Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Jack Osbourne: Ego is Not My Amigo

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Jack Osbourne (The Osbournes, Ghosts & Grit podcast) breaks down why he thinks people are fascinated by his family, how he got into the paranormal, his struggles with substance abuse, and his multiple sclerosis diagnosis. He opens up about the toll his family’s reality show took on him, why he thinks the show was successful, and gives us a glimpse into what his dad is actually like off-camera. Jack details his detox experience, how he’s been able to maintain sobriety, and shares advice for those experiencing suicidal ideation. He discusses his mom’s battle with cancer, his dad’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, and his own experiences with talk and couples therapy. He also reflects on using his sense of humor as a defense mechanism, his jiu jitsu practice as a form of meditation, his divorce and new happy marriage, and his focus on removing shame from his relationship with his daughters.  Jack Osbourne's newest podcast, “Ghosts and Grit": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ghosts-and-grit-with-jack-osbourne/id1711453860 BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Suicide is a permanent solution, you know, to what is often a temporary problem. What would you say to people, what would you offer? And from this perspective, I think what would you think might be helpful? There's two different lenses that I come at it from. If I'm with my recovery lens, if I'm communicating with someone in recovery, my answer would be go to a meeting, raise your hand, tell the room what's going. going on, hang out with people after the meeting. Go to bed, call me in the morning. And it's, it's, for me, the solution in that is, let's just shrink everything down. Let's not, okay,

a day at a time, sure, that might be tough, but how about this? A meal at a time. Yeah. Get to breakfast. Call me at breakfast and we'll talk about getting to lunch. And that's what it takes. It's an hour at a time, we say, a minute at a time. Yeah. For me though, like the hour, the minute, sometimes I need more of a goal. I need like, okay, but like lunch, all right, well, where am I going for lunch? Or what am I eating for lunch? I can make a plan to get that. Right. Whereas a minute, I'm like, I don't know what I'm going to do for the next minute. I might just like, like, pick my nose and I'll like go on Instagram or whatever. So that, you know, that's what my kind of where I would go recovery wise. Now, if I'm just

talking to like a, you know, a man in the street where there's where I don't know what kind of, you know, if they are engaged in any kind of program, anything like that. I think of anything, it's listening. Like, I'm not going to say it like if you ask for my advice in the moment, but just I would just say, hey, what's up? Like, where are you at? What are you thinking? I'm not going to get into the why.

I'm not going to try and share my why I don't think you should, this, that, and the other. Because it's not my, like, what, what in, I know from my own experience when I'm in utter desperation, unless I'm asking for advice or help or anything, I'm not going to be open to receiving it. So I'm like, I would just say, hey, cool, vomit on me. Dump it all, and then if you want to pick it apart, we can. It's Miami Oleg's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you.

Because you know she knows a thing or two. So now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown. Hi, I'm Miamiolic, and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so that you don't have to. I'm just making it easy on you. Today I'm flying solo. and we're going to talk to Jack Osborne.

That's what we're going to break down today. You probably know Jack Osborne from MTV's Emmy-winning reality series The Osbournes. He's also done so many other things. He was on Dancing with the Stars. He has a new podcast, Ghosts and Grit. He has so many production ventures. He portrayed his father's life in the documentary, God bless Ozzy Osbourne.

He also oversees production of National Geographic shows. so many things that he does. And he's going to talk about all things sobriety. He's going to talk about being a dad. He's going to talk about growing up and Osborne. He talks all about, gosh, he talks about both of his parents in some pretty good detail. I learned so much about Jack Osborne's journey, and I'm sure you will really enjoy, I think, a different side of Jack Osborne, if you don't mind my saying so. So that's it. Let's talk to John. Jack Osborne, Jack, welcome to the breakdown. Break it down.

I mean, I literally want to talk to you about all the things. Okay. I want to start with ghosts and grit. Sure. Yeah. Because I feel like we should. All right. So that's a new podcast.

New podcast, yeah. Starts on Friday the 13th. Oh, spooky. Yeah, you know, tis the season. Yes. And it is you having to discuss, just correct me if I'm wrong. It's you talking with celebrity friends. Maybe I'll be one of them one day.

About various topics from thrilling adventures, paranormal activity, and more. I already have chill. The word paranormal makes like the hair on the back of my neck stand up. So are you a believer? So you are? Yes. Okay. You are a learned doctor. So most learned doctors are you know. Well, I'm also, I'm a person of faith. So I feel like that already puts me on the strange side of doctors. Okay, I do, I want to know about it. So have you always been into the paranormal? Sort of, yeah. I grew up watching X-Files. Like that was my jam when I was And it just sparked my interest.

And so I would read a bunch of books about UFOs, Bigfoot, you know, whatever, ghosts. And it was just always kind of a hobby on the back burner. Right. And then in like 2011, I got a call from my agent. He's like, hey, you like paranormal stuff. I was like, sure. And he sent me off to go meet with these producers. And I went and did this show where I filmed it all myself kind of like, Blair Witch.

Yeah, yeah. And it was really well received. And it kind of just plugged me into the paranormal world. So do you have, I'm not asking this for, you know, sensationalistic reason. I'm just, I'm curious. Do you have, I'm always starting to cry. I cry when I talk about this stuff because it freaks me out majorly. Do you have any personal experience?

I'm so nervous to F. You're going to be like, yes, there's a ghost. Do you have, like, did you have any personal experiences with this stuff? Sure, absolutely. Let's not talk about it. That was Jack Osborne. Which is on curiosity, how could you get emotional about it? So I don't, I mean, I'm a neuroscientist.

I should know these things. There is something about talking about this stuff that never used to give me this reaction. Like, I know that I never like scary stuff. Like, I think I saw, like, a little bit of The Exorcist and, like, was like, I will never sleep again. And that's pretty much been true since I'm, like, six years old. But when it comes to, like, paranormal stuff, and I don't just mean, like, oh, it's funny to think about.

but when I hear about people who have experiences, I'm currently reading this book about a woman who gained all these abilities after being struck by lightning. And like, it makes me, that's my reaction. It makes me cry. Like some people cry when they're nervous. Yeah.

I think there's something, something got crossed. I'm going to blame it after I had kids when everything gets messed up. Yeah. But it makes me cry. But I would like to know about your personal experience. Sure. I've had many.

I've had many before. Like, I had a few before. I started doing go shows, and then since I've... You're tuned into it now. Maybe, but I don't think I am. I'm not one of those people that can, like, walk into a place and be like, oh, there's an old lady standing above your shoulder. No, stop it!

In the Lincoln! So, okay, so, like, like, ghosts, feelings, concrete things? I've had everything, and it's a constantly evolving experience for me. I went in being like, there's no negative stuff. That's all just like a, that's looking at this from like a purely Judeo-Christian belief system dealing with heaven and hell, good and evil, God, the devil, all that. And so I often thought that that wasn't, I just thought it was a human element to it. But I've seen things, I've experienced things that would make me believe that they're actually, that I was wrong. Like I have, and there's no way.

And it's, I was fun. I was at dinner with my wife last night. And we were kind of going deep into it because it has affected me so much over the last couple years that it's kind of shaken my foundation of like of what my belief system was and is. Right. And it's, it's very odd. It's very odd. I mean, I've had, I've seen things move across tables.

No. No. I've seen people like looking down a dark hallway and I've seen like a head pop out look at me and dip back in. No one was there. Not and you weren't on the drugs. Wasn't on the drugs. No. No, it was not on the drugs.

