Change Your Brain Every Day - Are You A High-Functioning Alcoholic? with Chris Browning

Episode Date: January 20, 2020

Character actor Chris Browning’s career was just beginning to take off when his personal demons began to emerge. Although he had been a high-functioning alcoholic since the age of 15, his social anxiety, genetic predisposition, and turbulent family life ultimately turned him towards more dangerous habits. In this first episode of a series with the actor, Chris tells Tana how his earlier years in the acting world both helped and hindered him in his struggle for sobriety.

We are going to start your new year, your new decade off with a bang. Tan and I are going to do a six-week live class. So starting January 21st, every Tuesday, we're going to be with you for an hour. And at the end, we're going to give away over $20,000 in prizes. We look forward to helping you kick off this new year by becoming brain health revolutionaries. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. In our podcast, we provide you with the tools you need to become a warrior for the health of your brain and body. The Brain Warriors Way

podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we have been transforming lives for 30 years using tools like brain spec imaging to personalize treatment to your brain. For more information, visit amonclinics.com. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceuticals to support the health of your brain and body. To learn more, go to brainmd.com. So I'm so excited to introduce our guest today, Chris Browning. This is such a fun treat for me.

So I met you, Chris, on the set with my daughter. I was actually doing the stage mom thing. Doing the stage mom thing. I was. And Chris doesn't need a whole lot of introduction, but I'm going to do it anyways. Yeah, you can. No, you've seen Chris. You're probably sitting there, if you're watching this, thinking, I know that guy.

Where do I know this guy from? He was in Angel Has Fallen. And then you recently did Outlaw Johnny Black. That's not out yet, right? Yeah. Greenlight, Healer, Book of Eli. That was a great movie. Bright with Will Smith.

The 100, Sons of Anarchy, Westworld, Bosch. And I can't even like, the list is way too long. But those are just some of the more recent, larger things you've done, correct? Yeah, yeah. So you've done correct yeah yeah so you've done a lot yeah i've done a lot i've been lucky you've had a very big career in hollywood and yeah yeah so the thing that i noticed when i met you is that you were so humble and so nice and then you start telling me your story and i was floored So you're very open about your story, which is, I'm so grateful that you wanted to come here and share it. Oh yeah. I mean, I tell my story to anybody that listened, you know.

So let's start from the beginning. Okay. Because what I heard was, I heard, I mean, this is the only thing I heard was I went from being pretty successful living in Malibu in a beach house to living under the 405 freeway. And I was like, wait, what? Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's my opener. Yeah. Yeah. And I always, always my, my old joke is then I try it cause I tried heroin once for six years. Yeah. Yeah. And so our listeners know my story. I, um, have a lot of childhood trauma from heroin, not me, but my family. An uncle who was murdered in a drug deal and just a lot of stuff, a lot of baggage with it. So your story was so interesting to me.

Sort of the other side of it and just interesting how you came back. I love the comeback. So talk to me about it. Yeah, me too. Yeah, tell our listeners. Well, yeah, I said I had been working. I was always a drunk, though.

I was a highly functioning alcoholic. I was that guy that you had to tell me what I did last night. When did that start? When I was 15. OK. Yeah. And I was the guy. I was the guy that got drunker than anybody else and stuff.

But I still did well in school. I played sports and played college football. But yeah, in college, I guess the wheels kind of started to come off there. But I ended up going to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts after college because I decided I wanted to write screenplays. So I was working in a warehouse with this guy who said, I had a friend, we were up in Reno, just bumming around, partying and working in a warehouse. And I told him and he said, yeah, I had a buddy that got in that business and he went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts. So I said, cool, I'm doing that. And so I got into the American Academy, quit my job, moved down to LA.

And I remember talking to the director of the school and saying, well, I want to focus primarily on screenwriting. And she's like, what the are you talking about you know this is a it's a theater school here's your schedule focus on this you know and i thought i did major and minor and thing no everybody has the same schedule this is it welcome aboard and it was all actor stuff and i was terrified you know i didn't know really yeah i was very very shy because i was always the new guy i i went to like 12 schools when i was growing up oh interesting so you moved a lot you also mentioned that you're you have a history of substance abuse in your family yeah my mom my mom's an alcoholic she died was 40 years sober she she went to her first meeting and, whatever, 1974 or something, and just put 40 years together.

Just got it on the first try. But genetically, you already had that. You were sort of predisposed. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. And you also had some marks growing up, from what I understand, just from the environment. Yeah.

