Ethan Suplee

Summary

Podcast Summary: You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes – Ethan Suplee

Release Date: April 12, 2023
Host: Pete Holmes
Guest: Ethan Suplee (Actor, Host of American Glutton Podcast)

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Overview

This episode features actor and podcast host Ethan Suplee (known for "My Name Is Earl," "American History X," and his own podcast "American Glutton") in an open, thoughtful, and often hilarious discussion with Pete Holmes. They explore Ethan's dramatic transformation—from battling severe addiction and obesity to achieving sobriety and remarkable health—as well as personal philosophies, addictive behaviors, self-compassion, moral dilemmas, and accepting the messiness of life.

The conversation is marked by Pete’s trademark humor and warmth, as well as Ethan’s candor and philosophical insight, making for an episode rich in self-examination, vulnerability, and offbeat humor about everyday weirdness.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Fear and Motivation Behind Life Changes

• Body & Life Transformation:

  • Ethan recounts becoming an inspiration for others in health and fitness. He describes his "500-pound self" as a guiding, cautionary voice, motivating him to sustain positive change.
  • Quote:

    "One of them for me is my self at 500. He's there, and his state was just that you can’t do anything there. The world is happening to you and you can't do anything...I'm motivated to not get back to that." – Ethan Suplee, [77:04]

• Staying Motivated:

  • Pete shares how Ethan and other influences ("disembodied heads") help him push through resistance to exercise or positive habits.
  • They discuss how motivation sometimes comes not from optimism but from aversion to pain or old patterns.

• Practical Guardrails:

  • Ethan details “sobriety rules” for himself, e.g., not eating in secret, not indulging in fast food, and avoiding triggers.
  • Quote:

    "I don't eat in secret. I'm not going to eat if I will see my wife to watch it." – Ethan Suplee, [81:25]

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2. Addictive Patterns & Self-Compassion

• Substance & Food Addiction Parallels:

  • Both discuss the elaborate rituals and rationalizations around addictive behaviors with humor and empathy.
  • Pete likens secret snacking to sneaking drinks: "I'd open one...eat the whole thing at Crafty, take another one and walk back with that one. This is the one I’m eating. You didn't see the one I shot like an oyster." – Pete Holmes, [83:12]

• Compassion for Addicts & Non-Addicts:

  • Ethan expresses envy for people (like his wife) who can drink moderately and not spiral into addiction, and reflects on the nature of relapse, secrecy, and self-worth.

• The Myth of Health as Moral Superiority:

  • Ethan notes that culture uses "health" to shame or justify, but people chase risky pleasures in many ways (motorcycles, skydiving, overeating).
  • Quote:

    "People jump out of airplanes for fun… we get tattoos, we smoke cigarettes...So unhealthy. If we were all just motivated by what is the healthiest we can live…drive race cars, motorcycles, they're done, you can't have one." – Ethan Suplee, [27:34]

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3. The Limits of Logic, Shame, and External Advice

• Change Must Be Internal:

  • Both caution against external "tough love" and logic as change agents. True transformation, they say, is an internal and gradual process, usually triggered by personal crisis or inner conviction.
  • Quote:

    "It's useful if it works for you. Whatever success we have is useful because we had success with it. But…this idea that, well, everybody should do this—doesn't make any sense." – Ethan Suplee, [22:54]

• Pain as Teacher, Not Enemy:

  • Ethan describes his realization about pain (both physical and emotional), referencing Tony Robbins’ idea that people are more motivated to avoid pain than to chase pleasure.
  • Quote:

    "Quite often I have to remind myself…that what I'm feeling is temporary and that it will get better." – Ethan Suplee, [39:17]

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4. Ownership, Autonomy, and Letting Go

• Claiming Agency:

  • Ethan identifies his major shift as moving from giving away power to external forces to claiming autonomy:

    "The story I was living my life by gave all the power to external forces. And it was just me going, ‘Oh, no, it's all up to me. It's entirely up to me.’" – Ethan Suplee, [20:33]

• The Relativity of “Right” and “Wrong”:

  • They discuss moral relativism, referencing philosophers like Foucault, and question universal narratives about "right/wrong."
  • Both champion radical self-acceptance and respecting others' autonomy, referencing Byron Katie’s work.

• Letting Children Go:

  • Ethan recounts releasing control over his now-adult daughter’s approach to her diabetes, moving from rigid fear to compassion and trust.

    "I've done the job I could do…All that me stressing out about it does is up my life. It doesn't take away any of my love for her…I'm going to give her a little space." – Ethan Suplee, [110:00]

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5. Existential and Philosophical Reflections

• Embracing Impermanence and “Blood in the Water”:

  • The theme of accepting decay, impermanence, and suffering threads through the episode; they reference everything from nature’s brutality to Shakespeare, Roger Ebert, and personal stories.
  • Quote:

    "There's no creation without destroying something. Everything feeds on death." – Ethan Suplee, [51:23]

• Making Peace with Reality:

  • Pete brings up Byron Katie: "Your resistance to what is, is driving you insane." ([111:22])
  • Both discuss the need to accept life as it is—nature, death, sadness, unpredictability—rather than fighting the uncontrollable elements.

• On Death, Fear, and Meaning:

  • Ethan shares his brush with death from congestive heart failure and the shift that came from facing mortality.
  • They ponder enlightenment as needing to include everyone, not just individual salvation (inspired by a Daniel Tosh joke):

    "I don't want to die. I want all of us to die." – Daniel Tosh (paraphrased by Pete), [92:58]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Outdoor Peeing and the Joy of Small Transgressions:

  "I will occasionally go outside…to pee standing up. And I go like, 'I am man now, doing something super rugged.'" – Ethan Suplee, [09:17]

• On Trying to Change Others:

  "'My mom needs to understand me.' She would say, 'Is that true?'…What it does is…it removes all certainty. And we love our certainty." – Pete Holmes, [104:52]

• On the Real Battle of Addiction:

  "I was okay until I wasn't okay for myself and decided I needed to change." – Ethan Suplee, [124:44]

• On Finding Beauty in Decay:

  "Decay is natural…I don't put so much emphasis on natural anymore…natural is murder and rape and savagery…But we're all gonna grow old, we're all gonna die, shit decays. Can’t that be beautiful also?" – Ethan Suplee, [51:41]

• Embracing the Messiness:

  "People don't have to be like me. The other side of that is, and I don't have to be like them." – Pete Holmes, [58:42]

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• [04:08] – Catching up; sunburn, cold plunges, and Andrew Huberman’s morning sun advice
• [12:07] – Pete on Ethan as an internal motivating figure, and the ripple effect of transformation
• [13:38] – Ethan’s philosophical journey: external control vs autonomy, subjective morality
• [25:40] – Logic and shame don’t cure addiction: real change is gradual, internal, and personal
• [39:16] – On pain, discomfort, and building resilience through experience
• [41:42] – Origins of Ethan’s opiate addiction: physical pain, emotional comfort, and social ease
• [51:23] – Accepting death and decay as part of beauty and life; resisting the urge for things to be “static”
• [65:09] – Ethan's method of jump-starting motivation (sleep paralysis analogy)
• [77:04] – The “500-pound Ethan” as an internal warning and motivator
• [110:00] – Ethan’s personal breakthrough in parenting: letting go of control
• [111:22] – Byron Katie: “Your resistance to what is, is driving you insane.”
• [117:08] – “I was life happening to me, and now I am life.” – Ethan’s summation of his journey
• [120:54] – Ethan shares the moments he laughed the hardest (falling off a paddleboard with family, old man farting at a play)

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Episode Tone & Style

The tone is candid, philosophical, self-compassionate, and often laugh-out-loud funny. Pete and Ethan move with ease between heavier existential topics and banter about peeing outdoors or farting at the theater. The lens is one of radical honesty, non-judgment, and a little weirdness—the perfect encapsulation of the show's premise that “Everybody has secret weirdness.”

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Summary

This episode transcends the typical transformation narrative, delving into the philosophy of addiction, motivation, and self-acceptance. Pete and Ethan encourage listeners to:

• Respect their own journey and not compare to others
• Recognize change arises from within, sparked by personal readiness
• Make peace with life’s inevitable pain, decay, and unpredictability
• Find beauty, humor, and compassion even in darkness
• Let go of trying to control others (kids, family, or strangers)
• Live according to personal values, without imposing them as universal truths

Whether you’re seeking wisdom about addiction, changing your life, philosophical food for thought, or just a laugh about public peeing and farts—this episode is a deeply human listen.

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For more on Ethan’s story, check out his podcast American Glutton.

For more philosophical weirdness, listen to the full episode on You Made It Weird with Pete Holmes.

Transcript

[Ethan Suplee]

You made it with.

[Pete Holmes]

You made it with. You made it with.

[Ethan Suplee]

Oh, yeah, you made it weird.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, you did.

[Ethan Suplee]

You made it weird with Pete Holmes.

[Pete Holmes]

What's happening, weirdos? This is the incredible Ethan Suplee, who you may know from things like My name is Earl, American History x Kevin Smith movies. I personally know him from life, but I'm also most, most admiring, most admiring of his life transformation, his body transformation. Ethan was a very, very, very big person and he lost 300 pounds. But not only that, he's gotten an incredible shape. A journey that he has chronicled on his own podcast, American Glutton, which is an incredible podcast. I think I happen to be the most current guest as well, so you can listen to me and Ethan chatting there as well. We get into all sorts of wonderful things. His life, his life philosophy. He's a very, very deeply interesting guy and a very talent and a lovely friend. So I'm excited for you guys to hear this episode. Thank you for tuning in. You didn't really tune in, did you? You just, you click something. If you want to see me do stand up, go to peteholmes.com I am going to be in Houston, Texas this weekend and a lot more tour dates, all on peteholmes.com and once a month I am in Los Angeles doing my show, my residency at Largo. Go to largo-la.com if you're going to be in Los Angeles and want to see me do stand up. May 4th, Star Wars Day is next. Living at Largo. So hope to see you there or hope to see you on the road in your hometown. And if you like this show, as always, why not try a Pete's pick? Just one Pete's Pick up top, which is here. I'm showing it to the video people. This is my Apollo Neuro. As you guys know, I'm crazy about my Apollo Neuro. I'm always talking about it. It is a wearable piece of tech. I wear it on the inside of my wrist that delivers vibrations that speak to your nervous system in a language that it can understand, basically simulating the feeling and the sensation, like a wearable hug that you. It's basically touch therapy to help you feel safe and in control. You can wear it on your wrist or your ankle and those gentle, soothing vibrations train your nervous system over time. And really, the first time you use it, you start feeling it to recover and rebalance. After stress, there's different settings for energy, feeling, social, feeling, clear, calm, focused, rebuild, and recovery. Wonderful recovery after stress or physical recovery, calm which is a great setting for meditation, relax, which is what I put it on at night when I'm trying to unwind and turn my brain off. And my favorite setting, fall asleep, which gently lulls you to sleep and lulls you back to sleep if you're like me and sometimes wake up in the middle of the night. It's a wonderful chemical free way to get better sleep, better rest, better relaxation. And also it's a caffeine free way of getting more energy, more focus and more drive, which is awesome. It trains your nervous system to cope with stress better over time. The more you use it, the better it works. And it's not woo woo. I always say this. It was developed by a neuroscientist and a board certified psychiatrist who have been studying the impacts of chronic stress in humans for nearly 15 years. And Apollo's effects on stress, sleep, cognitive performance and recovery have been proven in multiple clinical trials and real world studies. It's absolutely changed mine and Val's life. We've given it away to dozens of people. Absolutely. A big life changing and a life hack. A life hack and helping us cope with stress. So show your support for the show. Show your support for your body and your nervous system. You can get 10% [e-mail] that's a P O L L O N E R O dot com. Weird. And get a wearable hug on your wrist or your ankle and help you cope and deal with the stress that life throws at you with wearable technology. All right everybody, that's it. Up top. Enjoy my chat with my friend Ethan Supley. Get into it. Sup?

[Ethan Suplee]

There you are.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Su.

[Ethan Suplee]

Pete Holmes. What's going on, dude? Are you home? I. By the way, I've been home for one day and I got a sunburn.

[Pete Holmes]

Well, we've been in Toronto, it's sunny here. You're in Florida. Yeah, Florida.

[Ethan Suplee]

Five minutes in Florida and I've got a sunburn because Toronto bleached me of melanin, I guess.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, well, also gave me depression. I don't know if it gave me depression but like since being home, the first thing I did today, I thought of you. I did a little coldy, I did a little icy and I was like, God, I gotta watch it. Like I'm always telling people to do it. Maybe some people just don't want to do it. When we talked about it, you remember you said I'm sweating.

[Ethan Suplee]

I got it's. By the way, even you just saying this right now, there's such a Fear. It's so crazy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And, you know, because I haven't done it. I haven't been home in a week, and I hadn't done it in a week. And just a week away from it made it like a new. Like, fresh and painful anew. So I got in it and I was like, this is what you're telling people to do. Like, I wasn't like, right.

[Ethan Suplee]

You weren't. Right. Like, a month from now, you're going to just be like, no, it's wonderful.

[Pete Holmes]

Back to that.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But it was good. I'm sure you're. Maybe you can relate when you haven't worked out or whatever in a while and you go, oh, this is really hard. I don't think you really do that anymore.

[Ethan Suplee]

But, like, back when you did, I'm.

[Pete Holmes]

At that place with that. I'm like, I got in and immediately thought of you. But I was in the sun. That was part of it. I was like. It was old Huberman. Andrew Huberman was like, the first thing you should do for your metabolism, for your mood and everything is get sun in the eyes. Yeah, eyes. No, sunglasses get into the eyes. So I. I'm fortunate that this is an overshare. But my bathroom, I can open the window so the sun is coming in. So, like, everybody's doing their. Like, I. I do a journaling thing in the morning on my phone. And so I just take a long sit, pee.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

That maybe turns into a dumperoo. We don't know.

[Ethan Suplee]

We don't know.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, it's the luxury that ladies enjoy because ladies are always sitting. They get. They're like, oh, I didn't know I had to take.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, it's just happening. It's.

[Pete Holmes]

It'.