It would probably be cooler if I was, but... Well, but then I would have to discount it. Yeah, exactly. That was a hallucination. Yeah. So in terms of this podcast, then, this is... Are you specifically talking to people who have also had these kind of access points? It's kind of a loose format.

I tend to get more excited about people's journeys necessarily than the specific ghost story. We do touch on ghost stories. everyone's kind of had an experience or know someone who has an experience. Even it's funny, even people that I know, you don't believe in that, do you? And you don't really take it seriously. And as soon as the conversation opens up, it always diverts to, well, you know, this one time. Not everyone can be crazy. There's certainly something going on with this phenomenon.

Well, so this is this book that I'm reading, which is called Change in a Flash, just for any who's curious. Good title. Yeah, well, because she was struck by lightning, get it. It was 1988, if you want to know. She was going to synagogue. The whole thing is, it was in, like,

in Texas. Okay, but what was interesting is exactly what you said, is like, she was like, this was an anomalous thing, but then she's like, but now that I think about it, she's like, my mom

always had this, like, different perspective and wrote an essay about the paranormal in, like, the 1950s, and all her friends were like, you're crazy, mom was like, I don't know. So she talks about also like how her dad just like was this like normal guy that you wouldn't think has these kind of beliefs. But what she was talking about and kind of what I

wanted to ask you about, you know, she believes that there are certain people. Because like you said, not everybody can be crazy. I mean, you don't know the people I know. But what she was talking about in this book is that perhaps there is, just like there's different genetic variations, right? Certain people have more of a propensity to believe in God, for example. And like, is that coded in the brain? And so the notion that there are some people who have more access, and it could be because of, I don't want to say gullibility, but it could be more open-mindedness. It could be, you know, I mean, depending on like how out there you want to get, it could be that certain people pick up on different, I'm going to use the word energies, because that exists. Is anyone else

in your family? I mean, it's also funny because I feel like in some ways I know more about your, I'm old. I feel more like, I know more about like your dad than, than you, just because I just, you know, you know, I can't help but think about, like, some of the stuff in your family has resonated, especially in, you know, kind of the music world for your dad, you know, around darkness. Yeah. You know, and I wonder, I mean, that also could be completely like a stage presence. Like, I also, like, remember the day we talked about the bat. Like, I was in elementary school and it was like, oh, my God, the bat happened. But I just wonder if you think of, like, gosh, is there something to that or does that have nothing to do with it?

I think it, for me, as far as things went with my dad and the theatrics of that, because that's just what it was. It was theatrics. I didn't want to think that, but, you know, I was a kid. I mean, my dad goes home and he, like, puts on the history channel. He's not, like, reading, you know, the seven circles of hell. Like, in this chapter, Beelzebob did this. It's like, no, he's like watching History Channel doing art or...

He's like your dad. Yeah, he's just... And if anything, my dad would probably lean towards being more of a god-fearing man. then people would be, you know, would ever think. What about your mom? My mom was raised, my mom was raised Jewish. Right. Yeah. She still is as far as I'm concerned.

Technically, she's, her mother wasn't. So technically. You know what? I fucking count your mother as a Jew and you too while we're at it. Well, my, according to 23 and me, I'm 30-something percent. Enough for me. Yeah, right? Well, so.

It's enough of birth raise. Do you know, do you know anything about her heritage? Yes, I do. Where is her family from? Georgia. Oh. Georgia. I figured.

You know, you have to clarify. Okay, because also certain Eastern European communities, my grandmother was from the Czech-Hungary border, and there was a ton of spooky stuff. Oh, yeah. That was just part of, like, oh, the women in our family on this side. Columns. They feel, but, like, they feel things.

They see things. Like, they have powers. Like, my mom is convinced she could feel when her mom had a stroke. Like, all these things sometimes happen. Do you know the story of the Gollum in Prague? Yes, for sure. Yeah. I mean, that's the spookiest story we have is that, like, a man was formed from the clay and, like, haunted, you know, people who were killing Jews.

But in addition to ghosts and grit, there is also an Osborne podcast. Yes. So this was something that had a break. Yes. Five years ago, we did it. Okay. Without, it was just early, early podcast days. You were just a child then.

Just a wee man, you know, kind of wander in the world, trying to find my way. And it was so hard to do Because everyone was so busy at the time And it was just too difficult to lock down And we did 10 episodes And we're like, yeah, we're done And then being the way the world is now With entertainment and how everything's just screwed

We just thought, well, let's bring it back And let's be a, let's remove the possibility that anyone can ever get fired again from a job So that's what we're doing. Why do you think people are so fascinated with your family? Oh, man. Obviously, for me, it stems from the curiosity of my father. I think that was the initial inroad.

You know, we did the Osbournes in 2002. Yeah. It was very, it was still the era where if you were a celebrity, you had to be private. Right. You couldn't let anyone know about what, you know, you know, it was. Yeah. You had to have the walls up. Right.

Well, you got to have the walls up. Yeah. And we tore the walls down. And people were like, oh, wait. And I think there's a few reasons why the Osbournes were successful. I think one was families saw that, oh, it doesn't matter if you're famous or whatever. You're still a family. You're still doing the same stuff.

You guys still argue. You still, you know, the dog still craps on the carpet. Like, it's normal stuff. That was one component. And oddly enough, and I've had this debate a few times with people, I think, 9-11 was a huge reason why the show was successful. We premiered in March of 2002. And so it was such a weird time, I think psychologically for people,

that everyone was just kind of grasping for something that kind of, A, took their mind off of like the fact that we all just experienced, like, a global trauma. And, you know, two, I think it gave people comfort to know that, oh, even celebrities in Hollywood or whatever, are still normal like us. My MBialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything out of the experience that was useful.

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Superpower. Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional $20 off with the code break. Head to Superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention My and Bial, let's break down to help support the show. And you were how old when the show started? I was 15 when it started.

Wow. That was a hard time in your life. I mean, being 15 is hard for many people's lives. I was on television in a very different way, you know, at 15. And I didn't have to be, I mean, I know we saw a version of yourself. You know, it's like the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Like, once you're observing something, you don't know if that's how it actually is behaving or would behave. You know, I didn't love being 15 in my own head, much less having to interact, you know, with lots of humans.

And I did prefer the company of adults, I think, you know, to teenagers. for a long time. But, you know, there's also something to sort of having to be presentational in your existence as a teenager, which is not natural. So I'm wondering, like, what was it like to sort of have, you know, your life, you know, I mean, you were on display. I mean, all of you were. Sure, yeah.

It was, you know, it's funny because you, I look back at it now and I go, I was kind of a wild. That was a tornado. And it was kind of fun and what have you. But in the moment, it sucked. It was really invasive. It was really stressful. I didn't really know what, I didn't know what I didn't know, obviously.

And so it was difficult. I think it kind of, it derailed a lot of, it real, well, derailed the family dynamic as it was until that point. and it took a minute to kind of refine itself. You know, found the glorious, you know, I found the glory of drugs and alcohol at a very young age.

You know, as most kind of, I think a lot of, it seems to be the symptom of a lot of that kind of fame. And also just the human experience. Yeah. Like we will all numb if you give us a computer, anything. Like, we'll numb with anything. but yeah. And so it was really difficult.

