Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Steve-O Part 2: I’ve Beaten Bigger Odds Than This

Episode Date: September 1, 2022

Part 2 of our interview with Steve-O! (Jackass, A Hard Kick in the Nuts book, Steve-O’s Wild Ride podcast) Steve-O discusses life after clown college, including his job performing as a clown on a cruise ship, finding his bottom, and the intervention that friend and fellow Jackass castmate Johnny Knoxville organized for him. He reveals why he finally decided to take his stay in a mental health facility and sober living home seriously, his advice for those who want to do what he does, and the value enthusiasm has over talent or intellect. Steve-O opens up about feeling funnier now that he lives a sober life than he ever was while he was under the influence, and explains why his value is made up of more than his skills as a performer. See Steve-O on Tour: https://www.steveo.com/pages/tour-dates Pre-Order Steve-O's New Book: https://www.hachettebooks.com/titles/stephen-steve-o-glover/a-hard-kick-in-the-nuts/9780306826771/ Steve-O's Podcast: https://www.steveo.com/pages/podcast BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I live a double life where, like, I'm looking for ways to fit bigger things up my butt. At the same time, I'm making sure that I do right by my girl and never tell a lie. It's Myambialic's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you because, you know, she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. Hi, I'm Myambiolic, and welcome to the Thursday breakdown. This is the place where we break things down so you don't have to. And it's a Thursday because this is part two of our, what I think is a very interesting conversation with Stivo.

In our first episode, if you haven't listened to it, you can probably still enjoy this one on its own. But finding out how Stivo got from his first language of Portuguese growing up with a corporate Pepsi Cola father, very, very kind of wealthy privileged upbringing to, clown college and lots of drugs and alcohol, not really showing up for life in the way that we now know he can. We highly recommend you have a listen to part two of Steve-o. Jonathan, do you want to add anything before we get into part two? Skateboarding was in the previous one. He starts getting into stunts. He has a video camera. He drops out of school. There's a ton of material in the first one if you haven't listened. I mean, he went to clown college. You can also jump in here.

Yes. Jump in with us. And also he went to clown. And also it's a clown college. And he tells all about it. But in this episode, we're going to talk about kind of what happened after clown college, what his bottom was, what his visits to the mental institution looked like, and where his life is now. Also, steveo.com for all things, Steve O and his new book. Yes. A hard kick in the nuts.

What I've learned from a lifetime of terrible decisions. He says it's his juiciest book yet, but also full of insight. Steve O, welcome back to the breakdown. Break it down. At the point when I was accepted to clown college, my primary source of revenue was drug dealing. I was selling like weed. And it actually remained that way after clown college because I did not get a contract. I was not one of the ten clowns who was awarded a contract with the circus.

So I came back to where I lived in Albert Kirk, New Mexico, with a very fancy clown costume, which I hung in the closet. And it just hung in the closet while I continued to sell wheat. The people who did get contracts with the circus, I was just so kind of heartbroken at that point because I fell in love with the dream of becoming a clown. I would have dreams when I was in the circus and I'd wake up and I wasn't. and I'd just be in a morass of depression. Was that the correct use of the word morass? I think so. It sounded right.

I was trying to sound smart. Do you know why you weren't offered a contract? Like, was there something that those 10 had that you did? Because, like, for me, I'll always make up the story of like, well, none of them have prominent features, you know. Was there some reason? I told you about how I got my head stapled together in the first week. Oh, yeah.

I was drunk every night. Yeah, that might be reasons, but I wasn't judging. The general consensus was this guy doesn't want to be a clown. He wants to be a stunt man. What's he doing here? What an asshole. So yes, I was heartbroken by the end of it to not get the contract. And I dealt with it. The only way that I knew how was to just step it up with my crazy stunts. And I really took the stunts to another level. And I was so happy with the footage that I was getting. I put, together a compilation video of all this awesome new stuff. And I mailed VHS videotapes to the clowns who were actually on the circus, just so that they could know how awesome I was. Like, I'll show you clowning around.

Exactly. That was a big thing for me. Like the girl who broke my heart by dumping me, like she got a videotape for me in the mail every year. Was this before sobriety, one might imagine? Oh, yeah, for sure, for sure before it's Friday. And so the job that the clowns had on the circus for the Ringling Circus was really pretty bad. I mean, they were making like $235 a week at the point when my class went into the circus.