[Ethan Suplee]

Bonus.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what happens means. Actually. We thought it meant bad things happen, but it's actually ladies seating. Good.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's nice.

[Pete Holmes]

You feel better, but I get that sun. And when we were in Canada, I was like, it's not a foregone conclusion that you live in a place where that exists. That's where, like, seasonal effective lights and all that sort of stuff has to come into play. Because I was hurting for it.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Real bad.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I. You know, we were staying in a downtown area, but even, like, New York is sunnier than Toronto, at least the time of year.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, I kept saying that. And they were like, well, in the summer, it's sunny. And I was like, oh, right, of course. I guess. And towards the end of our filming, it started to get sunny, but I. I'm a little bit that way. I'll ever. If I go to Toronto six times and it's overcast the whole time, I'll just go ahead and assume it's overcast the whole year.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. It's more, it's more weird because even where, even on days where it wasn't like cloudy, it wasn't sunny, it's so, it's so foreign to my experience.

[Pete Holmes]

The sun just skips it. The sun just doesn't go over Canada.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But what that does to you. And I actually wrote it down. I've never talked to you. And we're recording. That's okay. Right here.

[Ethan Suplee]

Okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

We're getting weird.

[Pete Holmes]

I already talked about how women, I think, take more dumps because every time they feed, they sit down.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right, right. And. And I think that they're hopeful also. There's a hopefulness in it. You know, is this gonna happen?

[Pete Holmes]

It could happen. They're just more in the flow. And I think it's just because they're sitting down to pee. We thought it was estrogen. We thought it was conditioning or culture or childbirth or whatever it is. It's because they're sitting down to pee.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. I, you know, I have four daughters and a wife and now a granddaughter, so I'm surrounded by women. And it was decades ago that I began regularly sitting down. I understand the morning sit down, you're tired, you're half asleep. But there was something about like, just the, just the act of re. Lowering the toilet seat for me. I was like, I'm going to cut out the middleman. I'm just going to sit. And I've had like super macho friends who.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

Desire this to be a state of emasculation. Right. You're sitting to pee. How dare you?

[Pete Holmes]

Even simply. First of all, I'm going to cut you to the end. Me too. I'm already there. I'm already there. But I love, of course, why stand when you can sit? Which I believe Queen Elizabeth said about baths. I. About urination. It's the best. And also it's sort of nasty. It's just sort of nasty. Like draining a hose, getting it everywhere. Splash. Yeah. I'm too old for this shit. I'm too old for this piss.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. I don't even know that my wife knows this and she would be very angry. But it. We're sharing and we're weird. I will occasionally go outside. Yeah. To pee standing up.

[Pete Holmes]

That's a difference.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I go like, I'm I am man now, and I'm doing something super rugged.

[Pete Holmes]

And, yes, you know, that is a special thing. Val was in the bathroom just this morning, and I really had to pee, and I briefly was like, do I give myself the outdoor glory?

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Do I give myself. There's a national lyric, actually, I think it's on the lvi. It's Matt Berninger from the national, and he says there's a lyric about his dick being in sunlight and that being, like, the greatest thing. And I was like, so good.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

There really is something special about just, like, outdoor. So I almost did that that I'm glad I still have, because that's the correct use of outdoor pee. But indoors. I also just love that you can do it without disrupting like. Like any flow. Like, flow. Like, Val and I are talking. I'm just sitting out on peeing, and it's not. It's not even really acknowledged.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's like a thing.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like a lesbian relationship, basically. I mean, we watch Blossom at night. We're both sitting to pee. We love chatting more than. I love, like, layering the. The toilet is mine in the animal kingdom.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I love. But I love that you as a symbol, like, you've become, like, a masculine. Everyone expects me to admit that I love the. Already a great episode for me, that you joined me in the celebration of it. It's okay.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's okay. I think it's. I think that there's some part of me that.

[Pete Holmes]

At home.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

This isn't at home thing.

[Ethan Suplee]

It seems to me to be more hygienic. You know, there's less splash happening.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course. Of course.

[Ethan Suplee]

You know, it's me the trouble of raising and lowering a seat.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the lazy man's choice. It's also just the smart man's choice. And once I'm in the wild, if I'm in, like, a park bathroom or something, it's. It's a. It's a joy to not have to press my hands on that disgusting porcelain. Sure. That's. That's what it's for.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

I knew what he was doing. He's like, surely the male of the species will still sit to urinate unless he's in a park bathroom.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's why the option is right. Where even if I had to go number two, it would crawl back up inside me at the site of a public bathroom.

[Pete Holmes]

We're not doing it. We're not doing it. That is so funny. Here's my. I did want to know about Florida but now I'm thinking about this. We're not doing the Ethan Suplee. Like, tell me about your journey. Like it exists. People can find your motherfucking journey.

[Ethan Suplee]

The journey's out there.

[Pete Holmes]

Here's what I want. But. But here's what I want to know. And a little bit of my appreciation of your journey is baked into the question is you've become a person. And I told you this when I did your podcast. But, like, when I don't want to work out and everybody knows, it's. I always say it's embarrassing because I'm new at it. So it's, It's. It's embarrassing to be new at something, but that I've in the past year started lifting weights and sometimes I don't want to. And I think it's a really special compliment that you're one of the disembodied heads that floats in my consciousness.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's a massive compliment for me.

[Pete Holmes]

It is, right? Yes. I hope you. Because I don't want you to think it's weird. I'm trying to say you've become an avatar for like. And imagine how many thousands of people. Thousands of people. Your chain. The ripple of this is huge. And then. My, my. I'd love to hear your comment on that. But I also want to know who are the disembodied heads floating around? Because one last little thing. You and I were on set. Fucking Pepperidge Farm motherfucking goldfish. Every goddamn where. Skittles in. Loose Skittles and bowls. Fuck you. Loose skittles and bowls. It is not done. It is today. It's like sobriety. It's today. Ethan Suplee did something great, but it's today. And I want to know a little bit of the system that you got going that keeps you on this path.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, the system. Many, many years ago, I was very frustrated in life and. And I mean, like, short temper and annoyed. And I had these ideas of right and wrong in the universe. And I then started to, like, really look into that. Like, you know, how do we discover what is right and wrong in the universe? And it very quickly came became evident that it was all subjective. And. And if it's also. And you know, we now have like, the. The great pastor Will Harris. Sam Harris. Sam Harris. The great religious pastor Sam Harris, who will say over and over and over again, we need, we need, we need right. And to me, that's religious. That is a position which requires a value which cannot be objectively right or wrong. But, you know, if I look at everything as like, this guy's talking about chocolate ice cream and he likes chocolate ice cream, and he's insisting that chocolate ice cream is the best and that we'll all do better as a species if we just eat chocolate ice cream. I don't give a shit about chocolate ice cream, to be honest with you. I'm a French vanilla ice cream guy.

[Pete Holmes]

Which is a flavor. It is a flavor. It is. It's not the thing upon which, by the way, chocolate is not vanilla ice cream. Added chocolate.

[Ethan Suplee]

They took vanilla.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the flavor.

[Ethan Suplee]

Different. Vanilla is a flavor and it's clean and it's classy and it's fine. And like, if you prefer chocolate, that's fine too. I'm never going to get angry at somebody that tries to insist that their flavor is better than my flavor.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're applying that to right and wrong as well.

[Ethan Suplee]

I'm applying that to right and wrong. And so I've just been on this journey of like, what is actually right and wrong for me. And from that position, I can live my life with less friction. There's so much friction that has washed away. And I'll say this too, Pete, it's something that I came to believe in prior that. Prior to it having any effect on me. Do you know what I mean? Like, I can believe. That seems correct. And I'm still a guy who's reacting emotionally to things that I feel are not going the way they, quote, unquote, should be going.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And. And so these kind of floating heads are. You know anyone from Foucault who I thought was a really interesting historian? And sure, there's lots of stuff and with all these people that I disagree with, but then there's some gems that he.

[Pete Holmes]

I don't know anything. I've never heard of Foucault. It sounds like a skateboard company. He's. Is that a Foucault bro?

[Ethan Suplee]

He's like a French philosopher. And. And I would even look around at the landscape of a lot of the really wacky quot quote problems that I perceive today and go, they're his fault.

[Pete Holmes]

Fukos. Yes, tell me, tell me every. Well, don't tell me everything, but we want to keep it about you, but give me a little Fuko.

[Ethan Suplee]

Okay, well, like the. A lot of the identity stuff comes from him. And so there's. And a lot of the power dynamic talk comes from him. And so there seems like societally to be this insistence that we recognize identity as being real, as being objectively real. Right. While at the same time, it is all born within us, you know, And I'm not talking about. You are paler than a guy from Jamaica. That's less. What I'm talking about versus what you. How you identify yourself.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

And. And, you know, it's a lot of it is how. How we socially construct things and then find truth in them later. Right? And gender stuff and all of that. But Foucault was just saying it's all.

[Pete Holmes]

And if it's all guy. By the way, that was on Succession last night. I. I don't want to interrupt, but they were talking about how the dad seems so wise, but they're like, you seem so wise, but you're saying stuff and we're all afraid of you. And then when it turns out it's true, we all go like, well, look, he was right. But like. Like the fear of you saying it's going to be that way changes the. What I'm saying is people.

[Ethan Suplee]

It has a profound effect outside of us. Yes, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

You're saying, like, you. Is it true or do you make it true because everyone's terrified of you? Like, and then everyone goes, in hindsight, well, it must be true. It's like on the Simpsons where they go like, hold this rock. This rock keeps away cougars. Do you see any cougars? And it's like, well, the rock works. It's like, well, what is really true and what are we kind of imbuing with meaning is that. Am I on the track?

[Ethan Suplee]

I think so. It is. It is. And, you know, if we as a group get together and agree something is the way it is, then it becomes that to some degree. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, our currency is all kind of this imaginary game that we play, but because we instill belief into it, it then becomes real.

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Ethan Suplee]

And. And there's so much belief that there's a military behind it.

[Pete Holmes]

But, like, I was just. Val were just over coffee this morning going, like, any two groups of soldiers taken away from the power structures, away from their generals and away from their countries would just be individuals that would go like people doing, if you stop shooting at me, I'll stop shooting at you, and we can just stop this. But you're like, talk about believing in something like God and country and all this stuff that motivates people that wouldn't have murdered otherwise to, you know, kill another person. It's a wild.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, no, you have those wonderful stories about World War I where on, like, Christmas they play football.

[Pete Holmes]

That's what I was thinking. And also, it's also from succession. But there's that story where the. The power does. Didn't want. They had this idea that the slave should wear a yellow marking on their shirt. This is also from Succession. And they go, don't do it, because if they see how many they are, they'll rise up. And. And they joke on succession. They say that Zuckerberg told that parable. I don't know. I don't think that's true. I think they're just fucking with Mark Zuckerberg, which is kind of cheeky and hilarious. But that's what I see even in a soldier situation. It's like, wait, you're the body of power? The slaves or whatever group it is. The numbers have the power, but ideas. And I was just reading this in A Course in Miracles this morning. They were like, illusions are as powerful as the truth in miscreating, as creating. And I was like, whoa, that's a pretty bold statement.

[Ethan Suplee]

100%. I think that it just is like, what's convincible? Who's selling it the best?

[Pete Holmes]

Right?

[Ethan Suplee]

And that becomes the story we live our lives by. Right. And the story I was living my life by was. Gave all the power to external forces. And. And it was just me going like, oh, no, it's all up to me. It's entirely up to me.

[Pete Holmes]

That was the shift.

[Ethan Suplee]

That was the shift.

[Pete Holmes]

Claiming your autonomy.

[Ethan Suplee]

Claiming my autonomy and not allowing my belief system that the external forces were in control to dictate my life anymore.

[Pete Holmes]

So it's like, not be a victim. It is a little bit.

[Ethan Suplee]

I mean, it is. You know, I, like, I think about. I think about the cultural currency of victimhood now. And I think that, like, you know, we. I. I think it's very hard to tell somebody, don't be a victim.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You can tell yourself.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

It's words you use for yourself. I wouldn't. I wouldn't tell someone. That's not my right. No.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. I wouldn't go to a person because if you had come to me when I was at a state, when I was like, everything's happening to me and I have no power and no control. And you. And you just said, well, stop being up your bootstraps. Yeah, yeah, it doesn't work.

[Pete Holmes]

In fact, I would. I was telling you the things we rebel against. Remember I told you I have a bit where I was like, off pornography, and after the show, somebody was like, stay strong. I'm also a pornography. But it kind of struck me as like a. Not a weird guy, but like, I didn't want to be in his group. And that night I went home and looked at pornography. And part of the joke was I didn't even want to. That's honest. I wasn't horny. It wasn't about being horny. And we do that with food too, sometimes. It's not about, in fact, it's almost never about food. It's about some sort of, I don't want to belong to a group or I'm my own boss or I deserve whatever I want, or nobody tells me what to do. Like all of this fucked up stuff that you're following. Sorry. So. And the victim thing is also, it wouldn't help if somebody said, pete, you're not even making choices. You're just reacting to realities that aren't even there anymore. You're reacting to something that happened when you were seven.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That would make me go, you. And I'd eat more goldfish.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, you watch this.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you watch this. Yeah, you watch this. Keep it. So, so you wouldn't say that, but you, I, I. There's your own choice. Or whatever. Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And again, I don't think there's any, you know, like, I like these guys who are like, be tough. You know, I like them, I react well to them. But, like, I don't think that has the effect on me prior to my coming to understand myself. So I don't think it's useful. I don't think it's like universally useful. It's useful if it works for you. I think whatever, whatever success we have is useful because we had success with it. But, like, this idea that, well, it must just, everybody should do this. That doesn't make any sense.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like drill sergeants. It's like, this is going to sound like a joke, but there are people who ring the bell in the seals because they don't respond to someone calling them a maggot. I, I know that sounds like a joke. If he's going to be a Navy seal, he should be able to withstand verbal abuse. Different things motivate different people. Kumail told me the story. I believe he told it on this podcast that when he was really going for his rippedness, his trainer Kumail couldn't do the whatever. He couldn't get it up the 10th time. And his trainer went, one of his trainers went pathetic. And Kumail was like, we're not doing that. Like, I had to call it out. It's just funny to me that in the Marines or the Nate or you can't go like, can we try a different, like, there's different brains, there's different psyches, and there's different emotional response systems. I happen to be one of those people that goes work out and, and res and go through the resistance and motivate yourself to like this morning getting in the cold plunge because it will make you feel fantastic. You'll have a better podcast with Ethan. You'll have a better day. You'll be more available to your daugh. It's not. And I'm not making fun of Joe Rogan. I don't tame my inner. That. That language doesn't always work for me. Although I'll say out of the other side of my mouth, sometimes I'm in the tub and I want to get out and I'll hear Joe's voice say, tame you're inner bitch. And it does work.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

So I'm just not playing beta male and going like, that doesn't work. Sometimes it does.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sometimes, Sometimes.

