Megalomaniacs with Low Self-Esteem w/ Dax Shepard

Expert umbrella. And he is an actor, he's comedian, he's host of top Gear America, and he is the person people contact when they want to get ahold of Kristen Bell. His name is Dak Shepherd. Welcome to the show, Dax Shepherd. What What an honor? What an honor. I'm gonna try to keep my hands off of you, but we're so close. It just feels ridiculous that I wanted. Thank you. It's an honor to be here. Number one. Number two. Can can I ask you why you hate hearing introductions of

yourself because I'm assuming you do as well. I just you know, it's just a bunch of horseship. Yeah, it's it's just it falls in line with the same exercise as hearing people tell you why they're big fans of yours. Yeah, but don't do you also suffer from the paradox of like, clearly, all I want is for people to love me. I wouldn't have moved here otherwise, and yet when they do

love me, I can't take it. It's such a weird. Yeah, it is very It's confusing because we want the adulation, but I'd rather I'd rather read about it there we go, or hear about it. Oh that's the sweet spot. If someone's gossiping about you in a positive way. Yes, I'd rather hear about it instead of someone say it to my face. Because this is what I have a hard time with. My reaction to seem sincere when you're saying thank you. It's the opening presence on Christmas syndrome. Yeah, like,

I'm nervous. I'm not going to give you a response that feels like I heard it or it meant something to me, And now I'm panicked that I'm going to let you down. And I think, and I and I think. Another thing is like I do meet and greets backstage after my shows in COVID safe states, so I didn't do them in Florida. Shout out to Florida. You know when people when you mean a lot to someone, it

feels bad to not have it register right exactly. Some people get emotional or they say this what you did here changed my life or helped me through this difficult time. I feel you when you think about it in that framework or a frame of mind, it feels very You feel like a cunt you do well. I feel like a fraud, Like I can't possibly have helped a stranger in any way unless I've gone to their house and

change a tire or something like. It's very abstract, and it's it's again, it's so weird because I'm both a megalomaniac and I have super low self esteem. So it's like, I don't believe I could have helped them, and yet I'm a megalomaniac. It's yeah, it's quite a dichotomy that you have because most recently you deemed me and said something a lot on the lines of what size venues are you performing in? And I told you, I said,

like undred thirty hundred seats. I'm so glad you're outing me for this on average, and he writes back, I'm just actually being really competitive and making sure that I'm performing at the same size venues. Well, I'm so glad. I'm here to make sure this is told correctly because there is a lot of puke worthy of actions on my part, but that wasn't one of them. So I said, what size venues are you performing? Because I saw the list of how many shows you had added, and then

you said, I said, oh, that's rad. And then you said why do you ask, which is a very legitimate response, And then I said, I'm just counting your money, like I'm curious how much making because I'm nosy about people's money. Yeah, but it wasn't competitive at all, Like, in no way was I like, I want to make sure I'm selling the same size Okay, sorry I read that, Rong. I like your honesty about it. Listen, all I care about

in life is honesty. We both want to know each other's intentions and then we can proceed according And I also, yeah, and if people are competitive or like that, that's also fine too. But I like when people are upfront and not cag or are a little bit like Macavalian about things. I find that to be a very off put in

quality in people. I agree, Yes, yes, I agree, And I think coming from similar childhoods, that's why we It's like, just fucking tell me what's your what's your hustle, and then I'll decide whether I want to participate or not. But I just I need I'm not a fool, so you're not gonna colm me into getting what you want. I might like acquiesce and give you what you want, but I just need to know what the intention is, and so mine truly, And I'm curious if how you feel. Hey,

I haven't generally and this is probably sexist. Been competitive with women. I just like when Chris and I go to a movie. I'm staring at the dudes in the movie and I'm thinking about whether they deserve to be in this movie or not, and she is looking at the women and deciding if they deserve to be in the movie or not. I'm almost never looking at the female So I am competitive with dudes, have been in the past, but not with women. Sometimes you're competitive with

your wife, though, don't you think? Well, I feel like sometimes you feel like she steals your thunder not sometimes I feel like I feel like you definitely feel that way. I don't feel that way that she sometimes steals your thunder. The challenges I've had in being with her is there have been stretches years where she's made more money than me, and that has in the past affected me where I start I feel emasculated by it, like, oh, I'm the guy I'm supposed to be making more. I'm a fucking loser.

My wife makes more money than me. Like you know old old hardware that was installed in Detroit that it's taken me forty odd years to ditch. But I've had that. If she's outshining me, awesome. I've been getting a lot of attention for twenty years. I'm so fine with her outshining me. I'm like we were at a Formula one race recently and we were getting some heat and then all of a sudden, Shaquille O'Neal showed up and I was like, oh, here we go. Hey, you can't miss him.

Like anywhere on the grid you can see Shakili seven feet tall, so now all eyes are on shakil Um. I love that. I don't have a desire to be stared at More. Oh, yeah, I hear what you're saying. I hear what you're saying. I think you know what I think when I think about your relationship, because you guys are both very I've Kristen's been on the podcast

as well, on both of ours. Actually, I think that you really have come into a lot of success since you got since you were married, right, I mean, especially with your podcast especially, I mean you've blown up. I mean the only podcast that's bigger than yours, unfortunately is Joe Rogan's. But you really kind of define the podcast space in a huge way. So that must instill a ton of confidence in you for someone who claims that they have a lack of self confidence, which I believe

you do because we've spoken. Yeah, again, I'm not saying I'm not also air Again, I am like, I often think I'm the smartest person in the room, and then also I think I'm a piece of ship and I'm unattractive and all these things. So you know, I'm not claiming I walk around feeling bad for my self. I just yeah, I think all humans, I will you do. I interview so many people that have they've won Sexiest Person of the Year on People magazine and they hate

Holly Look. So I think it's a human condition. I don't think or a Hollywood condition. Well, it seems to be a human condition. I think you are right, yeah, because because there's always a Brad Pitt. Like even if you're at the top of the heat, you're gonna look at Brad Pitt, take your shirt off and once upon a time in Mexico or once upon a time in Hollywood and go, oh my god, that guy is fifty five and his body looks better than mine never did

in this my twenties. You're gonna compare yourself. Mike Tyson got beat up eventually, Like there's always someone better than you. So if you're playing the comparison game, it doesn't take much to find someone, you know. I don't think i'm outing Bradley Bradley Cooper fucking I've never had a friend where women text me so often just saying like, hey, if he's ever interested, no strengths attached, don't need a dinner, I just want to sleep with him. That's a unique quality.

I have many famous friends. I don't get those texts about anybody but him, And he doesn't think he's a ten I think he thinks he's a seven, which is weird. What number do you think you are? Six? Yeah, but I do think and here's where the arrogance will come in. I think my personality is at ten. So I think lucky for me, women c an eight. I think they subconsciously are creating an average between my personality and my looks,

and they're actually seen an eight. And they would be on a witness stand and they would claim, what is He's an eight? And they would be telling the truth from their perspective. It sounds like you thought about this before for years. What do you think you are? I think I'm a ten? Okay, Yeah, I feel I have a lot of confidence in a my personality, be the way that I look. I'm into aging. I'm also you know, into taking care of myself, so the physicality part of it,

I'm pretty confident with it. I think I'm really like I've really grown up and like I'm like a very good version of myself. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm pretty happy with myself these days. I used to, like, you know, have a lot of self loathing and like body issues and all that ship, but I kind of just you know, tried to really shake that ship out in therapy and read a lot of fucking shit about it and learned about myself and I and I feel like I'm a

great student of therapy. The more information I get, the more confident I get become. Yeah, and I bet there's someone in the audience thinking in their mind, of course you feel confident you're a fucking bombshell, which is true. But I think you'd be missing the point, which is you were an even younger version of the bombshell in the past and didn't think you were all that. Isn't that the real point of that? Yes, yeah, I think you grow in because I would look at you and

go like, well, you should feel confident you're right. Very very few for the same age, right, yeah, forty six Yeah, very few forty six year olds look like you. Yeah, right, right exactly. I'm heading for my facialist right after we're done with the podcast today. So that's one of the reason. Well, that's why it's going, you know what I mean? Okay, I have I have an outstanding question I want to ask you. I follow you on Instagram. I also follow

you on Instagram. Clearly we dm each other. We don't have each other's phone number, which I think is that's probably best. I have Christian's phone number. Yeah, that's right, that's right. If there's ever an emergency, you can get a hold of me through that number. But here's here's what happens. I um, I have a lot of male friends who are very fit. They post pictures. I write underneath of it, you know, flame signs, boners. I'm so

happy for how they look. And then you as I think, I have a relationship with friendship so often your body looks so fucking rocking, and I want to write like how great it looks. It's so impressive, And then I go, you can't do that, And I want you from your opinion. Am I writing that I can't do that? I shouldn't, I should not do that? Or what do you think about? I think that's a great question, and I think it's a great time to bring up a question like that.

