Damp January: Why Is This So Hard? (with Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall)

Summary

Live Wire with Luke Burbank - Episode Summary: "Damp January: Why Is This So Hard?" Featuring Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall

Introduction

In the episode titled "Damp January: Why Is This So Hard?", Luke Burbank, host of Live Wire with Luke Burbank on PRX, delves into the intricate relationship between alcohol consumption and personal well-being. Joining him is Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, a writer and author best known for his book Hungover: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure. The episode explores themes of moderation, the challenges of overcoming hangovers, and the psychological ties that bind individuals to alcohol.

Background of Guest and Topic

Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall is introduced as a writer, raconteur, and someone deeply immersed in the world of alcohol. Luke Burbank shares his admiration for Shaughnessy's dedication to conquering one of his own nemeses: the hangover. Shaughnessy undertook a years-long project to get intensely intoxicated and experimented with various global remedies to alleviate hangover symptoms, culminating in his book Hungover: The Morning After and One Man’s Quest for the Cure.

Personal Experiences with Alcohol and Hangovers

The conversation begins with Shaughnessy recounting a vivid memory from a bachelor party in Tucson, Arizona, where excessive drinking led to severe dehydration and a heat stroke:

"I remember waking up in the middle of the desert and there were lizards that were licking the last bits of moisture from my eyeballs. And I thought, well, you know, this is hell." (17:00)

Luke shares his own battles with hangovers and how they have influenced his drinking habits:

"To the degree that I've moderated my drinking at all in recent years, a lot of that is due to the hangover." (02:00)

Strategies for Moderation

Shaughnessy discusses his current relationship with alcohol, emphasizing a balance between enjoyment and functionality. He aims to limit his consumption to three or four drinks a day, finding that exceeding this amount leads to problematic behavior, while drinking less often leaves him craving more:

"I realize that there's probably a sort of a sweet spot for me personally in regards to being able to balance my enjoyment of life with my ability to function in it well." (05:10)

He employs strategies such as delaying the start of drinking by engaging in activities like going to the gym or postponing dinner. However, he acknowledges the difficulty in maintaining structure as a freelance writer without a fixed schedule.

Psychological and Social Aspects

The episode delves into the psychological motivations behind drinking, particularly for writers. Shaughnessy explains that unlike actors who receive immediate feedback and applause, writers work in solitude and use alcohol as a form of self-reward:

"You do give yourself these little rewards, right? And it's actually, you know, I talk to my students a lot about this, too." (09:00)

Luke relates to this by discussing how alcohol makes him feel more social and connected, despite not inherently being a highly social person:

"If you just ran into me somewhere or you saw me backstage at our radio show, you would think this is a highly social person... Every person at the bar is fascinating to me." (30:21)

The Dichotomy of Alcohol

Shaughnessy articulates the dual nature of alcohol, highlighting its ability to enhance sensory experiences while also being a source of significant personal and social harm:

"I think actually that what conclusion I've come to... is that it's almost that that I love about alcohol, which is that its power reaches both ways so, so drastically." (29:00)

This dichotomy reflects the broader human experience with substances that offer both pleasure and peril, underscoring the complexity of managing alcohol consumption.

Future Outlook and Reflections

As the conversation progresses, both hosts reflect on their future relationships with alcohol. Shaughnessy shares his uncertainty about how his drinking habits will evolve, especially in light of his father's passing and the contemplation of mortality:

"I'm hoping I have at least one more good decade in me before the negatives outweigh the positives in every manner in regards to drinking." (33:01)

Luke expresses a hope that he will naturally lose interest in excessive drinking as he ages, though he admits uncertainty about achieving this shift:

"I'm just hoping that, as I move into the later part of my life, somehow I'll just become less interested." (34:38)

Conclusion

The episode concludes with a lighthearted exchange about future episodes and the ongoing dialogue around drinking. Luke emphasizes the importance of sharing these personal stories to foster understanding and perhaps inspire change among listeners.