[Pete Holmes]

Sometimes I need something a little bit more nuanced, a little more gentle.

[Ethan Suplee]

Me too. And I've found that if you are actively within this belief system of is happening to me that I think to get out of it is probably a more gradual approach to like, what can. Can you tie your shoes? Okay, that's not happening to you. Let's start with what you perceive to be within your control and work our way gradually out. And if one day you can go like, oh, well, it's. Everything that is occurring to me is within my control. That's wonderful. But it might take a number of years. It's not just a guy on Instagram going fight through the pain and logic doesn't work either.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, quit smoking. It gives you cancer. That doesn't work.

[Ethan Suplee]

No, it doesn't work.

[Pete Holmes]

They know, in fact, unconsciously, it's part of the appeal. It's like you death. Like, I don't give a. That's why it's the motorcycle of activities. You're, you're, you're burning down death. It doesn't. Logic doesn't work. Go ahead.

[Ethan Suplee]

No, whenever we think about, like when, when, when we, When I hear about the arguments against being obese from like the mainstream, like, well, health, Health is the biggest one.

[Pete Holmes]

Get out of here.

[Ethan Suplee]

So unhealthy. I'm like, drive race cars. People jump out of airplanes for fun. You know what I mean? We get tattoos, we smoke cigarettes. Like, there's so much.

[Pete Holmes]

That'S a bit. It's like, why aren't the people that are so hard on the Heavy. People on heavy and go like, it's just because I care. Health. Yeah, you, dude. It's because there's a fundamental self love issue in you. There's, there's an overweight. Not always. I'm, I'm obviously saying this can be me. There's a very soft junior high boy in me that I can't tolerate. And therefore I will make fun of Brendan Fraser in the Whale. I'm not saying I do. I'm just saying. Sure. That's why you see people say Free Willy when they see. When I was a kid, you see a big kid at the pool, I used to get some free willies. That's because you can't tolerate your own fallibility. Your own, your own. When I say softness, I don't mean body softness. I mean your own vulnerability, your own mortality. So. So, but to finish your bit that if, if you ever do stand up, it's ready to go. It's like if you really cared about people's health, you would go and stop people from skydiving or stop them from driving.

[Ethan Suplee]

I mean, it's, it's completely irresponsible from a health metric. Right. Driving a motorcycle. If, if, if the, if we were all just motivated by what is the healthiest we can live. Motorcycles, Stout.

[Pete Holmes]

They're done.

[Ethan Suplee]

You can't have one. They're so unhealthy.

[Pete Holmes]

Also, just air travel or, or fine dining.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

All killing ourselves. We're just doing it. The, the, the heroes of our culture are doing it more exotically, more luxuriously. Oh, I ate a 72 ounce steak at the Big Texan because I'm living life. Food travel shows. Are someone saying, watch me murder myself. Watch me die. I'm gonna eat pork face tacos on a streetcar in Malaysia. Watch. We're all dying. I'm dying better than you're dying.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right. And you can pick your favorite one and put it on your bucket list. Right? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Where was the. My favorite place that Bourdain went who had to medicate him to continue eating that way, by the way he did it was on all kinds of statins or all kinds. Maybe it was just one.

[Pete Holmes]

What's a statin?

[Ethan Suplee]

It reduces it.

[Pete Holmes]

Basically.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's like blocks the portion of your liver that creates like LDL cholesterol.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, right. A preventative cholesterol.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's a preventative cholesterol thing. But there's like a lot of bad. You know, I think I didn't know that.

[Pete Holmes]

Of course, of course. It's a hazard of his Job.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Wearing a bulletproof vest. If you're going to keep eating deep fried pork every day for your job, you gotta doctor, get involved and be like, we need to block some of this from getting into your bloodstream.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right. And by the way, the pill has side effects. It's not just like sunshine and glory. You can take this pill and eat whatever you want. It puts a tax on your liver. So like we're, we're with the systems to be able to get away with this. And I look at people smoking cigarettes and I'm envious. I'm like, that has it made. He doesn't give a. Yeah, he's smoking cigarettes, he's enjoying life.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

And like I could also look at an obese person and think the same thing. That dude got to go to McDonald's today. I didn't get to go to McDonald's. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

So like there's a Colin Hay song that he's sober expresses the same sort of the jealousy of the sober person which is so important to stay in touch with. Lest we get on our, lest, lest we get on our high horse. It's very healthy and I'd love to hear you speak on this. To go like, no, I am jealous. Instead of going into addict thinking and going, no, that's evil. That's evil what they're doing because then you're just projecting it onto them and hating them. And that, that's a medication that has side effects. Hate.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. I, I am jealous of my wife on a, on a weekly basis. My wife drinks and she's the person who leaves half a glass of wine.

[Pete Holmes]

I can't.

[Ethan Suplee]

At the, at the restaurant.

[Pete Holmes]

Just don't understand.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I'm looking at it going like, that's $6 worth of wine. You're just gonna leave. Like, I don't mind if you leave 18 worth of steak, but you cannot leave $6 worth of wine in unacceptable.

[Pete Holmes]

And I, I was just thinking, sorry, keep going. I just go like once you're feeling good. And this is why I'm a self diagnosed addict. I'm always clear that I'm like, nobody else has told me that. It's just me. Once I'm feeling good, I'm like, why wouldn't you want to just keep going? Like why wouldn't you want to just keep going? Like you drink a Manhattan, drink it fast.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Drink it fast.

[Ethan Suplee]

Because that feeling gets better.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And of course it doesn't work. Like my way doesn't work. But, but every single time I'd go, it's worth a shot. And every one out of, I don't know, 50, you'd be in such an amazing peak state in your body, in your emotional life, that the alcohol would dance with that feeling. It didn't create it, but it sort of like, didn't squash it. So you'd be convinced that it was the alcohol. Then the next time, you're chasing that dragon. But when I have this very vivid memory of being at dinner with my friends at Gungers and Val, and they got Manhattans and they sipped, those motherfuckers. You said the money. It's funny. The devil, my devil, will go. It's not going to be cold in three, Right?

[Ethan Suplee]

No, that was. That was as. That was as sane and as rational. Like, I was trying to make an argument for her. You know what I mean? Like, for me, it's just like, that glass of wine is a shooter. You need the bottle. Yeah. And you get it in your system as quickly as possible. But, like, when I'm. When I'm making these arguments, I'm trying to go, like, how do I make her finish the glass of wine? Do I explain to her, who complains about the electrical bill? You know, we ran the hot tub too many times. Yeah. It's the money. Finished. You got to drink the wine. But the steak I don't give a shit about.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You're back to. We're back to people pretending that they care about people's health when really they don't. They're really. In some cases, I'm saying what I would be doing, projecting their hate outward and being intolerant of that in themselves. And then. And then you're doing it with this. With money. You don't really care about money.

[Ethan Suplee]

I don't give a shit. The money is completely irrelevant. How do I make an argument that will win her.

[Pete Holmes]

Her?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, because that's all it is. I just want her to do what I would have wanted to do. And how do I get her there? And it's. It's not the same argument for her.

[Pete Holmes]

This is tricky stuff because. So when we were in Canada, we've. I've already talked about this on the podcast, but I hurt my neck. I think I told you. I motorboated the shower spray because it was a cold shower. And I was like, I'm gonna really live life, and I'm gonna motorboat the shower spray. And I hurt my neck and back just going, I. I haven't done it on stage, but I'm like, that means I can't motorboat my wife. That means if I want to motorboat my wife, I have to sit on the edge of the bed, like, and she has, like, old husband. And she has to move like a car wash. I have to be stationary and she can drive me like a car wash, but I'm too old to go, which is literally the first thing you do in life. It's what babies can do. I can't do it anymore. But then I hurt myself and I'm in Canada. And they were like, you should take this Canadian muscle relaxer. This just goes back to money. This goes back to excuses. We make freedom, Liberty. I don't want to belong to your weird group. Pain is such a good one. Pain is such a good one that I, I, I, I only took one for three days. But I was like, this is dangerous for me because I really like the way it feels.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And guess what, dude. Dude, I'm six foot six. I'm constantly hurting myself, right? Constantly. And I was like, I catch myself, Ethan. I'm saying this like it's a meeting. I catch myself wanting to wake up having slept badly, like on the wrong, so I can take one. And I'm not even that. I'm not even that hooked by these things. There's just this, like, there's a desire there.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, yeah. No, I just want to be a.

[Pete Holmes]

Magic boy and feel. Feel good all the time. Feel good all the time. Even though it doesn't fucking work. We all know it's going to lead to needing two. It's going to need to needing three. Then Val was joking. She's like, then we're in the weird Canadian muscle relaxer phase of our lives and you have to withdraw just to feel normal.

[Ethan Suplee]

You're taking random gigs in Canada just to visit the pharmacy.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, but facts. And if you have that built in excuse that, the excuse, the excuse. What, what did, what did that make you think of?

[Ethan Suplee]

I, I've had a number of surgeries since I've been sober. And there was a time many, many years ago where you have a surgery and you take the pills they give you. And then I, as an addict, am like explaining that I'm a large guy and so I need a double dose to get around my large system. And I'm. And you start down the road of addiction stuff, which is so dangerous for me. But then it got to the point where my wife was like, hey, that was crazy. Your recovery from that where you were like calling for more refills of a pill that you had 30 days worth on the second week. You know, stuff like that. That's not okay.

[Pete Holmes]

Head like, like a squirrel. I'm not even trying to be funny. I relate so hard. I get it. You're like, okay, I have it now.

[Ethan Suplee]

But it has gotten to the point where I'm now having full blown meetings with anesthesiologists before I have a surgery. And, and going like, you may not give me opiates. And they're like, well, every, my, you know, they all have their different protocols. But he goes, I, you know, I give fentanyl while you're unconscious, but I won't give you any when you're awake. And I have to say, like, no, you Ketamine instead of fentanyl, it with receptors in my brain. I'll wake up, like, hungry for opiates.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, of course. Because you were still there. Just because Ethan wasn't there going like, wow, this is great. It was your body.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

The receptors in your brain and body were still given.

[Ethan Suplee]

And they remember. Of course they remember.

[Pete Holmes]

That's their job.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

So I've also gotten to be, be quite a bit better with pain. You know, like, just like the last surgery I had, I, I, I ruptured my bicep. I had to have it, you know, drill. They drilled holes in my forearm and cut me open and dragged the bicep tendon out and drill it into my forearm. And I, I had. The doctor likes to wake you up and check to see that you can move your stuff. And so they can't. They can do a nerve block, but they can't do it. You can't move your arm if you have the nerve block. So they put the catheter into the, it's called the brachial plexus. It's this, like, bundle of nerves in your shoulder. And they put the catheter in there. And then once you wake up and they, and show the guy, like, I can move my arm, they then give you the juice to kill your arm. And then you can't move your arm for a couple of days. But it doesn't hurt, right? Them putting this nerve block in prior to surgery, the feeling, the sensation, like when the catheter touches this nerve bundle. My whole body, like, leapt out of the hospital bed. It was like the single biggest jolt of pain, and then it's over. It's not like a lingering pain. It's just like, like electricity to your central nervous system.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. It's like you were a fish and someone dropped a toaster. In. Yeah, yeah, it's serious.

[Ethan Suplee]

So they go like, okay, that's fine. Fine. I have the surgery. I don't get given opiates. Thank God. I wake up. I still groggily say, give me some Demerol. And my wife is there to go. He's. You don't. Don't do that. You know? And then I. I come to a little bit more, and they go like, check my arm. I move it, and. And I'm like, this really hurts. Please juice up that catheter so I can not feel this pain. And the guy goes to do it, and he accidentally pulls the catheter out.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, God.

[Ethan Suplee]

And at that point went like, you know what? I'm just gonna go home and pace a lot until this stops hurting, because, like, I don't want to go through that single jolt of pain again. And it's not so bad. Can I deal with this for a day or two?

[Pete Holmes]

That's really real.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's like.

[Pete Holmes]

That's like putting an idea. I want this to a test. You want it so badly that you have to withstand this horrible pain again. And the answer is no. That's no. Like, I want to feel good. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, because you and I talked a lot about getting addicted, using our addict nature to get addicted to good things.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And when the. The question is, do you want to feel good? For me, if I have anxiety breath, work is a really quick way to get rid of that. But, man, it's so fucking hard sometimes. It's actually impossible. Meaning I don't do. Do it to just go suffer and then feel good. Catheter. And then you'll get your. Your juice. And I often will just tap out, I guess what I'm saying. And I'd love to hear a comment. Human beings, I think this is Tony Robbins, will do more to avoid pain than they will to gain pleasure. Will you talk about that?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. The.

[Pete Holmes]

The.

[Ethan Suplee]

The thing that helps me the most is, like, as a sober person, quite often I have to remind myself, and this is multiple times a day on some terrible days, that what I'm feeling is temporary and that it will get better. And then, you know, I've even said that, like, to somebody else, to one of my kids and my wife was like, don't tell them that. There's no evidence that it's going to get better. They could be, you know, And I'm like, all right, but we got to be hopeful, too, right? Like, there's got to be some hope in There.

[Pete Holmes]

But to counter that, I understand that we don't know what's going to happen in the future.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Even if you and I were in some horrible post apocalyptic situation where every once in a while I'd be like, this is pretty cool. Of all the people to be paired with, I'm with Ethan Suplee.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And you're punching radioactive dogs and we're finding canned food.

