Dax Shepard: Rock Bottom Isn't Always What Makes You Change Your Life

I want to stay on the podcast for a minute longer because the episode ends in do with Gordon Keith Oh was so powerful and he is also in recovery and there was a moment on that show where I guess he'd stayed at your house uh-huh and he went snooping around your house and was going through your books and found the big book right which is the Bible for a yeah and he opened it up and inside there were a whole bunch of dates that you had written and crossed out and there were notes alongside of some of the dates that were very self-deprecating mean yeah and the last day wasn't crossed out maybe you could just share what those dates were and it's really funny because my first thought when he's telling the story that he found that book is I am embarrassed by that like I'm embarrassed how many times I quit and couldn't do it quit drinking quit drinking and drugs yeah so he's explaining that he was sitting on the couch early in the mornings looking at these dates and what he sees as opposed to me as he sees someone who just won't quit right and he starts crying while he's saying that because I think he's been there too and then I get really emotional and I for maybe the first time I'm proud of myself that I didn't quit quitting yeah cuz it's demoralizing like to truly be powerless over something is [ __ ] demoralizing it's so rough and yeah that was one of those things where it's kind of a source of shame for me and then I see his reaction to that and that heat that's a source of optimism for him it like infected me where I was like oh yeah good on you you did you kept at it you didn't die from this a lot of us do you know because I think there's a there's a couple of common fallacies about sobriety one of them being that people hit a bottom and then that's that in most addicts have many bottoms I mean I had many many I mean I have many events that were even worse than the one that ended up being my last event you know like on one occasion I I went out on a Friday night and I had seen my pill drug dealer earlier in the day and I gotten pills for what I would have assumed would have been the next week and a half so I had gotten maybe a hundred vicodin 80 percocet for Deakin forty xanax like fifty sixty diet pills I go out on Friday night I run into a guy he he's I'm getting coke do you want some yeah yeah I'll get an Eightball I get an 8-ball then I'm at the bar like I don't want to be this where I want to be back at my apartment doing this so I stopped on the way home and I get to visit Jack and a case of beer okay that's Friday night I come to in my bed and I'm in it's dark out and I'm like oh man it must be it must be like Saturday night like I don't little foggy on I remember buying all that stuff and going back to my apartment and that's where the memory stops and I like get up and my ribs hurt really bad and then I go out in the kitchen and I see that it's all gone everything's gone there's two empty fifths there's beer cans everywhere there's plastic for the coke was the pill box is empty I come to realize that it's Monday I'm like I've never had an experience like that where I missed three day two to three days I have nothing and again this is you would call this a rock-bottom in that I fully acknowledged you should not wake up from that you should know 90% of people are not waking up from that amount of stuff and I called my mom crying just scared like they're I scared myself so bad and you know you would assume that would be it yeah and no there was a good year of drug use and alcohol use beyond that moment so that wasn't the moment the life-threatening thing wasn't the moment the moment for me was really I was about to start this movie Zathura I had just come off a really long press junket for without a paddle where I traveled everywhere I was like oh I need a week I want a week vacation I go with a friend to Hawaii I you know I try to buy cocaine at buying crystal meth while the hell with it I start crystal math for two days I do all get in a car accident with some local dude that's on the way to get it's just a disastrous trip I'm sick most of the time and I'm just hammered and doing drugs all the time when it's time to leave I have a layover in San Francisco Hawaii to San Francisco then to LA when I get to San Francisco I'm so physically sick that I have to go to the bar I'm like I have to get some alcohol now there's no way I'll make it on to this flight to LA so I go into the bar but I've been in AAA at this point so I'm terrified someone's gonna see me that knows I'm supposed to be sober so I am very huddled in at the corner of this bar and I'm just ordering Jack and diets and I'm like trying to get a few down so I can get on this flight I'm so physically ill and I it is the proverbial there's a mirror right here and I have this moment where I kind of take stock of my life and I am about to star in this movie Zathura they're paying me a ton of money people recognized me at the airport I'm doing everything I had dreamt of doing for 30 years it all came true and I am the least happy I've ever been in my life I'm closest to not wanting to be alive ever as I've ever been and I have every single thing on paper that I wanted and that was a very weird I feel grateful for this because I was able to say of something much more profound as broken because up to then I could tell myself well if I had money I want to need to do this if I had if I was doing the thing I wanted to do that would solve right yeah yeah I think a lot of us proceed through life thinking we would be happy if we would have self-esteem if we would know contentment if and those are illusions that most people don't get to find out our illusions and I got to find out it's an illusion I I was lucky enough to having a million dollars feud it took my whole life if I had a million dollars like do you know how I would feel if I had a million dollars you know what my life would be like with a million dollars well I had a million dollars and I get on a flight to fly 35 minutes like and I was like oh it's none of those things hey folks thanks for watching if you like what you just saw then why not subscribe click right here for lots more off camera and if you want to see the hour-long version of these conversations I'm going to give you the secret link here it is off camera comm check it out [Music]

Channel: theoffcamerashow

Views: 1,482,199

Rating: 4.9618955 out of 5

Keywords: Off Camera, Sam Jones, Dax Shepard, interview, conversation, talk, show, tv, television, act, entertain, podcast, Armchair Expert, wife, Parenthood, direct, The Ranch, Netflix, CHIPS, Hit and Run, Idiocracy, Zathura, addict, Gordon Keith, recovery, AA, embarrased, quit, drink, drugs, emotion, shame, demoralize, die, OD, overdose, rock bottom, vicodin, percocet, xanax, pills, coke, meth, beer, Jack Daniels, black out, mom, mother, Hawaii, sick, hammered, San Francisco, Los Angeles, LA, bar, fame, money, Kristen Bell

Id: 1yVMU93nmv8

Length: 7min 10sec (430 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 29 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/jostler57]

God damn. That’s just so much substance abuse, I can’t believe he’s alive!

Great story, and great life lesson he can pass on to the rest of us.

Hope he’s able to stay sober, and good.

[u/riotplan]

I feel like maybe he hit rock bottom at that moment in the airport he discusses. Either way, this is good stuff. I like it but hate it. Makes me reflect on myself.

[u/morally_orel]

I can genuinely say that as someone who has struggled with addictions of many sorts for half of my life, that I've never quite heard it so perfectly explained by another person. I actually feel fully, 100% like I'm not the only person feeling that same indescribable, unidentifiable problem. I've never felt like the "12 step kind of guy". I thought,...I don't know what I thought I guess. But yea... Damn...

[u/TheModernEgg]

Dax seems like such a great, genuine guy. I recently started listening to his podcast and he's so sharp and insightful in his interviews.

[u/pase]

I've said it many times, there is no such thing as 'rock bottom' for a lot of us.

I had to quit AA, all they did was make me want to drink more and remind me that I could get away with so much more, being a raging alcoholic does weird shit to your brain and you look for anything worse than you to make yourself feel better, perspective is a fucked thing.

I don't have a rock bottom that I'm aware of, I stopped because I was fed up with myself but there was no rock bottom in sight.

I could've been so much worse, gotten away with so much more, been a much larger piece of shit, everything waiting for me at the bottom could be topped because that's addiction.

[u/Boggum]

damn man that sounds terrifying.

[u/cwleveck]

This CAN'T be the video that changes my life....... Yeah, Dax Shepard, the guy from Chips..... I know I know, yeah, him......

Damn.

[u/potsandpans]

i really needed to hear this. not a substance abuser but going through an episode of depression and overwhelming anxiety because of similar thoughts

[u/[deleted]]

Great story. Who is this guy?