And I think, as long as you know, I think men are confused right now, but what they can say and what they can't say, and as long as it's not predator worry and harassing, like, then of course you're my friend. You can say, wow, you look great. I haven't had no problem saying you your body looks great, like it doesn't have to be because I'm in the dominant structure. Yes, absolutely that you are. In the doc. You're you're complimenting up. But I think that's I think

that's where men are lost right now. It's like you can say nice things to women, it just doesn't have to sound like you want to suckles. And even though I know that you have told me that you wanted to suck me before, or that I would be your you know, free card with christ and one of your free cards. Who are the other ones? By the way, Zazzi beats? Oh my god, you know her? I don't know,

Oh my god? She did you watch Atlanta? Yes, the baby Mama of Oh yeah, yeah, she's so special face or something about her face, yeah, right about that pleasing to look at, like it's so symmetrical, something about it is just very soothing to stare at. And she's as I stalk her on Instagram, I've come to point now. Also very interesting, like half German grew up in that weird German town in Georgia. Have you ever been there, Helena or something? There was an episode where they went there. Well,

she literally that that wasn't a stretch. She she was from there, went there all the time. So I'm intrigued. That's probably rounds out my Okay, I have a question about your marriage. What would you say the happiest, happiest time of your marriage has been thus far? Mm hmm, Well, we've been together fifteen years. Yeah, that's a really long time. It is. I think in Hollywood years, that's like a

thirty five year relationship. Maybe. Um, I would say there were like, there's been little sweet spots, right, There's been like once we got engaged, there was some new level of security that I hadn't anticipated. That kind of changed the dynamic of our relationship dramatically, because, as you know, I'm a pervert. So every joke I make is perverted and sexual and that's very off putting if you don't feel safe, and so I really had to curb that

side of myself. And then when we got engaged, I just started noticing, like all of a sudden, that didn't bother her at all anymore, and I got to be more of me and I was like, oh, that's I would not have predicted any of that. That was a very nice sweet stretch and growth having kids as lovely and it's it's very bonding in this weird way. You know. My issues with her making more than me, the kids were the antidote to that, where I was like, oh, this isn't about she or I or what I'm making

or what she's making. This is all about what we are bringing to these two kids now. And I detached my my ego from the whole thing, and then I became at peace with it. But and then I would say, right now, or what do they call it, bipolars when they're ramping up. We're ramping up because our kids are getting now self sufficient enough that the load on us has gone down a lot. Like we can sleep in on a Saturday that it's been years since we could

do that. We can hire babysitters, they don't crazy, we can go on a date. So things are starting to like we're starting to find some more autonomy away from our kids now, which is good. Yeah, so that's going to be a nice new adventure, I think. So optimistic post rearing your children right, not post completely over but the exhausting face. Yeah. Yeah, how old are the girls now? Six and eight? Six and eight? Okay, so they're little,

still Little. I'm reading this book. I just started reading this book that somebody handed to me at in an airport the other day, called Attachment. I don't know if you've read this book. Is it about attachment theory in your childhood? It's talking it talks about well not even a childhood, it's about adulthood too. It talks about there's three different types. One is anxious, one is secure, and the other one is when is it anxious? Avoid and secure?

And avoid it? Yes, Catherine, avoid it so and then it talks about how you can be a combo of the two. Because I was reading it and I was like, oh, I'm secure, and then I was like, oh no, I'm kind of anxious because my brother died, and like when people don't if I don't hear from somebody, you know,

I get that little. Since therapy, I'm have a much healthier outlook about it, but it still is like a feeling that I have to go, oh, that's your little person talking, that's not your adult self, Like, don't don't act on that, right. So an avoidance is somebody who just doesn't who fears intimacy, and then avoidance and anxious can kind of work in concert together. I would imagine that you like very up and down in big swings, Yeah, like like intense feelings of intimacy and closes by intense

rejection and all those things. Right, Yeah, I think that's a psychle I've found myself in which one what do you think would define you most aptly in general or with Kristen? So okay, here's back to my the duality of my self esteem. So I'm like very insecure so often, and yet I'm I'm overly confident relationships, like grotesquely like arrogantly.

I don't worry that Kristen's going to go find someone with still find someone more attractive than me, for sure, and she might find someone who's more philanthropic than me. That's likely, um, But then there's nine other slices of the pie that she has to fill, And I just think my average is really high for all the many things. So I'm weirdly too confident in relationships. I'm not a jealous person. I don't really care. And for a couple

of different reasons. One, if you're afraid your partner is going to become attracted to someone else and leave you for them. The fast past to that is, go ahead and be jealous, make yourself as unattractive and it's the least amount of fun to be around as humanly possible, and then go ahead and manifest that outcome. I think that's what a ton of people do, Like they're so afraid of it that they will it to happen because they're not fun to date. People like to be trusted,

and it's just very unattractive. I mean, there's there are sick people that get off on that, like, oh, my part are so jealous, they must really love me that. But you know, unless you're in that weird niche, I just think in general you have to recognize it as a nonstarter. It can't be done because you're actually going to create this outcome. You fear right, and when you give somebody to trust, you'd be surprised by the outcome

of just that. Yes, and and again I say this a lot, and then I think it leads people to believe that we have an open relationship. I want to be clear, we don't have an open relationship. But I have also said to her of the ten things that I value about you and that I need from you as a partner, fidelities, tenth for me, it's just not it's not has nothing to do with my day to day life. If she's in fucking Alaska ten years yeah, and in a wit, let's be right about it. I'm sorry,

You're right. It's just low on the things I need from her, So that wouldn't bother you know, I mean, I prefer not to know about it because that info is not it's not useful for me. Would you qualify yourself as needy in any way? So when you say you're insecure, you're talking about your rational your professional life. Are you talking about your value? Your self worth? Yeah? I want to parce out some specifics. Yeah, I want to know what and why that hasn't changed over over time?

Or has it? It has? It? Has it has? Yeah? I should be clear to say I'm often referencing me ten years ago, fifteen years ago. It has gotten better and better and better. But it's gotten better and better not in the By pursuing the route I thought would end in self esteem. So I thought if I could find people I had assessed as being more attractive than me, higher status than me, just all around better than me, and I could get them to fall in love with

me it would elevate who I was. And I did that pathologically and selfishly for a huge junk of my life until I got to an apex where I was dating someone I thought would be impossible to date this person, and then I looked in the mirror was like, yeah, same dude, same piece of ship. It had no impact whatsoever. If it would have worked, I would have done it like if it worked, fine with it. But it didn't work.

And all these lame things are what makes me feel confident and have a lot of self esteem, which is like being of service to people I don't want to be of service to, fucking picking up the phone for an alcoholic who's struggling, who I don't even want to talk to, to being of service to my kids NonStop from the second I wake up until I go to bed. I'm like, at their disposal. Those things make me feel. I look in the mirror, I'm like, you're a bad

motherfucker dude. You're working and you're dadding it in a way that you prayed you do it, and and I love the dude in the mirror now, And what do you think it's what are you most surprised about yourself? Learning about yourself as a father, Like, what is the biggest, like great surprise that you've realized or learned about yourself. I guess the thing I'm most grateful for is I'm, in general, the most impatient person. It's terrible. It's like

the apex of my entitlement. Like I shouldn't have to sit in traffic so I write a motorcycle. I shouldn't have to circle the block ten times. I'll pay a parking ticket, you know, Like I just I'm so entitled with my time and and again, I don't think I could have been this way in my twenties or thirties with kids at all. But I'm I'm shocked with how patient I am. Like I can just listen to the racket, come in, come in, come in. None of it makes

any sense. It's hysterical. Everyone's in a fucking uproar, and I can just like let it all happen for a long long time, and then when everyone's all calm back down, I'll start talking. And that I'm shocked I can do that, And I'm like really proud of myself when I can just not engage in the hysterical part of the thing and wait till it's there's a rational zone for me to enter. Right, isn't that interesting because that's not your

personality altogether? Right? I am you inconvenience me, which means you don't love me, and I'm out the fucking door because that's how I show you. You can't take me for granted. I'm a big I could write you off in one second and I could just keep talking. And I employed that grotesquely for a lot of my life. Yeah, me too, I have that in common with you, Like, yeah, it's like, get the funk out of my face forever. And I know I never will think about that person again.

There's no like, there's no thinking about it. Did I do the right thing? I never second guess it. I'm done. The door shut and I rarely ever contemplate that person again. Yeah, And I think the reason I have done that is that I didn't trust the people I was talking to if I actually shared what was going on with me and was vulnerable that they would adjust to me. My conclusion was, you've shown who you are that's not sympatica

with who I am. So Siah Fuckingara, and what do you think the most surprising thing you've learned about Kristen since she's become a parent. Oh, I got a great one. Well, first, I was just gonna say not a lot, because I have a really high opinion of her. Again, back to that list of reasons I'm with her. We started dating when I was thirty two, she was twenty seven, and at thirty two I was like, okay, um, the next person I date, I have to be working towards having kids.