[Ethan Suplee]

It could be exciting. Like, you read Cormac McCarthy the road and it's like, this is an adventure.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, for sure. But even if we're in a dire straits, I'm saying, and things are really bad, even in the midst of a terrible day, you could get. You could feel better, briefly. Isn't that really what you're saying? It's not circumstantial happiness, a chemical happiness. You probably won't be this blue.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

All the time.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I take it as like if I look back on my life and I can go like, got lots of lows, so many lows. But are there more instances where I'm not this low than there. That however I'm feeling now.

[Pete Holmes]

Yep.

[Ethan Suplee]

I have belief if it's a down moment that it will. I can ride it out. And so in that sense, I think in terms of like wanting to go to McDonald's or wanting to have a drink or, you know, God forbid I accidentally see a drug transaction happening on the side of the road and it gets me. It just sticks in my head. Well, that's where I could get that, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Yes. Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

And pain is the same way. Oh, this, this pain is. You know, I can't imagine people with actual chronic pain if it just never goes away. Like, that must be really awful. But that's not been my experience with pain. Pain goes away and so.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

I'm, by the way, to survive this.

[Pete Holmes]

That was what got Kurt Cobain on heroin, I think is because he had those stomach issues, which I say with compassion. I'm not saying that to be like, oh, yeah, right. Yeah, never mind, guy. Like, pain leads people to do these things. So when you're.

[Ethan Suplee]

There was a lot of that. That, that was true for me too, with. I instantly fell in love with opiates because my feet didn't hurt, my back didn't hurt. There was a lot less literal physical pain. Just in living life as a very large person, that went away. And then it also seemed to give me a little bit of a personality and I could talk to people and.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, you weren't probably anxious. Right?

[Ethan Suplee]

I mean, I wasn't Anxious. I wasn't thinking about, like, what does that person think much? It was.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

You know why?

[Pete Holmes]

Because you're set. Look, I. I'm not trying to be funny. I'm saying this is why people drink alcohol. It's because they have a private little flame inside.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

It's like, what. What's this guy gonna do? He can't take this private little flame.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

You're warmed from the inside.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's honestly how I felt on those Canadian muscle relaxers. I was like, I kind of have a thing going on.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

I have a. By the way, dude, I was taking one. It's half the dose. And I still was kind of like. Like, I have a little secret.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And now I'm talking to this guy, and he's kind of annoying, and I think he doesn't like me. But I'm like, the flame on, it's still burning. And as long as I get away from him or. Or just smile, like, yeah, right.

[Ethan Suplee]

No, I mean, that's. That was a lot of drugs for me. Like, it wasn't fun to do drugs with other people doing drugs. I'd much rather do drugs in secret and then have that secret.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm only in secret. Secret.

[Ethan Suplee]

Me too.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm only in secret. And I was only. I know. I. I don't need to give a caveat and be like, we're not celebrating it. I'm just saying, like, it's a certain kind of person that wants it and wants people to not know. I want people to just think that I'm an easy guy.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like an easy, smiley, laughy guy.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And really, that's an intolerance of some of my harsher emotions. Like, I'm. I just don't. Like I said to Val yesterday, I was like, it's not that I don't like the dog. It's that I don't like that I don't like the dog. Like, it's not that I. There's nothing about the dog other than I have sound trauma and he barks and he scares the shit out of me. But, like. And I'm not kidding when I say sound trauma, that's not, like, how people use it. I mean, like, I legit have that. And. But the. The overreaction that I feel towards whatever it is, if something makes me angry, it's not just anger. It then comes in this flood of embarrassment.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm. I'm mama's golden boy. I'm the second born. I solve problems. I don't Create problems. And I'm certainly not like my scary ogre dad who always seemed mad. Not always, but you know what I mean? I'm not like that. So we're back to intolerance. When people are hard towards ourselves. Towards ourselves. That's what I mean. That's why when we want to make fun of Brendan Frazier or we want to. To tell, like, my mom will just tell a very heavy person to stop eating. She's just. Wait. That's like. I don't know what you call that. It's an intolerance. You can't stand how you feel. You're embarrassed and you're ashamed. And then these drugs. One of the things that it does for me is I'm like. And I'm speaking to you from a place of clarity. I don't like it. And it really doesn't work.

[Ethan Suplee]

Work.

[Pete Holmes]

But it temporarily gives me the feeling of like, I feel nice enough or numb enough. It's really numb.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

We've blocked out some of my intellect. We've certainly blocked out my ability to grow or to learn or to be challenged or to truly connect. Which is one of my big sobriety things. Is my daughter will not see a glassy look in my eye. Like.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

I could cry thinking about that. It's like, that's not happening. Like, we'll do something. There'll be something she doesn't like about me. But it's not going to be. Dad was like, hey, baby. It's not going to be that. That. It's not gonna be that. Yeah. But the intolerant of the feeling go. Anything. What do you got?

[Ethan Suplee]

I, I, I, I, I'm, I'm so with you on all of that stuff. I, I think, I think that comes down to, like, a lot of what I've struggled with in my life is the feeling of dissatisfaction with myself. And so I, A lot of that for me was these perceptions, narratives, ideas about how things should and shouldn't be.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And to get rid of that, I, I've become happier. I've become mellower because nothing should be anyway. It is how it is. And that's. I can work to better myself and allow other people to have their preference. And that's all I really care about.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I. Ethan, you're nailing it. It's beautiful.

[Ethan Suplee]

I care very much about. About everyone being correct with. Even if it goes totally against values I hold. Right. Because I haven't disregarded my own values. I have values. This is something my wife gets very concerned with and goes like, well, if it's all relative, then there's no right and wrong. Then how do you feel about X, Y and Z? And I'm like, I don't like it. Yeah, it's not something I like. It's not something I want to see happening. You know, I don't like war. I'm pretty opposed to war, sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

But at the same time, it's like, is it maybe necessary at times? I mean, is violence sometimes necessary? If a guy breaks into my house, I'm probably not gonna lie still while he rapes my wife. You know, I'm gonna get violent. And that's the value I choose. And I would also want to understand why are you doing this, dude? Like, what's happening with you?

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You know? Yeah. This is so interesting going back to what you. I was thinking, because you and I have talked about it before. There's the line in Shakespeare, nothing is right or wrong, but thinking makes it so. Yeah, but what is really empowering without getting your. Because your wife throws a very legitimate pickle our way. And I know what she's talking about because I dabble in these types of thought experiments as well. But what I'm after is a personal spaciousness. And, And I want to suffer less. And I want. But I. I also want to. To. It's not just whistling in the dark. It's. It's syncing up with nature in the way that nature doesn't have the same. This is tricky. Like, everybody knows we're against bad things. Like, you have to say that we're against bad things. But there is something interesting about being like, don't worry about other people. Things are happening. And you can't really change everything that's happening. You can change your response to those things.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's what I'm trying. That's my, my biggest goal. And also nature is a real interesting one because every time I look at nature, you know, like this whole natural law, the philosophy on natural law with which basically our country was founded. To me, there's nothing natural in natural law. The way they describe it, where men should have dignity and this, that doesn't exist in nature. Nature is violent.

[Pete Holmes]

We'll cut to us at our post apocalyptic. In fact, the post apocalyptic thing, we all are aware that, that you're like three meals away from becoming like a different person.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And I think that's what frustrates people when we get very navel gazy. I'm the most navel gazy of them all. And I find a lot of value in it. But I see a lot of people that might have different types of lives and they might be struggling more, going like, must be nice to be able to talk about those things. But if. Follow that deeper. I think we're going into our lineage as human beings and going like, there's been a lot of not dignified, you know, like, cavemen killing. Murder. Like, killing animals and eating them isn't really dignified. We've changed it. We've been like, it's the meal of kings, and we sit at banquets, and you don't see the slaughterhouse anymore, and you don't see them. I'm not. This isn't a vegan agenda. In fact, you know this, Ethan. I've started eating more chicken because I've been trying to get more protein.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

So I can't even claim that group anymore. And that's the worst part is I really love that ethical jolt. I'm just kidding. But. But like, we. We. I already told the story, but in preschool, in Leela's preschool, they were singing a song about monkeys getting eaten by alligators. But it sort of hinted at. And at the end of the song, one of the kids goes, what happened to the monkeys? And everyone was like, they swam away.

[Ethan Suplee]

They.

[Pete Holmes]

They ran away, and they got away. And the teacher's like, yeah, they got away. And then Dean, I've been doing this on stage. This one boy, Dean, who I love, of Dean, just goes, they died. And then the teacher's like, okay, Dean, thank you. And then Dean goes, blood in the water.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I'm just like, yes. Yeah, I love Dean.

[Pete Holmes]

Don't you fucking love Dean? I love Dean. Even, like, to me, art and philosophy and. And theater and so many things, this conversation are trying to go like, okay, there's what we're creating as a. As an ideology. And then it's built on the back of a reality that doesn't really understand what you mean when you say human dignity.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

Or personal dignity. Yeah, there.

[Ethan Suplee]

There. One of my kids brought me these. These pictures of. Of a town in Europe. And it was. I don't know if it was World War I or World War II. And it was before and after the war. Right. And. And. And she was asking me if I could find beauty in the after. And. And I was like, yeah, to me, that's a beautiful picture. And she was like, but it's all. There's so much destruction. And we've talked about this, Pete. There's no. There's no creation without destroying something. Nothing. Nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

Everything. Feeds on death. Yes. Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And so I feel like there's, you know, I go around American. There's this attempt to make everything static. It just needs to be this way, and then it needs to stay this way.

[Pete Holmes]

All inhale is what we call it. They want this. Never exhaling.

[Ethan Suplee]

Never exhaling. Never. Right. And. And that, to me, doesn't make sense. I. I think we've got to see beauty and decay. Decay is natural. It's a part. You know, and, like, I don't put so much emphasis on everything having to be natural. Right. Because natural is murder and rape and savagery that I don't want to experience. I don't want that. I don't want to be a part of a system that, like, thrives on just, you know, the strong are killing the weak. That's gross to me, too. But we're all going to grow old. We're all gonna die. Shit decays. And is it. Can't that be beautiful also?

[Pete Holmes]

It has to. It ha. You have absolutely no choice. You can be in denial a mile and be in Times Square and briefly believe that by being. And I'm saying this, I've caught myself at times being a consumer and being like, I'm going to live forever because I keep buying this stuff that is like an extension of me. It's my iPad. It's like I've grown in size. My car, my house, my country, my job. And it's like, no, you're still a daisy in the middle of a field. Like, you're very, very vulnerable. But every psychedelic experience, not everyone. Big, profound ones. Any Jungian dream, any sweat lodge vision is all shouting the same thing. This too shall pass. This will pass. It's all passing. It's all. To quote Jesus, he says, store not. I always do the King James because it's what Ram Dass would say. Store not your treasure where rust and mud moth doth corrupt. Right. Right. So it's this idea that you need to find something purer and truer and eternal in you because everything else is. Is passing. Your joy is passing. Your sadness is also passing. You win. And you. You have a moment of elation and then it immediately starts fading.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

We need to. We need to reconcile. Blood in the water, auto.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's. That's truth.

[Pete Holmes]

Make peace with it and go. It's okay. Not just. I think you have to forgive it. You need to. You need to look it in the face and go, like, that's what's happening. Not endless plastic surgeries. And Right. When people are like, look at Madonna and Cher. They don't age. I'm like, look, I'm not putting them down. Do your thing. I understand that's part of your business. Business. But part of me is, I'm like, what are we doing? And as soon as they did you don't. We have a denial of death in this culture. We have no understanding of cycles or, or to me, when you're dying, it's like the idea. And you're already doing it. Get over other people and get over yourself a little bit. If. If you're the center of the world and the whole thing has been a movie about you and you're dying, no fucking shit, you're scared to die. Dude. Dude.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

No, the movie, the only thing you've ever been interested in you to an end is about to fade out. You'd be a dingus. If you're going to spend your entire life that way and be cool with that. But if you're zooming out and looking at your interconnectivity and looking at something bigger and, and embracing the mystery and forgiving reality, then you can get over yourself. And. And that's not. Not as big of a transition anymore.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. You know, you're a parent. And the, the place where I could touch this ability was before I had my first kid and I read the book, you know what to expect when you're expecting. But this was. That's very much from a female perspective. But I still, I wanted that knowledge. I tried to get all that knowledge. And then the baby came and I still, still felt like I don't know what the. To do. I don't know what to do. And then I'm rationalizing. Well, people have been doing this for millions of years and, and like I'm here, so they figured it out. Like, nobody knows. There's just the.

[Pete Holmes]

The very similar to death, by the way you go, well, everybody dies.

[Ethan Suplee]

Everybody. Yeah, we've all been doing it. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Doesn't. Doesn't really strip it of mystery. The baby is still like, what do we do now? You sell. Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. For me, it required just the almost cockiness to go. I got this right to. To just. To just go. Like all the, the nonsense that I. That is also true of. Like, I don't know what to do because I really don't. I'm just going to behave as though I do know what to do and deal with problems as they come up. And I've like, that. That was the first moment that I felt like it's. It's okay. Like, I'm okay now that I decided to be okay and I touched that and never kind of lost it with my kids. And there will be times where my kids come to me and say, like, I wish you were there, dad, because you always know what to do. And I. I go, like, I don't know what the. Any of this is. I don't know anything. But they are convinced, because I can convince myself around them that I got this. When you're with me, you're safe. I. You're taken care of, you're protected.

[Pete Holmes]

All.

[Ethan Suplee]

Whatever it means to be a father to me. And then it's. It's happened more and more. Like, you know, I got a flat tire and there's no aaa and I've never changed a tire, and the. Got no cell service, and there's 10 minutes of like a stomachache because I'm so stranded. And so the world is now imploding upon me to. I can. I just decide I can do this and I do it and I change a tire, and it's not the easiest thing, but also people change tires. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And that's kind of been the way I eventually got to this thing of, like, whatever's happening with me is on me.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

And. And I wouldn't. I wouldn't go around telling people, you have to be like this, because I don't believe that that's true. But for me, that's what works.

