Why Theo Von Got Sober

here I'll tell you how I got sober man let's just we'll get into it you know I've been talking about it for a while there's never really like a right time to talk about that sort of thing but I do want to be able to share it with you guys because sometimes people ask about it and wonder what's up and then you know I'll just tell you how I got into that so you know I was born I was born my father was an old man my dad was 70 years old when I was born and my mother was 32 and and they had four children and you know when I was born I think there was some shame or uncertainty by my parents they had me call my dad by his first name instead of calling him dad because I guess maybe they'd gotten a lot of you know strange looks from people or or judgment and maybe they felt like that was a way that wouldn't make it easier on them and maybe on us too but my father was very old when I was born and as I started to get to know him I was just kind of scared because you know he was a senior citizen in and he was just kept getting older like as I was getting older he was getting older and I remember you know when he wouldn't go on and walk in a church one time and I had to like walk him like make sure he was okay where he was stepping and uh you know just what the concrete was like and so he didn't you know trip and that sort of thing and so it just made me I think hyper aware when I was really young I was very aware and my mother worked a lot and and she wasn't really connected to me you know she just worked a lot and she had to work you know she had four children and my parents got divorced and we lived in like up and we moved to like a poor area and and I guess I just started to feel like ashamed you know I felt ashamed of the fact that my family was poor I felt ashamed that my dad was old and couldn't you know couldn't be like as much a part of my life in a lot of ways because physically it was hampering to him and then because my parents were separated and then he wasn't around and you know I and I started making up stories and I would tell people stories to make my life different than it was you know I would tell people you know I would take the school bus sometimes to a different neighborhood and get dropped off and then walk because I didn't want people to see where I lived and I would we started riding my bike to school I'd ride my bike maybe five miles to school when I was in middle school you know and that's fifth grade and maybe that's not wild but at the time it didn't feel wild to me you know it felt like this is what I need to do to feel okay so you know my peers won't judge me or and they may not even have been judging me I just felt I don't know I guess I just felt judged I felt less than I felt I don't know honestly I didn't know sometimes I didn't really feel anything but I knew that if I showed up at school on the poor bus then people knew I was poor and and and I already felt bad enough because nobody was telling me in my world like one of my parents that I could feel okay about myself you know I didn't have my you know there wasn't a father around and this isn't a sob story I'm trying to tell you guys I'm trying to tell you how I ended up getting into a Alcoholics Anonymous for me I'm not saying you need to do this I don't know your life I don't know your world if you were doing an eight ball right now and listen this bra and eating you know and eating somebody's butt you matter whatever do your thing I'm not judging you at all man I wish I was right there with you one day I may be back but for now this is where I am so I just felt you know I just felt less than I felt I didn't I didn't know anything about myself how to feel good about myself so the only way I knew to feel good was if I could make you like me I needed like I needed you I only decided how I felt based on how you felt about me and it went from moment to moment and so I was a storyteller because I wanted my life to be different to other people and so I told stories and and also I like to make him people laugh because I knew that if they were laughing then they they they were okay with me you know that it they couldn't be hating me and laugh and at the same time my sister I had a younger sister who was very ill she was born with a rare liver disease and she needed a liver transplant upon her birth and so when my mother did have free time a lot of time my sister got the affection because she was ill and she got a lot more love and affection than my brothers and sister my other brother and my other sister did I felt like anyhow I was you know growing up and one thing I really loved was summertime I would go to YMCA summer camp and at summer camp things weren't as clicky everybody was on the same page it was it was a group of kids in the summer that just wanted to have fun we got to do fun stuff we all you know rode on a bus together from the camp to go to field trips and I just loved that and you know our and and and people didn't adjust this wasn't as judgmental you know my mom would drop us off there and we'd stay there and go to summer camp and we weren't it just felt like less judgment and one day I was um I was walking in my neighborhood and one of the counselors from my summer camp drove down the street he was happen to be driving through my neighborhood and he saw me in this neighborhood and there was uh you know our neighborhood was poor man it was you know I think it was the poorest white neighborhood that was around us I felt like and that and then when I saw him at summer camp he was joking with some of the other counselors he was making fun of where I lived he was making fun of you know he was making fun of the place he saw me run out of the apartment I ran out of and and it just at that point like a lot something inside of me just really kind of died something you know like here was this one place where I really felt kind of okay and now that place didn't feel okay to me anymore so you know so high school went on and God gave me some good gifts and I was a storyteller and you know I was always concerned though like you know always needed to be around more people or everything was always started to be you know we need to change this we need to do that I go to a party and then I have to go to another part like where's the party where we're at the party something never felt kind of okay I just never felt okay I always felt like I was trying to make things okay and things weren't bad I had some great times I was fun I was having fun but on the inside I was I didn't know who I was at all I didn't have any beliefs I didn't have any real values and how I felt about me was based upon how you felt about me when I was 14 I got emancipated you know I couldn't live at my family's home anymore my brother had moved away to live with my grandparents and he and I weren't close and and I and after he'd moved away you know I bet I'd spent a lot of time in our room by myself and it made me I think real sad cuz my brother's bed was in there and my bed was in there you know in every kind