So if there ever was a question about whether the Ringling Brothers and Barnumbelly Circus abused its animals. my answer was always, of course they do. Look how they treat their people. I don't mean to laugh, but that's a very interesting way of putting it. Yeah, look how they treat their people and extrapolate it. And then you can assume that, yes, the animals were abused, except the animals got a much shorter end of the stick, which is why it all went away.

But, you know, justifiably so. And especially after like that big nationwide, you know, like huge, recruiting effort. What they really had done is isolate to, you know, unearthed, like real legitimately talented people. And then they were having a lot of difficulty keeping those talented people for the bullshit they were paying them. And they had a lot of people leave. They, you know, would bring in other people. Like, it was just a little bit of a disaster. And I think that that's largely why the clown college ended after my class. But among the disgruntled clowns that were actually on the circus, a few of them got a gig going on Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, which was dramatically better.

It paid, I want to say, 600 bucks a week, maybe 650. And you weren't crammed into a six by three closet on a train for 50 weeks a year. you're actually on a fairly luxurious cruise ship with your own cabin and no expenses whatsoever. And you're a permanent vacation. So they got this cool job and it was called interactive performers where the, like you would essentially be in clown makeup like once or twice a week. Every night you would warm up the crowd in the theater before their big Broadway style show. And you would like have designated times to go travel around in different characters. that you would assume and entertain the passengers just on the ship. And they got this gig going.

They needed to fill some more spots. And they had remembered seeing my fuck you video of all my sense. And they thought that for some of the skills that I demonstrated in the video that I mailed to the circus, they thought of me and they recruited me for that job. How long did you do that? I did that. I had a contract for six months. That was my first clown job.

Before that, I was actually making some money dressing up as a clown and performing in a nightclub. I'd get drunk and do fire breathing acrobatics in a nightclub. And, you know, I made very little money, but I got to drink for free. And they fired me because I was drinking too much. I see a pattern here. Right, a real pattern. But off I went on to Royal Caribbean Caribbean. cruise lines with a six-month contract to be an interactive performer. And what was exciting about

that was that the actual interactive performer job title, there was just a training, like a training program for the big launch of what was going to be the world's largest passenger vessel. The biggest cruise ship on Earth was about to set sail on the maiden voyage. They were building it over in Turku, Finland. And what we were doing for our six-month contract was just simply an exercise and training for this exciting new program that was going to be a part of this new ship. And I had a, I was part of a troop of four clowns working on this ship. And I had like a, like in my view, a badass skill set. I could entertain anybody, anywhere, any situation. I could like, I had like bar tricks.

I had out, all this is great skills. I didn't see that these other clowns I was working with had rad skills. The stuff that they were trying to write, the little performances, I didn't think they were funny. I didn't think they were rad. I didn't respect the clowns I worked with. And I made that pretty abundantly clear. And I felt that I had job security because I was, you know,

I did well with entertaining people. But the other clowns felt disrespected by me. They made a pact. They went to the cruise ship brass. And they said, if Stivo comes back for another contract, we all quit. It was a clown, a clown mutiny. So the boss clown, who is from the circus who scored the gig in the first place, there was there were four boss clowns.

And we were the next troop underneath with a, The boss clown called a meeting with me and he said, hey man, I'm going to tell you something and you got to keep it to yourself because if anybody finds out I'm going to lose my job. But the clowns in your troop went behind your back and they made it so that your contract's not being renewed. And I still had another solid two months on my contract. And I could not let on that I knew that they had gotten me fired. But he said, hey, I'm just telling me because I think what they did was kind of was, was, was, was. was kind of lame. They didn't have the balls to tell you,

but you're not coming back for another contract. So you need to call up your skateboard buddies. His exact words, he says, you need to call these skateboard buddies and drum something up because this job's ending for you at the end of your contract. We were in Miami at that point, getting ready to board a flight to Turku, Finland,

where the world's largest passenger vessel was being built. And it was like a crazy situation there was a fire that burns through like 10 floors. We had everything was behind schedule. It was a construction site. We had to be wearing hard hats to go to our cabins. And we were learning at this point,

like scripted routines. We had a swing dance number that we were performing on stilts, which just looked about as awful as you can imagine. And like, there were actual scripts to learn lines. And I was rehearsing all of these acts, which I knew I would never. perform. I mean, my contract ended at the end of the crossing of the Atlantic, the crossing of the Atlantic before the maiden voyage. I get it. And then the next, the next contract was to begin with the actual first like voyage. And I knew that I was, I was, I was rehearsing and learning, working my ass off to perfect these performances, which I knew I would never perform.

