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- [00:01]
Lacy Healy
Hi, it's Lacy Healy. When members of Congress and even the vice president are sworn into office, they say an oath to protect the country from all enemies, foreign and domestic. But what does a domestic enemy look like?
- [00:15]
Moshe Kasher
January 6th was coming from the top.
- [00:18]
Luke Burbank
Some of them are bad people, but most of them are just normal people.
- [00:22]
Lacy Healy
It was if we weren't all stressed out enough. This season on Things that Go Boom, we're turning our eyes on the US how violence starts, how it stops, and how we stop it before it starts. A new season of Things that Go Boom is available now. Wherever you get your podcasts.
- [00:40]
Luke Burbank
Livewire is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Fiscally irresponsible financial geniuses, monetary magicians. These are things people say about drivers who switch their car insurance to progressive and save hundreds. Visit progressive.com to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states or situations.
- [01:03]
Moshe Kasher
Well, alcohol is number one with a bullet. I mean, it's so far ahead of every other drug.
- [01:09]
Luke Burbank
Can confirm.
- [01:09]
Moshe Kasher
I'm talking about in terms of me interacting with a person that is high on this drug. Drunk person is so far out there in terms of I don't want to talk to you if you're incredibly drunk. I mean, drunk people are obnoxious. They don't pick up on any social cues except for the social cue when you say to them, hey, you're being obnoxious. They pick up on that really well.
- [01:36]
Luke Burbank
From LiveWire, radio and PRX, it's damp January, people. I'm Luke Burbank, your host on this voyage of discovery. What are we trying to discover? Look, I don't know, honestly. Just like what are the different kinds of situations that people find themselves in regarding alcohol and if maybe one of those situationships might suit me better than the different ones that I've been trying for the last 25 years. The person that you heard right at the beginning of this episode, that's Moshe Kasher. He's a comedian, he's a writer, he's a podcaster. But for the purposes of our show this week, he's also a noted sober person. But he is one with a very unusual story. Moshe is. He's somebody who really knows his way around his sobriety. Cause he has been sober for a really long time. But what's interesting is he is deeply non judgmental about the whole topic, if that makes any sense. In fact, he is so non judgmental that there was a period of time I think it might have been in his late teens, early 20s where he was a sober person who also was selling drugs, like illegal drugs, which, you know, that might be a little too non judgy, if I'm being honest. I'm trying to be non judgy with myself and extend myself a little grace when it comes to, like, hosting this whole project. Because the basic sort of cycle for me has been we put out an episode and then I immediately start second guessing various things that I said and feeling like I could have put things better or more clearly or, I don't know, somehow differently. And then I kind of feel that way right up until it's time to put out the next episode. And then that episode comes out and then the circle of life starts again. And what's weird about this for me is that my. I feel like my whole brand, yes, I'm a person who thinks of themselves as having a brand. Gross. My whole thing in doing radio shows and podcasts and stuff like that has been that I have generally been pretty comfortable being really honest about my. Myself and my experience and just sharing my life with people in a way that has historically connected me to people and helped them understand my experience and me understand their experience. But what I think I've really been doing is letting out strategically very specific amount of personal information and honesty so that I am being vulnerable, but, like, up to a point, and I'm still kind of managing to control, or at least fool myself into thinking I'm controlling my image. And that's just not what's been going on with this show. I do not feel like I have done an effective job of controlling how I'm coming off necessarily to you, the listeners, which means I'm not always 100% sure how this is going or how it's gonna turn out. Which is actually why Moshe Kasher is a good person for us to be talking to this week on the show, because he actually seems pretty comfortable with not knowing exactly how everything is going to turn out. I don't know if it's something he learned in recovery or something he learned from being a security guard at Burning man, both of which he writes about in his latest book, Subculture Vulture. Maybe he got it growing up as the hearing child of two deaf parents. Maybe he figured this out by being a rave deep. Like, I don't know where he picked up his sense of things are gonna be fine, but I feel like I could use a little bit of that this week. So here it is, our latest Damp January conversation with Moshe Kesher. Moshe, welcome to Damp January.
- [05:36]
Moshe Kasher
Hello, I'm thrilled to be here. I've been drinking 40s all morning in anticipation of this conversation. Do they. I don't even know if they make 40s anymore.
- [05:43]
Luke Burbank
That's just how long you've been sober. You're out of touch with what they're manufacturing now.
- [05:48]
Moshe Kasher
Well, I always say that if you want to get a sense of what I drank, basically, if they gangster rapped about it, I drank it. That's how I would choose my cocktails. So Snoop did gin and juice. I drank gin and juice. Cisco, the bald head nut, who I know is a huge, huge. The Venn diagram of your listeners. And Cisco.