Notable Quotes

1. Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall on the Abyss of a Metaphysical Hangover:

   "I think anybody who's ever felt it knows what I mean by that. That is the great abyss where the world and your own life seems impossible, I guess." (00:05:10)

2. Shaughnessy on Being a Writer Who Drinks:

   "I was just like, okay, I know how to drink. I don't need to deal with the rest of this stuff." (09:00)

3. Luke on the Allure of Alcohol for Social Connections:

   "Every person at the bar is fascinating to me. And it feels in the moment like I'm connecting with people in a way that I don't otherwise." (30:21)

4. Shaughnessy on the Dual Nature of Alcohol:

   "It's almost that that I love about alcohol, which is that its power reaches both ways so, so drastically." (29:00)

5. Luke on His Changing Relationship with Drinking:

   "I've realized that I may be a little less socially comfortable than I think I am, but get a couple drinks in me and literally every person at the bar is fascinating to me." (30:21)

Final Thoughts

"Damp January: Why Is This So Hard?" offers a candid exploration of alcohol consumption, its impact on personal and professional life, and the ongoing struggle for moderation. Through shared vulnerabilities and personal anecdotes, Luke Burbank and Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall provide listeners with insightful reflections on why navigating one's relationship with alcohol is often an arduous journey.

Transcript

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

And they pulled me out of the car and put me in the shadow of a cactus and then went to try to find gas. And I remember at some point waking up in the middle of the desert and there were lizards that were licking the last bits of moisture from my eyeballs. And I thought, well, you know, this is how.

[Luke Burbank]

From Livewire, Radio and prx. This is damp January. I'm your host, Luke Burbank. The guy that you just heard, his name is Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl, who was a guest on the radio show that.

I host, it's called Livewire.

And he is a writer and a raconteur and a drinker. Like, for real. For real. Not like your friend who had three white claws on the fourth of July and is, like, still talking about it. And I gotta tell you, I knew right away that I was gonna like this guy because for one thing, Shaughnessy set out to conquer what has been one of my main nemeses. It's been one of the main things that I've hated dealing with in my adult life, and that is the hangover. Shaughnessy went on this, like, years long project of just getting intensely loaded and then trying various remedies, like from all over the world that were supposed to help you recover from a hangover. He wrote an entire book about this called Hungover the Morning after and One Man's Quest for the Cure. And I cannot overstate this, how similar Shaughnessy and I are. We are kind of the same person. I learned when we were talking back.

In 2018 for Livewire.

And then you also talk in the book about the sort of metaphysical hangover. What do you mean by that?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Oh, I think anybody who's ever felt it knows what I mean by that. That is the great abyss where the world and your own life seems impossible, I guess.

[Luke Burbank]

Happy New Year, everyone.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I think how I describe it in the beginning of the book is it's that moment when you roll over in bed onto something that feels like a fish and then realize it's your soul.

[Luke Burbank]

I have to say that, like, over the years since that interview, I have really thought about Shaughnessy a lot, particularly as I've kind of cycled in and out of different levels of sobriety and then very much not sobriety and then some kind of moderation. I've always had this thought in the back of my mind. I wonder how Shaughnessy is doing. Like, is having the cure for the hangover? Is it like having the ring in Lord of the Rings? In that it's like, just too much power for a non hobbit to have. Like, to the degree that I've moderated my drinking at all in recent years, a lot of that is due to the hangover. Like, I am 48 and I am down for the count for the next day or two if I overdo it at this point. Anyway, when we had this idea for doing this limited series talking about drinking, like, one of the first names that popped into my head was Shaughnessy. Cause I wanted to find out, like, where he was at with things. And it took us a while, but we found him in Canada where he lives and also where he teaches. And we called him up.

Shaughnessy. Bishop Stahl, welcome to damp January.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Thanks a lot. Thanks for having me.

[Luke Burbank]

When you and I last spoke, it was because you had written this really interesting book of searching for the elusive cure for the hangover, which you had sort of, kind of found a version that was working for you. Are you still using that cure?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah, I am still using a variation on the cure that appears in the book. And I've tweaked it a number of times since I saw you last and since I wrote the book. Book. I may have to do an update on the book at some point, but it's pretty much the same. Yes.

[Luke Burbank]

And is it still working?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

It's still working. Either fortunately or unfortunately. I'm not sure. Because if I had never found the hangover cure, who knows if I would still be drinking? But I'm still drinking and I'm still using the hangover cure.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah. I'm curious. What's your relationship with drinking look like these days?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

That's a good question. And it definitely depends on who asks me this question. I would give my doctor a different answer than I might give my.