And I could not let on. That's Sisyphian, right? Like that is Sisyphus, pushing a rock, right? You were pushing a rock up a hill, but you, like, even knew, well, you know what's going to happen at the top. And it was so great, too, because they paid us every two weeks in cash. One day, with one of the clowns in my troop, we were doing the weekly report. Now, I have killer typing skills because when the summer when I turned 16 years old, my dad said, now you're 16, you have two choices, either get a summer job or go to secretary school

and learn how to type because I predict computers are going to become more prevalent in our society. And dad said this in 1990. Like, it's so awesome that my dad is that rad. Like 1990. The internet didn't come along until 96, right? So dad's predictions were solid. I went to secretary school. I learned out of type.

And now when I'm on the cruise ship, I'm the guy typing up the weekly report for the cruise ship brass. While my clown partner is sitting there with idle hands, and as I typed, this guy grabs a stapler off the desk in the cruise ship office. He opens it up and just wax his arm with it, leaving a staple in his arm. And I'm like, whoa, I'm thinking, that was the coolest thing I've ever seen. That was rad.

I loved it. And so the next time we got paid, and we got paid, there's $100 bills. And like 1,200 of them, like $600 a week. I filmed a bit called the $1,000 man. And I stapled $100 bills, 10 of them across my arms, like down my arms, across my chest and it was like my first staple bit and I would go on to take the staple bit further and further. The staple bit went very far. My Ambialx 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

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Make this the year you stop guessing about your health with superpower. 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 Ambiotics Breakdown to help support the show. So many people know, obviously, many of the awesome, crazy, bizarre, hilarious things that you kind of went on to do. But in the rest of our time with you, I do kind of want to focus in a little bit on, you know, your road to sobriety, which getting clean, getting sober, like, that's one part of it. But the other parts that people kind of rarely talk about is kind of actually what the living was like.

because, you know, like counting days and counting years, that's one part of sobriety. But, you know, you introduce the word bipolar. You introduce, you know, concepts of depression, both in your writing and kind of in your living. And you also spent some, I don't want to say significant time, but emotionally significant time in a facility. And, you know, that's, that's a place that the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous says, like the kind of drinking and partying that many do will lead to insanity or death. And they used to put people in these, like sanatorium. Like they didn't know what to do with people. So you obviously were getting sober and living at a time where there was a lot more conversation about it. But can you sort of explain like what was bottom? Like what did it look like and sort of how do you keep moving from what your bottom was? Bottom is when you stop digging. Like that's my favorite way of looking at it. And I mean, that's the most like well documented thing. I would say the fact that when I I reached the end of my run, Johnny Knoxville organized an intervention and came over with, like there were a group of eight guys and they were fully prepared to overpower me and force me

into a psychiatric ward for a 72 hour evaluation, which is also known as a 50-150. And 72 hours would not have done the trick. When I showed up, I was I was properly. belligerent. Like I was spitting on people and stuff and trying to throw furniture around. And so they did two things. They changed my status from 5150, which is a 72-hour involuntary psychiatric hold or evaluation. They changed that to 5250, which is an involuntary psychiatric hold for up to two weeks. And at the Thalian's medical unit of the Cedar Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, they had two wings. There was, I think it was East Wing and West Wing. Like one was for, of the psych ward. And one wing of the psych ward was for sort of standard issue, harmful to yourself or

others. And then the other wing was for like the something else people. You know, like over and above, like above and beyond harmful to yourself and others. And I was on the something else wing for the first maybe four days or five days. Somebody gave me a copy of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous. And it's really weird. I'm kind of programmed to not say that at a public level of media, but you know, like you said big book and like, uh, it's what it was. It was good. They gave me the soft cover version, which is more difficult to hurt yourself with, as they wouldn't allow you to have the hardcover version in the psych ward. But he gave to this guy identified himself as a, uh, as a heroin addict. He said that, uh, he was like,

this book could help me like, you know, I thought, I'm just thinking of what, like, why is a heroin addict giving me a book about alcoholism? And like, he's telling me, he cares about me, wants me to get better while we're both on suicide watch in like, you know, this gnarly psych word. And I didn't want to be weird and I grids and sort of graciously accepted the book. But I never, the idea for me at that point of treating alcoholism was just so foreign. You know, like, I mean, my view of myself was that I was beyond hell. Right. And also you're experiencing your own version of hell because they've taken away all of your drugs.