- [06:08]
Luke Burbank
Sure.
- [06:09]
Moshe Kasher
And C Bo, the bald nut. He talked about Mad Dog 2020. I drank that.
- [06:14]
Luke Burbank
Uh huh.
- [06:14]
Moshe Kasher
E40 talked about top of the line wine. Carlo Rossi. I drank that. That's how I selected my beverages.
- [06:21]
Luke Burbank
Bay Area hip hop was what drove your at age. What are we talking? You're like 13, 14.
- [06:27]
Moshe Kasher
Yeah. You know, it's funny because I got sober so young and now I'm in all of these like, you know, fancy circles and I see the way people drink and I go, oh, this seems so sophisticated. All these shrubs and smoked whiskeys and Japanese, you know, bourbon aged like I just drank trash. True trash.
- [06:48]
Luke Burbank
You in your book describe yourself, I think, as like the boy king of aa. How old were you when you actually started going to aa and what was your use of alcohol and drugs like that led you up to that?
- [06:59]
Moshe Kasher
Well, those are two disparate questions and it's a hard question to answer. How old was I when I started going to aa? Because I started going to. I was sent to rehab for the first time when I was 13.
- [07:09]
Luke Burbank
Oh wow.
- [07:10]
Moshe Kasher
But this is again, whenever you start asking these questions about rehab and my sobriety, it's all mushed up in the weirdness that was the late 80s, early 90s. Nancy Reagan dare. Every kid was being sent to rehab back then. And so did I need to go to rehab the first time I got sent? I don't really know. But everybody that had any problem with anything was being sent to rehab at the time. And so they started sending me to AA meetings as a kind of part of their outpatient system way before I got sober. So by the time I did get sober and did ask for help, I had already been going to meetings and getting high at them and meeting new drug dealers and more exciting drug dealers for literally for years. And I was only 15, almost 16 years old when I did get sober. So the answer when I started going to AA is a Little different than when I started going to AA for the reasons that one ought to go to AA and NA, which was about almost 16 years old. And that was when I went to a meeting for the first time and actually asked for help in a sincere way.
- [08:15]
Luke Burbank
What was the precipitating event that had you going there and taking it kind of seriously?
- [08:19]
Moshe Kasher
Well, that's another question. Like, precipitating event that happens, don't get me wrong. Like there is at sometimes an event you slam into a car with your family in it, or you go to your bank account and it's zero, and your kid's soccer team practice isn't going to get paid for that month. But I think my. My story, there are parts of it that are extremely unusual, but I think in terms of precipitating events, it's the most typical story, which is there was no event. And that was sort of the problem. It was this slow kind of. And again, it's always funny to say slow because I got sober so young. I really recognize that the slowness of my trajectory is a lot quicker than most, but it was this kind of slow and dehumanizing Groundhog Day. I started to realize the primary illusion that I was operating under or just sort of the primary narrative that I was operating under for the longest time, especially at my age, was that the problem was not my drinking and my drug use. The problem was the adults and the people around me and the people that were judging me and making rules and saying I couldn't steal their money and saying that I couldn't stay out all night drinking west coast gangster rap inspired artisan beverages. And, you know, it's just all of the systems of control that were around me. The Oakland Police Department, the Oakland Public schools, the therapy, the family therapy, the group therapy, the rehab, my mother, the everybody. And if they would just sort of get off my back, I could just, like, drink with impunity and be okay. And then I had this realization, which is a pretty, in a way, mature realization, which is, is it possible that every single person surrounding me telling me I have a problem is wrong and I'm the only one that is right? And I had that realization really young, you know, and once I asked myself that question, I had this thundering realization that it was that that didn't seem realistic and that the problem couldn't possibly be everybody else, but the problem probably centered in me, and that the problem probably centered in the drinking and the drugs. And then I had this feeling of like, oh, I know what the answer Is. I mean, it's really simple. My life is unmanageable. The drinking and the drugs are probably the cause of it. And the solution is incredibly simple and incredibly easy to realize, which is, I just need to stop, as they say in aa, put the plug in the jug, and my problems will go away. It was such a simple and freeing realization. And I quit drinking that night. And then the next morning. That is when the actual problems began. That's when the real, the scary part of whatever addiction and alcoholism is, was the next day, the day after the proclamation, when I woke up in the morning and the desire to get high and drink hit me again. And as I say in the book, I didn't have a wrestling match with my conscience. I didn't have a struggle, as you would assume that. What would happen is the devil would pop up on one shoulder, and the angel would pop up on the other shoulder, and the devil would say, like, come on, man, let's go get high. There's nothing cooler than getting high. Oh, cool. People get high. And then the angel would sing to my other ear, like, no, remember your declaration of only a day ago? Remember, we don't get high anymore. We had a major realization about how to get better. And then the devil's like, don't listen to that bitch. Let's go. And then the angel's like, you know, cast out that Satan on your shoulder. Devil, angel, devil angel. That's what you would think would happen. Then the devil wins, Right? But the reality of my reality was much scarier than that, which was there was no devil, There was no angel. There was no wrestling match. There was just a thought. I. I would like to get high. And then the next thought was, let's go get high. And that's what I did. And so that was scarier than having to struggle with a. A crisis of conscience, because that. There was no struggle at all. There was no conscience at all. There was just the thought, let's drink again. And then there was the action of drinking again. And that went on for months and months and months, and it just never seemed to end. And I. That was the first half of the first step. That's powerlessness, where you have absolutely no power to even question whether or not you're going to drink. You just do it anyway.