[Luke Burbank]

Why do we all. We who drink lie to our doctors? It's the weirdest phenomenon.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Well, they sort of ask us to because I just think their criteria is somewhat unfair at times. And the kind of prescribed amounts and even how much wine you're supposed to even put in a glass just seems unreasonable when you're talking to some medical professionals.

[Luke Burbank]

I believe it does. And yet, presumably we want to stay alive for a while, and giving these people the actual information would, like, maybe help the chances of that. And yet I have literally never told the doctor the actual amount of alcohol that I've been drinking at any point in my life.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah, me too. Me too, Luke. And I guess I should be more ashamed of it than I am. But anyway, my relationship with alcohol right now I'm always attempting to drink less than I do, I'll put it that way. I realize that there's probably a sort of a sweet spot for me personally in regards to being able to balance my enjoyment of life with my ability to function in it well. And I find that if I can get to a point where I'm having on average, three drinks a day, three, maybe four, that's usually where I find myself most balanced, where I'm not thinking about it all the time in one way or the other. If I'm drinking more than that, I think it becomes problematic pretty quickly. And if I'm drinking less than that, I tend to be thinking about wanting another drink.

[Luke Burbank]

What has been successful for you for keeping that number at like, say, three a day and not having it go north of that. Like, when you're in a period of time where this feels like it's in a good place for you, what's sort of going on with that?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Well, I think part of it's physical and part of it's psychological for me, at least. If I can put off the drinking until later in the day, that's certainly helpful. And usually I try to do that by coming up with things to do that don't involve drinking until, you know, I'll go to the gym later in the day or something like that. So I'm putting off the start of drinking. I'll put off my dinner time until a bit later. Things like that. You know, it's a bit trickier for me because I'm a writer and I'm a freelancer, and I don't have much structure. Right. So I don't have a nine to five. I don't have. I set my own hours.

[Luke Burbank]

Plus there's this very romantic notion of the kind of very soused writer. Right.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

For sure. But honestly, I'm 50 now, and I've had that romantic notion for like, 35 good years. And after a while it gets a little tired. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

We all start out wanting to be Hunter S. Thompson, and then at some point we realize he hit the wall there pretty hard for himself and just checked out.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah. And not to get too grim, but all of my heroes from when I was a very, very young writer, whether it's Hunter S. Thompson or Hemingway or they all did end up with a firearm in their mouth, you know, I mean, I don't want to get too gross about it, but all the ones who lived the way I kind of imagined myself living didn't really make the finish line, you know?

[Luke Burbank]

Do you do the thing that I've done a lot in my life where you sort of dangle a drink or multiple drinks as a sort of carrot that you put in front of yourself to get through things that you kind of don't want to do. Like, you reward yourself with it.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I think that's actually a big part of being a writer who drinks because, you know, as opposed to many other arts, like let's. I used to do a lot of acting, right? As an actor, you get up on stage, you know, perhaps every night, and at the end of you performing your art, there's applause and you see the happy faces and there's, for the most part, whereas as a writer, you don't really get those moments that often at all. You're by yourself in a room, and at the end of each day there's nobody there applauding you. And, you know, you could work on a book like I do sometimes for eight years, and a month after it comes out, your aunt sends you an email saying that she's liking it so far. You know, that won't necessarily be the big enough carrot for eight years, working through a book, you know. So, yeah, you do give yourself these little rewards, right? And it's actually, you know, I talk to my students a lot about this, too. It's one of the reasons that I recommend to them to, like, just when they're finishing writing for the day, to stop in the middle of a paragraph or even in the middle of a sentence so that they know where to pick up the next day. But because there's such a desire for a feeling of completion or achievement or accomplishment that you want to get to the end of that paragraph. Paragraph or the end of that chapter. And it just makes the page so much more blank the next day, because you got to start afresh, right? And so I think instead of having to finish the chapter, I have a drink. That's what I do.

[Luke Burbank]

Instead of, you know, the number one predictor of if, at least historically for me, if I was going to potentially go a bit over the edge, would be did I work out that day? Because the way that my sort of brain chemistry is with it is if everything's done and if I've done my exercising and if I've sent those documents to my accountant, and if I kind of actually feel like I'm in a good place, that's when it gets dangerous.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

That's dangerous.