They've taken away everything that was protecting you from being in touch with yourself. And that's very painful. That is true as well. You know, on top of coming from a long line of alcoholic. on my mom's side of the family. It never skipped a generation. It was 100% of every leaf on the tree. And so I came by it honestly. I'm a pedigree alcoholic, you know, thoroughbred, like full blood, just in the grips of it. I could not fathom the idea that I could ever be clean and sober. it was just so like my my core belief was that I was beyond help that I was a lost cause and as such I

there was no solution for alcohol I'd seen everybody in my family every time they they swear off drinking they always drink again without fail 100% of the time like so I just let go and let alcohol that was just my my deal and then so yeah the guy gave me the book and I wasn't there was absolutely no purpose for me to open this book because there was no solution for me. That was, again, my core belief. But one night in that psych ward, and thank God I was in the psych ward because there was nothing else to do and I couldn't sleep. And I was all right.

So I just opened the book and just read it from again strictly to kill time. There was absolutely no part of me that thought I was looking for help from this book. But as I read it from the beginning, there's the about alcoholism, you know, like the doctor's opinion. Like there's a, and there's Bill's story. Right. It actually goes the doctor's opinion and then Bill's story comes first. I think it's that actually before Bill's story and the doctor's opinion, it says specifically that alcoholics who were hopeless, hopeless alcoholics, who were determined to die, who became sold on the ideas in this book,

went on to become the finest specimens of people that you could ever hope to meet. And of course I could relate to hopeless because like, you know, there's no, like a glass cannot be less than empty. You know, like, like that I was as hopeless as could possibly be in my alcoholism. And, you know, determined to die, I had that covered too. I was on suicide watch like, but like I earned it. You know, I didn't, I promised that I was going to attempt to take my life.

And that's why I was in there. So I related so much. And the way that it described the guy going into the barn and trying to die. and you know and then a couple years later they don't even recognize the guy because he's just a totally different person and they were clearly painting a picture that the more hopeless the alcoholic the better you know like my core belief was that i was past the point that i was a lost cause but this book made it like really in a way that i could understand it described that there is no such thing as as lost cause like past the point of of help, beyond help. There's, you can't be beyond help. Actually, it's the inverse of that, where if you think that you have any, any, uh, hope of controlling alcohol, then you're not a candidate. So the more hopeless of the alcoholic you are, the bigger the chance there is for recovery. Hopelessness is actually your ultimate asset. Well, and that's the basis also of this notion of

surrender. Like, and people say, I came in on my knees. Like, when you crawl in on, your belly, you're down. Step one. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol that our lives have become unmanageable. We had to admit complete and utter defeat. So did you stay longer than two weeks? Because I know you also, you came out, you went back. No, and what happened was I read this, I read this, you know, doctor's opinion. And I kept reading into Bill's story that at that same night. And it shook my core beliefs. You know, it actually very distilled. to me was describing me specifically as like the best candidate for recovery. And I had honestly not thought that way.

And it didn't make me all of a sudden become super willing, you know, but it absolutely covered step one. You know, we find victory in defeat, you know, like success in surrender. You know, like it's, there's all these paradoxes in recovery, you know. we find comfort through discomfort. Were you given a diagnosis then of bipolar? Was that something you knew about like? That came later.

Got it. That came later. But what happened the day after, the next day after I read the book, a panel of three guys, three sober guys from AAA came in to share their stories in the psych ward. And again, just like I never would have opened that book if I wasn't locked up in a psych or I never would have gone into that room to hear a word that these guys had to say if I would if there's I had nothing better to do but to go and listen to these guys who I never would have hung out with you know and I remember going in there like all right you know they're going to talk about sobriety like again I like one guy was in a suit like you know there's like they just weren't guys that I've related to but I could also tell that they were I could relate to the way they described their powerlessness over drugs and alcohol. And as they described the, you know, the program and how they stayed sober, you know, step two is we came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sand.