And then I ended up getting sober and then the show, we ended the show about six months after that. So you started the show when you were 15. You had discovered drugs and alcohol, I think, a couple years before. Yeah. And then when did you, when did you get sober

and the show ended? I got sober at 17 and the show ended. I think it was around Christmas of 2000. 2005. You have maintained that sobriety? I have, yeah. Oh, my God. That's unbelievable. I mean, stories of people who get sober as teenagers are fascinating to me. Also few and far between. Yeah, well, Moshe Kashir, who wrote a memoir about, you know, being a drug addict, you know, a mental health, you know, a patient in a mental institution and a drug dealer all before he turned 16 is one of my favorite stories of this. But yeah. Sounds like the feel good hit of the summer. I mean, you know, I feel like reading about it. So, okay. So you then were on, and I'm reminding everyone,

I did not watch this show, but you were then on this show while you were also dealing with, like an enormous emotional, spiritual crisis. Oh, yeah. It was, it was. That's not why you did drugs. Man, I don't know.

It was, yeah, it was difficult. It was really difficult. and but ultimately it was the reason why we collectively decided to, hey, let's end this. Got it. And I think it was a good move. Right. And your sister is older than you.

Yes. Got it. Those are some really formative years to have to be, you know, on that kind of show. The great thing about it is that if my kids ever tell me, you don't know what it's like. I could literally sit them down. You have evidence. I've got. I've got about 50 hours of really well-edited MTV episodes of the worst years of a teenager's life.

This is a question. I have a technical question because I'm not a reality show person. You're not? I'm not. Are the cameras there, like, kind of all the time? They were. Like, on the weekends? You don't get Shabbat off?

No. So we had... Like, all the time, and they just see what they get. Yeah. And back then, anyway, today is very different. It, uh, back then we filmed from about nine of the, morning to three in the morning. No.

Six days a week. No. They gave us Sunday. Sunday. That was the day when we could chill. But otherwise, just like whatever was going on in your life was going on in your life. And they would, everyone would always ask us, oh, you, is it produced? Do you guys have scripts, this, that, and the other?

And back then, the only thing that they would ever produce would be, hey, can you guys do a family dinner or can we do a vacation or what's going on this week that we can just tag along to? That was the extent of it. Okay, the next thing, I just like, I haven't watched reality TV, so I'm just very interested. You don't watch any reality TV? No. You don't watch 90-day fiancé.

No, I never. You would love 90-day fiancé. No, I think you're wrong. No, I think you would. I think you're so wrong. No, purely from like a... You just made me start sweating. A case study of like, wow, these people are crazy.

So, well, okay, so there's things. My mother watches, I think, all the things. Okay. I mean, the reason I say that I think she watches all the things, because she texts me about all the things. There are certain aspects, like, from a, like, sociological perspective that I'd be interested, like, who are these people? And, like, what are their decisions?

The thing that is hard for me, it's the same thing that's hard for me about watching sitcoms. It's the format, you know? It's, like, the music and the edits and the, like, that's what's hard for me. Like, raw, I love documentaries, you know, like, I, that's, it's more like the polished, shiny, like, the bat, the lighting. I just. Why? Because there's something wrong.

with me. Is it like a control thing? Me? Control? Never. Okay, one more thing I want to ask. Is there another sibling who was not on the show? Yes, I have an oldest sister, Amy.

The oldest? Yes. She did not want to be part of? No. Is she like a librarian? Like, I want that to be the story. No, she's not. She a nun?

She's not a nun. She's neither a librarian nor a nun. She at the time was pursuing a music career. and didn't want to feel like she was writing a show on MTV's coattails to that music career. Right. She forgot the fact that her last name was Osborne. Stop it. And she could reinvent the wheel.

And no matter what, it would still be because... She didn't change her name? She, I don't, I don't know if back then she went by, I think she just, I think she went by her middle name, like Amy Rachel at the time. Okay. Yeah. So did she, like, know what was going? It's not like you didn't see her for all those years.

No, yeah. we, she moved out. She moved out pretty young. Okay. And she kind of pursued her own kind of thing. Got it. But it was. Do I know a song that she sang?

Did she release songs? She did release songs. Okay. Actually, more recently. Okay. Yeah, she kind of. Okay, got it. Yeah, I think she, like, Axel-Rosed it a little bit and spent a long time.

That could mean so many things. It took, like, 15 years to release an album kind of thing. You know what? That's a little judgy. Well, I'm just saying, you know, Chinese democracy took a very long time to come out. I wonder if you can talk a little bit because, you know, as much as there's this fascination with your dad. Yeah. You know, I think that people fell in love with all of you. You know, they fell in love with this story.

And a lot of that is, you know, your mom. And, you know, she, in many ways, I feel like I know more about her than your dad. And also, you know, your dad's fame was at a time when, like, there was no computers that we had. There was no internet. There was, you know, like, it was a very different world. That was a time when you didn't even know what musicians looked like. You know, like, I used to listen to, like, you know, that kind of music on AM radio in Southern California. That's where you would get, you know, that kind of music.

I had no idea what anybody looked like. But, you know, your mom and, and you guys, you know, really became like this entity. Obviously, your parents have been public about sort of what their marriage was like and all those things. And I wonder, you know, where that kind of factored in to sort of not only your life, but also having to be public about that. Sure. Did you feel like there was a period of your teen years where, you know, you almost weren't functioning as your, you know, your mom's kid and your dad's kid because you were so public? Yeah. Yeah, it's, like I said, in the time when the Osbournes was really booming, my mom got diagnosed with cancer, so it kind of took her out of the parental role.

My dad kind of went down into a jar of shadows with that and started drinking and doing drugs again. My sister had, she was on like a tour. She released an album and was touring with like Robbie Williams all over the world. So I was just kind of like hanging out at a club in L.A. I was a teenager. So it definitely, like I said, fractured a lot of things as far as family went. And it was difficult. There's no way to kind of put around it.

I don't want to sit here and be like, oh, it was so rough. Because it was also really fun. And I also had some really amazing experiences. And I don't regret it at all because it set me on a path that I never in a million years ever thought I would go down. I want to ask a little bit. you know, we talk to a lot of people here, you know, many more people are affected by the family disease of alcoholism than I think any of us ever thought to think about. In the same way, many people have trauma, both capital T and lowercase T, that we didn't call that. We called it

just like, suck it up, like, sucks to be you. But, you know, one of the things that kind of comes up over and over again, this comes directly from the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, which you don't have to read if you don't want to. But the notion that, you know, alcohol is not the problem. Sobriety is the problem. Meaning, you know, we all have a God-shaped, we all have a God-shaped hole and we'll fill it with whatever. And for people who, you know, have a spiritual allergy, you know, as it were to alcohol, that's what goes in that, you know, God-shaped hole. And, like, you know, one is not enough and, or one is too many and, you know, there's not enough in the world to kind of satisfy that thirst. So when you think about you at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at, at,

at 13, what felt like the problem that needed the solution? I think it was, I think it was probably insecurity. The youngest of three, father who he was, not really knowing, I was never particularly good at school. You were dyslexic, got it. But did they call it that then? They did, they did. But there wasn't a great solution for it. That's actually one of the main reasons we've moved to Los Angeles

because there was a school that specialized and figuring out, okay, this is how these kids learn. Yeah. And so it was very difficult. And then I think I masked it with, well, I'll just, like, pump myself into, like, the music scene. And I can kind of, like, make my own way a little bit. There's some, obviously, there's some inroads there.

