The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Wrong Side Out: Madness Misdiagnosed by Benton Savage

Episode Date: August 17, 2026

Wrong Side Out: Madness Misdiagnosed by Benton Savage https://www.amazon.com/Wrong-Side-Out-Madness-Misdiagnosed-ebook/dp/B0GRPVD4NX In Wrong Side Out, Benton Savage tells a starkly honest story of living through prolonged confusion, loss of control, and the slow work of reclaiming himself. Told from the inside, the memoir captures what it feels like when judgment falters, reality bends, and everyday decisions carry unexpected consequences, often with lasting personal cost. Savage writes openly about isolation, damaged relationships, and moments when his own instincts could not be trusted, yet the book resists easy explanations or tidy redemption. Instead, it follows a long, uneven path marked by resistance, collapse, persistence, and gradual clarity. The struggle is not abstract or symbolic; it unfolds through real events, real mistakes, and the determination to keep going when forward motion feels impossible. At its core, Wrong Side Out is a story of endurance and self-reclamation, of learning to live with limits without erasing identity, and of finding steadiness after years of imbalance. It is not about labels or diagnoses, but about what it takes to regain footing, rebuild trust in oneself, and fully reengage with life on one’s own terms. About the author Benton Savage’s life story is as rich and varied as his lines of writing. His time spent navigating personal changes and traversing the diverse landscapes has indelibly shaped his perspective and literary voice. Today, Benton resides in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where he balances his property management business with his true passion, writing. His daily dedication to capturing his thoughts and experiences on paper is a testament to his unwavering commitment to exploring the complexities of the human condition. His recently released poetry book, Fortune Cookies:100 Sayings to Help you Navigate Life’s Challenges, a unique collection of poetic musings that mirrors the paper fortunes found in the heart of a cookie, reached number one on Amazon for new poetry in August 2024. Savage’s coming-of-age novel, Free and Satisfied, explores issues with impulsivity, alcohol, and nuances of an interracial relationship, was published in April 2025.

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review of any kind. Anyway, we have an amazing young man on the show. We actually had him on yesterday and featured his book and we're featuring another book that he has written along the same vein of some of his journey through his life and cathartic moments. We have Benton Savage on the show with us again. His book that would talk about today, this is very different one from yesterday, so I want you to go watch that one too, is called Wrong Side Out. Madness Diagnosed. Sounds like this podcast.

I think that was the original name for this podcast. Madness ensues. Benton Savage's life story is as rich and varied as the line. of his writing. He spent time navigating personal changes and traversing the diverse landscapes that has indelibly shaped his perspective and the way of voice. He resides in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, where he balances his property management business with his true passion, writing. His daily dedication to capturing his thoughts and experiences on paper is a testament to unwavering commitment and exploring the complexities of the human condition. Welcome to the show. How are you, Benton?

I'm doing fine, Chris. Thank you. All right, calm down just a little bit. Try and hold back to that energy there, but bring it up for me. Give us a dot com. Where can people find you on the interwhip, sir? Benton Savage Author.com is, you can find my four books I've published in the last couple years. And that's...

And refresh to the audience. What was the book we covered yesterday? The Stoic Alcoholic, it's not only about counting days. And that was about that... Both these books, both these books started off with different titles. they ended up with something else because I came up with kind of a different conclusion. This one, the Stoic Alcoholic was not, was originally going to be called the first 366 days of sobriety. I made about 100 days. And then we had to, I quit and then we readjusted it.