I really really want to have kids. So for me, number one attraction her was I was like that, she'll be a fucking amazing mom. I just know she will. She has eighty six dogs and they all get fed, and they all go to the vet and the whole thing. She's never lazy when it comes to them. So and she has qualities I would want my daughters to have. She's a hard worker, she's generous, she's forgiving all these things. So her being a great mom isn't a shocker to me.

But in her own relationship, she and I are both very for lack of a better word, alpha, We like to do what we want to do, so compromise between us as hard as hell, and I have found with the kids, I've been shocked with how often she's been like, please tell me what to do here, Like, I obviously can't get them in bed and under an hour and a half without tons of crying what should I do? And that's just a whole new lane for her. She's not ever asking me what she should do, nor am

I asking her what I should do. So your favorite thing about Kristen is her asking you for advice, is that she cares enough about our kids to do something she would not want to do, right, Like, that's it, that's her sacrificing what she would want sake of our children. Yeah, that's hot. Yeah. And likewise, I like to say I meet her halfway, which is like I I go early on. I was like, you know, I'll fight to the death over where we're eating. I'll fight over what show we're

going to watch. I was like, if you make a decision with the kids, I will step back. Like I'm I'm telling you you have veto power at all times. You're the mom. I will ultimately, after you hear my opinion, I will defer to anything you decide. That's rare for me. Yeah, right, So in some way, I think, Yeah, those kids have brought out a side of us that we're not maybe

capable of with each other just for each other's sake. Yeah, I think it's great that you guys have been together for fifteen years and you have this great little family, and that you never show pictures of your children. I never know where I stand on that side of things, you know, like talk it out well, because I have friends who are like, you know, show their friends or their babies on camera, and I never think anything about it.

And then I think, oh, and then I see parents that do what you guys do, and I'm like, oh, that's appropriate too, because what kids. Those kids aren't asking to be on camera. But at the same time, it's an unavoidable thing when you're the children of celebrities to ever be photographed, right, Yeah, And in this media age and digital age that we're in, that's not going to go away anytime in the next couple of generations. And what what we we could just start with the simplest thing,

which is the names of my children are known. My name is known. And now if you know exactly what she looks like, you can go to her playground. You don't go to a Fort Knox to school. She goes to a regular school and you could go, hey, Lincoln, I was just with your dad. He's at the hospital. Blah blah blah blah blah. Like there's a very obvious safety issue which I don't want people knowing what my children look like. Right, So is that your rules are

both of your rules, both of us. Yeah, yeah, we're in lockstep on that. And then additionally, yeah, I'm not judgmental of any parents that do. And I could care. I don't give a funk what people are doing, whether they're potty training their kids or sleep training or I don't you kind of trained for sixteen years, I've been buying since. Like we're drinking. You had you just got

a new tattoo. Wow, I've never seen it. I've never seen a fresh tattoo like that wrapped up you know, it comes off Tonight's just tried to hold my hand. He tried to do it under the table, but it was on given permission to compliment your physique on Instagrams and and see, um, I think this is a perfect time. So are set up here is we give advice to people, okay, and so we try and curtail it to our guest. Well,

we do curtail it to our guest, right, Catherine. Yeah, I mean we basically, I mean, you have a lot of experience with everything, and I feel like you're at QS probably really grown since you started doing your podcast from all the interesting neuroscientists, you know, psych psychiatric, psycho psychological, people that you talked to. It's not the right word to describe what I meant to say, but you catch my gist. People in the social sciences. Yeah, social science

that I mean I love. Yeah, you have some great guests on there, so I know that you've gotten a lot of information and I'm sure that you've retained it because you're you're you're very curious and you like that. And I'm dyslexic, which which is has turned out to be a superpowers. Oh yeah. So when you're a kid and you're dyslexic, you're the thing that everything that's happening on the chalkboard is it's blank. I mean, it's like looking into a void. So the only thing you're getting

is what the teachers saying verbally. So I think dyslexics in general develop a really really good memory for oral stuff. It's like, if you can't hear, you're going to see sharply. Yeah. I just find that often people are like, wow, I can't believe you remember that enough times where I'm like,

oh yeah, I think this is a unique ability. I have to remember what people tell me as opposed to what I you know, right, so your memory to absorb in from I mean your ability to absorb and you can kind of retain it, and I think just from being dyslexic. Okay, well that's good. That's good for all those dyslexics out there to know that you have that superpower. So fucking pay attention when you're talking. Some dyslexic just drove their car off an inter past because they were like,

I'm dyslexic and I don't have that. Okay, Well, they can call into the podcast next week. Do you take callers? We take called live callers. What are we going to get to talk to what we're doing, I mean, talk about listening skills. I just said that what I thought, hold on, can I be clear before you fucking load up your gun. I thought we were going to go to the part of your podcast where you ask you encourage me to ask you for advice, which feels like

the end of the show. That's it's already panicking that. Don't worry. We're still together. We're still together, Katherine. Are we taking collar? Are we taking a right in? What's going on? You tell us? Well, first we have to take a quick break, so we'll do that, and then we'll take some emails and some callers. We have to calls today, so excellent. I'm sad the listeners can't see your hair, Catherine. It's as fun and playful as hair can be. Thank you, Well they will if they call in,

they will. Okay, great, thank you, thank you. Okay, we're going to take a break and we'll be right back. And we're back, and we're bad. We're trying to stretch this out as long as possible. So when you brought up your sobriety actually helped us segue right into our first email. It comes from Michael. He says, dear Chelsea, and just so you know, Dax, Chelsea and I both just took thirty days off of drinking, just to sort of do a cleanse. See how that felt and make

some adjustments. Well, I did thirty days off a cannabis. You don't do cannabis at all, You're not you don't do anything right, I mean right, So I took thirty days off a cannabis and then we did a separate thirty day alcohol cleans which one do you think was more challenging, Catherine? You know what, so I am not a regular cannabis user, so I didn't do that one. And there were some hard parts of the thirty alcohol break for me, specifically, like two weeks in weirdly was

when it kind of got difficult. But I think noticing the changes in you since you did both of them, I noticed a more pronounced change in your level of clarity after the break from cannabis. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that. Thank you for saying that. I realized after taking a thirty day cleans off marijuana. I was like, wow, I was really stoned all the time. You're like, fuck,

So now, well, now I don't smoke weed anymore. I only take edibles because I do not like what the damage that that does to my throat and I don't need to sound like I have emphasema when I go to sleep at night. So I'm no longer smoking weight, but I will take edibles, but not like I was before. Yeah, I was really I think that was a COVID. Byproduct of COVID, I got a little bit carried away with

cannabis use. It's I would guess that one's tricky in the same way that like when I relapse on opiates was super tricky because my association with powerlessness and unmanageability are coking. Jack Daniels like, that's unmanageable. I'm gone for a few days, all bets are off. I do crazy stuff. I'm dangerous. When I was in the opiates, I was like, yeah, I do everything I normally do. No one knows, there's

no obvious wreckage, you're unmanageability or anything. And I would argue weeds similarly, you pretty much do your ship without anyone really going like, hey, I'm I'm worried or this is impacting me in some way, And I think those are those are trickier ones to evaluate. Yeah, yeah, I think so. But you know, when you do abuse anything, it shows up on you, you know, like your eyes, the redness, that's the stoned look, the kind of not being together in a way that I'm smart enough to

be together. Yeah, So when you're constantly just like forgetting ship, you're like, wait, this isn't me this doesn't really add up. But but if you're drunk at work every day, uh, you know, you'd probably hear from some people. Well there are people. Or if you're micro docin cocaine, like that guy from microdescin cocaine. I was just gonna say, cocaine is so much fun. We had a caller once call in and he's like, Hey, I've been microdocin cocaine at work.

I've been super productive. I've been really you know, everyone's He's like, my everyone's been complimenting on my job performance. He goes, everything's going great, So do I just keep doing it? I'm like, first of all, there's no such thing as micro docin cocaine. You're a cocaead. There's no way around that. And that is going to be a good window for about, you know, five weeks, and then

everything is going to crash and burn. So yeah, and by the way, anyone who's listening, please don't do cocaine anymore because everyone this fent and all ship is in everything and you don't know when you're gonna get it. I don't understand why drug dealers are putting fentinel. We gotta have a side bar about this. Because you and I are both drug experts. I'm not a conspiracy theory person. I just am not Okay, but this occurred to me the other day because yes, a ton of people are

having fentanyl overdoses doing cocaine. And what I know is that talk about incentive. No drug dealer who's selling coke wants to just add another expense of fentanyl and throw it in there. It has an opposite effect. People are buying coke don't want fentanyl, or if they want to do a speedball, they're getting that separately. So the drug dealer has no incentive to add vent in al to cocaine. It makes zero sense. The customers are gonna occasionally die,

which no one's gonna buy from you anymore. So since it hurts everyone, the user, the seller, how the fund is there fentinyl and coke. It needs an explanation. I'm like, I'm not saying that this is the case, but wouldn't it be genius if the CIA or somebody was put in fentyl and coke because they're going to kind of cure the war on drugs because everyone's gonna be too fucking afraid to try any drugs. Who's benefiting from fentinol in cocaine, It doesn't make it doesn't make sense. I've

had this conversation repeatedly. Putting it in fake oxy makes a ton of sense. Putting in even xanics, which I think is weird. But the people who have gotten fentol in zanics at least it is a depressive drug. Putting it in cocaine really to me, they tip their hand. M hmmm. Interesting. Okay, alright, alright, well I'm glad you said something. So if anyone knows anything about that, right in benefiting or at least, just tell me who's benefiting.