Right. But, like what you were saying earlier, I, I purposefully robbed myself of being a child because I was accepted more with adults than I was with kids. So I purposefully sort that out. And probably to, as I tell my kids, I always say enjoy being a kid. You only get 18 years of it. Like burn it down, do everything you want to do as a kid because the moment you turn 18, it starts to become really unfair.

Yeah. So when your mom was... diagnosed that it actually, I mean, that was an extra stressor, obviously, to the whole family. Your problems also must have felt much bigger. Is that, was that a progression that happened? I could just hide them because there was so much focus on my mom's health. I just kind of homo Simpson into the bushes and just proceeded to find every pharmaceutical I could. And it was at a time when it didn't matter if you were under the, under 21 and you could get into nightclubs and you get away with murder.

You've talked about, you know, prescription medication in particular. And, you know, I find the way that the lack of understanding and conversation about, in particular, the corporate role in the administration and, you know, and release of this kind of medication, you know, I feel like we should be like marching in the streets about it. It's like a thing that makes me, it makes my blood boil. And, you know, I have a 15 and 18 year old, and I'll be honest, like, it breaks my heart to think of you as a kid, you know, needing that level of escape, you know. What is getting sober from that kind of addiction like? Because it's like every cell in your body.

Yeah. Has to basically die so that a new one can replace it. And it is, I mean, what do you remember of that? I mean, you were still a kid. Yeah. I had to get detox at a child psychiatric facility because back then they they couldn't legally give me the detox medications at like a proper drug and an alcohol rehab facility because I was under 18. Wow. So I remember being in a full lockdown ward where it was kids that were in

there for being 51-50 or were dealing with significant psychiatric disorders ranging the whole. the whole spectrum. And I just, the amount of meds they had me on was really, it was strange. I could remember feeling everything was in slow motion.

But I remember sat, I was laying in a bed just watching a clock. But the clock looked like it was moving at like, like cartoon speed, like just flying around. But yeah,

I would lift up my arm and it felt like it was moving real slow. I was lucky to where I didn't have, too many, too much, a lot of people experience, like flu-like symptoms when they come off opiates. I was okay. It wasn't that bad for me, but I did have a lot of shakes. I was, you know, pretty nauseous, pretty, you know, there was a bit of vomiting, but it wasn't like, like, full flu type vibe. Uh-huh. But it was- How long were you there? I was there for 10 days, and then I got transferred to an actual child rehabilitation center, you know, under 18 place.

Also, that must have been really hard because even though you were technically under 18, you were almost 18, meaning you probably felt like a man inside and you had lived the life of a man. I'd been living an adult life for two plus years at that point. So when I'm being put in a place of, okay, now I have to ask if I can go to the toilet? Like, can I get a whole pass kind of thing? And I'm being put in a classroom. I dropped out of school. And so I was put in a classroom and you have to do your, you know, four hours, five hours a day of schoolwork. I'm like, what school work? I haven't been in school.

And they're like just, here's a workbook, do something. I'm like, okay. Wow. Yeah. Were you, I mean,

I'm assuming you were recognizable. Big, yeah. Was there privacy, like, around that or? Sort of, for a couple days. And then back then,

the press being what it was, the, they started calling the pay phone at the treatment center. And then they were, like, photographing me, like,

just like, in the, the yard. That's disgusting. Isn't it horrible? I mean, it's like really bad. Yeah. And you, you can't, it's so funny whenever you see like things today, whenever I see things

today and they're like, the press is so mean. I'm like, what? They just said they didn't like her shoes. I was, like, there was like radio DJs telling me I should kill myself. Right. It's rare that people can talk about what it's like to be suicidal. Yeah. And what that experience is like.

And, you know, there's a lot of talk, a lot of talk about it. And I think that's positive that we are talking about it. Sure. But, you know, we need to take very seriously when people are talking about suicide. Absolutely. And also, we need to be really careful that a lot of times when people talk about it, like, I felt suicidal. Like, we need to be careful to be clinically descriptive so that we can know what help, you know,

to get people when. And, you know, when I sort of try to make these distinctions just, you know, in sort of the way that we do here on the breakdown, it's like many people, and this is also something we never talked about, many people experience a feeling of not wanting to be alive. That's many teenagers and it's, you know, an epidemic. And there is a distinction also clinically between people who talk about it and people who start making plans and people who have access, you know, to those things. and, you know, there's a notion of not being sure you can not kill yourself, meaning the voices being so strong, the desire being so strong. You know, I believe that it is your business, how you experience that. The only thing I would like to ask you is, you know,

if there were people listening or watching who feel hopeless and who feel scared and who are not sure if they would be able to stop themselves if it came to that. I would love for you to however you feel comfortable. Sure, yeah. Like, what would you say to people? What would you offer? And from this perspective, I think what would you think might be helpful?

So I have to, there's two different lenses that I come at it from. Yeah. If I'm with my recovery lens, if I'm communicating with someone in recovery, my answer would be, go to a meeting, raise your hand, tell the room what's going on,

hang out with people after the meeting. Go to bed, call me in the morning. And it's, for me, the solution in that is, let's just shrink everything down. Let's not, okay, a day at a time, sure, that might be tough, but how about this? A meal at a time. Yeah.

Get to breakfast. Call me at breakfast, and we'll talk about getting to lunch. and that's what it takes. It's an hour at a time, we say, a minute at a time. Yeah. For me, though, like the hour, the minute, sometimes I need more of a goal. I need, like, okay, but lunch, like, lunch.

All right, well, where am I going for lunch? Or what am I eating for lunch? I can make a plan to get that. Right. Whereas a minute, I'm like, I don't know what I'm doing for the next minute. I might just, like, when I might pick my nose and I'll, like, go on Instagram, like, whatever. So that, you know, that's what my kind of where I would go recovery-wise.

Now, if I'm just talking to like a, you know, a man in the street where there's, where I don't know what kind of, you know, if they are engaged in any kind of program, anything like that, I think of anything, it's listening. Like, I'm not going to say it like, if you ask for my advice in the moment, but just, I would just say, hey, like, what's up? Like, where are you at? What are you thinking? I'm not going to get into the why. I'm not going to try and share my why I don't think you should, this, that and the other. Because it's not my, like, what, what in, I. I. know from my own experience when I'm in utter desperation, unless I'm asking for advice or help or anything, I'm not going to be open to receiving it. So I'm like, I would just say, hey, cool, vomit on me. Dump it all. And then if you want to pick it apart, we can. And is the notion, especially from where you're at now in your life, you know, looking back, you know, suicide is a permanent solution, you know, to what is often a temporary problem?

problem. What do you see sort of now that you wish, you know, 16-year-old you could have seen? My, someone very close to me in recovery said this to me in my first two weeks when I was sharing with him about, you know, I had made suicide attempts, this, that, and the other. He looked at me and he said, well, how do you know the pain? How do you know that would be a solution for the pain? How do you know that wouldn't make the pain get worse? And I was like, oh, shit. Like what? We don't know. We're, you know, there's the assumption of, oh, I'm going to stop this pain. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to do away with myself. Well, we don't know what's next definitively. We have some theories.

And I know I'm not willing to take that risk. Can't come back from that. And that stuck with me. It really stuck with me. And then he followed it up with there's got to be a reason you're here. Because the stuff I was doing and the way that I was abusing drugs and alcohol, I'm not sitting here like, Panama touting my, you know, touting my accomplishments in the bar room, but they were, by all accounts, pretty deadly. You know, I was drinking heavily while doing an awful lot of oxy cotton, and that combination doesn't really. No, your body doesn't like that.