- [12:29]
Luke Burbank
I mean, you did eventually start to sort of turn away from that decision or the lack of a decision. Like, at some point, you actually sort of got sober and stayed with it. And what I find so interesting about your story is you were really so young when you did that. And so many adults go into AA and go into sobriety and make that declaration and just cannot stick with that over time. And somehow as a really young person, when you finally did really make the decision and really stick with it, it stuck. And I find that mind blowing.
- [13:00]
Moshe Kasher
I find it mind blowing too. And I have to say that a lot of the narrative, I'm used to telling these stories, you know, just like full disclosure, like, I know these stories. I started telling these stories before I started writing books or became a professional storyteller. It was, you know, there is perhaps no greater storytelling forum than, than the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous. There's a, there's an incredible rhetorical power of storytelling. So now I'm 45, you know, and I've been sober for 30 years. And now I look at these stories that I'm telling you and they have like a pretty heavy asterisk, which is, you know, I understand that the stories I'm telling, I believe them. I believe them to be true, but I also believe them to be true through the lens of having been sober in 12 step organizations. I'm no longer in 12 step organizations now, but through the lens of conditioning that I encountered when I got there. And so they all have to be understood through that. Now, as a 45 year old man, I also realize this was a kid, this was a teenager, a young teenager that was taking in the narrative message of 12 steps. And truly, and this is not, there is no asterisk here. It saved my life. There's no question to me about that. But now I look at these stories with a little bit of a different kind of lens and I go, I don't know how much of this is true alcoholism and how much of this was just adolescent sort of ejaculations of rage and anger. But that's where I got sober and that's what happened.
- [14:33]
Luke Burbank
I grew up in a really sort of deeply fundamentalist context. And my thing was I would go to these Bible studies and things and I would really try to wow everyone with my like biblical insight. And it really was a big ego boost for me. Do you think your kind of celebrity within the AA world kept you engaged with that? Like, was that like something that probably.
- [14:56]
Moshe Kasher
Helped you stay sober 1000%? And honestly, in a way, and this is all sort of individual, specific, my age helped me get and stay sober because I did not come to a. Not to say that young people have an easy time staying sober. They don't. I would say that that an existential crisis is coming for you. If you get sober as young as I did, or you are an. A semi unthinking person, right? Like if you get sober at 15 and you're sober 15 years at 30 and you don't find yourself going, wait a minute, what is it that I really was, then you're not, you're not really examining things very deeply. This is, this is my opinion.
- [15:35]
Luke Burbank
Like the patterns in your brain were not super duper well worn.