But they, I do. I don't believe the government wants to cure the war on drugs? Why do they? It helps them put black people behind bars. It helps that there's a whole money industry. Yeah, there's a whole industry that they I mean, I think they like that the fact that there's drugs. They like that there's that element because they can blame so many other things on that. So I don't know, but there's that, But then I have to I have to imagine that it also enriches people.

They don't like having money, right, cartel people, Yeah, who are putting then people in office. I don't know what. I just saw an article that was like, is the leader of some South American country a narco trafficker? And I was like, probably, oh, wow, that's likely. Yeah, I mean Pablo Escobar, he ran a pretty successful bid to be the president of Colombia. I mean, it almost happened in half the country loved him. So yeah, maybe in that case they're like, Okay, we gotta, we gotta, we

gotta prevent this. I don't know. I just what I do know is that nobody benefits from putting fentl on cocaine, So why the funk is it happening? Yeah, that needs answering. Yeah, you're right, it doesn't need an answer. Hopefully we'll get that, I mean hopefully we'll get it during this hour. Yeah. Hopefully someone will call in who's been putting the fentinyl on the cocaine, tell us why they're doing it. Hopefully the government official we'll call in during this episode. Brent

High does aunt Chason. Yes, let's move on to our first email. Before Dax has another cup of coffee, he has a great what's in your smoothie? What's in that smoothie? It's a vegan protein. Are you vegan? But I do love this protein powder. And if I get if I do the case in or the way stomach issues, don r. That is code for it diarrhea. So on that note, our first email comes from Michael. She says, Dear Chelsea, I'm a twenty nine year old gay man living in

the Midwest. I've been so inspired by your experience with therapy that I started going to a therapist as well. You're right, it's much more impactful to pay an expert to listen to my problems. I was also inspired by listening to talk about taking breaks from substance use. I smoke weed occasionally, but alcohol is my true love. I'm a bartender, and I always say it's part of my job to know what I'm selling. Lately, I noticed you've talked about knowing the difference between taking a break from

a substance and knowing when it's time to quit. That struck a chord, but I reassured myself that I'm fine. Of course, However, coming out of Halloween weekend, which was mostly a foggy blackout, I've been faced with the reality that this is actually ruining my life. Now out of ten times when I drink, I black out, but even then I keep going on autopilot. Over the last few years, I've been charged with two d wise, broken my leg, lost a job, and so much more. The common denominator

is always the way I consume alcohol. Now, after almost getting arrested on Halloween, I realized that my life is truly unmanageable. I had an emergency meeting with my therapist and he advised me to try a a I've always looked down at the twelve step program, to be honest, but after hearing rosebud Baker's story, I felt like she was also telling my story. I immediately paused the podcast and went to a meeting for the first time. I'm

feeling pretty hopeful and finally getting my ship together. You guys were the push I needed to wake up up and wrap up this behavior. Thanks for everything you do, Michael, So this is mostly a thank you, but I thought Dex you could talk to us a little bit about advice you have for him as a newly sober person as well, and the difference between the feeling of taking a break versus permanently changing your lifestyle. Right, yeah, I'm

going to go in order. You said, this letter is from Michael, and the first thought I had was, I just interviewed David Sadaris. He said gay men always used the long version of their name, and so my first thought was, Oh, I wonder if Michael's gay, And then you said Michael's a gay man. So that's just first what happened in my head. That's funny. Second, yeah, I'm listening to this, and of course I have a perspective on it all, and what I just say, it all

ended where I would hope that it would end. But just I think people have to ask themselves what a normal person does versus what they're doing. If you have in the bank reasons for why you drink, that's a flag normal. My wife doesn't have a fucking reason she drinks. If she wants to drink, she drinks. If she only drinks half the glass, it doesn't consume her that she's leaving half a class. It's not. She has no deeper relationship with it other than what it is. So I think,

just out of the gates. If you've got a bunch of stories about your drinking, that's generally something to think about. And I am curious. I get it. I don't like joining clubs. I'm suspicious of all clubs. But the hatred of A is still a little bit confusing to me in that it's the only group in the world without a leader, without a hierarchy, without a bank account. Like, if you're ever going to join a group, there's nobody there who's profiting, no one's no one's getting elevated status

from it, no one's getting empowered by it. Like if there is ever an organization to model other organizations after, it would be that one. So I don't I don't entirely understand the put But maybe it's because I grew up with a parent and A and I have a different relationship. What are your thoughts on A. Well, I

think that there's a lot of people. I have a good friend that got sober a few years ago, and he had a real drinking problem, you know, very sloppy, very blackout all the stuff, and blackouts obviously are a huge red flag. If you're blacking out, that's not that's Yeah, that's a pretty high ratio. But I think people's apprehension towards a A is the religious component, because some people don't believe in God and they don't want to have

it related to God. And so I think that's the twelve steps and all of that, you know, but I do I do agree, Like I think you make a great point. You know, that is great that that there's no big profiteer from a A there's no not some you know, Messiah. So that is and it's a safe place where you're going to meet people who are experiencing what you're experiencing. So for the sake of the matter,

until you are stable. It's a great resource if you don't want to stay going to meetings and you can stabilize yourself with without that kind of routine and pattern of behavior. Sure, but there's nothing wrong with going to an AA meeting and dipping your toe in that for just some just for the purposes to tell yourself of stability, to get yourself to the next step and to get

yourself a little bit stronger. Again though structure, you have the structure of it and the and the group think like you know, to be around people that are saying similar things to you and you're hearing your their stories and you realize, oh, this isn't only I'm not the only person in the world going through this struggle, and not only am I not the only person. There's a lot of comfort in hearing other people's plights. I would also argue, like, even if you want to write the

entire thing office Placebo, I'm fine with that. But an axiom I believe in so much is you cannot think your way into acting different, but you can act your way into thinking different. So if you wake up that next morning you're so fucking humiliated by your behavior, your lack of memory, you have blood and your rectum, whatever is happening to you, and you tell yourself, this is strong enough that I am. I decided now that I'm going to think differently, and I'm not going to change

anything else in my life. If I'm betting in Vegas, I'm going to bet against you. But if you say I'm going to this place at eight o'clock and when I get there, this person says, why don't you read this step when you get home? And then the other person says, in the morning, and how about maybe you journal just remind yourself, hey, I'm always going to be this when I wake up. I'm not gonna wake up

one morning not have this. That's a step, like it's all actions that then slowly over time, do change how you think, or they changed how I think, And then the god thing I get at. Man, I'm an atheist, yet I've been in this program for seventeen years. So how do you How do you divorce the two or not divorce the two, but how do you reconcile the two if you are. I had a sponsor one time who's smarter than me, say, look, this is how I think about it. It's a power greater than myself. So

something's making the sun come up in the morning. It's not Dak Shepherd. Something is making the oceans have a tie. It's not Dak Shepherd. There's a whole bunch of forces happening in this universe. There's a symmetry to how we're spinning around the sun and all nine planets are held together. I'm not the force that's doing any of that. There's

something much greater than me. And the way I make peace with it is like I recognize the symmetry of everything, and I know when I'm out of step with the symmetry of everything. I know it, I can feel it. I'm smart enough to recognize, oh, I'm swimming in the wrong direction of this river. And so what I aspire to do is to be in harmony and in symmetry the way this fucking planet we're on is. Yeah, and I think that, you know, God is just a lack of a better term, it's in many respects, you know.

I think it's really a call to humility and that I do believe in. Like, first, recognize, you're not the fucking director of planet Earth. You're not the director of your family and your friends and everything you're You're you're just another piece of ship. You're one of seven billion

pieces of ship, and you're trying your best. Like so the God think of me just represents like, get humble, which I agree with because through humility you can actually take advice from other people, which is impossible for me to do. We'll get into that at the end of the show. Um So, any act of humility, I think it's important to look at what the broader point of it is, unless you want to be basic about it and go like, I heard the word God, which I don't even know if it's in there, but yeah, it's

in there. It's But regardless, Michael, you're on the right track. You've recognized there's an issue. You need to stick with this, and it sounds very much like you need to be sober. So I really commend you on that choice that you made and the decision that you made to put one step in front of the other in a direction to take your life into a better place. And yeah, all the signs are there that you have a serious problem.