[Pete Holmes]

That's. So. A friend of mine just had a very profound ayahuasca situation, and that was one of the things. It was like, just you, you. And he kept asking it questions about other people, and it was like, what. What do you get? What are you doing? Like, how do you feel in this situation? And it kept stressing that everybody has autonomy and everybody has. Has choice, which is really beautiful. I also love what you're saying. It's actually in a Comedians and Cars episode where Seinfeld, somebody says something, they're like, well, what. What if we go there and this happens? And he goes, then we'll deal with it.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And it was like. Like those simple truths. Sorry to keep mentioning drugs and as much as we've been talking about sobriety, but I had an MDMA experience where I was like. It brought me to tears, the thought I was like, people don't have to be like me. The other side of that is. And I don't have to be like them.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

That's like, if you could write that on a piece of paper. And eat it and have that get into your cells. How many of your problems would just go away? And another one I'd like to write on paper and eat is. If that happens, we'll deal with it. I quote this all the time. Anxiety is paying interest on a debt that never comes. You just. You're just paying. It's not. The bill didn't come.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Why are you worried? You didn't order it. It's not at the table. You didn't need it.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. Now, this is something I subscribe to wholeheartedly. I believe that is truth. And I still have anxiety.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And these things, things I. I battle with within myself. This is like my final, biggest battle or my most recent or profound, which is like, no, this isn't real. And yet I'm still have a rapid heart rate. You know, I could have anxiety right now just thinking about if you and I. Because you're very convincing about the cold stuff. And. And. And it still makes me scared. And if. If. If I was to agree with you or. Or make.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, my God.

[Ethan Suplee]

You know, because I. I think for me, the. The highest level of truth that I can achieve is agreement with someone. And, And. And that goes down to, like, I told Pete I would do this thing. I have to do it. You know, I'm not gonna not do it because I told Pete I would do it.

[Pete Holmes]

And then you are your own worst. Like.

[Ethan Suplee]

And then I'm up until I do it. Yeah. But I know it won't be as bad as I think it will be.

[Pete Holmes]

That's true.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I can't get out of that. And so it does take some time going, that's not real.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

None of that's real. Feeling isn't real.

[Pete Holmes]

When I did your podcast, and even when we're talking now, this is a very special Pete. This is midday Pete. You and I were talking about, like, in the morning some time with my fam. I have my first coffee. It's the most special Pete. That's the Pete that hosts the podcast. Podcast, yeah. He's great and I love him. But like we're saying, it's not always that. Pete in Val said about me, she's like, in the course of the day, you feel every emotion. She's like, I. I watch you feel every single emotion. And it's true. I've gotten very polite about it. I'm not, like, flailing around like Miss Piggy or Kermit with my arms like this. I'm not like that. But I am. Internally, I'm feeling Everything. What? One of the things you just said, I was thinking about, like, so you take ayahuasca, right? Ayahuasca is one of those things that I'm like, people talk about it being so intense and so. So frightening and life changing and. And it's. It's the opposite of an escape drug. It's like the most confronting. Like, hey, have you noticed that you do this and I'm gonna show you it for four hours, you know? And you really. You come out, like, broken, and then it rebuilds you. It's not. It doesn't sound like taking Molly at Lollapalooza. You know what I mean? It's just like, let's cuddle, let's cut. Exactly. It's not that. It's not that at all. And I. But yet I remain interested in it. And. And this is you. And anxiety, by the way. I. What I was going to say was, nighttime, Pete, I'll wake up and pee, and I'll have to ward off just generalized. My brain is a master at. At finding something to be like, did that upset somebody?

[Ethan Suplee]

Right? Did this stay awake?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, you need to stay awake. You need to grind on this. And I will go. My bathroom mirror is covered in the. All these quotes that I love. And most of them are about how all reality is mind and, like, you've never separated from God and all these mantras. Like, one of my favorite lines is, myself rests safely in the mind of God. Even if you're in the most dangerous situation, where you are in reality is where you've always ever been. Here and now, in the eternal and the placeless place of what we could call God or the mind of God. So you've never been in danger in your life. Tell that to 3am P. 3am Pete does not.

[Ethan Suplee]

3Am Pete tells you to go yourself.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Ethan Suplee]

I'm gonna think about what I said at lunch to that guy. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's where Val. So Val is. I told you this. She's the great counterpart to my headiness. She's all body, so she's somatic. And she's like, you got to put your hands on your chest. Get. Get some weight on you. You told me splash cold water on your face. Helps with anxiety. Breathe. And that's that small step. Even though you think it's not gonna work. Can you take one deep breath?

[Ethan Suplee]

Just one.

[Pete Holmes]

Like you were saying, can you tie your shoes? Just one deep breath. But I had two thoughts going at the same time. The other one was, so I'm interested in doing something like ayahuasca. And even though I've told you I'm an addict, I'm California sober, which means I'll occasionally take a small edible of weed. And I got a little paranoid and listen to the genius of this paranoia because there was nothing wrong. Everything was fine. I wasn't like, where's my daughter? She was sleeping. Where's Val? Everything. Everybody's fine. Circumstantially fine. My brain, my genius brain went, not me. But something in there was like, you want to do ayahuasca? You are the biggest threat to us.

[Ethan Suplee]

Like, it was like, right.

[Pete Holmes]

You are the danger.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like you want to be afraid of something? Be afraid of you.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You keep signing us up for fattening foods. You keep signing us up for. You drive to LA all those times, all the time on the freeway. You want to do incredibly unstable or unpredictable sacred medicines. Like, you're this up, up. We keep telling you to just stay inside. Like, it was like the voice of my fear. Be safe. It was my fight flight going like, the call's coming from inside the house. Dip. Like you think you need to protect yourself from other people. It's all you. It's all you.

[Ethan Suplee]

But. But Pete, it's all us, no matter what.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's. That's right.

[Ethan Suplee]

There's like. There's some, like. I know that's. That's probably the voice telling you to stay awake. Like, Right. Like that might be that, but it's also. It's not lying.

[Pete Holmes]

No, it's not. It's not that.

[Ethan Suplee]

Actually.

[Pete Holmes]

The. The other side of that coin is power.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like on this side, it's fear. It's all you. What are you doing? And. And shame and embarrassment gets in the way. And on the other side is. Oh, it's all me. Yeah, it's all me. I can. I can do whatever I want. Which brings me. I had a couple specific things.

[Ethan Suplee]

Oh, God.

[Pete Holmes]

I wrote down so many things I want to say, but I'm gonna. I'm gonna pick this one. 1. When you're in a way where you're having a rough day and you can't find the motivation to do something big, like a one hour workout or two, whatever you're doing. What is there something that you do mentally, physically that can. Just a tiny gain that might get the ball rolling?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, it's. It's specific to me because I don't know if anybody else has experienced this, but have you ever had a dream? Dream? Or have you Woke up and you can't move. Like, there's a. There's a. Val has that.

[Pete Holmes]

Sleep paralysis.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, sleep paralysis. So the only way. And. And I actually had, as an aside, a bad drug experience where I went into actual paralysis. We used to. Me and my buddy used to. We can do a side drug stories, right? Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Me and my buddy used to buy drugs from the VA down on Wilshire in. In West Westwood. And basically we. We met a nurse there who would buy prescriptions once they were filled from vets so vets could take the money and go get the street drugs that they were doing instead of the bullshit prescription drugs. We hadn't quite graduated to the street drugs yet. We were still onto prescription drugs. And he sold us a bottle of this stuff, which I believe was called chloral hydrate. It had a big, big red C on it, which means it's controlled substance. And it just looked like a cough syrup, but it was bright green. And. And he said, just take a half a cap. Cap full of this and then wait a long time. And we did that, and then nothing happened. So we filled up the capful and took him.

[Pete Holmes]

This is a Wolf of Wall street, basically, the movie.

[Ethan Suplee]

Me and my friend were frozen for a number of hours to my couch.

[Pete Holmes]

Wait, it kicks in. It kicks in and you're frozen.

[Ethan Suplee]

Just drool. Completely, completely alert. Cannot move. Oh, just stop. And. And it didn't feel. It wasn't like, God, this feels wonderful. Like heroin. You get. You get high on heroin and you maybe aren't moving because you're just in one.

[Pete Holmes]

You're having a fine time.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

This was. You were a Muppet. And the hand was taken out.

[Ethan Suplee]

The hand was taken out. And I'm like. I'm a big guy, too, and I suffer from, like. I can't sit still for very long because the weight on that section of my body will begin to cause it to die.

[Pete Holmes]

I think you need. I'm not trying to be funny. You need to get rotated.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. No rotation. And I'm feeling like just. It was horrible. But I have had dreams and woken up in the.

[Pete Holmes]

How did it just wear out? It just wore off.

[Ethan Suplee]

It wore off. It took like four or five.

[Pete Holmes]

You, like, wiggled a finger and you're.

[Ethan Suplee]

Like, coming back and then your whole body came back from first. Me. I came back first and I shook him a little bit and he, like, we're drooling. It was off. Gosh, it was awful. But I. I do wake up sometimes with a panic of, like. I got that that's happening again.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And the only way to, for me to get out of it is to, you know, you almost jolt yourself. You, you like take a deep breath and like put.

[Pete Holmes]

If I get it.

[Ethan Suplee]

If getting out of bed requires a 2 of energy, you got to put a 10 into just shocking.

[Pete Holmes]

You're jump starting yourself. Yeah, yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's a jump start. So I will have to do that multiple times a week where if I'm awake and laying in bed and that's not actually occurring, but I suddenly don't want to go to the gym, I don't want to get up, I don't want to eat, eat the food I've meal prepped. I don't want to do my writing. I don't want to do all the things that keep me as focused and happy as I can possibly be. It does require a bit of me mentally going go.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

And that's when I can summon those guys. Joe Rogan, David Goggins, Cameron Hayes, who. Who seem to do all of this through pain. The pain I'm experiencing isn't that I'm running an ultra marathon on a broken leg. The pain is I am apathetic towards life or experiencing melancholia or depression or whatever it is that has me stuck. That's my version of I got to fight through this. And, and I got, and that's, and that's what I do. I literally imagine I've just woken up and I have sleep paralysis and I have to jolt myself away awake.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow. So that, that physical condition is primed you to know like, okay, this is one of those things. Yeah, I saw. So my YouTube has figured out that I'm getting interested in stuff like this. So it keeps showing me like Jim and Fridge and all that sort of stuff. And Paul Rudd had one and you know, he got real ripped for Ant man and one of them was like, I forget exactly what the quote was, but essentially it was like there's like motivating yourself, which is like finding a reason to do it, do it. And then he's like, but that's, that's not. It doesn't work. He's like, you can't like wait to find a reason and get a reason. He's like, it's just to do it. It's, it's just a. I hate this and I'm gonna do it. And I'm like, that seems like a muscle that you can work on. Question Mike.

[Ethan Suplee]

I think it's exactly the same with you. However awful your cold plunge was Today, you know, it's going. You know what you had the effect, the effect your shoe, you, you got. And you know that you're going to build up some tolerance to it. It's exactly the same for me with working out five times out of 10. I don't really want to go and do it. I'm only doing it because I know the rest of my day will be better.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

And then if I get into a routine of it, it's actually more difficult to not do it because I'm just now accustomed to doing it. But if I take a week off, which this last week, week. I think I only got to the gym once because we were working and then I had something else to do over the weekend and I only just got home. But I went to the gym today and I was like, I'm gonna start off with legs, which is the worst. And it was so hard and so awful and I, I was actually doing much less than I had been doing two weeks before because my legs are now suddenly they're not out of shape. They're going to be fine in a week or two. But they were just like, no, wait a second, wait, we're not doing that anymore, you know.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right.

[Ethan Suplee]

And so I did that and I walked out of the gym with a pep in my step and feeling great and. And I could experience the sun where prior to that the sun was harmful to me.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes, yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

It was great. So I just kept doing that. One foot in front of the other.

[Pete Holmes]

I love that. And that when I got out because. Sorry, this is how I can relate. Yeah, you're right. I got out of the Copenhagen I didn't want to do. It was first thing in the morning, which is the hardest. Hardest is it because you just got out of the bed and you're all cooked like a hot dog and you get in. But I, my daughter was kicking me all night and I just slept like bad and I just needed a reboot. I needed to lick a big old 9 volt battery. Like a big one.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And when I got out, this seems like a YouTube video, but I went, I already won. Like that's what I said. I was like, I already won. But this is what here we're going to go to the mid Rolls. But we kind of were talking about this earlier geek state. People, people. Pete that's standing in the sunlight glistening and cold going, I've already won. He's not the best guy to give advice to anybody. Like peak state. What's interesting is, let's talk A little bit more about that because I wrote that down. I was like, non peak state people. 500 pound Ethan. I want to know what he needed because it's not Pete going, I've already won. That just seems like a guy with a hot girlfriend being like, mic. And the best thing is you do it all the time, right? Like it doesn't help. So let's get to that. We'll be back in literally two minutes, three minutes, we'll be right back. Whenever I buy something, I always do my research, especially if something I'm going to put inside of my body. Because doing research before you buy something means making better and more informed choices, especially when it comes to stress or sleep problems. Products like cbd. And that's where Next Evo Naturals, my favorite new CBD brand, knocks it out of the park. Which isn't always the case. A study by an independent lab recently confirmed that some brands contain up to 60% less CBD than they claim on the label. But with Nextevo, you can trust you're getting the best of the best. They use SmartSorb technology, which is proven to have 30 times better absorption in the first 30 times 30 minutes and 4 times the overall absorption as other products. So for people who don't have taken CBD in the past and just don't get what it's about, don't feel it, don't notice it, smart sorb is here and makes a huge difference. So if you've written off CBD in the past, Next Evo is an absolute reimagining. It's a game changing, wonderful thing. The stress gummies is what I take almost every day. That's their CBD and their whole plant, Ashwagandha, which is an adaptogen. These are lifesavers. When I'm feeling overwhelmed or anxious, if I'm just stressed and can't get on with my day, can't face my inbox, can't handle company coming over. These are my secret weapon to round the edges and get me back to feeling ready to face my day. So if you've tried CBD before and you didn't get it, didn't like it, trust me, nextevo is different. Give it a try, upgrade your CBD and show your support for this show. Go to to nextevo.com weird to get 20 off your first order of $40 or more. That's 20 off 40 bucks or more at n e X-T-E-V-O.com weird. Also brought to us by our friends at Sunday lawn care. If you're like me, you love spring. But you may not love figuring out how to take care of your yard. Does it? Anyone else just stand in the line in the, in the aisle, in the store, wondering where to start, Feeling overwhelmed, feeling anxious? Well, that's where Sunday lawn care comes in. Sunday is everything you need to get the lawn you've dreamed of this spring. Go to getsunday.com weird and enter your address to get a customized plan created just for your lawn. It's really, really cool. No trips to the store or, or heavy hauling bags since they ship straight to your home. Plus you just need a hose to apply. Sunday, it's actually fun. It's actually easy. You can fertilize your whole lawn in less time than it takes to watch an episode of your favorite TV show. And they only use ingredients you can feel good about. That means no harsh chemicals, no long waiting periods or trying to keep your kids and pets off the lawn. Simply apply, let it dry, and you're back to enjoying your yard. Best of all, Sunday is easy and affordable. Some lawn care services cost more than 1500 a year, but Sunday's full season plans start at just $109. And Sunday is offering on. On top of that, our listeners get 20% off. Full season plans start at just 109. And you can get 20% off when you visit getsunday.com weird weird at checkout. Just 109 bucks. Get 20 off when you visit getsunday dot com weird 20 off your custom plan getsunday dot com weird show your support for your lawn and for this show. All right, everybody, let's get back to Ethan Suplee. And we're back.