Yeah, it likes to take the long sleep on that combo. Why do you have a sense of humor? Where does it come from? Um, I, I think a part of it as a defense mechanism, but I always, I, I don't know, I just have to find, I have to laugh at it. That's another thing. I always have to, I have the most screwed up, darkest, weirdest sense of humor. You know, it's, I just, I have to find a way to laugh. You chose to write a book. Yeah. It's years ago. Yeah. You know, almost, yeah, almost 15 years ago. Yeah. 20, yeah, almost 20 years ago. You chose to write an autobiography. What was that like? Did you want to write that?

Did you feel compelled to write it? Yes and no. Truth be told, it was like someone like offered me a huge check. And I was like, I'm 21. Like, what am I going to? But at that point, I'd experience some pretty cool things. I was sober at that point. I began doing some pretty intense adventuring.

And I just figured like, well, you know, if one person reads this and it gives them any kind of hope to change or try and change where they're at, like, great. Then that's worth it. That was kind of the reason behind it. Did bringing more attention to everything that happened and kind of bringing attention to yourself in a new way, did that put extra stress on you that felt in any way like, a threat to sobriety? I mean, I don't know what triggers, you know, your sobriety. Yeah, to me, it was a way to be more accountable. It was like, hey, if I'm going out there and I'm wearing this on my sleeve,

there's like a fad now of all this young Hollywood folk being like, I'm California sober or all this. It's like, okay. That's, we just call that not sober. Yeah, like, I'm sorry, sobriety, like, sobriety is pretty freaking binary, okay? A little bit. I'm with you here. It's one or the other.

Like, you don't get to apply the whole, like, we're out of the binary in society now. So. I'm a they when it comes to recovery. I'm recovery fluid. I don't mean to laugh at people. Like, you do you. But I agree. Oh, no, we can laugh at people. It's okay to laugh at people.

It's okay. No, but I also, it's a little bit like being a little bit pregnant. Yeah. It's a little bit like sort of having sex. Yeah. Like, that's at least, I mean, look, also, I know for me, you know, I sit, name a room besides the beverage one and I've probably sat in it and belonged there. So for me, there is no either or. Yeah.

You know, Alon is the only room. You know, if you know someone or love someone who's an alcoholic, you cannot stop nagging, managing, and controlling people, places and things. Like, I couldn't keep sobriety. If they gave out chips, I'd last about two minutes on average a day. But for every other program, it's, it is pretty binary. Like, I know when I'm binging. I know when I'm restricting. Like, it's for me.

Your family, besides your mom, you know, being diagnosed with cancer, you were diagnosed with MS. Yeah. Which is multiple sclerosis. And that was over 10 years ago. You were diagnosed when you were 26. Is that right? 26 or 26?

Wait, hold on. I do the math here. I was 26, yes. Okay. Do you like to describe what multiple sclerosis is for our friends at home? Or would you like me to? Go ahead.

Well, how about this? I'll give my explanation. I'm sure you're right. Wait, I don't know. It's your thing. But you've had edumication. I've had the internet and hour-long conversations every year with a doctor.

That's it. I'd like to ask two things. I'd like for you to explain to people what multiple sclerosis is. It's one of those things we kind of didn't talk about, you know, and many people have it. It tends to happen in women a lot, but also happens in men. Please tell us what multiple sclerosis is, and also can you talk about the years before that you had symptoms but didn't put it together because that's often what happens with multiple sclerosis? So multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune disease.

that in which your body attacks your nervous system. There is myelin around your nerve endings. Oh, he's talking to myelin. A fatty tissue, which essentially is the insulation to your nerves. And multiple sclerosis will eat away the myelin, thus exposing the nerve and eroding it over time. And then you will get calcification over that nerve, and it will cease to fire efficiently.

And then eventually it will shut. down. And this is one of those things that when people often present with symptoms and in particular women, they were often told like, it's in your head. You're fine. Like you're just, take some Advil. Like, you're just sleepy. Drink some caffeine. Like, maybe you need to masturbate. Like the dumb things, well, like the dumb things that doctors tell women when they come into things. But for people who have symptoms, it's often not pinpointed. So looking back, what were some of the things that you started noticing. So I was having things like that the first, the primary one was my legs went numb

for like three months. And it was a really weird kind of numb. Yeah, what does that mean? Like explain it to us. So if I would touch my legs, it would feel like even if I just had, I was not, didn't have any clothing on. So. I don't want to think of that. I touched my leg and it would feel like I had like clothing on. Like if you touch, you can kind of feel pressure, but you can't feel skin to skin. Oh. And then if cold water touched my legs, it felt burning hot. And if hot water touched my legs, it felt icy cold. And it was really odd. Like I, and it got me going. Like, what the hell was that? I was getting in the shower, my belt buckle touched my leg. And it was a cold belt buckle. And I was

like, ow, like, what the hell is that? I'd been at a festival. You've undressed twice in the last 30 seconds for me. Sorry. So there I was, slowly unbuttoning my pants. The steam of the show. And I'd be undress. shower filling the space. The metal of the belt buckle. Sorry. I'm very serious right now. There was some smooth jazz playing. Anyhow, I thought I'd just pinched it over my back.

I was at a festival and I'd twinged my back at one point that weekend. And I just thought that's what it was. Then I started having weird, like, bladder issues. I was, like, peeing every 30 seconds. And I was like, oh, my God, am I getting diabetes? Like, is that what this is? Or like it could be a UTI or like, who knows. Yeah, and so I just thought, and so between the numb legs and then that a couple months later,

but I had this weird inkling and I don't know why and I have no reason to. I remember I was in my garage like putzing about and I was like, wow, like everyone I know has got some kind of like ailment and is on some kind of medication. I'm not on any medication and then I had the thought of, but there's something wrong and I don't know what it is. And I have no idea why it just like, it was like a blip into my. head. Wow. And then my daughter was born in April of 2012 and I had to go, I was doing a go show and I was up in Utah and I went to go see Avengers of all movies. And when I was coming

home from the movie theater, we stopped at a gas station. I was talking to the, I was paying at the register and there's a little black dot just appeared in the center of my vision. It was like in, you know, movies when they changed the film, you see the little, it was like, blip. And then it just stayed. I was like, what the fuck? And I was like, okay, so I bought some I bought some Advil at the gas station. I was like, maybe I'm having a migraine

because I used to get like ocular migraines. Yeah. And the next morning, the little dot was like a cigar shape. Holy moly. And then by the end of the day, it was like a Tetris piece, like the L sideways. Yeah. And then within four.

Then you went to the doctor? And then 48 hours later, I was, I lost 95% of my central vision in my right eye. What were you doing for two? Two days still thinking it's going to go away? Taking Advil. Taking Advil. And giving yourself an ulcer because you really shouldn't take that much, I be perfect. Drinking tons of water, drinking coffee.

I'm like, it's a migraine. It's a migraine. I fly home. My ex-wife picked me up. We go to the eye doctor because it was my eye. And he knew what it was. But he couldn't say it because he's not a neurologist. Yeah.

So he was running all these tests and he's like, hey, I'm calling over to CEDA's. You need to go and get an MRI immediately. And he couldn't say why. He's like, there's something else going on here. And so I went over there and they put me in the scan-dun-dun-dun-d-d-machine. And, you know, hey, I won the lottery. That's a really, I mean, a very interesting, obviously,

very interesting description. And, you know, vision is often, vision and bladder are often, you know, some of those first signs. And, you know, there's not all the nerves in your nervous system are the same. and so certain are more susceptible to this demyelination. Yeah.