And I came up with another name for it that made a little bit more sense. And it's made it a little bit better of a book, really, is the failure of it. And just going through it and seeing how somebody can hopefully rebound from 100 days into 20 years. But it was a lot of it. the time for me. So this is more maybe of a lifelong story and memoirs. The other one was kind of more like a journaling and people could see how you progressed, which is, as we talked about the show yesterday, a great help to people that, you know, sometimes seeing the way people solve problems, the pattern and the ways they see their blind spots and they, you can kind of walk through the development like I talked about with Presto, Jett Pins book on Losing Weight,

watching his mental walkthrough of walking out of 100 pounds of weight and eating poorly and taking care of his health, watching him do that help me mirror it. And there's a lot of people go, hey, just be happy and better and be motivated, right? And you're like, what the hell do I do with that? So is that a correct analogy of both these books? One's kind of more like a memoir of your life a little bit. wrong side out mid madness misdiagnosed is from my life from 1998 so about 2010 when I wrote the book in 2010 when I got out of a psychiatric hospital what I thought was my last time I was like I was got

I got drawn at that time seven or eight times over about a 12 year period and I had some good years in between but they were they come in groups we just wouldn't take I wouldn't take my medicine and that's what would happen but I get but what would happen a lot to me and I'm sure it happens to a lot of people who were, at the time I thought I was bipolar misdiagnosed. But is that people say, oh, I'm bipolar as well. I still need to take medication. I just get it out. And you hear that enough, you're like, that's not true.

You might be having a bad day. You might be kind of moody. But if you really got a serious mental illness, there's very few choices but to take medication. These movies, like a beautiful mind are not given the accurate portrayal. This guy just cut it out. And you've got to be on medication if you're that severe. In my opinion, I've been around the block in this thing, and you've got to be on medication. That's the whole key.

Yeah, you do it every day. Now, was this medication for the drinking and the drug abuse that you were doing? Or tell us, give us some more deep feeling. Yes, I was diagnosed in 1998 with bipolar disorder. And that was my common, that was my diagnosis all the way through 2010 when I originally wrote this book and it was called Wrong Side Out, the Bipolar Experience. I tried to get public. I even lived in New York City at the time.

was trying to get it published and couldn't get it published. So they thought, I don't know what, I didn't get much feedback, really. So it sat on the shelf for about 10 or 12 years. I didn't forget about it, but I just didn't think about publishing it at all. And then a couple of my friends wanted to read it later on. I mentioned it. They wanted to read it and I bet, and this is really good. I'm why didn't get published 10 years ago, but you need to get it back out there.

And it's been well received ever since. Everybody seems to really, it's troubling, but it seems to. Yeah. The human experiences isn't the same for everyone, but the categories that maybe you call them them are similar. And the challenge is that we can have in cathartic moments, we have pitfalls that we can have. There seems to be kind of like a little catalog of them that we take turns subscribing to different ones. I'm like, let's try a whole week hangover and bloody eyes and brain today with alcohol.

And so we get ourselves in these little wedges and then we got to figure out a wedge out of them. That's a horrible analogy, but I'll just use wedge twice because it may. makes no sense. But we get ourselves into the troubles and then we have to figure out how to fix them and light doesn't come with an owner's manual. There's no manual that says, hey, watch this, watch out for this stuff. This is bad. You don't get any of that. You just, you're owning the honors manual. I don't know, stick your fist in the blender and see if it's on. And you kind of learn from a lot of mistakes you're making life. And so the great thing about authors like yourself and most of the ones come on the show and tell stories and their journeys

of life and the lesson they learn and how to avoid them or how to climb out of the hole that you make is great because a lot of times people write books like yourself you're never going to meet the person whose life you saved and they have to hear your words they're waiting for your story i had a author tell this to me a long time it was a multi-book author i was i was sick with writing my book in the editorial phase and it's really abusive in the editorial it's it's not that it's meant to be abusive. It's just they take your, your hard work and they tear someone up and throw it away and they go, that's crap, make some new stuff. And you're like, I spent 10 hours for any of that. And you have to go through a lot. So I was, I was at the phase

where I was ready to throw out the window. And then my author folks jumped in and said, no, if you're at the throw it out the window phase, you're almost done. You just got to keep pushing through the obstacles the way. And one of the gals, got on the phone with me because I was complaining that I turned into Jack Nicholson in the shining of all working. I'm pretty sure I'm just typing All Work and No Play is making Jack a Dobley this time. I think I've just pretty much gone off the rails. And she got on the phone with me and she goes, you don't understand.