of like year every six months he would say you know and my mom would say he might come back and live with us again and he didn't come back you know and I don't fault him for it or anything he you know he had his own walk with our environment and he needed to find a place for him to be well and and he's gotten very well over the years and uh and anyhow so but it all like I was just in this room and I wanted things to be different and I was a scared kid you know and this before I moved out of my mother's home and I just remember being really scared I wanted to I remember being at night they uh you know our neighborhood was scary and it was just we grew up like it was you know kind of poor white and poor black was like right over from us and it was just you know it was scary when people get real impoverished like things get scary and I was just scared and at night I would do it I was a scared kid I remember like I would wet the bed all the time you know and I remember I remember there was a mom one time when I was young I heard that if I animal had urinated somewhere that other animals couldn't come get that animal and so I remember at that point sometimes I would urinate off my bed around my bed in a big circle at night so that things couldn't come get me you know I was just creating this crazy like world inside of me there was a lot of fear and there was a lot of uncertainty and there was not a lot of systems inside of myself to make myself feel okay and my mother and I were just disconnected man you know she gave us birthdays and she gave us holidays but she had to work hard and I think that she you know I don't know I don't know if she had the tools really to make me feel loved you know so anyhow I got emancipated at fourteen I ended up living with the family for the first time I had my own room and I had peace I had some peace in my life I mean just like moments rod just felt like I could relax a little bit but this but this thing inside of me of not feeling okay was still very much there and you know I developed issues with women where you know I had a really tough time relating to women and entrusting women and feeling okay and and really being able to commit to relationships and at some point you know life went on things were going okay but I started using at some point cocaine a little bit and I liked cocaine because I would get it and do it by myself at home at night and I would just do it it and it just made me feel good and enough to be around other people and I don't know it just made me feel something it made me feel something I mean for so long inside of myself I'd had so many years really of creating my own feelings on the outside of me but not really having them inside of me you know like I just didn't have feeling and inside like I just if I wanted to feel something I had to think it up and then act it out and display it as I'd seen it displayed and like television or movies are from others but the inside of me there wasn't a lot going on so anyhow like the you know and I wasn't getting crazy into drugs or anything like that but I had one night where I ended up in a taxi cab and a woman said something to me kind of rejected me in like a mean way and I hadn't done anything wild I just you know had you know I you know express some interest and she expressed interest and then I returned the expression and then she was mean to me and she didn't reject me rejections fine but she was mean to me also and next thing you know the taxi driver dropped her off we were in the taxi and next thing you know I end up with the taxi driver four hours later me and him are doing cocaine together and and I'm driving the taxi and he's in the back he's in the back with an escort he bought me an escort I don't want no escort you know luigi that was the guy's name and we're in North Harlem and I'm driving a taxi and the meter is still running I'm still paying for that taxi and uh and that morning I was in New York because I had to be on I was in New York I had to be on a big radio show called the Opium Jim Norton radio show and they had like a million listeners and it was a huge opportunity and if you'd asked me the night before hey man he's gonna stay up all night partying before you go into the radio I'd have said no way I would never do that and then here I was in this moment and it's 5:00 a.m. I got to go to the radio you know I mean I got to my hotel after driving taxi and then paying for it dude just blown out of my mind dude I couldn't feel my face with either hand at first I thought something was rolling my hands but then I realized something wrong my face and and I get to the radio station yet I took three showers in ten minutes before I went there so you know you want some really you know some belt dust if you're taking three showers in ten minutes and drying off between each one and that's cocaine Papa and I get to the radio station and the other guests and I can't even talk and and the other guest for the day was Darryl Strawberry who was a Hall of Fame baseball player and he's even look him up and he's one of the greatest baseball players ever but he his career was really altered by cocaine and here he was I was on the radio with him I had it collected his cards when I was young and I couldn't even talk the main gift that God had given me was my voice and I couldn't even use it because I've been up all night just using drugs to feel good somehow our using drugs to feel anything and and that was crazy because I always thought in my head Oh Darryl Strawberry you think you thought about him and you thought oh he's on drugs he's this and that he ruined his life but then here he was in front him he was 13 years sober he was eloquent successful and I mean he was a Dan King sitting in front of me and at one moment that's where some things lined up in my life that's where some things lined up in my mind and said oh hey look here you are with this gift you think you have that you can communicate you can't even talk because you [ __ ] up brah because you've been out of driving taxi and here you are with somebody who you thought or had judged as being [ __ ] up and here he is a king and it just lined things up in a perfect moment where I just had this moment of like oh I need to something needs to change for me and the next day I was back in Los Angeles I was telling that same story to someone and they said hey man I go to these meetings you know I go to meetings and so then I went to some AAA meetings and you know and for the first time in my life I sat down and listened to people tell stories which were my favorite thing to hear my whole life I've been loving stories man I love your story you know whatever your story is I love it man I look because all my life when I was young I just won in a different story I wanted a different story whether I had to tell it or try and live yours whether I had to get emancipated and come live at your house or this house or that house I just wanted a different story man I wanted to be I wanted to be in a family and I wanted to feel loved you know