- [15:38]
Moshe Kasher
That's exactly right. The neuroplasticity was much more plastic. If you look at my brain now, it's all chalky and you know if you touch it with your finger, the whole thing will fall apart. At the time, like I was fully ready to be conditioned, brainwashed, reconstructed. And I needed a reconstruction for sure. And I'm super grateful that I got one. And I'm not trying to say anything disparaging about AA or the 12 steps, but there is no question that it is a thought conditioning and behavior conditioning program. And you know, there was a famous AA speaker, Earl Hightower, who used to say, if you think this is AA is brainwashing. He goes, yeah, maybe your brain could use a good scrubbing. I thought that was sort of a funny way to examine what brainwashing is. But anyway to your first question, what changed was I had this Groundhog Day thing and I. And I had this realization like, oh, this is never going to stop unless something changes. You know, they say in a. If nothing changes, not changes. And I decided one day, I don't know how again, maybe this is the grace of a God. Maybe this is like a sort of nascent brilliance within me, you know, my own self determination and will. I just went to an AA meeting and I asked for help. And that was the thing that I had never done. I'd been going to AA meetings for a long time because of the rehab that was sending us there. But I had never sincerely asked for help. And that is what I did. I went to the Monday night young people's meeting at 2910 Telegraph in AA in Oakland, AA. And I raised my hand and I said, I told them the story of telling you. Not as eloquently, but I was like, I can't seem to stop. I tell myself every night that I need to quit and every morning I get high again and I don't know what to do and this doesn't feel like it's ever going to stop. And just, I need help and please someone help me. I had never done that before. And then I got up and walked out of the room, which is like a very AA way of asking for help. You know, like, somebody help me, and I'll be out in the hallway if anybody can offer that help. But I guess what I didn't realize was that everybody in the meeting had been instilled with such an ethic of how AA began. The quick version is Bill Wilson, the co founder of aa, had been instilled in him that the only way to stay sober was to help someone else. So when a little boy comes into a meeting on a Monday night and says, somebody help me, there was no possibility that somebody wouldn't follow me outside into the hallway. And someone. Because they had been instilled with that same ethic. And someone did. His name was Pigeon. He walked outside, he put his arms around me and he said, it's gonna be okay. Which, as I say in the book, is like very. It's gonna be okay. Is very low level. It's self help. I mean, that's not, you know, we're not dealing.
- [18:23]
Luke Burbank
You're not saying a lot.
- [18:23]
Moshe Kasher
No, we're not dealing with Eckhart Tolle levels of sophistication. It's gonna be okay. But it was enough for me, you know, it was enough for me to get me to come back into the meeting. And I have been sober ever since. Pigeon was there for me. You know, Pigeon, a divinity school student and me a. I don't know what I was. An identity crisis white boy who thought that he wasn't white.
- [18:45]
Luke Burbank
Well, future dj.
- [18:47]
Moshe Kasher
That's right.
- [18:48]
Luke Burbank
Future sober drug dealer, Future Burning man security guard. Like, one of the things that I noted in your most recent book is how many pathways, how many life paths you were on where drugs and alcohol were, like, everywhere. And somehow you're existing within that milieu, but you're not picking up. Like, for instance, you were sober, but also kind of a drug dealer.
- [19:12]
Moshe Kasher
I wouldn't even say kind of. I would say directly. Yeah, I do not. I was watching this documentary called between the Beats, which was just made about the San Francisco rave scene of the 90s, which was my world, my second stop after AA. And I got sober enough to start looking around and going, oh, my God. Like, I've got. I'm 15 and I have to construct a social life. Like, I can't just hang out with these, you know, Vietnam War veterans and go to, like, recovery bowling on Wednesday nights. Like, there's gonna have to be more. My first stop was. Was a rave. And it became like a gigantic Part of my world and. And then became an ecstasy dealer and a DJ and a pro. I say the world's first clean and sober ecstasy dealer.
- [19:53]
Luke Burbank
And how did you like morally square those two things? Did you just feel like, okay, I moshe, have an issue with drugs and alcohol, so I'm sober, but that doesn't mean I get to make that decision for other people.
- [20:03]
Moshe Kasher
Well, yeah, I think that's part of it. I mean, one of the first things that I found and encountered in the rave scene were people that were experiencing this kind of softness and lovingness that had been extremely missing from my childhood. As I said, like everybody I drank with, it was all these like wannabes who like, you know, like I said, listen to Snoop Dogg to decide what to drink. Like it was just this violent, horrible group of kids. And I didn't realize it at the time, but the rave scene had within it this like hyperbaric chamber of a second childhood that I had missed. And all of it was fueled by mdma. But I didn't need MDMA in order to experience this kind of cultural contact high that was so therapeutic and necessary for me. Like it was as therapeutic as the 12 steps were for me to find these like soft kids that were all on ecstasy. So it didn't look immoral in any way. I never have had a moral feeling about drugs and alcohol being good or bad. I just knew, I know that addiction is bad. I don't think that drugs and alcohol are bad. Now. Selling ecstasy to 16 year old raver girls in the hallways of the Home Base warehouse in East Oakland, that was, is that ethically fraught like it probably is. I just was too caught up in the scene to even realize what I'm doing is ethically troublesome.
- [21:28]
Luke Burbank
Did you have any close calls, like where you thought despite, you know, being sober and everything, it's like it's all around you. It doesn't seem like it's harming these people. It just seems like it would be so easy to just take a tab or a pill or whatever.