[Luke Burbank]

If I've been eating junk food all day and I haven't exercised and I feel disorganized, I'M actually less inclined in that moment. Like, I don't bury myself in drinking because of wanting to escape reality. But the sort of celebratory aspect, the I earned this.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

That's really smart that you've been able to realize that. I think I'm probably exactly the same way, and I don't really recognize it.

[Luke Burbank]

This is why I've stopped accomplishing anything, by the way, because there's no danger.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Very smart. No, but you're right. It's completely counterintuitive when we're talking to doctors or therapists or whatever and they recommend balanced, healthy lifestyles for people like you and I, that might be a trigger. You know, as soon as things in order, I'm like, oh, wow, look what I did. I put my life in order. I deserve a drink and maybe five more.

[Luke Burbank]

There's the stereotype, I think, and obviously it shows up in different ways in different people. But there's the stereotype of somebody just trying to block the world out and desperately escape their circumstances, maybe through, like, alcohol consumption. And again, for me, it's really the opposite. It's when things seem like they're going really well, that's when the pull is very, very strong to me.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

When did you realize that?

[Luke Burbank]

Probably in my early 30s. I'm 48 now. I used to have a routine. I worked for NPR in Los Angeles, and they had a shower at the broadcast center called NPR West. And on Fridays, I used to go in really early because I worked on kind of a morning show. And I would go in on Friday and work, and the show would be done. And then I would go on a run, like a fairly long run in the Los Angeles heat. And I would just be pouring sweat. I would get back to the facility and I would take that shower, and I would get dressed in a fresh set of clothes, and I would beeline it for a place called the Tattletale that was just down Sepulveda. And it's a perfect dive bar because it's like no natural light can enter this place. It's like 2pm now on a Friday in Los Angeles, and it's blindingly light outside. It is purely dark inside. Roger's exciting Tattletale. And like, those would be some of the maybe more regrettably drunk days stretching into nights of my life. But again, it had to do with this idea that I had checked every box that I was supposed to check, and now it was time to reward myself. And something that I've been trying to work on with mixed success is this thing That I call this is the good part. And basically what it is, is instead of my life being the things I don't want to do that I have to get through and then reward myself with maybe a drink or whatever it is I'm trying to figure out how.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

To make, how to enjoy that, the.

[Luke Burbank]

Working, going on a run. Because it turns out that's most of life, right? Like, if I can only experience happiness when I'm bellying up at the tattletale, that means most of my life is going to be kind of dreary. Because mostly it's the other stuff. So I have found that the more that I can kind of be present in the other stuff, that carrot gets a little smaller, Right?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I totally hear what you're saying and it makes sense. And you sound similar to me in a lot of ways. One of my maybe parallel issues is that pretty much every job I've ever had you can do while drinking, right? So there isn't so much the separation of work and play, you know? And when I say pretty much, I mean exactly every single job I've ever had.

[Luke Burbank]

Which, you know, raises the question if you kind of self selected that maybe subconsciously, right?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I do not know. And by this point it definitely doesn't matter. But I mean, even the fact that I spent 10 years working on a book about hangovers where it was necessary for me to drink too much all the time to test out all these hangover cures all over the world, it probably didn't need 10 years to write that book. You know, I probably dragged it out realizing that when this is over, I won't have as good an excuse to drink too much all the time, you.

[Luke Burbank]

Know, what is a go to for you? I'm sure, like a lot of people that drink, it depends on the time of year and the social event. But like, what's the sort of standard thing you'll drink?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I've never had a drink. When people say what's your drink? I never really got that question. To me it's like saying, what's your music? Or what's your food? You know, Like, I've never understood that question. The only way I've been able to narrow it down is I know what is not my drink. I don't like gin, I just can't drink gin. Other than that, everything goes.

[Luke Burbank]

Before you found the hangover cure, or at least one that sort of works for you, do you have a memory of like the most hungover you've ever been in your life or something? That's in like the top five.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Oh, yeah. And in fact, there's a number of those in the book. You know, I do mind my own misery in that book quite a bit. So one of my worst hangovers was during a bachelor party weekend in Tucson, Arizona. And I didn't know the groom that well, any of them. It was one of these things where it was my kind of my girlfriend's friends and I was along but got invited to the bachelor party part of it. And it was one of those kind of sleazy bachelor parties with like, at somebody's bungalow with strippers and stuff I wasn't enjoying. And so I just focused on the drinking. Right.