So it's not about taking a break. It's about making yourself, like you know, understand that life can be a lot better and a lot more bountiful to be in symmetry with the universe and with your energy and all of the things that that brings. Can I now attempt to get you defensive. Sure, okay, you want to tell me that I have a drinking problem. I don't know that. I don't have an opinion whether or not you have a drinking problem. But do you think your average person

has to take breaks? No? No, no, I think someone said to me once, uh, guy I was dating, said I never want to get out of control with my drinking because I never want to have to give it

up completely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love that, And I liked that, and so I always think if there's a period of time like I came back from my Orca where I was with my girlfriends for two weeks and we had a lot to drink, and I just came back and I felt gross, and I thought, this is one of those times where I really need to like clear my head and clean out my system. Because my drinking has changed, especially as I've gotten older. It's not the same, Like I don't want to drink like that.

It hurts more and it shows up on your face more, and um, you know, I like the way I look. I want I want to look fresh, and I yeah, so I think so that was one of the things, you know, cannabis brought into my life. When I arted to like pivot to cannabis, I was like, oh, I started drinking less because of the cannabis. And then I definitely have one of those personalities where I overdo things and then I have to say, Okay, now you have to stop that for a little bit before you get

too carried away. Yeah, I want to be ultra clear. I don't I'm I'm I'm so pro drugs, I'm so pro drinking. I truly am those things. But I know, for myself, I deeply desire to know exactly how I'm going to feel like it's not even per se the high of the drug, it's just, oh, I know, if I eat the seta bowl in one hour, I'm going to feel this way. And that's so comforting to me, just knowing what's ahead. Oh really, yeah, I don't have that. You don't have that. I like surprises? Well yeah, I

also like novelty and surprises. But I guess I'll give you the simplest example of what I'm saying. My best childhood friend who just got he's gonna have two years this this month. And when we were kids, he huff gas to the point where he took a gas can. There's a gas can in his locker in ninth grade and he got kicked out. Now, I don't know if you've ever huff gas, have you? It is the worst feeling imaginable of all the highs on planet Earth. It's the worst one. How does one do that? You just

half the fumes gasoline? Yea yeah, yeah, like actual gasoline. Um, And he carried around a little gas can. And since he's gotten sober in he and I've been talking about it so much. And he had the most traumatic childhood of any human and So what I concluded was and it led to me being a little more compassionate towards myself, which is his resting emotional feeling was so fucking bad that a gas huffing high was better. Yeah, the worst high in the world that was preferred to his just

resting emotional state, which breaks my heart. And I think a lot of addicts because you'll talk to people. I'll tell you, oh, I don't like cocaine. How could you not like go game? I'm sober bluxed by you kind of like them? D m A, what do you mean you don't like opius? And what I actually concluded, like they're resting emotional state is good enough that going to that other isn't a huge relief, And so I'm compassionate towards myself. It's like I clearly had a different resting

emotional state where that was a huge relief to me. No, that's a very salient point that you make. All right, that's the show. Thanks everybody for you tomorrow. So our first caller today is Aaron. He's in his thirties and he is a bartender in a resort town. You got a lot of bartenders in the audience, yeah, very somatic. I guess when you write a book called Vodkas, are

you there? I always wondered why there's so many drunk women at my show, So I'm like, it's like, well, I do I have a I do have a reputation that precedes me. Yeah, I do, and that brand is Lucy Aaron says, Dear Chelsea, just discovered your podcast, and I figure you might be able to give me some advice. So he's a new listener. I'm a man in his late thirties who bartends in a resort in a mountain town. I've been doing it for quite a while, fifteen years,

and I'm a fairly attractive and confident guy. As a result, I get my fair share of attention from women, both local and visitors. It's been a great ride, no pun intended. Here's the problem. I'm a romantic guy, and now I'm worried I have a reputation for taking women home. Don't get me wrong, I've had girlfriends that last a year or so thrown in there. My number is high, not in the hundreds or anything, and I don't regret any

of them. But now that I'm thinking of settling down, I'm worried my past is going to catch up with me. Is there any way you can think that I can change my reputation given that I've been here for so long. Keep kicking ass and good luck on the tour, Aaron, and he's here with us. Oh, let's see him. We're going yeah yeah, oh yeah. We've got zooms going and everything, microphones, headphones,

the whole shebang curtain behind us. Curtain wasn't gold hi Eron, you know, Dak Shepherd, right, Yeah, I want to thank you. I I listened to a lot of that when I was on the farm when the when the world shut down, I went from bartending working on farm, so I uh probably went through four episodes a day. So thanks very much for that. Thank you. You are as advertised handsome. I was nervous when you self self diagnosis. Yeah, as handsome.

I was like, put this hold up, and my god, it has Yeah, you are handsome, So I suck at that emotion. So we've got that out of the way. That's a confirmation, Katherine. Can you make a third confirmation on that? Absolutely very handsome And I'm also I'm going to go a step further, which is it's handsome in a deceptive way. I think you're a wolf in cheap's clothing. There's a kindness to your face that's probably disarming to these women, which is you're able to bed them down.

You would you agree he does not look like a like a predator. No, you don't know, no, and nor nor do I think you are a predator. I think if you're a bartender in a mountain town, I'm assuming you mean a ski town, right, yeah, So I mean, why wouldn't you be having sex with as many people as possible. I mean, that's what everyone's doing in those towns, and especially in the service industry, that's kind of the way of life, you know, for a lot of service

people who aren't married. If you're single, that's where how you meet people at work. So I wouldn't like, I'll let Dax speak to it as a man, but as a woman, I wouldn't let your past indicate your future so much, you know what I mean. It's a phase of your life and I don't think you should have too much guilt about it. And people are going to change their perception of you when you change your own

perception of yourself. And if you are serious, which I'm sure you are, because you wouldn't be calling into this podcast if you weren't. If you are serious about settling down and finding someone, that's going to become clear to everybody very quickly by your own behavior, you know. And and the first person it needs to become clear to is yourself. Okay, Yeah that makes sense. And yeah, you know, we kind of focus on like what we've done and what we've done, and that just kind of drags us

through our present life. There's no point in looking at what you've done. You can acknowledge it, not be in denial of it. But as you move forward, you want to curb your behavior. Then, you know, don't bring as many girls at home, you know what I mean, be more practical about what you're putting out there and what you're what you're looking for, and people will start to pick up on that, and your reputation will become a

thing of the past. They'll be like, oh, that used to be a guy who did this all the time, and he's more mature, he's older now, he's not like that anymore, you know what I mean. It just kind of works in in in step with your feelings about yourself and your behavior with yourself. Yeah, okay, I like that. What do you think, dex Oh man, there's so much to it. I agree with everything you said. If you want to funk funk, that's great. But there's a few

things I'm curious about. One is the notion that others are going to use your repute Haitian. Seems like your concern on the issue as other people, which I just don't know, is your issue in life. I don't know you worrying about what other people are are interpreting you as I think more it's it's an internal job. So maybe you just like fucking and that that's great. As long as you just like fucking, that that's great. Yeah, there's definitely something of that. Well, that's what I'm saying.

Are you an approval junkie? Do you crave validation? I do? And I'm in this situation you where my wife met me and I just I had been a fucking drug addict for ten years and I sucked anyone that would let me suck them. So she had to come to terms with the fact that we came from opposite backgrounds. And I'm now telling her, well, now I'm different. I've been sober for two years and I'm not going to do that. Blah blah blah. But I will say I

could have never promised her. I wasn't gonna do that if it was for her, because she's not always going to be everywhere I came in terms of my own sex addiction, which is, oh wow, when I'm in a really bad dude, I get almost reactively horny. That's suspicious. Could my brain be that complicated that it's protecting me from feeling bad by making me horny, by giving me this distraction, by picking up a phone and texting someone and now going in this one hour wormhole of looking

at asses and tits and all this stuff. If that's what's happening, that's worth exploring. If you're if you are are, if you are regulating in any way your internal self esteem or your internal value with sex and other people, all I can say is that well is never dry. It'll go on forever, because ultimately you've got to be

in charge of regulating everything inside. And if you get to a point where you're regulating everything inside and your horny in a good way and everyone's honest, then fuck yeah. But I guess my question to you is how much of it do you think is just your horny and how much of it do you think you are Let me stay. Let me back up. One thing I want to say. I was not an athlete. I wasn't the captain of the football team. I wasn't a jock. It wasn't all these things. The thing I could do since

I was twelve was talked to women. I could talk to them for hours and hours and hours. That yielded to me having sex more often than other people. And I will say I leaned on that a ton. Oh I didn't. I'm not in college now, but I'm still sucking the hot girl my town. I'm not doing this, but I'm still I used that to shore up almost all of my identity forever. Yeah, I definitely have a

lot more female friends now. You mentioned that that that that hits Yeah, And I just think intentionally, you know, like change your intention moving forward, Like your intention now is to meet somebody a value to be in a

relationship that's meaningful to you. And you know, when you're thinking about that, or you're having a conversation with some girl that doesn't bring to the table the things that you would want to go long term with, don't go home and fuck her, just change your behavior, Like, yeah, you know what, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm going to actually focus on meeting somebody that I want to date for possibly long term, or get to know a

little bit. Changing behavior so much easier than people think it is, you know, rehabituating yourself to different kinds of like habits and mindsets. It doesn't take as long as people think it does. It's just making the decision to do it is usually half the battle, and then following through with it is just the second part. I think you also have to flip your top three, Like I think you've looked for women in a way that I'm

sure you could list the top three. I'm sure how they looked as got to be number one it was for me, you know, and so on down the list. But if if your true goal is to have a long term girlfriend, perhaps have kids, you have to identify what qualities those are, and you have to you have to write number one. Number one is this woman is a good communicator. It seems to be pretty honest with herself.