That's where a lot of people are like, peace out. Right. Right. But the way you got to, the way the best way to interpret it in my view is step one is I got a problem that I cannot. fixed by myself. And step two is I came to believe that these 12 steps and that this program is the solution to fix the problem I have, which I cannot fix by myself. And then step three is I made a decision to commit myself to these 12 steps in this program. And as these guys told their stories and described the program, I just distinctly came to believe that what they were describing worked for

them, you know, that they weren't full of shit, that what they were describing as a program of recovery, the fellowship of AA, the 12 steps of AA, that it saved their lives and it kept them sober and it made it made life worth living for them with all of this great stuff on top. So, you know, in coming to believe that it worked for them, it followed that it could work for me. So that covered step two. And then as it related to step three, you know, they covered that for me as well because they handed out this annoying, this annoying 20 questions of AA, which, you know, like as you read these questions, it's described, I think maybe on there, that if you answer yes to one of them, there's a good chance you might be not wrong. You know, if you answer yes to two, yeah, you're pretty much down quite. And if you answer yes to three, like, yeah, you know, just.

you're, you're, you're cooked. So they, gave me the 20 questions. I read them like with that somewhat of an open mind. I won't argue, but I could argue that due to my special circumstances in life, some of the questions were not applicable to me. But by no means can I've honestly said no to any of them.

Yeah. You know, I fucking aced the test. Like 100% 20. Yes. Yeah, I mean, I'm looking at, questions right now. Yeah. Yeah. The questions are particularly hilarious if you switch the word drink with think. That's what those of us in Alon get to do. And I do. I lose a lot of time with my thinking. It's true. And it makes my life unhappy all my thinking. Yeah. Have you ever

lost time at work due to thinking? Yeah. But having ACE to that test, like it was like, It was like, fuck, you know, here. I came to believe in what these guys were talking about, but it sounded awful. Like, it did not sound like a fucking good time by any measure. Like, it sucked, you know? Like, just because I believed in their solution, didn't mean that I wanted anything to do with it,

except when they gave me those 20 questions and I aced the test, then I found myself, like, painted into a corner. Like, like, fuck, you know? like I realized like, you know, I step one and then I fucking read like, you know, these guys talk about the solution that I believe will work for me. And then the 20 questions paints me into a corner where as much as I fucking hate the idea of it, I know that I got to do what they just described. And I'm like, you know, God. And I believe strongly that if somebody magically appeared in this hallway that I was, you know, like it was a little room in the psych ward where they gave me the thing

and I read it and I'm in this hallway and I'm like, oh, this sucks, but I got to do this, you know. And had somebody magically appeared in that hallway and said, hey, you look like you might be thinking about committing yourself to a program of recovery and the 12 steps of AA. And I just want to take this time to remind you that only about 5% of alcoholics achieve long-term sobriety, so it's a really losing proposition. I would urge you to not bother with this bullshit. Like, at that time, I don't think that would have deterred me when I made that decision. And that's what step three is. We made a decision. We made a decision to turn our lives and our will in our lives over to the care of this power greater than ourselves, which we've just come to believe in.

And that's particularly like powerful to me because what had kept me loaded for the last 13 years since my first time being locked up in a rehab was those statistics. A counselor had the nerve to say only 5% of alcoholics achieved long term of sobriety. And I'm like at that time when I was only 20 in what the year was, 1995, I was like this fucking asshole is he out of his mind. He's telling me that even if I was into the idea, I would have a 5% chance. Like, I'm going to go ahead and say, fuck this and go and let go and let alcohol, you know? And this time around it was a different deal because now, like, something had changed and I was ready, you know, where if somebody brought up those statistics now, I would have likely argued that I've beaten bigger odds than that in every single thing I've done in my life. life and five percent make it like so you're telling me it can be done you know and I just took it seriously so I made the decision in that psych ward I went over to the little reception desk in the

psych ward and and I told them something that they've heard before like you can let me out now you know like I'm like I just want to go I was I want to just go to rehab I made my decision and I'm going to go to rehab. I'm not trying to go pack a bag. I don't need time to think about it. And they did just that. They let me out. I went straight to rehab where the rehab I went to was in Pasadena.