So that's why you often see those. That's really fascinating. And, you know, in terms of autoimmune conditions, you know, this is one you have relapsing remitting is that there's different, you know, types of multiple sclerosis. So are you on a regiment? Like, what do you do for it?

Because autoimmune conditions have a lot of different ways to, like, treat them, do this on people like cut out gluten you know i mean like there's things what is your like what's your life like with i'm the world's worst ms patient terrible i am do not follow or do whatever i do i'm the guy they're like well you can't do like high endurance things you shouldn't over exert yourself you shouldn't have too much stress you shouldn't have da da da da da i i mean i'm i stopped taking my medication about five years ago huh how do you feel i feel great i mean you're yeah do you i don't have You want to know why?

This is like the, and it frustrates my wife to kingdom come. I stopped doing it because I wanted to do an experiment on myself to see how long I could go without having a flare up. How's that going? I'm going five years strong. I'm fine with that. Touch wood. Wow. But I went to Germany and did a bunch of stem cell about two years after my diagnosis.

Oh. And who's stem cell? Somebody else's. No, they were mine. Yeah. They regenerated them. Yeah. Yeah, they took them out of my blood, harvested them over 10 days.

Wow. And then plugged them back in. I have so many jokes about German stem cells, but I won't make them. I mean, believe me, I made them all to their face. They looked at me at one point, and they're like, oh, you know, where we are, we send them off to the oldest stem cell clinic in Germany. Stop it. And I'm like, oh, cool, thinking, oh, 1970s, 1947. And I'm just, and then the Nazi jokes just started flying.

Stop! Stop! I just did. Can't. I'm like, wow, okay. That's when you pull out your mother's father's card. Oh, yeah. fully. Absolutely.

You're like, I will benefit from these stem cells. Yes, I will. It is the least you can do. Yep. I mean, I've had to know about stem cells at some point in my life. So they take your blood. Yep. Like, to walk us through it.

They take your blood out. And then there's these pluripotent, like, amazing magic cells. Great. Yes. And then they put them back in. Yes. Anywhere? They just, they come out with like a super soaka and they just squirt you.

You bathe in them? Yep. No, what they did was... Skin infusion? No. actually. So while they're harvesting them over 10 days, they injected them back in, but I'll get to kind of why and where they did what they did. So over the 10 days, I had like healation therapy, ozo therapy, like crazy detox, pull out all this craziness in my blood and body

and kind of purify myself. Yeah. Because the way that they explained it was stem cells will go off to things that are broken and heal. So let's try and get you healed inside as much as possible, get your gut health dialed in. So after the 10 days, they were like, okay, here's what we're going to do. Here's your little vial of like it came in. You. Yeah.

We think we can inject it into your optic nerve and it can heal your eyesight. And I'm like, okay, so what does that look like? We take a needle and it goes under your eyeball into your eye. And I'm like, so you want to stick a freaking needle under my eyeball into my mouth. Do you want a liver, don't you, Jack? My response was, nope. And so they injected the stem cells into my lymphatic system.

Wow. And they did that to... How they do that? They just kind of feel around to the lymph nodes, and they just thought plugging them into my lymph nodes. And it was their mindset was, you have an autoimmune disease, so let's get your immune system as bright and shiny new as we possibly can.

Right. So... Do you do it? anything else? I have an autoimmune condition that is thyroid because that's where God decided to punish me. Wait, that's the only thing of God? Because there's other things. But you're lucky. No, and what I meant was not that God was punishing you. I meant that God was like, let's take her thyroid out. So I'm a- Because you don't need that. It's not important at all. So there are certain, do you do other things? I know you do a lot of advocacy. And also, I should say,

you're not a spokesperson for people going off their medication for MS. No, hell no. Like I have, you know, I have friends who get chemo for MS. Like there are many, many ways to treat many different kinds of MS. And everybody's MS is different. It depends on the lesions and where the lesions are. And so, like, this is not, you know, Jackie and like, don't take your pill. I'm pretty stupid.

No, but I'm not going to say that. But what I do believe is true is that you are responsible for your decisions. Yes. And so many times in the medical world and also you've been through the, the medical ringer. Like, you've had people poking and prodding you, even in the name of helping you, you've been poked and prodded. So you also get, like, the dignity to, you know, to live your life. But are there other things that you do? I mean, you're very active, and that's really awesome. But yeah, are there other things? I do a ton of active things. Exercise, crossfit, jujitsu,

I surf, I rock climb. My whole thing is, I have a disease that wants to stop my body from moving, so don't let it. Just keep moving no matter what. Right. If I have, if something happens, I'll just figure out a way to work around it. That's kind of been my, my mindset with it. So, yeah, that's kind of, and but I do believe in diet and exercise for this. Sure. I think that gut health has a huge, is a huge component to any autoimmune. That's just my theory.

No, it's a thing. I mean, inflammatory foods, you know, all the hippies I knew who were like, I don't eat nightshades. I was like, you're ridiculous. And then, like, I got an autoimmune condition. They're like, are you eating nightshades? I was like, yes. So, yeah, those things are things. Oh, you don't eat night shades, do you?

It's like a tomato. Your dad has Parkinson's, which is, you know, a neurological disorder of a different variety. But also, you know, when you talked about kind of slowing down and my father had a Parkinson's-related disease that he died of, he had multisystem atrophy, which looks a lot like Parkinson's, but also looks kind of like Lou Gehrig's. What have you learned sort of in your, you know, you are a young man. He's an older man. What have you learned when you sort of think about the movement of your body and your abilities versus that of your parents? I've learned that I can't say shit to my dad because he just won't listen.

Is he also a bad patient? Terrible. Well, actually, no. No, he's not. If a doctor would be like, okay, Mr. Osborne, you're going to paint your head purple and dip it in feathers and run through the street. treat naked and you'll be cured. My dad would have to be like, okay, doctor. If a doctor says it, that's what it is. Which is great, but there's a lot of things which can benefit which

aren't in a textbook. And doctors have to, you know, they can only tell you what's in the textbook or what they have been taught from said manuscript. And I, yes, that's a wealth of knowledge. Like, do you want him to do cryotherapy? I'm curious what you want him to do. No, I like food and food. Oh, you mean like actually eating things that help your body and not eating things that don't. Totally. Got it. My dad is like my dad just will, I mean, he gets locked in on certain things and that's all he'll eat. Celebrity dads. They're just like the rest of dads. Right. They're just like us. It's, you know, and stuff like, hey, go do yoga. Go go do pola. Go do low impact stuff that's going to strengthen your body because your body wants to not Your body wants to just essentially kill you right now.

So fight that. They don't listen. No, parents don't listen. They really don't. Do you think we're going to be like that when we're old with our kids? I mean, look, I'm already such a hippie that, like, I don't know what's going to happen. You know, my parents were documentary filmmakers and they, like, got tear gassed. You know, like, the mall in Washington.