[Ethan Suplee]

We're back. I, you know, you talked about the disembodied heads that are motivating to you. One of them for me is my self at 500.

[Pete Holmes]

I was actually curious. That was one of the ones. I wondered if he was there.

[Ethan Suplee]

He's there and his, his state was just that you can't do anything there. That the world is happening to you and you can't do anything. And, and how do we experience as much pleasure right this second as possible? Because there's, there's nothing else to be done. And so, so just recognizing that as an association between the more base urges I have is super helpful to me in going like I'm motivated to not get back to that because, you know, and it has nothing.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, broke out of a prison. I'm not saying everybody's a prison. I'm just saying.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like when you break up with somebody and I. I wonder how this informs, like, things like cheat days and stuff. It's like, you break up with them, then you have to, like, stay broken up. It's like a new state. It's like, stay broken up. But I was always very good. I've never gone back to a girlfriend because I was like, you hated breaking up with them. You hated losing 300 pounds.

[Ethan Suplee]

It was not fun. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, it's not fun. So it's almost like now you're in the. Does this make sense? The honoring what you've already done phase?

[Ethan Suplee]

Totally. 100. And. And, you know, like, cheat days. I don't. I don't really do cheat days, but I like. Fast food is generally off limits. That's just like, you know, for me.

[Pete Holmes]

You, Chicken Big Mac.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, I mean, we had that moment there.

[Pete Holmes]

They.

[Ethan Suplee]

I don't know if they even have them here. They're certainly not advertising. Like, they were. Maybe it's a Toronto chicken Big Mac. I want to try that. You know, there's some part of me that gets really antsy when it's McRib season and you're like, I don't even think I like that sandwich when it was. When I could eat it.

[Pete Holmes]

But, yeah, Shamrock Shake. They know what they're doing. They know what they're doing.

[Ethan Suplee]

They're going so well, it's.

[Pete Holmes]

It's designed scarcity. Like diamonds.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, we don't have diamonds. Yeah, you do.

[Ethan Suplee]

So. So for me, sobriety is some. Some rules that are absolute for myself. Right? And. And. And, like, I'm envious of my wife who drinks and is never driving home drunk, is never getting into a fight, is never blacked out, is never tripping and twisting her ankle because of alcohol, is never trying to burn her life down, is never sneaking off to the crack house after a couple glasses of wine. Right? That's not what she does. And so I have jealousy. And then I see people who I. I consider alcoholics who have said to me at. In times, like, I'm an alcoholic who. I've gone, like, yeah, I agree. I agree with you. You have a problem. And. And then if you were waiting for.

[Pete Holmes]

Me to say, nah, right?

[Ethan Suplee]

No, it's not going to happen. And then I've. I've experienced those people saying, I don't have a problem anymore. And. And I've. I've gone, okay, but in my head, I've gone, I don't know about that, dude. And Then watching them drink or use drugs. I'm judgmental of. Not openly, but I. I feel that. I feel like that's a dangerous path that person's on.

[Pete Holmes]

The beer and wine only path.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's just beer, right? It's just beer and wine. I could drink a lot of beer, dude. Yeah. But for. With food, I have to have. You know, it's. It's a very. It's a slightly more complicated. Because you don't quit eating, right? I just don't do drugs and I try to stay away from places that the drugs I liked are being taken. You know, like, I'm not opposed to going into a hospital and half the people there are doped up on morphine. That's fine. It's not the setting that I would think of as. As like, let's get high on heroin or something. Right.

[Pete Holmes]

So you stay away from other places where everyone's high on heroin, right?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Or whatever.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Whatever. Whatever. Yeah. I. I don't even really like bars. My wife likes to have alcohol with dinner, which is fine, but like, meeting people at a bar to hang out with them, I can do that. And I'm not like, risking my sobriety, but it's not really fun for me watching people get drunk.

[Pete Holmes]

No, that's the first thing you notice is you're like. Like, oh, no, you're all drunk.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I'm. And I'm drinking club soda, but.

[Pete Holmes]

But also that they're insufferable. That was when we met as I was taking a break from drinking and you asked me if I was sober, and I was like, oh, interesting. I. I think that might have been one of the first times I considered, oh, yeah, you can just not go bad.

[Ethan Suplee]

Just not. Yeah, right.

[Pete Holmes]

Instead of, like, constantly burning it all the way and then taking a month off sober. October, okay, Come on.

[Ethan Suplee]

Food is tough because we. We don't quit eating. But, like, I have my guard rails, which are things that I don't go beyond. Which one is, I don't eat in secret. I'm not going to eat if I will see my wife to watch it.

[Pete Holmes]

I just said to myself, I was like, if you just made a rule, you know, there's. There's other things like this. If you just cooked all your meals, you would lose this weight. Because nobody's like, deep frying. Like, it's just not. You don't have the technology to make it is. In fact, I used to have a bit about, like, we go to restaurants because we want them to cook for us. In a way that we would never do.

[Ethan Suplee]

Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

More butter if you were doing it.

[Ethan Suplee]

And don't tell me about it. I don't want to see the calories.

[Pete Holmes]

Just exactly. Keep it behind closed doors. It's like you put a hit out on a chicken. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. Just bring it out when it's done. And then the other. What was I saying? What was I saying? Oh, I was like, if I just said, you can't eat alone, right? Like, it would be over. Because I'm a social guy. Like, I have functional shame, so I'm not gonna necessarily. Like, when. When I was eating those goldfish on set. Tell me if this doesn't sound like an alcoholic. It does. I would go to Crafty. I'd open one, eat the whole thing at Crafty, take another one, and walk back with that one. This is the one I'm eating.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You didn't see the one I shot like an oyster, right? That's. Michael J. Fox had that sobriety story. It's like you'd go back to the kitchen and fill his wine to the same level. Like, the. The skill and. And the precision of the addict is. Is pretty interesting. And also, like, I don't care if one person sees me shoot the whole bag.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

Because who cares?

[Ethan Suplee]

And all they know about is that one bag.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right, that. A bag of goldfish and then the other goldfish. I'm going over. Over here. It's just. It's just working with object permanence. Like, you don't know. I'm not bringing this to someone else. All of this, it's like mobster stuff. It's like, you. Did you see me eat it and I didn't eat it?

[Ethan Suplee]

That's me.

[Pete Holmes]

I did that. Don't eat. Don't eat in secret. Don't eat alone. Like, that would help me a lot. Don't eat alone.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, it. It was alone for me. But then. It's going to be tricky for you, Pete, when you're on the road, you're. You know what I mean? So you. You gotta. You got. But. But, like, the way I get around that is like, would I do what I'm doing in front of Brandy, my wife?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Would this be okay for her to see? Is this. Is this something I'm not. I'm not doing it in a sneaky way. You know what I mean? Because I. I have a. I think we put things into categories. And so for me, if I went, like, I'M never going to eat alone. And then I found myself traveling for a week alone. At some point, I would go, well, I'm gonna eat now. And then the guard rails come off, and then I'm in the house, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You've gone. You've broken the seal.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's real addict stuff, too. I'm like, well, I've done this. I might as well do a million other things.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's right.

[Pete Holmes]

I already ate the buffalo wings. I'm gonna order three desserts.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. Can I. Can I be. Can I honestly say, you know, I'm not sneaking into our pantry to. To do tablespoons of peanut butter if. If I'm alone. Yeah. That's what. It's wonderful.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the best.

[Ethan Suplee]

Best. If I'm sitting in a alone. And I'm. And I've positioned myself so nobody else can see I've got my back to them, and they're not seeing the waiter put down just too much food in front of me. Would I be willing to turn around and have somebody watch me eat this meal? Because that's. I. I don't like people watching me. I find that I'm. I find it to be that I eat in a disgusting manner. I think I eat too fast, and. And it's gross. Gross.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm with you. That's. That you told that wonderful story. Wonderful. It's a sad story, but the. You wonderfully told a vulnerable story on Risk, which I really loved. And I told you the part you were trying to score. And the part that I just related to so hard was you're coming up to a red light, and you would stop before the other cars because you didn't want anyone see.

[Ethan Suplee]

Nobody to see me. Yeah. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

That's the voice, right? The. The. The voice of my addiction is like, just stick with me. Like, just stick with me.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's you and me. And it's you and me, though.

[Pete Holmes]

It's the reliable.

[Ethan Suplee]

Dangerous. Other people are dangerous. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Other people are dangerous. Other people are in the way. They don't understand. And then we already hinted at this. I have that voice that's like, you deserve it. Like, you're. It's hard. Hard. Life is hard for you.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And then if you really listen closely, I think it goes like. And we're all gonna die. Like, you could die tomorrow.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You want to eat this whole pizza, right?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Like, right. But that. That goes back to blood in the water. The way isn't around it. The way isn't even the other direction. It's through it. You have to go like, yes, I'm gonna die. And life is not a pizza. No matter how many breadsticks spilling out of a bag in slow motion, Domino shows me we're facing a formidable foe that's using our wiring to be like, yeah, listen to that. The smallest, earliest part of your brain that tells you to eat fat and calories whenever you can. And then they put pop music to it. And Michael Jordan is drinking a Pepsi. Like, it's. So It's a wonder more of us, when so many of us are struggling with. With food.

[Ethan Suplee]

Well, that. That's how I got sober. I. I had. I. You know, I. I would go to bed. Bed just about every night, pretty convinced I was going to die in my sleep. But it was a. Well, it was a kind of a. Like a gamble, right? It was a. A. A toss of the roulette wheel. And, and if. If I.

[Pete Holmes]

If.

[Ethan Suplee]

If, like, on a night like tonight, me going to bed equal death, I give myself one number on that roulette. Like one in 36, right? Well, when I was doing, it was red or black and heavy. It was red or black. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Ethan Suplee]

And I was basically okay with that. And then I got told I had congestive heart failure. And what would happen is my feet would swell, and then my legs would swell, and then my thighs would swell, and then I'd get scared, and I. And I didn't. I was not diagnosed. I'd just be like, holy shit. I'm gigantic as it is. And to swell on top of that and not be able to put on pants was crazy. And so I'd stopped doing drugs for a few days, and the swelling would go away, and I'd go, okay. Well, I. I got. I got so accustomed to just getting dope sick every couple of weeks because I had to stop because I wanted to get rid of the swelling. And then I would start doing drugs again. And pretty quickly, within a week or two, the swelling would start again.

[Pete Holmes]

And I.

[Ethan Suplee]

It got. It went into my groin and started to get into my abdomen. And I went to a doctor, and the doctor said, you have con. This is congestive heart failure. And I said, so what do I do to handle this? And. And the doctor said, well, if it was just your feet and legs, you could get off drugs and you could survive. But I'm sorry to tell you, like, you're gonna die. Like, you have weeks.

[Pete Holmes]

What?

[Ethan Suplee]

Before you die? This is gonna keep moving slow, slowly. And when this swelling reaches your heart, your heart can't beat anymore and you die. And, and it was this really weird thing of like, oh, well, now I'm really going to die for sure. I might as well get off drugs. And, and I was actually, it was, it was a, just a weird experience.

[Pete Holmes]

Of like, I'm gonna die. I should stop doing drugs.

[Ethan Suplee]

I should stop doing drugs.

[Pete Holmes]

It was almost like, yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

For as a human being, I didn't like doing them. I didn't like being a drug addict. And maybe if I know I'm going to die now, I should go out with a little bit of nobility, a little bit of honor. And that was when I got sober. That was like, I, I went to rehab immediately and for the third time. But on. It wasn't people convincing me to go. It was me going, I need to go to rehab. I'm going to go, go straighten my out.

[Pete Holmes]

Like a death scare.

[Ethan Suplee]

It was a, but, but it wasn't even a death scare. It was, I, I, I had death scares every night. This was a confirmation that you've got a couple weeks and you're going to die.

[Pete Holmes]

Wow.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And you wanted to. Don't let me put words in your mouth. You wanted to go out sober.

[Ethan Suplee]

I wanted to go out sober. I wanted to, I wanted to at least go out fighting for something, you know, like, not just in this state. That was the first time that I, it wasn't, it wasn't hopeful, like, if you do this, you'll survive. It was, this is the state you're in. And I just felt like I would feel better about myself if I improved my condition a little bit.