- [21:42]
Moshe Kasher
Yeah, I honestly, like I said, I was watching this documentary between the Beats about that time and I was watching it and I texted my friend who's also old school raver that is sober now, and I go, I cannot believe I stayed sober through this. Like, how I do not understand. I don't understand. I mean, I think it's truly dumb.
- [22:01]
Luke Burbank
Luck you got sober so young. And you've mentioned that you sort of wonder like how much of what you were going through was being a drug and Alcohol addict. And how much of it was just being a teenager. And now you're in your 40s. Do you ever wonder if you'll be sober for your whole life?
- [22:19]
Moshe Kasher
I do wonder that. I wonder that deeply. In fact, I came to a place where I had decided to try psychedelics as an adult. I did a lot of psychedelics as a teenager and I never did anything even remotely cool and psychedelic. You know, like, I never went to the woods. I never watched the wizard of Oz. I never listened to a Buddhist lecture. I would like take acid and go to like a BART station and like stare at a concrete pylon. Like there was nothing. There was nothing, you know, Ram Dassian, about the way I dropped acid and, you know, or I'd go to a mall, you know, and like, check out what Orange Julius's looked like while you were, you know, on mushrooms. And so I started to, you know, I went to this lecture by Houston Smith, who wrote the world's religions. And he's this like big hippie guy and he was like saying like. And then this intellectual too. He goes, you know, in terms of the profundity of my human experiences, I would say that it goes my encounters with God, my family, and my experiences on psychedelic drugs. And I thought that would be the way I would like to experience psychedelics. I would like to. I would like to go to a lecture, I would like to take ayahuasca and see what lessons there are within that. I would like to take mushrooms and go on a spirit quest. And I had decided to do it. And then my wife got pregnant. And then I thought, I have no desire to mix these stories together because I felt this thing which is just like psychedelics in general are one of the most profound human experiences that people can have. I mean, I like believe that that's not. I know we're talking about alcohol. I don't. So. So I'm sorry.
- [24:03]
Luke Burbank
We're talking about things that people put in their body to feel differently. So I think it's all germane.
- [24:08]
Moshe Kasher
I think like, alcohol is different, you know, I mean, I'm not an anti alcohol guy, but I don't necessarily think there are secrets within a bottle that, you know, can. Can change your life trajectory and sort of make your human experience more profound. It can make it more fun.
- [24:23]
Luke Burbank
I mean, the secret for me at the bottom of the bottle historically has been texting people that I should probably not be texting, which is then.
- [24:32]
Moshe Kasher
Yeah, no, exactly. I mean, Benjamin Franklin said that beer is proof that God loves us. And Wants us to have fun. And that's a founding father right there. Listen, I'm not an anti alcohol guy, but I do think, like, psychedelics in this weird way are like, almost like the universe hid a cheat code to enlightenment. And I feel cheated, and I cheated myself out of the ability to have that experience as an adult. But also, I didn't want the story to be. Yeah, Moshe thought he was going to go on a spirit quest right when he became a father. And now he's just this, like, sort of deadbeat, you know, stoner fool who's drinking every night. And he thought he was on a spirit quest, but actually he was just on a relapse. So here I am, 45 and still sober. My daughter is now 6 years old. And I don't know if someday I cannot say I will never take a psychedelic or even take a drink again, but not to be cliche, but I guess just like, sort of one day at a time, I'm still sort of living this life that is pretty good. I can't look at my life and go, if I poured alcohol on top of it, it would get better. But there is a part of me that's like, but I wouldn't mind unlocking a little bit of a, you know, serpentine awareness inside of me with some psychedelics. I don't know what the future will bring.
- [25:54]
Luke Burbank
Does leaving that door open actually kind of bring you a certain amount of. I don't know if the word is relief, but just like. Cause there's a version of sobriety that's just like one day at a time. But also the goal is to never, ever pick up anything again. And then one version is what you're doing, which is like, I don't know what's gonna happen, but for today, I'm not doing it. And that door number two, or that second version feels to me, as a person who's been in and out of sobriety in my life, that one feels more doable. Like, I don't know if I'll ever be a person who can say definitively I'm never gonna have another drink in my life. But just being able to say I might someday has at times made me feel more comfortable with the whole idea.
- [26:32]
Moshe Kasher
Well, yeah. I mean, honestly, one day at a time, as sort of pat and cliche as it is, is, I think, and I mentioned in Subculture Vulture, the new book, it is the first piece of great, deep, profound wisdom. It's one of these sort of like all nearly Zen doorways to wisdom in that it is so simplistic it almost feels insulting. Kind of like what you're saying, like, I'm not an idiot. You're saying one day at a time. But I know what you mean by that. You mean one day at a time. For the rest of time, say goodbye to having a good time. Like, you know, I'm no fool. But the wisdom within it is that it is for an alcoholic or an addict, it is in fact impossible to stay sober forever. That is the problem that people encounter. It's much like going to the gym on January 1st, where you go, like, I'm going to get in shape. But you can't get in shape because you're a lazy piece of shit, right? You can't do that.
