This week I talk to Paul Drayton about the complicated relationship between drinking, anxiety, ADHD and that lovely little voice that insists maybe this time two glasses of wine will actually mean two glasses of wine. Paul opens up about being diagnosed with ADHD at 50, life in the public eye, his marriage to Alan Carr, the consequences of his drinking, and why sobriety looks different for everyone. 

Follow Paul on IG at @PaulDrayton1

Buy his book Ride or Die Trying! (It's really good!)

If you've ever quit drinking for three months and then decided the real fix was "just don't drive," this one's for you. Jackie Kashian is a stand-up comedian with over 25 years sober. But before sobriety stuck she developed a system: quit entirely, get bored, downgrade to beer only, promote back up to shots, then switch to wine to be classy. We talk about what finally worked and the therapist who wouldn't allow her to be funny. I really loved this episode.

You can listen to Jackie on her podcasts: The Dork Forest and the Jackie and Laurie Show. Plus watch her special Alter Kashian right on her website JackieKashian.com

You can watch this episode on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@Drunk-ishPodcast

Margaret Cho came on Drunk-ish this week, and I need you to understand the scope of this: she detoxed off alcohol, opiates, benzos, Adderall and kratom — which now comes in a little shot at the gas station, right next to the 5-Hour Energy. We also cover the ex-boyfriend who was technically homeless but insisted on first-class flights, the almost two years she lived at a rehab that used to be Rock Hudson's house, and the final show where she was so messed up she scared the audience. She's come a long way since then!

Margaret's tour Choligarchy is coming to a town near you. This months she's on Fire Island and then Berkeley CA. Go to her website Margaretcho.com 

IG Margaret_Cho

Follow Drunk-ish on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@Drunk-ishPodcast

Edris Khalieque is back for Part Two, and this is the half with the reality show in it. He and Jessica Grace went on The Ultimatum with a very reasonable plan — don't cheat, get engaged at the end, watch it back, then get married — and as Edris puts it, "It did not go like that at all." Edris and Jessica went on The Ultimatum hoping it would move them toward marriage, and instead it took them apart — a rushed proposal, a breakup, a reunion he says he prepared for in seven therapy sessions and still handled in a way he regrets. What I keep coming back to is how he talks about it now: no defending himself, no blaming the edit, just going back through the whole relationship and owning his part of it. 

You can find Edris on IG at @escissorsman and on TikTok at @escissorsdude. Edris is the founder of Sobio, a virtual alcohol recovery program that pairs every client with a licensed therapist and a certified recovery coach who work together as one team to provide one on one, evidence-based support. Designed for busy professionals, Sobio helps people build lasting recovery from the privacy of home without putting life on hold. Learn more at sobioapp.com or follow @sobioapp on Instagram and TikTok.

Please find this episode on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@Drunk-ishPodcast (subscribe please!)

Part One.

This week I'm joined by Edris Khalieque, who is on the current season of The Ultimatum, has 16 years sober, and once walked into rehab with a very clear plan: get out, find better heroin, come back. Reader, the plan did not hold. We get into his Afghan immigrant upbringing, cussing out his parents in elementary school, drinking 40s in a punk band, and the middle-of-the-night rehab conversation about Megadeth that may have saved his life. 

You can find Edris on IG at @escissorsman and on TikTok at @escissorsdude. Edris is the founder of Sobio, a virtual alcohol recovery program that pairs every client with a licensed therapist and a certified recovery coach who work together as one team to provide one on one, evidence-based support. Designed for busy professionals, Sobio helps people build lasting recovery from the privacy of home without putting life on hold. Learn more at sobioapp.com or follow @sobioapp on Instagram and TikTok.

Please find this episode on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/@Drunk-ishPodcast (subscribe please!)

If you've ever moved to a new city thinking a fresh start would fix the drinking -- and then found yourself alone on the couch at 2 PM on a Tuesday with a bottle you swore you weren't opening?  Alysse Bryson gets it. This week I'm talking to the founder of The Sober Curator, who has 20 years sober. We get into the geographic cure, project-managing your own rock bottom, emergency heart surgery at 40, and I also say somethings about tiramisu that I probably should have kept to myself.

Find Alysse at The Sober Curator

Her IG is @AlysseIntheCity

My IG is @SWilderTaylor

Follow the show on YouTube

In this episode I talk to comedian Zach Noe Towers, who spent the first five years of his stand-up career doing a shot before his set and a beer during it, convinced it made him calm and in tune with the room. He walks me through his whole magic-medicine-misery arc: the scared gay kid in St. Louis who found that alcohol helped, the 30th birthday where he woke up in a stranger's bed already late for a job he hated, and how he got sober despite worrying he wouldn't like other people in recovery.

Watch Zach's comedy special Twink Death on YouTube.

Follow Zach on IG @ZachNoeTowers

There’s a specific kind of person who hears “just have dessert sometimes” and counters with a
38-day countdown to her dad’s birthday cake. Misti Milner is that person, and it turns out so am
I. We talk about the offhand comment from a popular kid that lodged in her brain for decades,
the era when every mom in the neighborhood was doing Jane Fonda in the basement or driving
to Jazzercise, and the deeply unfun truth that anorexia does not just go away on its own no matter how hard you try. 

You can find Misti on the substack That's What She Said 

Please subscribe to Misti's substack and also watch this episode on YouTube!

If you've ever sat in a therapist's office for months working on everything except the thing you do every single night — same. My friend Rebecca Nelson Lubin has almost 14 years sober, and she told me about going to therapy for the panic attacks she got driving over the bridge, and somehow the drinking just never came up. We get into the weekends that started Thursday and ended Tuesday, and the day at ten years sober when she hit an emotional rock bottom and picked up the phone instead of a drink. 

@RebeccaNelsonLubin

Watch this pod at YouTube

If you’ve ever woken up with an injury you couldn’t explain and just… made up a story about it, Elli gets it. She had her first drink at 13, her first blackout at 14, and then blacked out almost every time she drank for ten years, the whole time deciding she was just a bad person instead of a kid who couldn’t stop. We get into the fake Twitter account a group of girls built to bully her at 16, her mom showing up to graduation in an ankle bracelet, and the genuinely unhinged thing that finally made her quit.

You can find Elli Rose Cikovic's book The Diary of a Twenty Five Year-old Alcoholic on Amazon for right now. Follow Elli on IG @ellirosecikovic

If you've ever assumed sobriety would turn you into a calm, well-adjusted person who makes good decisions and drinks green juice while journaling at sunrise, Sara Christine Berelsman would like a word. We talk about drinking, bipolar disorder, shame, marriage, motherhood, writing your way through the hard stuff, getting judged by small-town boss babes, and why telling the truth can be terrifying but also deeply useful which is pretty much our brand around here. 

Sara is the author of My Last Rock Bottom and can be found on her Facebook page Sara Christine Berelsman.

Please check out this episode and more on our YouTube page at Drunk-ish