Like, they protested Vietnam. Quit bragging. And no. But, you know, they got, I mean, my father passed away almost. a decade ago. But, you know, they became a little more, like, socially conservative as they got older. And, you know, they were like, should we have been in Vietnam? Like, I don't, maybe we should like, like, you know, it got a little bit, like, murky there. But for me, like, I'm like this, like, Marxist, like, total, like, granola, like, crystals and, like, maybe oras are a thing

kind of scientists. Wait, can you be a Marxist and, like, crystals? Because I'm pretty sure Marxism, they would have, like, literally marched you out of field and shot you from. being a witch. My thing is that only women get asked those questions. The way that I, the reason I know that you can be a Marxist and believe in crystals is that I am. And I believe in crystals. You think therefore you are. I think therefore I am. I'm allowed to be all the things. But anyway, so my kids, you know, I wonder what they're Jewish. Marxism wasn't that favorable. He was, well, I mean, okay, you don't have to get into like communism and socialism here. No, but the, the, the, the, I should say, I'm more of a democratic socialist.

I'll back off on Marxism. I'm more of a democratic socialist, which is the structure of like also like the Kippwood system was originally found out on like socialist democratic principles. Anyway, what I wonder is like are my kids going to become like staunch conservatives? Like just to be different from me. Yeah, fully. My older one really likes a conservative haircut.

Oh, fully. Yeah. You're going to see him wearing a blazer and a red tie. No. He's already got his maga hat on order. And I'm like, let's learn about ayahuasca. He's like, mom. I'd like to talk about jiu-jitsu. Yeah.

I did, I did jiu-jitsu in college. Awesome. Whoa, so ahead of the game. Well, you know what? It's funny because I... Eat that, Rogan. You got like 20 years on him. A little bit.

I did Brazilian jihitsu, like the Gracie school. You know, I used to watch, I used to watch that stuff. of fighting and I, um, since I had kids, it's very hard to watch aggressive. Like, even football is like, oh, someone's child. And I used to love football. That's how I became. What how the mother's lady, lady hormones. Yeah, it happened. It's a thing. Anyway, um, but, um, I love jujitsu. Um, I now do taekwondo, which is a little gentler on the joints and, and parts, um, but. So you don't want to get wrist locked? Wow. No, but I do want to arm bar my children. Okay. I do still try, still triangle them. Now that they're older, they're like, oh. But it's a very creative sport in that you really are,

like if you want to get philosophical about it, which I do, you know, that's a sport where you're literally working with whatever works. Meaning you are using all leverage points and, you know, amazing principles of your body mechanics and physics. But there's kind of no rules, you know, like taekwondo and those kind of disciplines have a lot of discipline and form. And we do, you know, very specific things. And, you know, there's like a, you know, a way that you move your elbow and your hand so that it's perfect. And we also do self-defense.

But can you talk a little bit about sort of the, like, what Jiu-Jitsu does for you in particular? For me, I love it because it's a game. And I love, I love video games. I grew up playing them. I love that. My brain was pre-tuned to like, oh, I have a mission. I have to figure out how to complete that mission.

It's a puzzle. Yeah. And, and I just love it. It's, it's, it's, I'm using. my body to try and submit you with only, you know, my two arms, two legs, your two arms, two legs, your neck,

you know, your wrist, your ankles. Right. So it's a, yeah, it's just a, and it's brutal and it's fun, and it's an amazing way to just get out everything. And it's kind of like meditation. Because you are, if you're,

I find if I'm doing jiu-jitsu and my mind is elsewhere, I'm useless. You have to be so present and in the now and experiencing that second every second. You have four daughters. I do. You make girls, as it were.

Yes, only. Are they athletically inclined? So my eldest showed a bit of interest in Jiu-Jitsu. She was doing really well, and then she got a little butt hurt from a boy there. He shoved her, and she was like, like, I don't like that. She said she got butt-hurted. Yeah.

He was a little too rough with her. I get what to me. Yeah. She didn't like it. And I don't blame me. Well, he was. It was a little like, hey, you know, she's, that's like, you're much bigger than her. It doesn't matter that was a boy or girl, but still, you know.

Size matters in Jiu-Jitsu. And then my eight-year-old was a phenomenal gymnast. And I say was because she quit because she was so damn good. And that's what, like, drive. You liked it too much. If you give it too much attention, they give up on us. Well, that's actually what I think it was. But she went to this amazing.

amazing gym, but she was training 20-something hours a week. Oh, wow. It was a proper, like, they'd had Olympians come through there. And it was like the real deal. She did one tournament, cleaned up, placed in every thing. And it was, she was, she was winning at it. Wow. And so she did what every kid does and being like, nah, I'm just going to, like, I don't know, do something else.

So that's number two. That's number two. Okay. Number three, she's just like, this. little happy, bubbly, you know, third child. We'll find out. We'll say. Yeah, exactly. She's pretty chill. She wants to do dance. And then Maple, she doesn't know yet.

She's just crawling. Yes, I was going to say. No one knows yet. You were recently married. Yes. So congratulations. Thank you very much. And you were married before. It also happens. How are you enjoying this go-round? Much better. Yeah. I mean, you're different.

Well, yeah. And I think I actually saw your divorce and then your follow-up divorce thing. And I appreciate the honesty from that because there's so much, like I'm saying it twice now, you don't know what you don't know when you go through a divorce. For me, it was like, okay, this is what I need. I never thought about what life would look like with a new partner. I never realized the emotional impact, only having 50% of my kids, it's terrible.

I'm like, oh my God, by the time they're 18. I would have only had them for nine years. I don't get the full 18 years. I can speak to them. I can go see them if I want up my ex-wife's house. But like I don't get to put them in bed every night. I don't get to. It sucks.

And especially with girls. And it's, that's something that has been as of late. You mean girls because they actually like you for longer? Yeah. My girls love me. Like I'm like the main. And it's so funny.

My eldest, she'll come in and she's like, so there's this boy, have a crusher. She tells me everything. It's like, yeah. But she's at that age now where she's becoming a woman, but she's such like a bro. She walks through the house like drying her hair naked. And I'm like, put some freaking clothes on. Like, no. Kids are gross. Yeah. Well, you know, it's their job. I wonder, especially as you're older is, you know, nearing the age that you were than when kind of like your life became public and also complicated in different ways. How do you not freak out?

How do you frame it so that you're not that person who's overcompensating for what you're afraid might happen? How does that work for you? I try to remove shame as much as I can because shame breeds secrets. And I always tell my eldest, because she's getting to that kind of dipping into some mischief and starting to play games in not cool ways.

And my thing to her is, just don't lie to me. I don't care what you're doing. If you can't be truthful, we have nothing. So that's my approach to it. And from my own experience, I felt so much shame. And I felt so much, you know, my sisters were always like, make fun of me for stuff. I just felt just pushed down a lot. And I try and do the opposite to them.

Because that to me is, because if she's going to come in and be like, hey, dad, I want to try weed. When she's whatever age, I'll be like, okay, if that's what you want to do, do it here. I'll create a safe environment for you. You can try it.

You want to watch her be stoned? I'm not going to watch her. I'm just going to create an environment and then go in the other room. Yeah, I don't want to think about it. Yeah, but they're going to do it. And here's the weird thing. I'm sure you're realizing this now.

Everyone I know who's got teenagers, it's like they're not really doing any of the hard stuff. It's mushrooms and weed now. Like, that's just the norm. I mean, I couldn't get them to leave the house for years. Like, because COVID was such a strange, you know, the best years of my life as a parent of teenagers, I was like, I know where everyone is. I know what they're doing because they don't leave. Right.