There is somebody out there who needs to hear what you're going to tell them. And there's no one else that can get through to them but you. And your job is to save them. And they won't be saved unless you get this book published. And she says there will be some person out there. We just had somebody yesterday write us from prison for the show. And they're asking for help and advice and leadership, counseling from the Chris Foss Leadership Institute.

And you just never know whose lives you're going to touch. I don't even know how the guy found me. Maybe you heard the podcast or, I don't know, came across the book. I doubt my books in prisons. But for some reason, he decided to write us. And you just never know who you're going to save. And that's the beauty of sharing our stories. Does it seem embarrassing?

Does it seem sometimes something opening myself up? I don't want to, I really don't want to share this part of me. But that sharing is what makes for a better world and helps raise everyone's, everyone's success in life, I suppose. So that's what you're up to. I will tell you this. My book is not really as much as a memoir. It's in your head. At one point I thought, this is just, this is a funny one.

Some of them aren't as funny, but I was in California and I thought I could run across the country like Forrest Gump. And I took off and ran about a mile and a half and then I realized I wasn't going to make it. And then I tried to, it's a bad story, but that kind of behave. I really believe that for that 30 minute period. I just like, you force can do it, I can do it.

Yeah. You get so illogical and he just gets set in your head. And it's crazy. So the things that you can come up with, that's a funny one. Some of them are so funny. Yeah. I think I tried that doing the big run every now and then. about 10 feet out the door and I was like, you know, I need a sandwich and beer.

Probably helped. He had those special legs that he developed over years of being handicapped. So anyway, so let's see here. Tell us, can you tease out some of the stories that you put in the book? Maybe people can get a feel for what's in there. The opening, the openings is what most people, a lot of people don't make it much, most of the, lot of people don't make it much past the open. What happens is, is I thought I was living in California, Northern California, and Palo Alto, and I thought I was being followed. I thought I was being, I thought it was being spied upon. And I thought this has been going on for months.

So what I did was, I said, you can't spy on me here. And I opened up the trunk of my car and pulled down the trunk and got my trunk of car and pulled it shut. And sitting there for three or four hours until I finally realized, nobody's good. Nobody's, I don't know what I thought somebody was going to open it up. And nobody was going to open it up. They had to break me out of there. And I was really, that was really, that was. that was one of the more shocking ones.

There's stuff like that all the way. That's the opening of the book. That's the prologue or the introduction is I did that. And I really thought the hardest part for people to believe is that I thought this was logical behavior and that I could actually remember it. Oh, wow. Because I remember such details, such small details. Now, I can't remember it now.

I wrote that book back in 2010 for the most part. So I've had, and I've tried to forget it ever since, really. But it's all on paper. And it's quite something for the mental health field. I really believe that. Yeah. Maybe you should make it a... Of the honesty goes.

Yeah. And was that a part of the bi- Do you think with alcohol and the bipolar thing, do you think you'd always been addictive, an addictive personality? My end diagnosis was schizophrenia in extreme case of OCD. Oh, really?

Yeah, that's the reason. I got diagnosed with that in 2020. Oh, wow. And the schizophrenia is actually pretty easy control. The OCDs the one in modern day. The OCD, they got enough good medication for the schizophrenia. OCDs a lot. That's really a lot more troublesome.

I'm not the only one that would say that. That was the medication you were talking about. You were taking probably lithium or something? I was taking lithium when I was younger, and then I don't take lithium anymore. Lithium is for bipolar patients. Okay. And lithium or depicote, typically they say if you're not taking lithium or dipico, then you're not bipolar.

night because those are the cures or the not cures those are the best stabilizers and i'm not on neither of those i take a anti-sacotic and a couple of aty depressants yep the that's good then the staying on the medicine is good my dad used to keep a lot of medicine to keep them alive like blood thinners and stuff when he got older because he was having heart attacks and strokes and man he he was such a rebel against doctors and he would go off his meds oh doctors don't know and they'd have a heart attack or a stroke, and they'd bring him back in, he'd be pale, and they tell him, Neil, you can't stop taking your medicine. He's like, well, and he just would not learn.