I don't know what your thing would be, but let's just say and and minimally, if you just force yourself to identify what that list would be. As you're talking to the gal at the bar, some part of your brain is gonna be like this, this isn't this isn't the number one on my list. She's got a really jass, which is exciting. That's ivlevated that to number one on my list. You know, I think that we preferred to

call it a Badonka bank. I think we've got over this fad ask Maybe you're just saying she's got dad asked, but you know, or a dad's ass that's always hot. A dad's ass? Was that helpful to you to that house? It was? You know, it's it's to hear that it's I will say normal, but definitely like a it does. I don't know how to explain it, but it does

make a lot of sentence. Okay, well, why don't you hit us back when you're when you found your girl and you could call in with her for sure, will and it's nice to hear that a guy wants to change his behavior. Good for you, I mean, you are a straight white man, so you should fucking step it up a little. Especially there's that Patrick Stewart lines. As you know, I grew up seeing all the old white street guys make the decisions. While I'm an old white guy.

I want to make some decisions now. So that's kind of how I that's how to play things. So okay, I asked one tough question. Yeah, hit me, who are you if you're not fucking at all? Let's say that you have the same job, you live in the same town, and you don't get laid for a year. Do you know what's funny? You mentioned that I have a really good friend who used he's in He's in another town, but really good buddy of mine, and he did a year of celibacy and it told him a lot about himself.

And I've kind of been thinking about that too, just trying to be better at it, you know, living by myself, living as myself. Yeah, I I just when I fucked a lot and drank a lot and and partied a lot, it helped me deal with the fact that I was ten years of auditioning couldn't book a fucking diarrhea commercial. And so in the absence of all that, the other things I think get a little more clear of, like how much do I enjoy this? How much am I happy?

I'm here. How much am I using all this other stuff as a diversion so I don't have to confront this. I don't know. Maybe maybe you have the dream set up, and but it is an interesting thing that I think can also happen when you take away all the comforts surrounding something. Yeah. Yeah, that's yeah, that's a good I like that question. I don't have an answer for you.

I do find a lot of like, I live by myself and it's great, except for the fact that when I want to be social, it's like, well, let's go to the bar and start start down that road and you know, um so yeah, No, it's definitely a more of, you know, make sure I'm comfortable with who I am, and then kind of figure out where someone can fit into that. I guess, yeah, girl, that's when I had a baby. Yeah, thirty eight. You start going like, yeah, man,

I I skinned this cat. I'm goosey. I got like and I'm gonna be loosey goosey by myself and it's not gonna be a good look at the ball exactly. That's what I thought was gonna happen to me too. I was like, fuck, very similar, very similar. But Aaron, that is a great question, Doxy. I knew you were going to be good at this. Yeah. Yeah, he might be the m v P guest host I've ever had

so far. Katherine can very astute question. Yes, yes, Dax, Yes I should come every day, all right, Aaron, thank you so much for calling in and and we wish you well and we wish you luck and keep us posted it. I've got Katherine's number now, so I'll let her know if anything goes great. Great, Thanks Aaron, thanks a lot, have a good one. So cute You really did have a cute like inviting warm smile. He's just kind of like your ultimate bartender, you know what I mean.

That's the kind of face you want your bartender to have. Absolutely not judgmental. Right, when you're on your seventh jack and diet and under ninety minutes, you don't somebody who's just like, when you order your eighth they're gonna be like, sure, no problem, instead of acting like you're sober to the bartender who served you seven drinks. Bukowski had this thing where he had like five liquor stores. He kind of circulated, true because he felt so judged by all the people. Yeah, yeah,

that's so funny. So there's only like once a week was there at nine am to six bottles of wine. Our next caller, she's going by Mave, so Mayve says, Dear Chelsea. I'm writing in because everyone on my husband's side of our lives fucking hates me. We've been together for six years and married for about a year. I met him when I was doing a brief stint in living in Trump Country. I met him and fell in love right as I was planning to get the hell out of there. We felt like soulmates from the moment

we met. Ultimately, he decided that he wanted to join me on the move, and we moved to a liberal coastal city about five years ago. Since we moved together, we have grown up and glowed up in so many ways. I feel like we're both self actualizing individually and together. Problem is, everyone in his life seems to disapprove his parents, and a good handful of his friends seemed to feel the same. They seem to act like I kidnapped him from his family against his will and brainwashed him into

being some liberal vegetarian everything they're against. They're not very nice to me, and it makes me feel like ship and I know what upsets my husband too. He's worked to create boundaries over the years, which has helped, but I still feel so unwanted by almost everyone in his life. I already struggle with self worth and feeling like I don't deserve someone as great as him, and everyone on my side seems to love and genuinely approve of him.

I'd love to hear what you have to say, because it makes me really sad and angry, and I think I need to channel my inner Chelsea Handler mave m Hi, mave, Hello, Hi, how are you? I'm great? How are you? We're good? Do you know dax I do? Hi? Hi? We're together now? Yeah? We um. We have an announcement to make every one of my wife's friends hated me too, so do his friends. So gave me more intel about why his friends to his friends not like you because you're liberal and they're

all what Trump supporters. Is that what you're kind of alluding to. So that's more like his family and like the older people in his lives. And then his friends are seemed to be more upset about the fact that

he moved. He moved, and he doesn't live near them anymore, and I don't know, like what like his The dad of one of his friends entered entered my personal space how to get together recently to say that you know, I'm glad you're happy and all, but we wish we could check up on him more to make sure he's eating enough meat and doing all right? And what does

your boyfriend feel? How does he feel about this? It upsets him because he's always been like really close with his family and friends, and he, like luckily is completely like seeing what I'm seeing. He's not gaslighting me or any anything, but he's upset by the circumstances. Certainly, were you vegetarian first? No, we discovered this together. We discovered it totally together, slowly started incorporating it in our lives. And now I'm like the big vegetarian, Well what if?

There are many worse things to be but okay, but sincere question, um, what if he wanted to eat meat? What would that? He does? He does? He's like, I'm then what's their problem? They're just not enough? Because all I was going to say is on the service, I guess, well, I think what's useful is like, what are they saying, right, So the guy who pulled you aside, what is he saying?

What do you think he's saying when he when he tells you that, yeah, well it's the way he said we need to make sure he's around so we can check up on him. Makes me feel like I'm a danger to him in some way. And that's not how I see myself and that's not how he sees me either. But I guess if I if I hear that guy say that question, what I'm hearing is that person is really afraid that your boyfriend's loving leaving his inn group.

This is one of his people. He loves this person, and he is afraid that these decisions are going to take him out of their shared in group. We can't have a barbecue anymore. You live in blah blah blah. So first and foremost, I just think what is coming across is crass and shitty. Does have a kernel of the inside, which is like fear and love, And so it's helpful to me to try to start there, like what are these people truly afraid of? And can I can I relate to a friend that went away to

college and worship heads back in Michigan. I'm probably never gonna see that. Like I can relate. There's a lot of people that make decisions that I'm fearful is going to change their identity and take them out of my group,

and I'm compassionate towards that. I'm sympathetic to that, And instead of defending yourself in those situations, it might be useful to try to comfort that person and say, I'm sure it seems like he's becoming a totally different person, but I just want you to know he talks about you all the time, and he loves you so much

and he misses you. Just this, because if you start trying to win a debate about whether what you guys are doing is healthy, sustainable, the right decision, the wrong decision, you're not addressing what's really happening here, which this person is really afraid they're gonna lose someone they love, and unfortunately it's on us to be the bigger human being that can offer that comfort and love, or we can engage in the same kind and just nothing will ever

happen productively. Because I can see where this is going. There's gonna be five more parties. You're you and your boyfriend and continue to do things that make that person, not make that person feels alienated by that person, feels less than by My stepdad was so furious at one point that we were considering how much pesticides were on apples. It drove him crazy. Oh my god, now we can't eat apples. And at first I'm like, shut the funk up,

what are you talking? Like, get over yourself. But but the more I thought about was like he feels less. Then he feels like he's not putting any effort into himself being healthy. And now here's another fucking thing. And I guess I'm that much more big of a piece of ship. So I don't know, But are you responsible for other people's feelings in that way? Like she's not responsible for her boyfriend's friends and their parents feelings about

their relationship and about him being a vegetarian. She isn't really responsible for that. That's their own bullshit, you know, Like you can be supportive of their relationships absolutely as you should be. You shouldn't ever be, I mean, you don't want to, you know, encourage any sort of bifurcation with his past, you know, and his old life. But like that's what people do. They get they hook up with a partner and they sometimes move away, and it's

just a passage into adulthood for many people. And is she responsible to take care of everybody else's feelings because they don't like's not She's not responsible. And what I'm what I'm proposing to her is actually a very selfish act on her part, which is I love this human being. I can see that my partner has these stressors in his life. All these people feel like he's abandoning them. That makes my partner unhappy, which then makes me unhappy.