There's nothing coming in and there's nothing going out. Yeah, that's weird. I was like, I know no one's pregnant because of my child. That's what I said. Yeah, the, I mean, look, I've been, I've talked a lot with my kids. And I don't know, you know, my ex-husband, we don't compare notes on everything. We compare notes on a lot of things. But, you know, I've decided to not have secrets from my kids either, you know,

while many aspects of my life weren't on television or, you know, like kind of in the news. Like that way, of course, like I have experience. experiences in life. And I do make sure to, like, be that person to remind them how different the quality of drugs is, meaning, you know, like the pot that you would get in the 80s and 90s was a bit of like black mush that like came from somewhere far away, like, you know, that was brought over many borders. And, you know, it definitely was potent and it, you know, had an impact, as it were. It did its job. It did its job, but, like, usually you got hungry and sleepy, you know? And, you know, the notion of things being cut with other things is an experience that many of us have experienced, which is very, very bad and can make you go to the hospital. And yes, when you talk about, like, let's experiment with things that are like, pills that come and we don't know where they're from. Like, those are different conversations. And so I definitely am that person. And also, you know, the you

of alcohol and of weed in particular, I make sure to be that. This is just my choice. I make sure to tell my children that while those things may not land you, you know, in an overdose situation in the hospital, they are the most insidious things because our literally our media tells us that they're good, smart, wise, and okay. And we are given every excuse to numb. That's really what it is. And if you can do that in moderation, God bless you. But if you have any family history of any ism, and I'll throw in like gambling, food, porn, like sex, relationships, codependency, or alcohol, you probably want to assume that there's something in your genes that's going to really like being numb.

Yeah. And that's what I say. Like, I don't care if you tell me weeds not addictive. Not feeling pain is addictive. Yeah. not feeling emotional pain is addictive. Yeah. Yeah, the excuse of we don't being addictive.

I'm like, yeah. It's like, yeah. Yeah, okay, then why? I'm a lot more fun when I'm stoned and drunk. I mean, I'm not drunk, but I always say after a glass and a half, I'm a much more social person. I can go places I would never go. I just, at this point, choose to stay home and not drink.

Like the cockpit of the plane. Really? Over here. I'm coming in. That's right. I would like to ask, do you believe in therapy? Like, are you a therapy person? Yeah, yeah.

Like psychotherapy? Uh, meaning like talk therapy? Yes, talk therapy. Okay, because some people like cognitive behavioral therapy or like whatever. I believe, I think that it all can. Do you, like, do you, are you a therapy person? Yeah, go therapy. You go like, you talk about your feelings and what happens in the week?

Yeah. Yeah, I go. I have like a monthly check-in right now with my current therapist. Right. You know, me and my wife have a therapist we go to. And yeah, it's, I mean, it's been part of my life since I was there. Very, very young. Actually, pre-getting sober.

Huh. Do your, are your parents' therapy people? By therapy people, meaning that they sent all their kids to therapy, yes. But they themselves going? Fuck, no. Why would they ever want to examine anything about themselves? They are perfect. I mean, I know a bit about your mom.

She seems like a person who might like to talk about her feelings. Okay, maybe not. Okay. No, my mom does not. They're very British, very old school, and they came up in a time where it's like, No, we don't talk about feelings. This is kind of a funny question.

You're a very nice person. Yeah? Like, Am I? I don't know. You're a very nice person and that's what I had heard from people. You know, like, oh, he's like really nice. I'm not going to ask you like why you're nice because like that's a dumb question.

But I guess what I'm curious about, you know, for me, like so much of my life has been making other people feel comfortable, good, happy, whatever. Like, I'm a performer. It's my job. You know, like, literally, it's my job. I wonder, do you feel like you have to be nice? No. Okay, but, like, do you just feel, like, you just seem like a very positive person?

Like, you're, you have a good sense of humor. You seem to, any insecurity that you talked about, you know, I'm not saying, I'm sure you have your insecure moments, but, like, you seem pretty comfortable with. On the drive home, I'm probably going to cut myself and smish shit on my window. No. No, but I'm like, and I don't mean to, like, it's hard to, it's kind of like asking someone, are you sincere? Meaning I don't want to be like, is this really you?

But are there parts of you that feel like I have a good integration of my public self and who Jack actually is? In my adult life, I don't put a lot of emphasis in my public, in my public, like, oh, this is, this is the constructed me. I think at home, I'm probably a little more. probably a little more bossy with my kids than I would be with you. Right.

I'm gonna... If Jonathan were here, he'd be like, she likes being boss around. You should boss around. Did you brush your fucking teeth today? That's right. Yes, I did. Getting sober and working the steps,

for me, it's an ego deflating process. And I know that cliche ego is not my am ego. And I was talking about it with my wife today because we were listening to a podcast and they were talking about kind of popularity versus success. And I have no desire to be popular. I just want to succeed. And my reason for succeeding is to provide for my family.

That's it. I don't want to succeed to get a billboard or a star on the street or I don't care about that. I just want to know that my child. family's good. That's it. It's really funny you chose those words because when I asked you, why are people so fascinated with your family eight hours ago when we started talking? Your response was, here's why I think the Osbournes were successful. And my mind started kind of like, I don't know if you saw

smoke coming out of my ears because I was like, do people, are people being interested in you the same as you being successful? People can be interested in you're not successful, but because you were successful because people were interested. So it's kind of interesting that you just talked about that. It's a different measure of success. Yeah. Yeah. And I, but I think that, that was popularity.

Right. Because I wasn't succeeding at anything. I was just living at, I was living at home as a teenager and getting paid to do that. Right. As an adult, very different with kids, even more so. It's, it kind of puts that into hyperdrive because if I fail, now I failed a family as far as career goes. And I don't, I just, I mean, you've been doing this longer than I have, but like, I just like, I just don't care.

Mm-hmm. I don't, like, I'm, I don't want to go to a party. I don't want to go to a reward show. I don't want to. Because it doesn't. You have to go, Jay. You do, but it doesn't matter. Right.

My journey has always been in pursuit of, in my adult life has been in the pursuit of things which, uh, nourish me. Mm-hmm. More than just financially. Mm-hmm. You have an interesting smattering of tattoos, and some are, you know, more what we would call more of, like, the traditional style. And then some are what the kids do, which is, I call them like stamps. They just look like someone put a bunch of stamps on you.

There's one that's a little ladder. It's like a slide. Yeah. What is it? I'd like to know the significance of it. So there was a tattoo parlor in Hollywood that did Friday the 13, $13.13 tattoos. Wow. And it's a 13 going down a slide.

because it's funny. And then I have a, I have a, I have a few 13s. I have a 13 anchor. Yeah. Got it. Yeah. I'm done.

Tattoes hurt though. I'm done with it. Well, like, really. Yeah. Where can people find out all the things that they should know about where to see you, where to look at your podcast, all the things.

So, uh, the Allsborns podcast. Yes. Just go to YouTube, Instagram. Just look up the Allsborns podcast. podcast. Ghost and Grit. You can find it on my Instagram, which is at Jack Osborne, or there's a, I think we're going to do a Ghost and Grit Instagram. And then, yeah, my TV shows are on Discovery Plus, Max, and Travel Channel. Amazing. Because it's all one big, giant monster now.

Well, thank you so much for being here. It's really been a pleasure to talk to you. And I learned a lot. And I hope you did do. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have. We'll see you next time. It's my and Bialics breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. She's got a Neurosites, Ph.D. or two. Fun fiction. And now she's going to break down. So break down.

She's going to break it down.