I mean, you know, I think um you know divorce um you know and i i remember my you know kind of kind of raising my little sister you know when i was you know five years old i can remember you know making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for my for my kid sister because mom was always in bed you know she was just she was a stay-in-bed mom you know and and um i mean it wasn't like she was abusive or anything she just was checked out checked out you know and um yeah so i kind of remember taking care of my little sister from a pretty young age. But she got sober when I was nine, I think. But by then, you know, I was already screwed up. But I don't know.

I think, you know, I was always at, I could schedule my alcoholism. You know, I could get, I was functioning. So that's what you meant by functional yeah that you could decide not to drink when you needed to not drink yeah and then just party hard when you did yeah yeah and um it just worked i mean i didn't you know i didn't have hangovers in those days i'd go out and drink and party all night long and then have a football game the next day and I'd be, you know, fine. Wow. Yeah. But then, you know, and so I went to the academy.

I was terrified the whole first year because I was there with all these kids who were actors. You know, they'd been doing it since they were little. So they had this whole actor persona thing that i didn't know what that was i'd never seen these people before i was i was a jock you know i came from football and these people were all like wearing black and and smoking and wow talking about john malkovich and stuff i didn't even know who that was they're very artsy yeah i don't know who john malkovich and stuff. I didn't even know who that was. They're very artsy. Yeah. I don't know who John Malkovich was. And they'd say, tomorrow we're going to want everybody off book. We're going to start blocking. And I'm like, what's off book?

What's blocking? I don't have any idea. So they had been doing this a long time. Yeah. They all knew it. They knew the lingo. They'd been doing theater. I didn't know anything.

So the first year year i just made sure i knew my lines i was really good at memorization and that was about it and and uh but something they saw something because uh well they have these exam plays at the end of the first year to decide who they're going to take back because they only invite a quarter of the students back for for second year and and i played john proctor in the crucible and oh interesting and that was like the first time that i ever got that that feedback that the audience and i i had i had people i didn't know and you know in the theater coming up and hugging me with tears in their eyes and things like that. And I was like, OK, I want this.

You liked it. Yeah. And it was like the only time. It was the first time I was ever comfortable in my own skin. Oh, interesting. Like I was, my scariest moment of the day in high school was taking my tray up you know at the end of lunch you have to take up your tray and put this thing in the dish dirty dish thing and the silverware in that thing and put the tray in you know because it was at the cross across the cafeteria we were always at this

one corner table and and just kind of zigzagging through all those tables i just felt eyes on me you know i just was like, don't fall down. I was just so self-absorbed and self-conscious that I couldn't stand. That kind of insecurity is really just ego, that I thought people were so concerned and obsessed with watching me do anything, you know, nobody cares, but I didn't know that. I thought, Oh,

it's going to. Yeah. We have a, we have something called the 1840 60 rule. It's like when you're 18, you think everyone is watching you and thinking about you and you're so concerned about it. When you are 40, you don't give a damn what people think about you. When you're 60, you realize no one's been thinking about themselves yeah yeah but do you think that that was part of what drew you to drinking or maybe later substance abuse was that discomfort with yourself yeah

yeah that's that's how i got comfortable you know that but yeah when i said like on on the stage that was the first time that i was ever comfortable in my own skin not drunk. Yeah. You know, I marveled at people who could go to a bar and go, let's see. You know what? I think, do you have that on tap? I'll have that. And they order their first drink of the day in a bar, a crowded bar.

No way. No way could I do that. I had to have a 12-pack in me just to go in there. Oh, you're kidding. I could. All those people and stuff. Yeah, no way. I could not go into a crowded place like that.

So a little bit of social anxiety is what I'm hearing. Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. OK. A little bit. Okay. A little bit. So that time on stage was the first time that I was like, wow, I was totally comfortable in my own skin, and I don't have any booze in me. And that's why I want that.

And I kept that. I respected that, too. It was one of those things that I was like, I'm never going to do this loaded. I'm not ever going to, because that's a sacred thing for me, and I'm just not going to ever work wasted. And that was my rule. So you became pretty successful after school.

I did, but I broke my rule quickly because I got a lead in a miniseries in Russia. I spent 13 months in Russia. Oh. And spent 13 months in Russia being there. They like vodka. Oh, my God. But it was, I couldn't even stand out as an alcoholic there. Right. Because everybody was drunk.

It was like, you could, it wasn't even a hidden thing. There was, the camera truck was like a rolling bar. Wow. If you couldn't find Chris Brown. On set? Yeah. That's crazy. You could drink. As. If you couldn't find Chris Brown. On set? Yeah. That's crazy. You could drink.

As long as you could do your job, nobody cared. So sometimes guys would get so sloppy, they couldn't do their job, and they'd get fired. Wow. But yeah, if you couldn't find me, go look in the camera truck. That's where you'd find me. Oh, wow. So that was when you broke that rule? That's when I broke that rule.