- [27:27]
Luke Burbank
Historically, yes.
- [27:29]
Moshe Kasher
You the great, you the mega, you the listener, you, right? You say, oh, so I joined the gym for. I did the five year plan and I'm going to go Monday through Thursday, I'm going to work out three hours a day and really get in shape. You've already failed. But if you go to the gym today, then you can begin the work, right? And that is the kind of wisdom of AA is it's saying you cannot get sober. It is not possible for you to get sober. But you can get to bed tonight and not drink between now and then. That you can do. And they would pose that to me. Do you think you could go to bed tonight without taking a drink? Oh, yeah, that's fine. Of course I could do that. But that's not my problem. My problem is, you know, my life is a fucking mess and if I don't stop drinking, then it's never going to get better. And they just say, just keep it simple. Go to bed tonight, you can get high tomorrow, right? I would say, really? Tomorrow? Oh my God, AA rules. I had no idea. This is great. So that's what I would do. I would wake up in the morning and I would hyperfocus, like just put my head on the pillow without taking a drink between now and then. And in the beginning I was that even that was too much. And so I would go to a meeting three or four times a day. I would go to a 8am meeting because I wasn't able to sleep at night. And then I would take a nap and I would go to a noon meeting and then I would go to an 8pm meeting and then I would go out to coffee with the people at the AA meeting. All of it in the service of like, don't get high before you go to bed. And then I would go home and I would drink coffee for three or four hours, and I would go home and wonder why I wasn't able to sleep. But then finally, I would, like, put my head on the pillow and I would go to bed and I would go, we're getting high tomorrow. And then I would go to bed and I would wake up and I would go, yeah, it's time to get high. Wait. Oh, shit, it's today again. No. Damn you. A rhetorical trickery, you know. So a little bit at a time, one day at a time. A day became two days, became a week, became a month, became six months, three months, six months. And there's a reason that in AA they have these little chips that signify time, right? Because it is really impossible. Those staying sober from year one to year ten is easy. Staying sober from day one to day ten is impossible. And so they have a lot of honor for time.
- [29:37]
Luke Burbank
Two final questions, and the first of which is kind of cliche to ask somebody in your position, but for people who are hearing this and they really want to try to actually get sober, what would your advice to them be?
- [29:51]
Moshe Kasher
Well, I have a difficult and fraught relationship with AA now because I've been sober for a really long time. And now in hindsight, I look back and I see the warts that I couldn't see the time. But what was true for me and what I really believe is good, righteous wisdom within the AA tradition is that, you know, there's this analogy I've heard that, like, you know, if you have a noise in your car and your car is making a noise and it's getting worse, you try to ignore the noise, but eventually gets so bad you have to bring it to the mechanic. You then eventually bring to the mechanic, and the mechanic does a diagnostic, and he says, here's your problem. You have a. Your carburetor's gone. You have cirrhosis of the liver. Can you tell that this is a metaphor about alcoholism? Anyway, you know, you following, you get the diagnostic, but the diagnostic without. Without the diagnostic, you cannot get better. It is impossible to fix the car without knowing what's wrong with it. But knowing what's wrong with the car does not fix the car. You have to heal it. You have to heal the wound. So regardless of what a person does, I think AA is a strong program, but I think it's got some problems, especially for people that have difficulties with faith and belief in a higher power. Even though there are compens made for that, it is not a structured Dogma. And for people that are agnostic or dubious about a belief in a power grid themselves, there are compensations made. But no matter what you do, it is not enough. AA says, and I think every other system that you go to, it is not enough to stop drinking. Drinking is merely the symptom of the problem. And the problem is one, not that you drink so much, but that you have a personality that needs to drink that much. That is alcoholism. That is addiction. Alcohol is not the enemy. Addiction and alcoholism is the enemy and must be stopped. There is no positive thing that comes from alcoholism or addiction ever. So while I am very open minded about drugs and alcohol, I am very close minded when it comes to addiction. So I don't know what I would say. I would say go to a meeting, I would say go to a therapist, but to get inside and do the work, to get healing.
- [31:50]
Luke Burbank
So from a very cliche question to ask a sober person, to probably annoying question to ask a sober person, do you have any advice for people who have no intention of getting sober? People who are hearing this and just like they're just living their life, maybe they're drinking too much sometimes, maybe they're not, but this is not their bag. Do you have any perspective on their life?