[Luke Burbank]

Sure.

I've been there before, like in a situation that's not ideal. Yeah.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

So I was just like, okay, I know how to drink. I don't need to deal with the rest of this stuff. Right. But we went hard and we went for a long time from various place to various place. Finally, back at the hotel, I got the hiccups, which for me, I. I hate the hiccups more than almost anything like. And my hiccup cure is usually a tablespoon of sugar and vinegar. And you swallow that down and it kind of creates a little spasm in your throat and you stop hiccup coming.

[Luke Burbank]

Jeez.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

But I was quite intoxicated, I believe, and I kind of forgot what I was doing and ended up ordering shots of sugar and vinegar at the bar.

[Luke Burbank]

Which I'm sure felt like a hilarious bit at the time. Like I've. I've so been.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yes. But I. So I'm lining up shots of vinegar and sugar at some point in the morning after having drunk for hours and hours and hours. And I'm sure that they were just sizzling right through my stomach lining as I'm doing. Each one passed out. At some point, some other things happened. We got kicked out of the hotel because one of the guys had thought that the balcony was the bathroom and it ended up peeing on people's heads from the balcony. Well, you know, it was one of those nights, right?

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Next day we're driving to the wedding, which is a few hours down the highway.

[Luke Burbank]

And this is in Arizona, a notoriously cool state, so that must be helping, right?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

It was so hot and I had started sweating out of every pore. My body started, you know, not feeling good. We had to keep stopping the car for me to empty the contents of my burned up bowels. And suddenly we run out of gas. No air conditioning. We're dying in the middle of Arizona. And they pulled me out of the car and put me in the shadow of a cactus and then went to try to find gas. And I remember at some point, waking up in the middle of the desert, and there were lizards that were licking the last bits of moisture from my eyeballs. And I thought, well, you know, this is hell. This is certainly hell.

[Luke Burbank]

Yeah, you'd be forgiven for thinking that you had died and gone to hell. No one talks about that.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

It was definitely hell. It was definitely hell. And hell got even worse because what ended up happening is that the bridesmaid's car came to pick me up, and I had to get in this SUV full of all these pretty, very well put together bridesmaids while I was covered in my own filth with the remnants of, like, you know, lizard tongues on my eyes. And then we headed into the wedding.

[Luke Burbank]

Did you actually survive? I mean, I know you survived the wedding because you're here talking to me, but, I mean, did you make it through the wedding?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

So at the time, my girlfriend was a medical doctor, and when she pulled me out of the bridesmaid car, she put me into an ice bath because my body temperature. I had a heat stroke. Body temperature was off the charts and melted right through that ice. So I did ice baths in and out of the ice bath for a few hours, I believe, and she hooked me up to an iv. And fortunately, the bachelor party had been the night before. The night before the wedding. Right. So all that I ended up missing was the rehearsal dinner and then got to the wedding, and we had a great time, and we danced.

[Luke Burbank]

I never thought of this angle of, like, making sure that you partner up with a medical doctor.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah, it's a must for men like us.

[Luke Burbank]

Luke got ready. Access to the leading edge of medicine and getting you ready for that wedding. Wow. Was there a point lying in the desert where you said, this must stop? Did you pray to whatever God you pray to and say, if you just let me survive this, I will stop drinking? Did the idea of not drinking anymore occur to you in that moment?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I mean, that would be the smart thing to do, but, no. We got out of the. I got out of the ice bath later on, and that was the first time I ever watched the movie the Hangover. That's when it came out. It was on pay per view or whatever, and it was more like the other way. I was like, oh, I shall devote.

[Luke Burbank]

My life to this.

Well, I bet you the ice bath probably really helped, right? Like, in terms of kind of straightening you right out. You probably felt that in the iv, you probably felt pretty good after that.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't go that far, but I did feel like I'd escaped hell. That is true.

[Luke Burbank]

I think the. I mean, there's a long list of events for me where I think I was the most hungover. But one of them might have been I was sent to Michigan. I was sent to Detroit, Michigan to cover the Super Bowl. And because of the way that the media stuff is set up for the.

Super bowl, you get there like a.