you know I just really I mean I think and I didn't even know it I didn't know how much I wanted to how much I wanted to be loved man I just didn't even know it and once I got into these rooms I could you had to sit there you had to be quiet and you had to hear other people and people started talking and telling their stories and for the first time in my life they were telling emotional like tales of that were exciting and [ __ ] dope and like deep and real and I connected that with that I loved it you know I loved it in that and so I'll just kept going I just kept going and next thing you know I was like next thing you know I had a couple nights in a row or a couple weeks in a row or months in a row while I was spending time with other people and I was meeting people and I and like suddenly Los Angeles became like this place that I'd always kind of hated and judged it became a little bit I still don't like that place people out of their [ __ ] minds out there wants a disconnected kook's judging most of the the rest of America but it also made me it gave me a place to kind of it just gave me friends it gave me people and because I know those people had had struggles I knew that they'd felt some of the same ways that I felt inside I couldn't judge those people you know even though sometimes I wanted to you know you never do come in and like you know and you know he'd lost his family or he you know he he'd lost his kids and been taken away by the courts and he's drinking or a woman who'd addicted to heroin and she you know hadn't seen and finally they're getting their lives back together and you just you know they say like listen for the similarities not the differences and I always want my life sometimes I'd always wanted to listen for differences because differences gave me an ability to separate me from other people and if I'm just me by myself then I know that I'm I'm okay because it's the only thing I've ever known the only way I've ever been okay really is by being by myself I don't know an okay where I'm attached to others you know where I trust others that like a place deeper than my own feelings a place that I don't really know but for the first time in these rooms I could do it you know for the first time in these rooms like I started like man I had love for people that didn't even know and then in moments and still this stuff kind of comes slow but I start to have love for myself you know and the hardest thing for me to do in my life has been to love myself because you know somewhere in my life and my story or when I was young or I don't know when you know I think just because of you know maybe my you know damn being so old and you know my mom not feeling like my mother cared about me or whatever it's not a sob story I'm not telling you that but I'm just telling you that I'd never really loved myself because I'd never really loved myself because uh somewhere in my past in like a long time before that I guess I you know I just had felt like I wasn't worth it you know and it's a it's tough to kind of admit some of that but uh and it wasn't a choice I made even like consciously it's not like somebody said hey are you worth loving yourself I would have said yes but somewhere deeper than that like somewhere when I was young or when I don't know but just somewhere before that you know I just decided that I wasn't you know I just looked at my surroundings and I don't know I just had felt or my life or whatever the recipe was that was in my life I looked at that and um and I was like oh yeah yeah you're not you don't deserve or you're not good or you're bad you're a bad person or something I don't know I still don't know you know there's still a lot for me to learn anyway this story's a little bit emotional for me but you know it's this is the story that I tell and so since I got an in to going to meetings and stuff like that and look I wasn't a coke head I have friends at our Co kids I expand I mean my coke use was probably it was over a couple years maybe once every few months maybe three times a year four times a year but then there was a point over about three weeks or maybe six weeks I don't know where it had escalated and it was just kind of like it was like once a week and then it was like you know the last two weeks it was like two or three times a week you know I mean I'm pissed sometimes I'm like look I wish I never even got to smoke crack you know I don't want to be a crackhead but [ __ ] you know I'll tell you no I'll take a hit or two just to see it you know what everybody's talking about down at the bus at the are down at the Greyhound you know but since then you know in this program I've learned like you know I've just I don't feel it alone I don't feel as alone as I used to and I'm learning to have different feelings about myself and different ways to think about myself and it's a program of action though like I have to work and I have to let go to you know some of these meetings and I go to the meetings man it's so funny that God used or my higher power people say higher power God whatever you know I believe in God I believe in God you know it's so much out here in like this business I mean they try to like make you feel like you it's not cool to do that but I'm not gonna feel that way for me because I need that you know in the program too that you know the a a it's cool because they it's not about the drugs and alcohol man you know I never liked drinking I know I was never you know it's never a pothead I was never I just started to see like oh man if you to ask me one day will you go to this great opportunity you have on this radio station with you know one of the biggest radio stations that radio shows in the world would you go on that [ __ ] up how to said no way and then here I was doing something that I wouldn't have done so that's when I realized like you know I just wasn't I wasn't even doing things that I really wanted to be doing and now my life has gotten better man it really has and sometimes I only want to admit that you know there's something inside of me sometimes that wants to make me separate from other people you know there's something that wants to make me alone because it's part of the only way that I ever knew how to be and man it has been a journey nothing withdrew the drugs are not called again whatever you know I may get a you know I may I don't know if I'll always be sober I have no idea but the thing that keeps me involved is man I get I get to learn so much about myself about loving others about acceptance it's introduced me to other issues that I have that you know maybe drugs and alcohol and even my issue it's just introduced me into a world of like introspection like for the first time I can take a look at myself and uh and I still look I got a ton of faults I'm not but I know that if I stay like on this path that things can get better I believe that because there's proof for me you know my career has gotten better you know I've met people that have loved me you know I've been I've been in and out of a relationship with somebody