What used to be an insane asylum, you know, way back in the day, a place called Lossin Cina's Hospital, where the director of the chemical dependency unit at that time was my buddy, Dr. Drew Pinsky. And he was still working there. You know, I remember telling Dr. Drew, I said, hey, man, like, I know that the odds are not in my favor here, you know, but now that I'm here, now that I'm going to, you know, do this, I don't want to waste my fucking time, man. Like, if I'm going to do this, I want to give myself every advantage. And so I told him that however, I said, however long you recommend, I stay in this chemical dependency unit of this hospital. hospital. I want to stay significantly longer because I know that the odds are against me. And that was like the equivalent of handing him a blank check. And to Dr. Drew's credit, he said, I love to hear that. I love to hear that you're committed to this. He said, but I just don't recommend you stay here for more than 30 days. That doesn't make any sense to me. But if you're really serious about your recovery, I recommend after 30 days, then going into a sober living.

Is that what you did? And I stayed in sober living until I had two full years. Wow. I did not know that about you. With no court order, with no nothing. I just, you know, and that's how I feel about it to this day. Like, I don't want to waste my time. So did you, at that time, I mean, you were also getting help with other aspects of your...

It was when I was in the 30 days at Lassencena. that a psychiatrist, you know, just started firing off prescriptions. They made fun of me in rehab for all the pills. I was taking the depicoat. I don't even remember all the names of them. I know Depegoat. But they called me medicine boy. This doctor got paid extra for the more prescriptions he wrote, presumably he did.

But it was fucking insane, how much, you know, this bipolar thing. I maintain to this day that anybody who polluted themselves with as many chemicals as I did would probably be bipolar. There's something that I'd love you to address and then we'll let you go. You know, there's a real, there's a very kind of dude, you know, energy around the work that you've done and sort of the way that you've sort of made this life for yourself. And I'm sure there are, you know, women who consider themselves dudes who also appreciate you. But there's, you know, there's this certain sense of like, you know, playful, you know, almost kind of like juvenile, like, just like the craziest shit that you can think of. You've done it. You've tried it. And you will continue to do so. And one of the things that that I wanted you to address, though, is that for you, I'm curious where you've kind of arrived in having a life that, where that was born out of insubriety, you know, and you also talk about, your behavior surrounding women and sex, you know, like all, all of those things were kind of part of

that. But if you can sort of just give us like kind of like your summary as it were, because you still live an amazing, interesting, crazy life and you do it in a way that I don't see that your spirit has been broken by your experiences. And sure, I mean, it's definitely, yeah, it's a different level of fun than being drunk and stoned all the time, I'm sure. But if you can just kind of like sum up for us. Like if you think of like a young dude who's like, oh, and be like him, you know, like what, what's the sort of take home message here? Um, I mean, there's a fair amount to unpack there. And to, I'll start with the, the young dude who says, I want to be like him. It doesn't matter if you want to, uh, be a, a crazy stunt person, an influencer, you know,

and an author, like a musician, like an athlete. Like, what? whatever it is, I have precisely the same advice for anybody pursuing any ambition, goal, dream, and that advice is to just immediately start doing what it is that you want to do. Because that's the way, like, the way to get good at anything is to start doing it. The only caveat to that advice, which I feel strongly about, is to find some sort of guidance to make sure that you're starting in the correct manner. Because there's no benefit to getting started doing something the wrong way. Like what's juggling? If you learn bad habits, then you've got to put all the work into unlearning your bad habits before you can start learning the correct way.

you know so find some guidance like from somebody who's further along than you you know to make sure that you're learning the correct way you know find a mentor you know find some way to know find some way to know that you're on right track but get on that fucking track and waste no goddamn time it doesn't matter what you want in life to accomplish nearly as much as it matters how badly you want it You know, like for me, I feel as strongly that intelligence is an asset. It's something useful, as is talent. But both of those things are fucking chicken shit when compared to enthusiasm. You know, when you've got real passion to get something done, that's the engine that drive. It's the engine that drove me and everything I've ever done. You know, like I couldn't,

I couldn't apply myself to shit unless I was passionate about it. And, and, and, and, And what's so great about enthusiasm being the driver of all things that matter, someone pointed out that the word of enthusiasm broken down to its Latin roots are N. Theos, which means with God. I fucking love that. So with that, you know, like with the whole thing. And yeah, like my identity was very caught up in being the wild and crazy loaded guy, drugs, crazy, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Yeah, I had a crisis on my hands when I knew that my life depended on on getting sober. Fortunately, I made sobriety the priority. And if that meant everything else going away, then I was ready for that. And that's the kind of surrender that's necessary. The thing that I hate the most and I've let it bother me way too much is seeing comments online about, oh, dude, Steve, I was funnier. When he was on drugs, dude was way cooler when

you know, like, like the old version of Steve-bo. And like, there's, I know that's fucking bullshit. Because like as it got toward the end of my run with drugs and alcohol, I became pitifully one-dimensional. You know, that like, I was just a sad and I was a pussy. You know, like I just made a video about 10 stunts that I backed out of. You know, it's a big question. Like people are like, what was too much?

