July
51:44
week seems to be the meltdown week of the summer.
51:48
Like it's always for the July week where all right, like, oh
51:52
man, it's like the 5th or 6th or 7th of July, man.
51:55
I'm on the phone with people like you did what?
51:58
And, and I, you know, I, I, I was working with a woman named
52:05
Jennifer Angier. She was the, she was the CEO of
52:08
Meadow Meadows. And you know, what I loved about
52:12
working with her was that she wasn't, she wasn't sort of brand
52:16
specific like she would she, she would help me figure out the
52:19
best, best treatment Center for the person.
52:24
And it it really is important to find the right place because
52:28
sometimes the wrong place can be worse because it gives them an
52:31
excuse go well that didn't work, that doesn't work for me.
52:36
And as we all know, any excuse. People will use.
52:42
I remember one time. My wife was telling me.
52:46
You know, she was very logically laying out all the reasons why I
52:51
was an alcoholic and every one of her reasons was valid.
52:55
And I, I looked right at her and I said, honey, I have a tomato
52:59
car. Alcoholics don't have tomato
53:03
gardens. And that, that made total sense
53:07
to me. And I remember the look on her
53:09
face. And I, I still to this day, and
53:12
it's funny when I tell that story at treatment centers when
53:14
I'm doing my talk, like I have a tomato garden, all the real
53:18
Alcoholics just laugh their asses off because they
53:20
understand how ridiculous that is and, and how much sense it
53:24
made to me in the moment. And then all of the civilians
53:27
just scowl because they, they've been peppered with this
53:32
ridiculous shit that, you know, with their their whole time with
53:36
their addict. And it's, it's really one of my
53:39
favorite moments. So I can tell who's an alcoholic
53:43
and who's a civilian and every talk by just telling that story.
53:46
But yeah, we just have to, we just have to keep after this,
53:54
you know, I'm encouraged. I, I see and my, my kids know
53:58
way more about mental health and mental health issues.
54:03
They're way more emotionally aware than we were.
54:06
I mean, we grew up award of the flies.
54:10
So I'm, I'm encouraged for this new generation.
54:14
I think they're, I think, I think we're, we're way better
54:19
off than we were in the 40s and 50s, you know, so the trend line
54:24
is improved. That's right.
54:27
Well man, thank. You so much.
54:28
For being an example in a public 1, you know, and I it's I can't
54:33
tell you how much I appreciate it.
54:35
I know Justin and everybody you know, I just it, it's.
54:39
I know you hear it, but I just. Want to tell you from somebody
54:41
who's not a public figure, especially when I was brand new,
54:45
IT was so helpful for me to know that people who had it all chose
54:49
to live this way and you know and practice the principles and
54:52
all their affairs and it it's it's a big deal.
54:55
So thank you so much and thank you for being here today.
54:58
Man, it's great to have Edwin see you again after 30 something
55:01
years. It's.
55:03
Got blinked. I blinked and went by.
55:05
But thank you for the work you're doing.
55:07
It's it, it truly is. I mean, it's, you know, you're
55:10
putting families back together and that's important, the most
55:13
important, really. Thank you buddy.
55:16
Thank you, Edwin. Cool.
55:17
Well, thank you. If you liked what you heard
55:19
today or just want to know more, give us a call on 9196708119 or
55:25
visit us at newwatersrecovery.com.
55:28
Thank you.