He kept strokes and all sorts of problems. So, yeah, sometimes medicine is the best medicine. Very true. It's psychiatric medicine, because if I go two or three days, I'm liable to, I will know it if I miss my medication for a day, I'll know it on the second day. and by the fifth day, if I just miss it, by accident, I will know it. Most likely, and if I go two or three days, then I'm starting to get a little anxious. And a week or two, and I'm starting to be really a problem.

Yeah, it's good to do. I had a, one of my best employees years ago, and my mortgage company, her son had schizophrenia. I don't know if he wouldn't take his medicine. I know there was sometimes she said he went off and there would be problems. She'd be like, I got to go pick him up at the police station now. and he was just always in trouble, problems. And if I recall, it was part of reason he wouldn't take his medicine. It's hard.

How do you force a grown adult to take their medicine? It's kind of easy if there as a kid. Oh, I've been there. Or they try to make you. Believe me. And at one point in that book, I'm in the hospital refusing to take medication. They tied me up and made me take medication. Really?

Yeah. I swear, I know it's against the law, but they're like, we're tired of your nonsense. I've been doing this for like three days. they're like, you're going to take your medicine whether you're like you're not, and they tied me up and made me open my mouth and I shut up my mouth, like, okay, take me out of it. Isn't there a scene

for that in the one flew over the cuckers nest movie by Jack B. Well, that's, yeah, he gets a lobotomy. They didn't quite go that. That's true. Yeah, they got that at the end. They didn't go that far with me. They just decided to restrain me.

They didn't put me under for the count. Yeah. That's probably good then, because we wouldn't have these great books to help. Yes, but it would be a lesser price. You'd just be on my show drooling down the side of your right. That wouldn't make for a very good podcast for what I understand. A lot of dead air. And so you chart your journey, the lessons you're learning maybe as you're going and realizing

some of the fallacies of some of the activities you do that aren't working for you? There's two things I would like to say about the purpose of the book was one. I want to write it for the patients, patients who also have similar mental health diseases and their family and friends who have experienced women can't understand. understand it. But what I also want to go into is that I was misdiagnosed. And that's a very common thing. That's a very common thing. And if you're not doing as well as you think you should be doing or you think you can be doing and you're taking your medication regular than that, if you're not taking your medication regularly, nothing's going to work for you. I've got

friends that, oh, my medicine's not work. I was like, how can you take it three times a week? We've got to take it every day, man. It doesn't work. But they want to change medications. They're looking for that magic bullet. But if you take your medication, there's so much medication out there. probably find something that can help you a lot and make you, maybe a, you know, functional, which is the goal is to be a functioning citizen, you know, be productive and all that. Yeah, you don't want any of those problems either. Those problems are problems. Yeah, I've caused enough problems. And so people are going to read through that journey and stuff. It sounds like you've done a lot in life now. You've got your life where you're managing properties,

I guess, or you have some properties or overseas, things like that. Yeah. And so how does it feel now? Give people in a view of what it feels like to be on the other side of controlling your addiction and being someone who's controlling your destiny now instead of chasing drugs. Stuff. One thing I feel a lot better about is I don't ever feel guilty. When I was drinking, I always felt kind of guilty. I knew I shouldn't be doing it, but it's pretty fun. But I know I'm just kind of doing the wrong things. I'm just kind of walking around.

Even when I'm sober, I'm feeling kind of guilty. Yesterday, you're just not living it right. So you got that going for you. Really, that's a big one. It's just to relax the knowing that you're not going to be thrown in jail today by any chance. It's always a good. Yeah. I mean, I was throwing in jail a lot, but I'd run the risk.