Week early because there's just all this kind of like preamble stuff. There's all these media days that are leading up to the game. And I was the way, if you're a kind of high level ESPN person, you're staying at a hotel right by the stadium. And if you're me at the time from npr, you're staying at a hotel in Livonia, Michigan, which is a roughly 40 minute bus ride outside of Detroit. So I'm out in Livonia, Michigan, and I figure out, well, I've got to make someplace my local watering hole for this week, that I'm in Michigan. And so I end up going to this place called Stables Sports Bar. And I'm going in there every night. And by like the Saturday night before the Super Bowl, I'm like a regular. You know, I've been there like five or six nights in a row to the point where when they close it, one of the cooks like invites me back to their house. Which, if you're a certain kind of drinker, is like a high praise, right? To be like invited by the staff to some other thing. Of course, it was one of those houses where it's like there's a pit bull that no one's really taking care of. Someone's occasionally trying to get it to smoke weed. You know, it's just like a. I'm like standing in the kitchen with these strangers. They're calling me Radio Guy. Like, I mean, and then I just end up. I'm just consuming God knows what, you know, all night and late into the night. And now it's three in the morning and four in the morning and I am downstairs and I just remember like, there was a shag rug and a big Detroit Lions, like, blanket that was tacked up. And I'm in this little bathroom in the basement because I'm now sick and the door doesn't really shut. So I'm holding the door shut with my foot and some partygoer is just knocking on the door going, radio guy. Are you okay, radio guy? And I wake up the next morning under that Detroit Lions blanket on a couch in this basement and I mean, can essentially not see straight. It's that kind of out of a movie kind of moment of triple vision or something. And the thing is, I still have to go cover the super bowl, right? And I just remember like the teams running out on the field and I'm sitting on like the 50 yard line of the super bowl, people are screaming their lungs out and just almost having an out of body experience because I was still so, so inebriated at like five in the afternoon. And you know, it was one of those things where as I was on that bus, I was saying to myself, never ever again, like this can never happen again. And by the time I'm in the locker room after the game and I'm interviewing the victorious Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm starting to feel okay, you know, And I get up Monday morning and I'm thinking, well, that's an epic story. I mean, I think that's part of the challenge for somebody like you or I, who are kind of storytellers by nature, is that it's really alluring and I think sometimes dangerous that these all just become good stories.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Oh, for sure. And especially like when I was doing the research for the, for the Hangover book, part of the purpose was to see what I could put myself through. And also, you know, for you, when you're talking about a Super bowl, oftentimes your worst hangover isn't just how you're feeling it, but it's, but it's what you have to then do while you're feeling that way. And so, you know, when I went to Vegas, the whole point of that trip was to do things you would never ever want to do with a hangover. With a hangover. Right. So I was on this kind of fam. You would know these familiarization media kind of junkets where I was with a bunch of journalists and we did things like jump off the stratosphere, do the stratosphere and shoot bazookas and fly a, an actual fighter jet and drive a race car. And I did every one of those things after becoming extremely hungover and then going and visiting this self proclaimed hangover doctor who would try to cure me and then put me back out into the field. Right. And it didn't go well. It did not. But speaking of the Super Bowl, I think the super bowl of drinking was when I went to Berlin and they had the largest mixologist conference in the world. Right. It's about five square blocks of this massive convention center that is just full with hundreds and hundreds of the best bartenders in the world who are mixing drinks for you for free. And it went for three days. And by the third day, I managed to lose my passport and so was not able to leave Berlin. And it was. I forget what holiday it was, but the Canadian consulate wasn't open either. So I ended up living on the streets of Berlin because I had no money, no passport, no Canadian consulate. And it wasn't until I'd finally got a new passport and a new ticket and all this that I realized I just given them my passport at the front desk of the hotel when I checked in, and they had it behind there and I just completely forgotten about it. After three days of bartending super bowl.

[Luke Burbank]

What'S it been like for you to write, particularly in the Hangover book, to sort of, I guess, live life publicly as a drinker, to share that side of your life with people? Because I guess that's kind of something we're doing with this podcast. I'm, you know, I have this very sort of, like, weird relationship with, like, vulnerability and oversharing in that I sort of do it a lot, but I do it in a really controlled way where I'm only oversharing the things that I feel like oversharing. And this, this series is kind of me oversharing in a way that maybe.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Yeah, choosing what you're going to overshare.