But then it was, you know, that had just my sister had died from this disease. And I just had some survivor guilt. And I just took it into a whole other gear at that point where people would say, man, you keep going like that, you're going to die. And I'd say, when? Bring it. You know, because I've been trying to do it like every day and I can't seem to make it work. So, yeah. Plus, it was action stuff, you know.

It wasn't like we're sitting there having a deep conversation across a table like this. It wasn't a pinter play. It was action. It was underwater stuff was underwater and stuff and alcohol and water no well i mean you're swimming in the black sea in february oh my god and there's snow on the bank and i'm swimming around fighting a fake shark or something you know and and they would give me you know get out of the water and they they put they put vodka on you they pour

vodka and rub it on your skin and i'm like that's cold oh wait no it's not it's warming me up interesting kind of physics thing yeah it's so crazy yeah because you know when alcohols evaporates it's cool right and it brings but it brings your blood to the surface too yeah is that what it's doing yeah it worked and so they're pouring it in me and on me. And nobody was going to go, that guy seems like he's had a couple. No, he's fallen off a horse. He's fighting with flaming torches. Nobody could tell I had a little booze in me.

And so. So you tried drugs for the first time. Did it start with drugs or did it start with painkillers? I guess it started with painkillers. Yeah. Because what happened, I came back and that's really where I got, you know, before I went to Russia, I finished at the academy. And then I was waiting tables and thrilled to get like two words on Saved by the Bell or something, or five lines on Matlock.

And I was like, oh, I made it. And so I was a waiter. That's basically what I was. And I got the Russia thing. That was a 12-hour miniseries. That was like starring in eight movies because i was the lead and you know but then that left me with a bunch of money and a bunch of free time and because you only work six months a year you know and i was just um i had a i had a back issue

that put me on um you know norco or one of the hydrocodones right lor lor set or tab and and that was my routine i could i had i got six a day of those so i would drink i would drink like a 12 pack of beer every night so i was kind of a kind of a chunky monkey. And I exercised a lot. I knew so little about nutrition. I'm like, someone that runs and does elliptical in the gym as much as me, why am I so fat? And it's like, because you drink a 12-pack of beer every day, you dumbass. I'm like, I really sweat when I run. Yeah, that's the alcohol pouring out of your pores. Right. So I didn't know much.

And so I had a schedule. I could drink all night because I have rehearsal the next day. I could just pop six of those Lorsat. At once? Yeah. Oh. That's what I did. I just took, instead of taking 10 milligrams, I took 60 milligrams.

And that took any hangover away that I would have had. Oh, dear Lord, yeah. And then I'd go to work. And then by the end of the day, I'm ready to start drinking again. So this is like a vicious cycle. You were trying to recover from drinking by taking yeah i would i would endure the back pain later on that day so you're taking opiates to deal with the alcohol and oh wow okay yeah i'd rather i'd rather be in pain all afternoon

than have a hangover in the morning. Oh, wow. Okay. So that was the start of a really bad cycle. Yeah. Yeah. And then on the weekends, I would smoke cocaine. You know, I would go buy an eight ball.

So this started pretty soon after you got out of school. Yeah. So you're having some success you're making some money but that money is starting to go to not so good things yeah yeah and i was just like any free time i had i i i i just pissed it away being loaded yeah we always in russia we had a we had a uh a volleyball game for the cast and crew and stuff every every saturday and and i i went to like three of them because i was a mess from the night before yeah i'm in bed i mean if i'm up i'm certainly not playing volleyball right because i got to where i would drink the bottles there are

half liter half liter vodka and they have like this this uh foil thing that you kind of pull and it just kind of rips it apart and comes you know there's no way to reseal them it's disposable you know it's a half a liter is not to be saved and and uh i would i got to where that's what i was doing. I'd wake up with one of those. Oh, wow. I'd take a big drink of juice, then chug the whole half liter, and then throw the rest of that juice on top of it all in one breath. And then I'd just sit there and wait for that burn and be like, okay, I'm ready. Oh, you're killing me right now. Let's go to work. All right. Well, when we come back, I want to get into the part where you end up under the 405 freeway in our next episode.

Okay. All right. Thanks. We'll be back with Chris Browning. If you're enjoying the Brain Warriors Way podcast, please don't forget to subscribe so you'll always know when there's a new episode. And while you're at it, feel free to give us a review or five-star rating as that helps others find the podcast. If you're considering coming to Amen Clinics or trying some of the brain healthy supplements from BrainMD, you can use the code podcast10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or a 10% discount on all supplements at brainmdhealth.com.

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