I'd be doing things that probably shouldn't have been doing. And it's nice to wake up and knowing that I'm just going to do a little walk in the park today. And nobody's going to, it's just a good normal day for like anybody, like normal people have work, sleep, eat, go drink, that kind of thing. So it's nice to not have that guilt. I always feel like you're doing something wrong. Yeah. That's one thing. And you kind of, you kind of know in your head you're doing some bad stuff all the time

that probably isn't going to help you, right? Yeah. You're like, yeah, yeah. Okay. You were talking about the OCD definitely affects my drinking and my eating. When I want to eat, I can do some serious eating like we all can, but I can do some serious eating and some serious drinking or some serious anything, really. Once I get going, it's really hard for it.

stop on anything. So it's really very, can be very compulsive. And it is a trouble. It can be troubling too. Yeah. Yeah. You've got, you've got a map that you've learned to get out of it and to deal with it and be consistent. And now you've shared that knowledge so that other people can do it as well. Chops to you, man. Good stuff. People in addiction. This can give them the opportunity. And I like how you frame the first book. I know we're kind of getting off this book a little bit. But, you know, the other book where you framed, you know, where you said, hey, it's okay if you're not. Everyone's like, let's spend 5,000 days or 1,000 days or 5 days since I stopped drinking. And they try and day by day, we always hear that with addiction.

It's a day by day battle that you have to do with your brain. And a lot of these poisons like alcohol, I believe, stays in your system for 30 days. And a lot of these things build into your systems where your bodies get real dependent on. it and they're like, yeah, we don't want to, we don't want to come out. We like this. It's a great, it's a great way to run away and not have to face reality. And, but getting down that road and picking it back up, but letting people know, too, that if you follow the horse, you don't have to stay there. You can have a bad day. Just get back up. The worst thing you do is stay down, right? I really believe that because most of the time, even when you do drink, you could

lie to 99.9% of your friends and tell them you, You didn't drink that day. Nobody would be the wiser. It's really between you, it's really between yourself. You can tell people, you do it a thousand days. But really, it's about between you and just being honest with yourself about what you're doing, being honestly with your drink is saying instead of just people go to AA and go drink right afterwards. Not a lot of people, but it does happen.

It does happen. I know it does. I'm sure it does. But it's not a regular thing. Most people are there to be true. But it's a pretty brutal environment sometimes. But the power of your word to yourself is so important because your brain is listening. And your brain goes, does he mean what he says?

Does he really want us to do that? Okay, we'll work here in the subconscious background and help him accomplish that. But if you told your brain promises and broke them a million times, your brain goes, yeah, he's full of shit. He's not going to do this. He doesn't want to change. So we're not going to bother helping him change. And you just stay in the same cyclical patterns.

You were talking yesterday about how you were always promising your family that today's last day. This is the last drinking weekend. This is the last time I'm going out, right? And they don't believe you anymore, you've mentioned, but the worst part is your own brain doesn't believe you anymore. And so it just goes, we're just going to keep drinking and letting him drink. We're not going to stop them. So it gets easier and easier. Yeah. We're just supporting him because we know what he really wants and it isn't to stop. And the brain's just like a row, that back brain reticular activating system just like a robot. Whatever you tell it, it'll go, okay, I'll help you do that.

If you lie to it all the time, it knows you're lying because it's your brain. Anyway. One more thing that I did feel, you said, I said I don't feel the guilt. I also trust myself a lot more. I got to the point where I didn't trust my judgment, really. You really have to get, can I always get the second opinion or overthink it in my second opinion wasn't so good, that kind of thing. I really got in a bad case of not trusting myself.

And now I trust myself to make the best decision I can make at the time rather than just a lot of self-sabotage. Yeah. Do you ever deal with forgiving yourself? Some people go through that journey where they learn to forgive themselves. And they go, hey, it's okay. Because the monkey ego brain likes to beat us up in the background. It likes to go, hey, here's all the stupid shit you did. And sometimes forgiving yourself is maybe one good part of addiction recovery.

you try to forgive yeah i i've written a lot about that kind of forgiveness and you know i think you've got to forgive but at some point you can't you should not completely forgive yourself or you're just giving yourself a free pass that's a good point yeah yes yes i forgive myself yes i've made a lot of mistakes yes life goes on but i've got to i've got to learn from those mistakes rather than just saying okay life happens just do it again that's just the way it works yeah you got to take some responsibility and just realize you've made a mistake and And you can hurt some people, including yourself. Yeah.