that loved me you know for one of the first times in my life that I really felt that not that other people hadn't loved me in the past but this was the first time I could feel it you know and it's just because something had changed inside of me where you know where I didn't need to just have all these walls up or whatever to survive anymore like you know I think my higher power wants to tell me look man you're going to be okay you know you can take a break you know and uh anyway you know I don't know um you know I don't know if I'll always be a part of this program or not but you know for the first time I lifelike this story like that's a you know I can tell you a true story you know all the years of like having a line like you know be ashamed of who I was or what I was or anything or anything like that like it's still okay to tell stories okay to create and be you know I want to bring people together and and be a storyteller and think about things and that's all okay but for the first time I life I have a little bit of a story of my own you know and there are moments you know not always but there's moments ronald feels ashamed of myself as i did for so long man you know I was so ashamed I was so ashamed of myself for things I don't need nothing really for nothing just because at a young age and nobody had told me not to be ashamed of myself you know nobody had told me hey man you're OK you know nobody had told me hey man you are ok and you're not a bad person so and that's what that's what keeps me coming back to these programs man in the [ __ ] is lit and it's fun man and every time I go I get to hear a story that makes me feel it makes you realize that I have a heart and then I'm a loving person because for so much my life I wanted to know that about myself and now I go into these rooms and I hear other people's stories and him and I feel a certain way in it and there is proof right there inside of me living inside of my body through feeling and through love and that's dope man - it is [ __ ] dope and so that's kind of where I'm at man I would um it's 11 p.m. now here on and I had some calls man look I want to play one or two calls that came in and I'm sorry look at you no I'm not sorry about my story but I'm sorry you know I had a headache I didn't want to tell that story tonight um because I wanted to be able to tell it best as I could and it's hard to think sometime when your head is hurting you know but you know my relationships have gotten better these days you know my brother and I mean he's so close to my brother these days like it's uh you know it's wild you know and you know and I've met like a couple of the greatest people I've ever met like through AAA you know I've learned about like unconditional love and things like that not things that I'm able to practice yet but at least for the first time in my life you know I'm aware of some of these things and and more will be revealed man that's what they say in that program more will be revealed you know and you can develop a relationship with a higher power where you can do what you want they got coffee they got shitty cookies you know it's a [ __ ] trap house but where people get together to share good time real time and then look it's just like the comedy club this weekend man there you could in one room you could you probably could have bought a gram in there but in that other room do we made some damn magic this weekend but we lit that [ __ ] on fire and I am uh I'm grateful to everybody that came out it's the holidays you know I'm so excited man I get to go home you know I'm gonna have a family I have like I got five nieces and nephews today that love me you know and even if they don't I get to watch like my siblings be parents you know I get to watch my siblings love their children in a way that we never got to experience and I'm awake for that and and that's cool man that for me man this [ __ ] is up this [ __ ] is a ride bro this [ __ ] is a ride so I know this [ __ ] got a little bit of emo on this episode and I know it looks like I'm interrogated this is not an into this is not an Isis interrogation video if you look it on YouTube it really looks like a trap house but um but you know I feel you know and I don't sometimes they say you know you're not supposed to talk about sobriety in a public forum and stuff like that but whatever man you know I've never been somebody to break it up follow really the rules I don't think and sometimes that's good and sometimes that's bad but I'm so grateful to everybody that came out this weekend because they changed my experience you know one Thursday I was kind of stress or Friday I was like oh this place and by the end I was like man it doesn't matter where we are you know at our shows we have a good time and we do it as you know at a fair price and uh and I'm grateful man I'm grateful to the group of people that I get to be a part of now even in my own shows you know at our shows we get to do that and I feel like we're gonna do a lot of cool stuff in the coming year to help others and and I just appreciate it man you know what's interesting too for me is like this podcast a lot of times even over the year like maybe there was a time or two on what I thought on a Saturday night man I'm gonna get [ __ ] up you know but then I had to be here for this podcast on Sunday and so you know I don't know maybe you know you guys kept me out of the dark sometimes here and there and again if your party and you drinking you getting [ __ ] up if I'm at your house you're doing coke I don't care that's fine if y'all shooting up I'm leaving run okay if you needle in if you [ __ ] wrote haystack on your arm and you [ __ ] needle in yourself I'm out daddy but if you guys you know your cousin's on [ __ ] nine tylenol and y'all blowing a blunt and the G Raja brah I'm fine you know I don't care if you drink I don't care if you [ __ ] you know pour meth down your [ __ ] stepdads you know esophagus that's okay you can do with that you don't have to adjust in your life for me anything like that people need be there's nothing you have to be weird around these kind of people you know my biggest problem I realized it wasn't with drugs or alcohol my biggest problem was with the way that I felt and I am relieved of some of that and I'm learning more all the time man and that's where I'm at you know that's where I'm at and I'm so thankful that in a weird way like all those times of storytelling in line to people and just you know I just wanted to feel seemed okay to them you know you know make line about you know where my dad was or who he was or you know lying about while I was walking through somebody's neighborhood after school because I didn't even live in that neighborhood you know and just uh just all kind of stuff man you know it's interesting because all that time a story telling now you know the things that uh that didn't serve me before now it serves me now I'm able to go to a place and say you know and share stories so I mean I think you know God works in mysterious ways man and also in