[Pete Holmes]

I'm not super surprised again, in my, in my little practice this morning, I was thinking about how, like, the pressure of death is one of the things that can spur spawn change. It's like some people, I think, and I think I might be one of them for the final step, the final, like, okay, like, no fooling comes when the gun is, the metaphorical gun is on your head and you're like, okay, for real. Like, what do we really believe? And I think a lot of people have deathbed conversions. I think that's like a standard murdered meaning a deathbed conversion. I remember told the story before, but Roger Ebert, when he died, you know, he lost part of his jaw and, but he was reported to sit up in his bed and, and he just looked blissful and said it's all an elaborate hoax, is what he said. Meaning reality.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And he said it. The, the difference between paranoia and enlightenment is so fine sometimes.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

All a Hoax Sounds like paranoia.

[Ethan Suplee]

No, but I like it.

[Pete Holmes]

Me too.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's beautiful.

[Pete Holmes]

The joyful. It's all a hoax. Meaning it was all a dance, or it was all a song, or it was all a dream, or it was all a play. I was also thinking about this morning, and this pertains to what you were saying, so I'm going to put it back to you. But I've always been attracted to this joke that Daniel Tosh had about the end of the world. Whenever there was a scare where before we really thought the world was ending. With COVID and all these things, it was a trend that every six years or so some church would say, we've interpreted the Bible, the world's gonna end. And it would make the papers. And I'd be afraid every single time. And Daniel Taj had a joke where he goes, it would always be after the fact. He's like, we didn't die. Like, I was disappointed. And then he goes, I don't want to die. He goes, don't get me wrong. I don't want to die. I want all of us to. To die. And I, this morning, for the first time, I've always just been so incalculably and inexplicably drawn to that joke. Like, I don't understand it.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And I was like, that's because that's. I think that's enlightenment. A personal death or a personal salvation isn't salvation. It's. It's not real. It's all of us.

[Ethan Suplee]

We all have to do it.

[Pete Holmes]

We all go together and we all wake up and we all go home. Whatever language you want to use. And that. I think that's what he said. I think he stumbled into something. I'm going to say accidentally because most of the time when I stumble onto something profound, it was an accident. I didn't. I didn't reverse engineer it. I think he's saying something profound there that relates to this.

[Ethan Suplee]

I think he is too. There's actually a wonderful book called the Idea of Decline in Western History by a guy named Arthur Herman. It's a great book and it goes over. Over how this idea repeats itself and we can't really escape it. And it is. It isn't like, what idea?

[Pete Holmes]

What idea?

[Ethan Suplee]

Decline, the end of the world, existential threat.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, we always think it's happening always throughout history.

[Ethan Suplee]

There's always been something that threatened us. All that, you know. But not. Not stakes high enough. Because I think that people are so amazing when it's actually happening. We do change. We do Pivot. We do make adjust. But when. When it's just. It's just that there's always been the fear of, whether it's the Bible or something else, that we're on our way out.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's blood in the water. That. That's, to me, spirituality, at least where I'm at now is. Is what we're saying. It's going through the darkness, holding the hand, metaphorically, of something hopeful, but it's not going around it. It's not. Everything happens for a reason. It's not. Not. God isn't going to give you something you can't handle. I always used to say that, but I was like, you won't be able to handle whatever kills you. Handle. But we're using it in the physical realm. We're saying, God won't give you something you can't handle.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I believe that spiritually, this is a great Jim Finley quote. He goes, I believe in a God that protects me from nothing but sustains me in everything. That's what that means. God won't give you anything you can't handle, spiritually speaking. But physically speaking, every single person in the history of time has been given something they couldn't handle. Handle their heart. Their heart stopped beating.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

What do we do with that?

[Ethan Suplee]

We can't do anything with it.

[Pete Holmes]

You have to say blood in the water. You have to claim blood in the water. And that has been a big part of my spirituality is. Is owning the darkness, not just rejecting it or, or looking the other way.

[Ethan Suplee]

No. And find some beauty in it. It can be beautiful, too. You know, like. And it doesn't mean we have to be rooting for some tragedy. I, you know, I like, I, I like the idea of stuff being nice and people being. But also, like, okay, when it happens, it can also, like, can I find. Can I find something beautiful in it?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yeah, that's right. That's right. And can this, I would say, can this external thing push me closer to an inner reality that was always there? That's Roger Ebert going, it's all a hoax.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

He's included in that hoax. I, I would bet my, My, my bottom dollar that in that revelation, he's going, what you call Roger Ebert is part of the hoax.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. You know, I didn't, I didn't experience September 11th. I was in. I was in rehab. And very early in the morning, we saw. There was. There's one. One tv and we're. We're out in the middle of nowhere in Oklahoma, and the TV showed a Plane crash into a building. And then very quickly they turned the TV off and said, today we're going to spend the day outside and we're not using the phone. Like it wasn't, you know, a plane had crashed into a building before. I, I forget when that was, but it seemed like it was Empire State Building.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a small thing, but yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right. Um, and then there were like a few days go by where there, there. They. They didn't let any kind of conspiratorial, like you're not to use the phone. It just became more actively outside in the middle of nowhere with no connection to the outside. When I finally got out of rehab and I went to the airport and there was a dude with a machine gun at the airport, I was completely bewitched, bewildered. I was perplexed. I didn't understand this. And then people were like, well, it's because, you know, 9 11. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know, I know that happened now. But people experienced something that I just didn't experience. And I think it's awful that that happened, but because I didn't experience it, I can't get to the emotional level that other people have.

[Pete Holmes]

This is. This is the younger people on our set, by the. By the way.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

9 11. And we know this is going to happen because this is what happens. We make. Steve Martin has a joke where he goes, you make jokes as a young comedian about cancer. Then your friends start dying and you stop making jokes about cancer. These kids don't know 9 11. In the same way we don't know the Great Depression. We don't know World War II. We don't know all these things.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's one of the things. But you were. It's almost like a second life. Like a bubble was around around you guys, and you didn't really see the.

[Ethan Suplee]

Meal, the trauma, the whatever it is. Because for my friends in New York, they went through a war, basically. They went through something visceral and, and, and, and it changed them. And then the. And then it seems to have had this major profile. And I'm not saying I'm aloof to what happened. I know. I know what happened. And I. And I. Yeah, of course. And emotionally different touches me. It just. I didn't experience it happening. So it's like somebody explaining a car accident to you. Who was in the car accident? We're not. We just. I can't experience the car accident that you had.

[Pete Holmes]

Right, right. It becomes a story.

[Ethan Suplee]

And you.

[Pete Holmes]

You missed out on. But we're, we're sort of back to what we were talking about. It's like these agreed upon realities, and I'm not denying those realities, but like narratives are spun, stories are told. Like your life is a story. And that's, and that's, again, I see why you thought, thought of that. Roger Ebert is like, I was a story.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I was an agreed upon. And you and I didn't know Roger Ebert, so we don't even know what he's talking about. It. It's.

[Ethan Suplee]

But I like what he's talking.

[Pete Holmes]

I like what he's talking about too. And having that death before you die, that, so that, that, that spaciousness that, like this is a hoax. People don't have to be like me. It's not about. Without eliminating all suffering or as you were saying, all violence. It's not. Jesus said, was quoted to have said the, the poor will always be among you. But I'm only here for a limited time is basically what he's saying. He's like, you should talk to me while I'm here, because you can't, you won't solve this.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

And there's, you could say that's defeatist. And I'm, I'm all for fixing problems and helping and all that. I've been helped. And that's good. But there's something about going like, I don't know if the game is to finely tune the earth like a German watch. I don't think that happens in a world of duality. That doesn't mean we can't improve. But in a world where if I'm sitting in this chair, you're not sitting in this chair. Right. You can't be sitting in this chair. Well, I, and I know, we're okay with that, but, but like that's the beginning of all of it is I'm in this chair and you're not in this chair. I'm breathing this air. You're not breathing this air. I have this coffee. You don't have this coffee. That's what duality is.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, please. Homelessness is an interesting one. You said you play these, these moral games. You, you. Moral questions.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

Is it immoral to be homeless?

[Pete Holmes]

There's the guilt of the society that's not housing everybody. But I, I'm with you. I've played this before.

[Ethan Suplee]

If somebody says, I don't want to live in the way that you're living now. Look, if you come to my house and you say, I want to pitch a tent in your backyard and have a Bonfire, I'm going to say no, and I'm going to take you off my property. That's just what I'm going to do. Because I don't want the bonfire in my backyard or a stranger back there, to be honest with you. But I find nothing immoral about somebody going, I don't want to play the game that you're playing, that this society with cars and money and credit cards, I'm going to go wander around. To me, there's nothing immoral about that. But then society, you know, you go to Los Angeles and it's like, no, there's, you know, I think a couple of years ago there was like cholera. There was an outbreak of cholera because of homeless encampments. And, and like, and I go, like, I understand, but is it just that you want what you want versus they want what they want and who's morally correct? And private property, I'm okay with having my house that nobody's allowed to come to and messed with.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

But what about public property? Everybody owns that. And so is it immoral for somebody to sleep there? I, I don't know. But the need to solve it. I understand if you have a bunch of people going, like, please give me a house. And then I think Los Angeles raised a billion dollars to give them houses and didn't turn out any houses, which.

[Pete Holmes]

Is that true?

[Ethan Suplee]

I think something like that, Maybe it was 600 million people want houses and want to play the game. I believe in opportunities. But again, morally, it becomes very, very weird, these things that we're solving because they're wrong or right when I don't know that they're wrong or right.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Well, you know, it's interesting, this conversation, this whole topic is interesting. I remember watching a documentary where they, they did what I always wanted to do as a child, which was take a unhoused person and give them a house and give and do the thing.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

I guess you could say I have a savior complex. But I do do like. I, I like that idea. I'm like, yeah, yeah. And look, this is just one case. But that person hated it.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's what I'm saying. That's, that's exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

I know it is. The trouble is, and you would concede this, that that's a convenient, that's convenient data for people who don't. Who would like to continue to step over homeless people?

[Ethan Suplee]

You know, I, I listen, I don't, I take no pleasure in stepping over homeless people.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

I, I am simply saying, are we right in considering it to be Wrong.

[Pete Holmes]

Right. Immoral. If it's.

[Ethan Suplee]

If it's not. If it's. If it's fine to be homeless, then there's nothing to solve.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, you know, it's. We're back at that issue. People don't have to be like me. So to. To step it more comfortably for me. Not that I'm worried about saying the wrong thing. Maybe I am a little bit. But when I'm talking to my mother and I want her to be a certain way, and she keeps touching the edges of my operation game and she keeps buzzing my nose.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

It's because I'm torturing myself with thinking this shouldn't be. I haven't made friends with reality. I haven't forgiven reality. And so Byron Katie and the work. Did we ever talk about Byron Katie? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we did.

[Ethan Suplee]

I'm a fan of hers.

[Pete Holmes]

I love her so much. I would say my mom needs to understand me. She would say, is that true? And that's what you're doing? Yeah, it's. It's wrong that this. Let's just take one person. It's wrong that this person is sleeping in the park. Is that true? This person doesn't want to be sleeping in the park. Is that true? It just. What it does is. And what people don't like about. About it is it removes all. All certainty. And we love our certainty. And we'll actually rather suffer than. Than be free in a lot of. Would rather suffer and be certain than be free and uncertain. I think it is.

[Ethan Suplee]

I can't even absolutely figure out what is certain for myself.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right.

[Ethan Suplee]

Let alone know what is certain for anybody. Somebody else.

[Pete Holmes]

But this touches me because. Meaning I like that softness in your. In your heart because. And I'm not putting down my dad. I just. I see my dad wanting people in my family to be like him. And I remember saying to him, I was like, kind of what we're saying. I'm like, that. That what you do, which is win and real estate wins and business wins, and you look like a success and you are a success. That makes you happy. We could. We could pause there. We could unpack that.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But it's not fair to assume that that would make this person happy and he wouldn't concede that. And that's okay. I can look big man Pete, I can forgive that. But I can. I can not only forgive it, I can understand it. But what is so attractive to me, especially someone who's done so much work to be strong. Wrong. To also go like I don't know what I'm doing on a daily basis. I have to call it into question. I have to take an inventory of it. Is this working? Is. Do I. Do I still want to do the podcast? Is stand up right for me? Was that right? Like, am I happy?

[Ethan Suplee]

Like.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I have moments. Like I said, I feel everything every day, but I can't go around and say to people, people, you should become a famous comedian. You should start a podcast. You should. Like, I'm just doing an experiment every day.

[Ethan Suplee]

You know, the biggest in my adult life. You know, I kind of struggled with sobriety and my weight as a kid. And then I started, and then I got sober, and that was a battle that. That I. I don't think it's. I don't think it's a win, lose, but I. I'm not actively losing that battle today.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, right.

[Ethan Suplee]

I've got the momentum. And then I started working on weight 20 years ago. And this whole time I'm figuring out, I'm trying to figure out or touch what is more correct for me. And all it is, is a harmony where I feel that I'm in maybe a slipstream. You know, you could have a big pool of water, and there could be currents that are going at different directions, and one's taking you into the rocks and one's taking you towards wherever you're trying to get to. And. And when I get into that lane, I feel it. One of the things that I wanted so badly with my kids was to not put restrictions on food and alcohol and drugs, because there were nothing but restrictions for me growing up. And I felt that. I don't think that's the totality of the issues that I developed, but I feel like it was a partial contributor.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. And, Ethan, do you want what's in my hand?

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Ethan Suplee]

Like, yeah, kind of.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's part. You can't have this. Exactly. I've got it. And you can't have it.

[Pete Holmes]

You can't have it.

[Ethan Suplee]

And then I had a kid. Kid who at 4, got type 1 diabetes, which is juvenile diabetes. It's immediately insulin dependent, you know, and. And suddenly I found myself in a position with my child saying, this is how it must be. You must. We must count your carbohydrates. We must give you a shot for. For every one of them. And. And it was a struggle because I. I set up these boundaries on her that for the longest time remained very rigid. And then this chick goes away to boarding school, and her. Her blood Sugar levels are all over the place. And it drove me truly insane because we would get notifications on our phones. And I actually had this conversation with Byron, Katie, and, and she asked me, is that true? I said, I just need my daughter to have. I need her to be responsible for her blood sugar. And she said, is that true? And I had to think about that for a while and I.