[Luke Burbank]

And this kind of goes beyond that. And I'm actually not even totally sure how I feel about the whole thing. But I'm wondering from your perspective, having written about you're drinking and then strangers reading it and people that know you reading it, like, what's that been like for you to put that part of your life very much out there, you.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Know, it doesn't really bother me for some reason. I don't know. I guess I'm just shameless. I don't know. But I've written about, I think more. I've written a number of books and that could be considered oversharing, you know, I don't know. I don't know. It doesn't bother me that much. If it's a good story, that's all that matters to me, you know, what.

[Luke Burbank]

Do you love about drinking? Like, what does it.

What does it do for you?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Oh, wow, that's a great question. It really is a great question, and it's not an easy one for me to answer. I've spent so much time thinking about drinking and Writing about drinking. And funnily enough, that's not an easy one to answer. To me, it's like it does, in some ways, do the same thing as music does and as food does for me, where it connects me with my senses, you know, and also deepens my senses. And I do love it. I do love it, even though I've seen so many, many horrible things come out of it. And I haven't seen horrible things come out of music, right? And I haven't seen horrible things come out of most meals. So there is the two sides of drinking where can be seen as such a gift, a curative, something that makes life better, but also the exact opposite. Of course, it can be a poison, and it can make people and life much darker and much more dangerous. So I think actually that what conclusion I've come to, especially through the Hangover book, is that it's almost that that I love about alcohol, which is that is that its power reaches both ways so, so drastically. And that it's almost the clearest equation to me that I see in human nature, insofar as the higher you go, the lower you're going to go, you know? And that's what makes the hangover and the drunkenness before it such interesting to me. Two signs of that coin, because in every way, I think that alcohol imbues that or has that in it. Is this dichotomy, right? Like, if you look at it from a macro way, or just your own personal night or whatever it is, there are very few things that I think encapsulate the complete dichotomy of experience as alcohol does.

[Luke Burbank]

You know, I think for me, it's kind of actually a pretty common story, which is, I think it makes every situation more interesting that I'm in and also makes me much more social, which is weird because I have the job of being a radio host. And if you just ran into me somewhere or you saw me backstage at our radio show, you would think this is a highly social person. And I think I thought I was for about 45 years of my life. And I think I've realized that I may be a little less socially comfortable than I think I am, but get a couple drinks in me and literally every person at the bar is fascinating to me. And it feels in the moment like I'm connecting with people in a way that I don't otherwise. And that's very hard to sort of give up or walk away from. And I've been in and out of attempts at sobriety in my adult life. And I think that the way that it makes me feel connected to other people and believe it or not, connected to myself, you know, in those moments where you've got sort of just the right amount of outcome alcohol in you, I haven't found something else yet that creates that for me. I wish I was a person who just, like, loved weed. Very jealous. So jealous of people that just, like, want to take an edible and sit on the couch. That would be such a healthier lifestyle for me.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Absolutely, yeah. Fortunately or not, I think we're very similar in a lot of ways, Luke, which also might not be great for your podcast, because you probably need people who are very different than here to talk.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, this is the most scene I've felt on a podcast recording in years. So, you know, I'm enjoying myself. I don't know if the listeners are getting enough contrast.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Right, exactly.

[Luke Burbank]

Let me. Let me sort of wrap things up with this question, because this is something that I'm always thinking about in my own life. You know, I said, I'm 48 years old. I have noticed that, like, that place, the tattletale that I used to go to, I enjoyed being there in my late 20s and early 30s because I assumed I wouldn't be there in my 60s. You know, it's not like very few people live a long life of pretty heavy drinking and have it be something that is kind of working well for them in, let's say, later life, starting maybe in about your 60s. I'm always trying to solve the puzzle of how I'll get through this life, what my relationship with alcohol will be. Right now, it's fairly minimal, but how do you see the next 30 years going for you?

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Do you have plans, man? I mean, that's kind of where we started, right, when our conversation was just, look at all those guys who were seen as the greatest drinkers of all time. And none of them ended well. So, I don't know. I'm still trying to think of somebody who. I mean, Leonard Cohen ended well.

[Luke Burbank]

Dude, it's so funny. I know this exact sort of tally of like, hey, can we find someone aspirational who was. Can we find someone who was doing this a lot? And then, you know, Kris Kristofferson was still doing it.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

I don't know. I don't know.