Channel: Theo Von Clips

Views: 2,511,599

Rating: 4.9375935 out of 5

Keywords: theo von, this past weekend, tpw, joe rogan, joe rogan experience, jre, brendan schaub, bryan callen, tfatk, the fighter and the kid, below the belt, chris delia, congrats pod, bobby lee, khalyla, tigerbelly, joey diaz, church of whats happening now, tom segura, your moms house, sober, sobriety, alcohol, alcoholic, alcoholics anonymous, aa, bill w, addiction, intervention, drugs and alcohol, cocaine, aa meetings, recovery

Id: ND3IhIj4KzU

Length: 34min 19sec (2059 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 03 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/ArronRodgersButthole]

I'm always jealous of the people who had the courage to stop using before everything went to shit. I'm proud of Theo that he did and that he shares his story. I truly believe he's saved so many people from unnecessary despair.

I've been sober for 5 years, but my decision to get sober was very easy. I had no home, no job, failing organs and more hospital bills than any 24 year old should have. It never crossed my mind that I could get help before all of that happened. I always had this thought in my mind that things weren't that bad, and that I still had a way to go before rock bottom. I couldn't have been more wrong. Hitting rock bottom is such a horrible phrase because it implies that the only way to get sober is to destroy your life first.

The world needs more Theos to step up and show that anyone can choose to get sober whenever they want.

Edit: gang gang

[u/600675]

Fuckin love you Theo.

Appreciate the way he puts himself out there like this.

Gang gang.

[u/muscular_gerbils]

I've watch this more times than i can count.

[u/theapiankwaad]

Very touching