How can I stop this whole cycle? Well, maybe I tell Bill he loves you so much, he's not going anywhere, and then Bill stops driving her partner crazy. I don't know, and then she benefits. Like it's ultimately a selfish act, but it's one that may yield the result. I just don't think extolling the benefits of a vegetarian lifestyle to this person is going to solve in any way. I agree with you on that, absolutely, I do. I think. I mean, there's no purpose in trying to convert anybody, right,

that's not a good use of your time. But it is also it's what he's saying. Yes, absolutely, be supportive of their friendship. Be encouraging to those people. You don't want to make enemies out of his old life. You know, they're not important enough to you really at all to make that kind of and have that kind of negative back and forth with them. Right, All you can do is support them in in order to support him, in order to support yourself. So it's a circular thing that,

which is what Dax is referring to. Be honest, I all that guy to suck my dick. So I'm not saying I'm capable of I'm advising you to do. I'm very defensive, and I'm very like then to get the funk out of my house. You hate you know, you must have meat cooking so much. Whatever it is, I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying I do it. I'm just saying from the outside, I bet those people

feel scared they're losing someone they love. Looking at them with more empathy is something that I think would be helpful here, because clearly they have a lot of fears, it seems, and I don't think that that's all on me. I think I'm like a boogeyman for all of their fears. Yeah, I mean even coming up to you and saying we'd like him to check in more. That's something that would

have been better directed at him, not you. You're not in control of him checking in with them, but you know, say, you know that that's an opportunity for you to go, Hey, you know what, Mike's father or whatever the hell his name was, wants you to check in with him a little bit more. And that's a way to be supportive you.

You come out looking good and there's no harm done, no foul right, and you've facilitated exactly the exchange that happened, and by by remaining the bigger person in So I'm telling you to do exactly what you guys are doing. Live the exact life you want to live. But I just wantn't spend any time defending that life. I would more spend time trying to figure out what fear is happening in the other person. And if there's any way you can be truthful to yourself and also comfort that person,

it might be easiest. Or you guys can just go hunting, you know, and take a bunch of pictures of animals that you've killed and and post them on Facebook and Instagram, and that will sayiate everybody's needs. Yeah, exactly, get out your rifle, get in your truck. From my own life, which is, my wife was ostensibly Christian when we met, and her mother often thinks I'm Lucifer and has led

her away from the church. And I get very defensive in those situations, and I want to yell at her and debate with her about what I've done or haven't done. In fact, on my best days, I recognize this woman believes in heaven, and she believes she's going to heaven, and she believes her favorite thing in the whole world, her daughter, will not be with her there for eternity. That's fucking terrifying. I don't believe in any of that.

But if I did think my daughters and I could be somewhere forever and they were not going to join me because of someone else, I'd be panicked. It's hard for me to give her that extra ten minutes of thinking about it, but I do best with her when I remember I represent her not being with her daughter for eternity. That's fucking huge. Yeah. Yeah, And when I put it back on myself to like defend the choices that I've made with my husband. We like, that's a

very that sucks. But thinking about like, oh, what are they so scared of that's making this so hard for that's making them want to be Like, well, minimally, what you immediately recognize in that exercises it is them. They have a thing going on and you are somehow a symbol of that. But of course you aren't the thing.

And I just feel better when I recognize, oh, this is this person's problem and not it's not actually an attack on me, it's it's their lack of being able to be vulnerable and say they're scared they're losing them. Because if they came up to you and said, I'm I'm so afraid I'm losing Mike, that I'm not evolving quick enough with him, and that he's becoming a person and he won't respect me, you'd fucking hug that person.

But unfortunately people aren't trained to do that, so instead, you know, you end up explaining why you live the life you live, which is none of their business. Totally. That's very helpful. Well, I think you hit that one out of the park. Acts once again, there's been a change in tone. I think you did a really good job, babe. Do you feel like you got some good advice? I

feel like you did. I definitely do. Yeah. And um, I told Mike that I was going to be having this conversation, so I'm really excited to share with him. Oh good, good. And I'm sorry I missed that you said you were all right. I was obviously just taken by my new lover and I so I apologize when I called him your boyfriend. We still think we're great in bed together. We haven't found out that we're not. So like, we're writing pretty high right now. But thank

you for your call, Mave, and good luck with everything. Yeah, empathy, empathy is going to return the favor to you. Thank you. Okay, take care another very kind, kind face. I'm waiting for you to have like now we own. We only get really really sincere sweet people here. It's really it's surprising to me as well. What's the story, Catherine? So? Our last question today comes from Sarah. She lives in Canada.

Dear Chelsea, I would love to hear your take on parenting a very very headstrung seven year old female human. I've tried every tactic, a firm but kind approach, a loving approach, and of course pure bribery. Nothing works. She's motivated by money, so I'm hopeful for her future, but I'm not sure I'm doing this right. She yells at me a lot, and she's only seven. How do I raise this kid so she's kind but also kicks ass. How do we achieve the balance of letting them be

fierce but also go to bed on time? Sarah in Ottawa. Okay, well, I'm going to give this over to Dock since he has a six and eight year old girls. This is his wheelhouse, and why don't you take it from here? Sweetheart? Well, what I'll first say is that, so our first daughter, at twenty one months, I took her to toys r us. I said, pick out a potty. She picked one out. We got home a couple days later, Chris and I said, like, hey, ever want to use that thing? It's there? And she

said potty, And then that bitch was potty trained. We did nothing else. I was like, we need to write a book. Second kid came along, Delta, the now six year old opposite just opposite person. So I just want to start by saying there isn't you should never believe in parenting advice because to what kid is this advice

going to be applicable to? Because we do things almost opposit it with the eight year old as we do the six year old, it sounds to me like your seven year old is kind of similar to my six year old. And I guess the main hack I figured out is it's as simple as giving her the last word. So I say, look, we gotta go to bed at eight it's their school tomorrow. And she says no because blah blah blah blah blah blah. If I don't engage, and then I let her have that she got the

last word. Sometime goes on, twenty minutes passes and we're good and and this is one of those one things I brought up earlier where Kristen said, like, what are you doing with Delta that she does what you want? And I'm like, I don't fight with her because she's just she's living to fight. She's a fucking prosecutor. And it's all about the fight. It's not actually about the substance of what you're fighting about. It's way more I want the last word. I'm the baby of this family.

Everyone else is bigger than me, everyone else has a louder voice. I want the fucking last word. So when I'm able to just give her that last word, I find that everything else just goes swimmingly. I think also, when you have that personality type, fighting is their oxygen. That's how they briefe like they want. That's their engagement. That's their engagement, and if you're not interacting with them,

you're diffusing the situation. I have that personality type where I don't like to be told what to do and I have no respect for authority figures. But as long as you're engaging with me, I will argue with you. But if you're not arguing with me, there's nothing to argue about. So I mean, I think it's about as a parent, putting your foot down and leaving it. They're taking Dax's advice, but like you are in charge, so get in charge. Your kid is not in charge of you.

And I know that's easier said than done, and I'm not a parent, so I'm just gonna let you take Dax's advice on that, but remember that you know that is your child and whatever you're doing isn't working, so then you have to change your approach. I'm also going to add in there there there there's a big distinction to be made between abandoning your child and ignoring your child. There is a huge difference there. Abandoning your child is you're not there when they need you. They're her and

you're not coming. They're hungry, you're not addressed seeing that they're crying from something that happened with their sister, and you're you have no time for that. That's abandonment. Positively rewarding everything they do with your attention is not healthy. They they're little monkeys trying to escape the zoo, and the escape is to get your undivided attention. So I believe it is fine to ignore them when it's past

the point of being productive. So I give d money the last word, and if she wants to carry on beyond that, that's gonna She's gonna be doing that solo. This is no longer a need she has. I'm not abandoning her, but I'm not participating in it because I have boundaries as a human. I also am trying to model those for her. I don't need to join you on a thirty minute fucking vortex of emotion. You can do you know, you're free to do that. I'm encouraging you to have all your emotions, but I don't need

to be a part of it. I can ignore it and I cannot be affected by it. And it's shocking how quickly when they recognize it doesn't have an effect on you, how quickly they change their strategy to get out of the enclosure. Another home run, another home run. You, guys, you must be exhausted, you must be exhausted. Now, that was the last That was the last one. We got it, guys, we got it. Those are all our callers and right INDs for this episode. Right yeah, So we'll just take

a quick break and we'll be back shortly. You're really gonna have to avoid your bladder when you walk out of here. So many liquids so frequently, like it actually governs like where I can go, what I'm gonna do. On a plane, I can never ever sit by the window.