- [32:07]
Moshe Kasher
Yeah, I mean, I guess there's no difference really in the perspective. Drinking is not and has never been good or bad, you know. Yes, it's probably a little bit poisonous. And by the way, I just want to say that as a sober person who's been partying this whole time in raves and at Burning man and at bars, and I have a definitive ranking of most annoying people to be around drug wise. And is it in the book? I don't know if I put it in the book, but could you lay.
- [32:35]
Luke Burbank
It on us here quickly?
- [32:37]
Moshe Kasher
Well, alcohol is number one with a bullet. I mean, it's so far ahead of every other drug.
- [32:42]
Luke Burbank
Can confirm.
- [32:43]
Moshe Kasher
I'm talking about in terms of me interacting with a person that is high on this drug. Drunk person is so far out there in terms of I don't want to talk to you if you're incredibly drunk. I mean, drunk people are obnoxious. They don't pick up on any social cues except for the social cue. When you say to them, hey, you're being obnoxious. They pick up on that. Really? Well, that's. You go, yeah, you're a little too drunk for me to interact with you. They go, what the fuck? Like, how did you miss every social cue except this one? This is the one I need you to pay attention to.
- [33:14]
Luke Burbank
Right.
- [33:15]
Moshe Kasher
Anyway, I would say next is cocaine. Cocaine is number two, but it's way.
- [33:20]
Luke Burbank
Down because of the faux like intensity of everything. Because of the, like, we really gotta, we gotta write that screenplay.
- [33:26]
Moshe Kasher
There's not a lot of back and forth communication happening in cocaine. It's a lot of like ego dial on a listening drug and then down underneath that, way down. I mean, meth, I don't know what meth is in there. Probably too meth is in there. But they make things. They make cool stuff. They like do whittling and amateur welding and stuff. Then psychedelics. I could hang around people on psychedelics all day. Like, I love it. I'm interested. If you're on psychedelics, I want to hang out with you anyway. Your question was what to tell the person that has no intention of stopping drinking is. You know, do you find yourself doing things that you don't want to do when you drink? Do you find yourself unable to stop drinking once you start? Do you find yourself unable to quit drinking when you say you're going to quit? If those three questions are a yes to even any of them, forget whether or not you are an alcoholic. I hate this idea that AA has, which is like binary. You are or aren't. Once you're a pickle, you're never going to be a cucumber again. That's an idea in aa. Like, once you're an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. These are not useful to me. But if you answer yes to any of those three questions, then you do not have a. I would say not to be too judgmental, you do not have a normal relationship with alcohol. So if it is true that you drink and do things you don't want to do, or you drink too much, or you can't stop once you decide you're going to quit, then it's important to forget whether you're going to quit or not. It's just important to know that you don't have a healthy relationship with alcohol. It's the same thing you would, same advice you would take for anything you don't have a healthy relationship with. You know, go to a therapist. Be aware of how much you're drinking. Try to regulate a little bit. Hey, maybe don't take your car keys out with you when you go out drinking. Uber exists for a reason. Like if you're a person that has decided you're never gonna get sober, I think that's totally fine. But it's not fine to ignore whether or not you have a problem. If you know that, if you can admit to yourself that there are some problems, then take it seriously. Because addiction ruins lives. It really does. And it doesn't have to ruin your life. Even if you are a little bit of a drink too much, or you can make workarounds, or you can make healthier choices, there is, like, a level.
- [35:38]
Luke Burbank
Of harm reduction that actually is useful.
- [35:41]
Moshe Kasher
Exactly. You can make a healthier choice than an unexamined life. Right. And I find that a lot of people that drink and get high and especially have problems, there's so much shame around it and so much resistance to saying, I'm going to get sober and stay sober. Right. They go, I'm not the kind of person that's going to get sober. So in order to fuel that narrative about themselves that they'll never get sober, they then make the choice. Ergo, I will do absolutely nothing healthy around my drinking and drug use. That doesn't have to be the choice. There can be a third choice, which is, I know I'm a person that does this a little too much. I know I don't want to get sober, but I will do these things. I will go to a therapist. I will go to a drug counselor. I will. I will not take my keys out with me. I will war. You know, there are harm reduction methods that you can employ that are more healthy than just like, fuck it.
- [36:28]
Luke Burbank
Right?