[Pete Holmes]

It.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's not true.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

And the minute I was able to go, I've done the job I could do. And she's not a little kid anymore. She's. She's not now. This, this person's now 18 years old. And she's gonna have to figure out what she wants out of life at some point. All that me stressing out about it does is up my life.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Yep.

[Ethan Suplee]

And it, it doesn't. It doesn't take away any of my love for her or compassion or empathy for her to really try and go. I'm going to give her a little space. Space with this. You know what I mean?

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Katie is as fierce as reality.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And that's what makes her so appealing. And that's also what makes her so terrifying to people because I've seen her do that sort of thing with like. Like somebody dying and it's like, I can't live without them. And it's like, is that true? And it's like really, really rough.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Some people to hear things like, it's not romantic. Romantic. It's not very dignified. It's post apocalyptic.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's nature, dude.

[Pete Holmes]

It's nature. That's what I mean. And she goes, reality wins, but only every time. And she's like, your resistance to what is, is driving you insane.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And like she's such a high level that it's like if somebody wants to leave her, she's like, let me help you pass back.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, I'm not. And that. But here's the thing. That's not just a person that has their physical needs met. That goes back to that Jim Finley quote, a God. You could substitute a different word there. An inner strength, a source that sustains me in everything and protects me from nothing.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

But you have to. You have to own the blood and the water. Sometimes your partner leaves. Sometimes your daughter gets type 1 diabetes. Diabetes. And it's like, where can we loosen the grip? But even as you say that, like human beings, we're grip maniacs.

[Ethan Suplee]

Oh, no. Even as I say it, I feel myself. I feel my own grip, which I've really given a lot of space To. It's. It comes back in my mind, in my. I can feel it. It's a. It's in my skin, you know, And. And then I have to take deep breaths and wash it away way and go, like, we're all better off if I leave this alone.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, she's.

[Ethan Suplee]

She's actually better off if I leave her alone.

[Pete Holmes]

You know, the. The perhaps story. I'll tell it so briefly because I've told it probably a thousand times. Guy's house burns down. Everybody goes, what's a tra. What a tragedy. He goes, perhaps, because in the rubble they find a box and it's filled with gold. And they go, what a. What a mitzvah. How great. And he goes, perhaps. Then the gangster that buried the gold comes and kills his family. You know, like, you can keep doing it.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

You wouldn't do it with that. That's. You wouldn't say. You. You have to deal with things that are ambiguous. Your daughter. But I think diabetes. What a tragedy. Perhaps you're like, is this. Did you get everything you've ever valued from adversity, from some thing going away? I just talked to the guy here in Ojai Air pizza is the best pizza in the world. Is incredible. Incredible. It's better than New York. Anyway. He's like, yeah, I was kneading the dough myself. I hurt my hand. And then I had to buy this machine. And the machine is helping me make it as good as it is. And it was like, right? And I go, that was this morning. I go, isn't that just how life works? Yet we resist it. We every turn, we kick and scream and say, not this time. This time we want inhale and no exhale.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah. Is it possible that overcoming this lead. It's perhaps because it's perhaps with. Can we see something beautiful in the rubble of a. Of a city that got bombed?

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

You know what I mean? It's the same thing. If we're not. And it did. Well, that's our tragic loss. Because now we're just pessimists and miserable.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right.

[Pete Holmes]

That's right.

[Ethan Suplee]

Can't find something beautiful at all times with reality, with what is right. I think we're losing.

[Pete Holmes]

You hear those stories of concentrate people in concentration camps having religious experiences.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And. And look, I'm not here to tell anybody how to deal with anything horrible. I'm saying there are people that told. Wrote these things down. The stories of, like, the worst possible situations. I mean, what that's being sustained. And I think that's what Katie's talking about when she did my podcast. I was like, what about the kids in cages? You say everybody's okay. You go, I don't worry about anybody because I know everybody's okay. Okay, like, what about the kids being separated at the border and they're in cage? She goes, I, I'll protest. I'll. I'll petition. I'll. This. But I'll also know they're okay. And you're like, whoa. This is, this is someone who really believes that the, the, the metric for okayness actually isn't your physical surroundings.

[Ethan Suplee]

Right?

[Pete Holmes]

And that's the story of Jesus too. He's okay. Day on the cross. I'm sorry to keep using Christian stuff, but that's the story. It's like, you can kill my body.

[Ethan Suplee]

He's okay, by the way. That doesn't happen. You got no Christianity.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's.

[Ethan Suplee]

That's so like, that's perhaps, let's. Perhaps the crucifixion.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, that's right. Oh, man, they killed our savior. What a bummer. Some guy goes, perhaps. Then they kill. They kill him. They definitely kill that. They kill him.

[Ethan Suplee]

But he, but he was right.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, he was right. It's perhaps. Okay, we're almost out of time. You, I could talk to you forever. I've written down so many things. I wrote down naming a fish Eckhart Tolle and the power of Now. You'll just enjoy this. He's like, we think things are tragedies. I'm not talking about the big ones. Let's keep it in the, in the shallow end here. But he's like, just life and death. Blood in the water. He goes, you. He goes, a goldfish dies. And you go, yeah, that's what happens. You make peace with that. You go like, goldfish die, right? And he goes, but what if I name the goldfish? What if I print out a little piece of paper with his name and his parents name and the day and the time he was born? And what if I like his house? I give him a deed to his little goldfish. He was like, that's Roger Ebert going, it's all a hoax. You've never not been in the place called here. You've never not been in the place in the time called now. Which means there is no here, there is no now. Time and space is a story. You and me. Separation is a story. And when we're lucky, if we get to the place where we can go, like I hear it in what you're saying, don't worry about Other people, it's all happening inside of you. And the gift is that there's some control. It's not really weight loss and it's not really muscles. It's. I think why people are interested in your story is because we know that we can talk about all the surrender and out the, with the other hand we can have all the surrender and with the other hand we can go and I think I might be creating my reality, you know what I mean?

[Ethan Suplee]

I was. Life was happening to me and now I am life. And that's all, that's all it was. And it again I, I would never try to convince somebody that they also had to experience.

[Pete Holmes]

Because you were converted, you had a conversion. There's spiral dynamics. Do you know spiral dynamics by any chance? It's the colors of where you are in your consciousness. It's a simple way of understanding it. And purple is tribal and superstitious and it's very like the world happens to me and red as I happen to the world. It's actually early on on the, on the spectrum. Meaning it's not the only transformation we have, but it's an important one. And Breaking Bad, I always say Breaking Bad is purple to red. Hip hop is purple to red. Ethan Suplea is purple to red. And we love purple to red. It's why origin stories are almost always better than just like. And then the next bad guy they fought, it's like who cares, right? We love seeing the disempowered. Life happens to me, I'm broken, I can't change it. Not nothing happens. And then you do the thing, you tie your shoes, you take that one breath, you go for that one walk or whatever it is. That's actually what we like. We just happen to be living in this three dimensional universe where like certain mindsets manifest in certain shapes.

[Ethan Suplee]

Sure.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I'm saying? That's not to say that you can't be a heavy person and be brilliant and enlightened and alive and free. But in this case the shape that it took was, was fitness. And I see it with other people in other shapes and other sizes, other colors, other, other things. But it's all. We love the purple, the red.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, I'm. I'm very happy with it. There, there's times where my wife is like get really into business and I'm just don't have any interest.

[Pete Holmes]

When people go accumulate real wealth, I'm like, yeah, you know what, having enough money seems pretty good, you know what I mean? Like this can't we Just. Is that, like, why do we have to.

[Ethan Suplee]

Like, we're not hungry, and my knees don't hurt as much as they used to. Do you really need any more than this?

[Pete Holmes]

If you move the carrot onto a longer stick, man, you. You know what I mean? Mark Zuckerberg is somewhere going like, but how do I get back on top? You know what I mean? And you're like, buddy, yeah, those.

[Ethan Suplee]

Those. Those years I was. I was barbecue kid on the surfboard. I ruled the world and that.

[Pete Holmes]

I mean, forget it, all right? We didn't get to every. I mean, so many things. It's great. It doesn't matter. Meaning you. The. The health tips you've given me, they're just going to come out and you can listen to me on American Glutton. We talked about a lot of them. Yeah, I'm glad we had the conversation we had. I'm really just trying to compliment you and say I could talk to you forever.

[Ethan Suplee]

I love you, Pete. You're a wonderful guy.

[Pete Holmes]

I love you too, man. I really do. And. And thank you for being a symbol in my contract consciousness. I'm gonna work out today. I love it.

[Ethan Suplee]

It's the biggest compliment. And. And all I hear in my own head, just so you know, is you're not worthy of this. Yeah, I'm not worthy of this position.

[Pete Holmes]

Right.

[Ethan Suplee]

There's. You know, and I'm. I'm going like, no, I'm. I can have.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. Claim it. It's okay. It's not. It's not gonna shrivel you up like the wrong chalice.

[Ethan Suplee]

No, no, no, Certainly not.

[Pete Holmes]

Um, can you tell me this is the last question a time in your life you laughed really, really, really hard. It doesn't have to be a great story. Just wondering if your belly hurts and you're crying. You might have been a kid, Somebody might have fallen. It's often somebody falling or farting, maybe with great friends, maybe with your wife. It doesn't matter. I'm just looking for where that question takes you. No wrong answers.

[Ethan Suplee]

The. The. The thing I immediately think about is how much joy my wife and children get out of me falling.

[Pete Holmes]

Yes.

[Ethan Suplee]

Which will then lead to me laughing also. So we. We have a dock, and we're on a canal in Florida, and my wife bought paddle boards, which we never used because. Because you don't use the things you buy. And so one day, me and the kids decided to try them out in the park pool, which is 20ft from the dock. And if we can do them in the pool, we can do Them in the canal, and the kids are pro paddle boarders. But I, of course, really struggle and am nearly killing myself by falling off because it's in a pool. And my wife and kids laughed so hard that at one point, I was in the pool getting close to drowning because I was laughing so hard at my. At them laughing at me. Me, that I couldn't stay above water. And that's what I think of.

[Pete Holmes]

You almost died. And that's one of those deaths. You'd be like, I mean, it was.

[Ethan Suplee]

It was worth it.

[Pete Holmes]

You know what I mean?

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Like, look, none of us want to, but every once in a while I'd been like, that would have been a pretty okay moment. Like, it's the question. Talk about an ethical question. Do you want to die when you're up or when you're down? Do you want to be, like, so happy and, like, suddenly you die, or do you want to be like, this fucking sucks. Get me out of here?

[Ethan Suplee]

I have one other dying, laughing, and this is the second hardest I've ever laughed. Me. This is 30 years ago in New York. I have a buddy who loves plays. So whenever I'm in New York with him, he's always like, we're going to see these four plays, and we go to see plays. And one of them was in a smaller theater.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Ethan Suplee]

And it was, you know, like, there's no. There's. There's only two aisles on either end. The. The seats aren't split down the middle. Like, that's how small it is. Two people on stage, very, very serious, and I'm high as a kite on heroin and probably nodding off.

[Pete Holmes]

Heroin. Giggles.

[Ethan Suplee]

Well, it got the. An older gentleman in front of us shot out of his chair in the middle of the play and then ripped a huge fart and then made his way out of theater.

[Pete Holmes]

Oh, no.

[Ethan Suplee]

We all assumed he was going to take a shit. It. I mean, it was so loud. The people on stage for sure heard him, and me and my friends could not pull it together. We laughed so hard. And this play was, like, about relationships and men leave women leaving men. Like, it was somber. And this turned it into a comedy for us.

[Pete Holmes]

He. He got a direct order yes to yes. And then he stood up.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yes.

[Pete Holmes]

He was like, yes, sir. He tried to give the body what it was wanted so that the body wouldn't embarrass him. And the body was still like, we're past that point.

[Ethan Suplee]

You. You should have done this before. Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Val and I were just laughing. I love that story so much. Has there ever been a fart that was beautiful? Like, if you didn't know it was a fart, it was just like a haunting, Like a.

[Ethan Suplee]

For sure.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah, for sure. There's been one that if you didn't.

[Ethan Suplee]

Know it was off art, you'd wipe.

[Pete Holmes]

Away a tear and be like, yeah.

[Ethan Suplee]

It hits a note that makes you think of, like, tranquil bir. Birds in a sunset.

[Pete Holmes]

It's like anything. Anything that's pitched can make you cry.

[Ethan Suplee]

Exactly, Exactly.

[Pete Holmes]

That was one of the best. I mean, you gave us two. I'll never forget a man shooting up, then farting, then going, that's pretty good. Did your friend know you were on heroin? Was he also on heroin?

[Ethan Suplee]

He was not on heroin. I believe I got an intervention at the end of that trip.

[Pete Holmes]

He's like, look, plays are already pretty sleepy. You don't need to go in on heroin.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, no. My friends were all very much against the. The drugs, and I had a number of interventions. And again, to, I think, Byron, Katie's advice of, like, I was. I was okay until I wasn't okay for myself and decided I needed to change, you know?

[Pete Holmes]

Right. You needed that conviction version.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Other people saw it first.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

Yeah. This was great, man. We thank you so much.

[Ethan Suplee]

Thank you, Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

It's. It's a rare guest that can do a zoom one, but I knew when we did the pod in. In Toronto, I was like, yeah, Ethan. It's a compliment, Ethan. Zoom. Interesting. Not a lot of people. I'm going to do it over Zoom.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah, we pulled it off.

[Pete Holmes]

We definitely pulled it off. I think people listening on audio will be surprised to find out here that it's zoom. Unbelievable.

[Ethan Suplee]

Believable.

[Pete Holmes]

You're incredible. Thank you. Listen, everybody. Listen to American Glutton, your podcast.

[Ethan Suplee]

Yeah.

[Pete Holmes]

And the end here. Would you say keep it crispy? It's just how we wrap up.

[Ethan Suplee]

Keep it crispy.

[Pete Holmes]

Very nice. Thanks, man.

[Ethan Suplee]

I'll talk to you soon, Pete.

[Pete Holmes]

Okay, Ethan. Thanks, pal. Enjoy your day. Bye. Bye.