[Luke Burbank]

I mean, yes, go Kris Kristofferson. We've got. I mean, it's a shorter list, but.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

It'S a really short list. And they kind of are super beings, the ones who, like, you know, like. So I don't know, I, like I said, I just turned 50. So this, all this stuff is very much on my mind. My. My father died quite unexpectedly within the last year or so, and he. Thank you. Thank you. But these are the things that make you think very much about your own mortality more than you ever have. And he was a drinker right to the end. And I'm hoping I have at least one more good decade in me before the negatives outweigh the positives in every manner in regards to drinking. And I really hope that I'll be able to know and to notice and to recognize when, when there is no longer the positive side to drinking. You know, I'm just hoping. I don't really have a plan. If you come up with something, tell.

[Luke Burbank]

Me, I'll write a book and then you can interview me about my book called Drinking While Elderly the Luke Burbank System. I mean, I think part of me is hoping that, and I don't know, there's like zero science to indicate this would happen, but I'm just hoping that, like, as I move into the later part of my life, somehow I'll just become less interested.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Oh, I thought you were going to go the absolute opposite way and say that hopefully science will catch up and cure all liver problems. And cure them. I've already figured out. The thing is, I figured out the hangover. So that's really one of the things that, as people get older, that stops them from drinking so much. But having cured the damn hangover, there's, you know, I now need them to cure things like a host of liver disease and fatty liver. Yeah. So I don't know what to do with that.

[Luke Burbank]

Well, my friend, whichever one of us solves this problem first, tell the other one. Okay.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Absolutely.

[Luke Burbank]

And then we'll meet and have a drink about it.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Sounds good.

[Luke Burbank]

Great. Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl, thanks for coming on damp January.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

Great to see you and talk to you, Luke.

[Luke Burbank]

That right there is Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl. He is the author of the Morning after and One Man's Quest for the Cure. I really appreciate him being so vulnerable and so honest with us talking about all of this stuff. I do think that there has to be some sort of like, psychic or spiritual connection between people who are writers and people who are also attracted to kind of losing themselves in alcohol. There is a writer, though, a very successful writer, who definitely enjoys having drinks, but specifies not generally when he is trying to do his job, his job of writing. That is Gary Steingart, the author of so many popular Books. Super sad. True Love Story, Absurdistan. And when he's not writing hit books, he's reviewing martinis for the New Yorker. This guy really knows his way around a drink. But when he's not doing either of those things, he's joining us here for the next episode of Damp January.

[Gary Steingart]

I mean, are people that determined to live to 88 rather than 86? Is that really that important? You know, your 80s are going to be terrifying anyway. At any moment, the grim reaper can appear and take you away. So are we really that desperate to win? It's so American, right? It's like when two more years of your life, you're going to give up on one of the few things that gives you pleasure.

[Luke Burbank]

That is the next episode of Damp January. I have to say, like, I found this entire conversation with Gary Steingart to be not what I was expecting. He does not talk about this stuff in the way I think that we're, like, supposed to talk about things. I put that in air quotes. It's gonna be an interesting episode and I hope you can join us for that. Damp January is a project of Livewire Radio. It's written and hosted by Moi, Luke Burbank. Laura Haddon, of course, is our executive producer. Our producer and editor is the long suffering Melanie Sevchenko Hazik Bin Ahmad Fareed and Trey Hester. They're the folks mixing the show. Thanks, dudes. Ashley park is our production fellow. And then Benjamin Kleek, that's the guy that wrote our theme song. Also, a special thanks to our executive director. That is Livewire's executive director, Heather D. Michel, and also the whole team over at prx. Now, we've got two of these episodes under our belt. So maybe you have thoughts. Maybe you think that this is something that's really, I don't know, providing you with interesting information in your life. Or maybe you think there's a way we. I could be doing it better. Or maybe you just want to talk about your life and your drinking. Or not drinking. Guess what? And not to brag, we have an email address. It's dampjanivewireradio.org thank you so much for listening to the show. Good luck out there, people. We're gonna be back here next week to get damp. I guess we're keeping that. I guess that's how we end the show now. All right, see you next week. 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 and leave us a quick review that'll help more people find out about Livewire. And thank you.

[Shaughnessy Bishop Stahl]

From prx.