What wouldn't you do? I made a video of 10 things I backed out of. And they were all from before I got sober. You know, like, I mean, not all of them, but as far as like being, like, afraid and not committing because I went out. Yeah, it was before I got sober. And, you know, like I did let go of all the unhealthy behaviors that don't serve me. I live a double life where like I'm looking for ways to fit bigger things up my butt.

At the same time, I'm making sure that I do right by my girl and never tell a lie. You know, like it's a crazy double life that I live and I love that. And I have to, I owe it all to 12 step recovery that I've been able to find separation between the persona of stevo and like the the person whatever that means you know because if my identity if my self-worth is tied to my value as a commodity in the world of entertainment then god am i on a fucking scary track you know like and and by finding separation between the persona and the person not only have i been able to forge a path to where i can actually see myself being happy healthy and fulfilled after the entertainment persona goes away but i've actually become way

way fucking better at managing the persona too i love that you know like like the the the sea level raises all ships you know like i'm way better at way better at business. I'm way better creatively. I'm way funnier. You know, fuck anybody who says I'm not as funny as I'm way fucking funnier than I was when I was loaded. Stevo, it has been really a pleasure to talk to you. And I just, we think you're very, very special. You are. You're a very special person. And I really appreciate how honest you've been, not only with us, but in your writing and in everything about you. And we just think you're so awesome. So thank you so much. And before I go,

I want to plead to implore your listeners, as I did on the last one, to pre-order my new book. Absolutely. A hard kick in the nuts. What I've learned from a lifetime of terrible decisions. It's worth how uncomfortable it gets with me being way too revealing about all the sex addiction. It's the juiciest fucking most just gnarly book. Steve, oh, thank you so much. He's such a great storyteller.

This is why this had to be two episodes. Because whatever he has done to his brain with all the drugs and alcohol that he talks about, the man's memory is incredible. I mean, not to mention the concussions. He has lived a life and also to come to terms with all of your demons and still be able to have the energy and the enthusiasm, right, to keep doing what he does. What we didn't get to ask him is like around the motivation to keep doing the types of stunts that he does.

I don't know why he does them. Because in the first part of the interview in the first section, he talked about how it was this self-destructive nature and feelings that drove him to his initial stunts. So when you remove that or you change the intensity of it, what's still going? Like does he ever want to go to work and come back not injured? No, he doesn't want to go to work and come back, not injured. What I mean, what I think it is is I think like, you know, it's when he talks about the persona of like Steveo versus like Steve, like his whole life became about building that persona even before he was famous. Like, meaning like he was that guy. Like, you know, he was that guy.

And, you know, part of, I think what he's uncovered and discovered is, you know, that's part of that that alcoholism. loop, you know, it's the, it's the recognition, it's the losing yourself. It's, I mean, it's all of that stuff. And, you know, it's kind of like we spoke about, I think, in our first episode, like, first it's fun, then it's fun with problems, and then it's just problems. And I think that's true of alcohol. I think it's true of workaholicism. Like, I think it's, you know, well, I guess workaholism is not always fun, but it kind of is. It's like, yeah, so productive. And then, oh, but. So I think for, for him, like, it became just like, building this persona and then in sobriety and also in managing some very real mental health

challenges, which, yes, there's a propensity that he talked about for alcoholism and there's a lot of overlap there. But yeah, the situations that he put himself in and the amount of chemicals, like it's not, like, that's when it's not funny, you know? And that's sort of what I'm kind of glad he addressed a bit. Like, he believes he's funnier. And, even if you don't agree, whoever the you are, he's not going to die, meaning from his disease now. And that's like, right? Bottom is when you stop digging. I mean, I cannot wait to dig into this book.

I mean, the clown college stuff was just so exciting. We had to turn this into two episodes. I heard you're starting a new clown college and you're going to be the president. No, but I did like when he said clown boss. I was like, I want to be a clown boss. That being said. You are my clown boss. From our breakdown to the one we hope you never have.

We'll see you next time.