- [36:29]
Moshe Kasher
One last thought I had when I left AA is that, you know, I had a lot of shame about not going to AA anymore because I'd been conditioned that you have to go for the rest of your life and pay back this debt and all this stuff. And I had this realization like, oh, I didn't get sober for others. I have been very grateful and lucky to be able to help others as a result of being sober. And it was a bonus round. But I really got sober because I needed to get better. And I can't stay in AA forever because of what other people might think of me. And I think that's something maybe for everybody, is like, this really is, as they say in aa, an inside job. This is really about you and you, Luke, and you, listener, and me, Moshe. It's an individual journey. Like, when we die, we don't take other people's perceptions of us with us. It really is like, how healthy did we live? How much excitement did we have? How many good times did we have? How healthy were we? And so never allow, I think, another person's perception of you or your perception of what people think of you. Hold you Back from finding the best version of life for you. Whether that means sobriety, whether it doesn't, it doesn't really matter. Nobody else matters. You are the only person that matters in the story. That is you.
- [37:41]
Luke Burbank
Yeah. Well, as always, Moshe, very well said. Extremely nuanced, non judgy, all the things that we love about you. So, by the way, I'm loving the podcast. You and Natasha's podcast.
- [37:52]
Moshe Kasher
Oh, then the Sunny Moon podcast, guys. Yeah, we give relationship advice, we listen to people's deep, dark secrets, and our theme is we're a no judgment zone. So it. It's thematically connected to this place too.
- [38:02]
Luke Burbank
Yeah, I'm a fan of all of the hashtag content that you're creating these days, man.
- [38:06]
Moshe Kasher
So hashtag thank you.
- [38:08]
Luke Burbank
Thanks for doing this.
- [38:09]
Moshe Kasher
Hashtag blessed.
- [38:12]
Luke Burbank
That's Moshe Kasher from Los Angeles, California, on this week's episode of Damp January. A really big thanks to him for making the time to talk to us. Make sure you check out his books. The thing about Moshe is he is a phenomenal writer. One of his books is Subculture Vulture, in which he talks about a lot of the stuff that we talked about in that interview. And then his first book, which really blew my mind as well, was called Casher in the Rye, which is, I think, an all time great name for a book if your last name is Kasher. So anyway, thanks again to Moshe. Thanks to all of you who have been writing in and telling us about your thoughts on the show. We would love to hear from even more of you. You can contact us@dampjanivwireradio.org all right, next week is the final episode of Damp January. So soon. You know, I did not think I would be saying this, but I think I'm gonna kind of miss doing this show. Despite all of the misgivings that I've expressed while hosting it. I think I'm gonna miss doing this. The good news is that next week we have, I think, an ideal person to help us kind of wrap up this whole thing. It is my friend Nora McInerney, writer of hit books, hoster of of hit TED talks, and also the host behind the very, very recently rebranded podcast project called thanks for Asking.
- [39:47]
Moshe Kasher
I don't actually need any more depressant and I don't need any more anxiety. And alcohol specifically is just like throwing lighter fluid on my anxiety and my depression.
- [40:00]
Luke Burbank
Nora is probably the realest person I know, and by that I mean like a zero artifice. What you hear and see with Nora is what you get. She has been through just about every single thing you can go through as a person, including drinking, by the way, and has thoughts on all of those things. Like Nora is not about bullshit. If you have any bullshit that you're planning on bringing to the show next week, as a listener, I would leave it at home. Because Nora, that's not Nora's game at all. Anyway, you're gonna have to tune into next week's ultimate episode of Damp January to find out exactly what happens that's coming up next week. We will see you then for more Damp January. Damp January is a project of Livewire Radio, written and hosted by me. Laura Haddon is our executive producer, and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko Hazik Bin Ahmad Farid and Trey Hester are mixing the show. Ashley park is our production fellow. Benjamin Kleek composed our theme. And a special thanks to Livewire's executive director, Heather D. Michel. Also to the whole team over there at prx. Thanks prx. We really appreciate you on all of this and we appreciate you, the Damp January listener, whoever you might be. Thanks for spending these last four weeks with us. We hope we'll see you next week for the final episode when it will be time once again. And for the final time to get damp. We'll see you then. Wouldn't it be amazing to have a piping hot episode of Livewire delivered right to your heart and ears each week? Well, guess what? That can happen when you subscribe to the Livewire podcast feed, and you'll get the joy of surprising conversation every week. So go ahead and do it. It's super easy. You click on the button at the top of your podcast app and bam. You are Livewire subscribed. And if you're still, you know, feeling the love, if you're enjoying the show, hey, maybe you could hook us up in my Leave us a quick review that'll help more people find out about Livewire. And thank you.
- [42:53]
Moshe Kasher
From prx.