I have to sit in the aisle on the aisle seat always because I know I'm gonna have to climb over somebody three times, and I get Also, I took a small plane recently that only I've never even fucking heard of this that only had a bathroom in the back. So I was in the front because obviously, and I was I'm like, oh, I was waiting for us to be at twenty feet so day unlike the bathroom. And I went up and she's like, oh, I'm sorry, there's no bathroom here because it was like an hour flight somewhere.

And so I was at the back of the plane and I'm like, are you fucking And then I was like, oh no, I'm gonna have to go to the back of the plane three times in one hour. Watch and everyone's going to see me walking back, walking forth. And then don't you also like get hyper focused on every sensation in your bladder the second I know there's a take my hands away from my bladder because I'm like, oh, if I press on it or touch it, which is basically my seatbelt, I'll be like, seatbelt is making me

up to p mark. My pants are making buttoning ship. No seatbelt, it looks like I'm about to go freak nick in the front of the airplane. Okay, So we're going to close this episode with Dox, who has been a joy and a pleasure. I'm so glad you came so much time with you, Dex. Before we let you go, I need to ask you, do you need some advice from Chelsea? Okay, so I gotta say, like, no part of me wasn't excited to come here and do this, other than knowing I had to ask you for advice.

So I guess what I decided to make My question was, how do you take advice? Because I think you and I, and I don't want to flatter myself, but I think you and I are very similar. And I actually fucking hate advice. I hate authority figures. I hate people who think they got it figured out. I personally, I mean, I was forced to in this situation, but I don't really give advice. I'll tell you what I did for me, but I just hate getting I can't receive it. I can't.

I guess I'd be acknowledging I'm deficient in some way by asking for it, Like this is my biggest hurdle in a is like asking for help. So my curiosity is knowing that we're so similar. How on earth do you get yourself to a position where you want advice and you're genuinely asking for it. Yeah, I think we do have similar personalities, definitely, and I definitely have an allergic My instinctual reaction to somebody giving me advice is an allergic reaction where I want them to shut the

funk up and get away from me. But I have learned, and I that's something that I picked up in therapy too, that my initial reaction is invalid to most things, right, Like, my initial reaction is usually met ego based or whatever, So as long as I can take a minute before I think about it. For instance, my boyfriend was seeing my show, my my stand up show. He came with me from my Florida dates, and he was giving me touch ups, like our punch ups for things, and then

he wanted me to rearrange the section of something. And I immediately was like, no, don't tell me how to do my own material. But I didn't say that. I thought about him, like, he's a fucking comedian too, obviously this is valid. Let me try it that way. I tried at the first show his suggestion. I wasn't sold on it. I got off stage. He goes, oh my god, that was exactly right, that adjustment. Now you have the joke over there, it's different, and I go, I'm not

add percent. He goes, Okay, well I go, but I'm gonna try it one more time and see. And then I tried at the second time and he was right. And then I tried it again and he was right.

So I think my feeling about that is to know that your initial reaction to things isn't always the right reaction, and to give yourself the space of understanding that some people actually do have some you know, some advice is meritorious, and it's clearly so many people do so many things better than I do yet, right, So I guess it's how it's how it's being delivered is important. Obviously it's also a huge I would assume you trust your boyfriend, Yeah, but I but not more than I trust myself, you

know what I mean. But but you don't believe that your boyfriend has any ulterior motive in this scenario, Like he's not trying to demonstrate to you that he's actually the genius comedian in a relationship. You have that trust with him, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, because yeah, I guess I have a hard time trusting people, is what it is, Like, I have a hard time thinking anyone's doing anything in a way that would not be bettering their own position, right.

I guess it's a limited it's a limited amount of people that you can trust and value what they have to say, because you're not going to take a blind advice. But I mean, you know, conversely, I have many agents over the years that given me advice that I was like, get the funk out of my face, Like, I, you don't even know what you're talking about. You're not a creative, you don't get it, and you know, so I have that feeling, but yeah, I just you like I I

you couldn't gain anything from me. Well, I'm certainly not competitive with you. I don't think you're competitive with me. So, like, I'm inclined to believe what you tell me, I would say that. So I guess the thing. Let's start with what I've admired about you in the last twenty years that I aspired to is your confidence to quit things is pretty unique. I admire it, and I guess I strive for that belief in myself where you could you

can walk away from things that are minimally financially beneficial. Yeah, yeah, would you agree with that assessment? Yeah, yeah, I've definitely done. And I think it's it's quite rare. I think this podcast thing for me has put me in a position and where I can behave that way. But I could only behave that way with this crazy safety now. And so I admire that about you. Thank you, thank you. I love that. That's so nice to hear it for well.

I appreciate that. So why where are you getting that from? UM? I just have I always had a lot of misplaced confidence ever since I was a little girl. Like I really believe I'm betting on myself, and you know, I've had ups and downs, but I always know that I'm going to figure it out. Ay. I always just want to be true. I don't want to be faking or lying, you know, I don't want to be I don't want to be pretending. I don't like that. I want to

be true and upfront. And if something is not, if I'm not feeling something, it's like staying in a relationship that I wasn't into. I'm not good at that either. So any time I've walked away from something, it was just because it was no longer interesting to me. And and I do believe in myself. I think also what you have, which I didn't become aware of it myself

until the podcast. I think you've known for a long time that you have a point of view, and like, once you have that, when you have a point of view and people have heard it and people follow it and they respond to it, I would at least hope it gives you confidence that like, yeah, I'm gonna bring this point of view to whatever I do in this I've figured that aspect of it out, so I can PLoP it here and PLoP it there and it's gonna work everywhere because I know what it is and it's

authentic and I believe in it. Do you think that's any part of it. Yeah. I think having a strong point of view as part of it. And I think it's also like, you know, you get a lot of confidence from having success, Like you've gotten a lot of confidence from the success of your podcasts and everything that you've built, and you've built an empire with everything you've done,

so you feel differently now than you did before. But that specifically what happened is I had some level of success in playing other characters, so it's not necessarily my point of view. Like I'm trying to put the dark shade on everything. Yeah, but you do have a point of view with your podcast, right, Yeah, that's right, and that's where you have some of your biggest success. I

to argue, right, without questions, the biggest success I've ever had. Yeah, And then I guess I've found out through that process, like, oh wow, my point of view is valuable. I don't know that you can discover as an actor. You can discover it as a stand up yeah, right, such comedy, you can't even really discover it. Like I had twenty characters I played at the Groundlings. I'm not sure which one of those was my point of view that I

could bet on the rest of my life. Right, But isn't that interesting that when you have such a strong point of view and you're in touch with your point of view, that's where that's where you're aligning with everything, and all of a sudden, everything starts working for you instead of against you. Yeah. Yeah, it's been a very awesome experience, and it's fun to watch you succeed and a lot of you know, and everyone feels that way

about you. People like watching you succeed because it does feel like it did feel like a long time, like you weren't underdog. So it's nice to see you on top. Good, it'll stop soon. We're gonna we're gonna go. It's not don't say that. Don't have that kind of attitude. That's also no, I'm only referencing that we love the story of we were just as humans. We the story of the underdog. And then as soon as you're doing well, you're like, okay, we'll let this ride for a minute.

But yeah, right, of course, of course I'm still cynical about human nature. How about that. Yeah, well that's fair, that's a fair point of view. On that note, I want to thank Dex for being here today. We are going to take a shower now together and we are in Sherman Oaks at the podcast studio, and I had them run a small bath. Oh great, so you'll be in the tub, I'll be in the shower, or well, you're gonna urinate in the tub and then I'm going to take a bath. Oh my god. It's like a

weird new version of blood Brothers and Sisters. I'm just gonna make sure. Yeah, I'll take a couple of Pep siblings for Kristen it's a love story. It's a love story. You know, she might be you might be one of the only people she'd be threatened by, to be honest, I admire her confidence. She's very confident as well. Yeah yeah, she's pretty confident. Yeah yeah, she's a gangster. It's good to be around confident people. Don't you love it? I couldn't do it the other way. And on that note,

we want to say Amen, Amen, Dax. We love you, Dak Shepherd, everybody I love you Shepherd can't wait to do it again. With regard to my stand up you guys, I have added twenty seven or thirty cities. I'm not sure, but thirty cities. We've added Des Moines. We've added your request people, people who requested Louisville, Kentucky. Guess fucking what I'm coming. We've added Montclair, New Jersey. We've added a whole slew of cities. So if you have not gotten

your tickets yet, do it Chelsea Handler dot com. We just announced thirty more cities, twenty seven or thirty. Niagara Falls, I'm talking to you too, so suck on that. I'll see everybody on tour loving it. Vaccinated in horny