If you don't take self-accountability, you can't ever change or grow. That's when a lot of people don't realize. You have to take self-accountability. You have to go. That's why the first rule in Alcoholics Anonymous is admitting you have a problem. You have to quit bullshying yourself. You have to quit. You have to be honest with yourself.

And until you take that self-accountability, you can't grow or change. Because you haven't addressed the problem to fix. So a lot of people get that. I hear all these people are like, I'm healing. I mean, my healing mode right now. You're not.

You're just saying that because everyone knows all the shitty stuff you did and you're trying to trick them into thinking you're not going to do it anymore. We all know. Between my healing and my truth. I don't know. I don't know what my truth means either. My truth is that one kind of gets me to my healing and my truth. Yeah.

And until you're accountable, it doesn't matter. Any other stories, maybe snippets you want to share out of the book. Okay, I'll tell you enough, I did get, you're asking, that was a rough one, me to lock myself up in the, in the trunk of the car, but also one time in New York around 2010, I walked into a bar and took off all my clothes and walked down the street, naked in 95th Street and 2nd Avenue in New York City.

Oh, wow. So I did, I've done that kind of ridiculous behavior over and over and over. It's like a cycle. I've done that twice, actually, not in New York City. Oh, yeah, you think you're God. I think. I'm not sure you think you just want to expose yourself to the world. Look at me. I'm naked.

I'm the test. I don't know. It's a really. Yeah. Was that scene in old school with, does it know? Will Farrell. Yeah,

Will Farrell. I go streaking on the, we're going streaking. I mean, yeah. We see him. Take his back, honey.

Yeah, I love his wife pulls up and. He's right and walking along the side of the car. It sounds like he had some good times, though. some adventures that you can tell stories. Yeah, I'm pretty good at Toppy. Good at a party. So as you round out the show, give people anything more that we need to fill in about picking up the book and you and your final pitch out.

Just continue to follow my career. I've got four books that are coming out in the next two years. They're already literally written. They're getting edited and ready to go. Two of them are kind of aphorism books where I write kind of one-liners. One of my books, my first book was Fortune Cookies, which it was 100 of life saying, 100 sayings to help you with your life or whatever. They're just thoughts of wisdom that sounded like fortune cookies.

So I've got a couple of those coming out. I'll be looking forward to having my novels come out. Everyone has a good side and fishing with bananas. Fishing with bananas. Love it. So thank you very much for coming to the show, Benton. We really appreciate it. Thanks for being honest and open and sharing this.

A lot of people, they don't want to. talk about these hard things. And I can guarantee you there's somebody out there. You're at least one person in your life is what you've talked about in your life. You're going to save theirs. And you may never meet them. You may never know them. But they're out there and they will find your words and your words will resonate with them. I guarantee it. That's what everyone took. I can imagine, really. Sometimes they'll come up. Sometimes you'll find them. But years later, people will come up to you and go, you know, the one thing you did that one time. I've had that over 20 years now we've been on the internet, trying to put up positive messages.

Sometimes people walk up to me, remember 10 years ago when you said whatever, and that really moved me and changed me. And you just never know where it's going to come, but it's out there. And it was brave of you to share it. So thank you very much, Ben. Thank you, Chris. Thank you. And thanks for us for tuning in.

Pick up his book, wherever fine books are sold. Wrong side out. Madness diagnosed. You can get on Amazon, and we have a link for it on the Chris Foss show. Thanks for tuning in. Go to Goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com, Fortresschast Chris Foss, YouTube.com, Fortresschast, Chris Foss,

and all this crazy place in the internet. Be good to each other, or else I'll come back there and stop the car. Be good. I'll see you guys next time. You've been listening to the most amazing, intelligent podcast ever made to improve your brain and your life.

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