Jamie Lee Curtis: Unfiltered on Hollywood, Healing, and Finding Perspective

You gave her the mug? You cheesy asses. You cheesy ass fucking guys. You come to Jamie's house. I snore it. What I will do is have you sign it and that'll be on my fucking website. Let's go. Let's go. Literally. Okay. I'm just going to tell you the truth. Please. It was a video game adaptation, Cate Blanchett, you know, Kevin Hart. It was look good on paper. Okay. Game that sold 40 million copies of this fucking game. You think, oh. And we shot in Budapest during COVID.

Wow. So it was gnarly. It was guys with Uzis on the street. You know, we're in Budapest. You're not allowed to ride in a car with another person. I mean, it was full on fucking gnarly. I find out as we are starting the work that the woman I am playing, who's a character in the video game, has something called objectum sexuality, which means she fucks objects.

In the video game she fucks up? The video game, the character. What a dark ass fucking video game. Well, it's a dark video game. The character in a video game fucks objects? Yes. Well, not on camera, but you know what I mean. How would you know that playing the video game? Well, because she talks about objective sexuality. So my point is this. So I'm kind of going to these people like, wait, what? And it turns out that it's a real thing. I did a deep dive.

There are YouTube videos of this woman who married the Eiffel Tower, goes to the Eiffel Tower with a film crew and fucks the Eiffel Tower on camera. How do you fuck the fucking Eiffel Tower? You straddle it and rub yourself till you come. A girder, you know, metal piece of the Eiffel Tower. She straddled it, laid on it, writhed on it, and then had an orgasm because it's a real thing. It's predominantly women who fall in love. The reason I bring all of this up. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I'm playing someone who has an attraction to inanimate objects, I arrived in Budapest, we were out in the middle of nowhere in these sand dunes, and I saw a piece of wood on the ground. And I'm like, okay, I'm down. Let's go. And I picked up a piece of scrap lumber. Like what, in the middle of a scene? No, just as we were like walking to the set for rehearsal, whatever. I saw this piece of wood. I was like, oh.

Okay, I'm into you. You're into me? Okay, let's go. I carried that piece of wood with me everywhere. And when we did the first photo of the group of us announcing that we were in Budapest about to start shooting. Kate, Kevin, Ariana Greenblatt, myself, Eli Roth, the director, and I'm holding this piece of wood because we were the first day and I have this piece of wood in my arms.

I have a charity for children, for Children's Hospital. And everything that had to do with Borderlands, I signed it and put it up on my website in an auction thing. I sold that piece of wood for four. hundred American after-tax dollars. No. Someone bought Brando, is what I named him, and I signed it. And I wrote Borderlands 2021-2024. Have the picture. I have a picture of me holding it. Someone bought it for $400. So yes, I will have you.

shnor the Jamie for your for your charity I will dance around in a bikini I will give you can I now tell you something else I've done please because my husband brought it up to you yes i went to uh our beautiful um makeup artist in ignacia on the bear and i said to her when they were tattooing carmen you know doing the

tattoos every day. I said, are those just transfers? She goes, oh yeah, I have a sheet of them. We know where they all go now. It takes five minutes. It took us like two hours the first time. It takes us five minutes now. And I'm like... do you think you could print one of those for me and maybe i could ask jeremy to sign it and she was like yeah absolutely when that show ends next year i will put that up on my auction website wow

I have his entire tattoo collection on a sheet that he has signed. That will bring in. some beautiful money for children's hospitals. So I'm a schnorrer. I'm that girl now where I would like, anything you've touched, I'll be like, John Bernthal was in my house. He touched this, buy it. So that's who I'm at.

Yeah. That's where I'm at at this point in my life. But I like your mug. It's very chic. That's your mug. No. Okay, happily. And it has my lipstick on. It's all good. Let's go. How about that? How about that show? I just told you I was talking to my brother on the way over here. And I was telling him who I was coming to see. He's a dumb shit. He doesn't know shit about this. He doesn't speak eloquently about the craft or any of that bullshit, but holy fuck, he was just like...

So blown away by, you know, the hospital scene with you. And he's just like, I've never seen anything like that before. And he said, you know, and he goes, look, I know this might sound stupid, but I've never seen something where they just leave it on someone so long. And there's so much. He's like, I know that wasn't in the script. I was like, yeah, dude, it's a whole different, it's a whole different thing, man. And he said to me, he goes, you know, it really says so much.

about our country right now. It's just so much about the world right now that I haven't felt good about things. in the way that I have knowing that that show is so popular. And I thought that was a really beautiful thing to say, that he just feels, it made him hopeful that people love that show. He said, it's so sophisticated. It's about normal people.

not about violence and bullshit it's so human it's and what i agree with you what i think is so special is that you you could say well i don't have any i'm not a foodie like i'm not a foodie like i grew up on grilled cheese sandwiches and Lucky Charms. Right. That's a flex to me is you bring me a bowl of Lucky Charms. Let's go. I'm down with your bowl of Lucky Charms. I'll match you with, you know what I mean? Like I'm, that's my language. So food is not my language. But you could easily.

talk about that show and say, well, it's about food. It's not about food at all. Even though the food is such an important part of it. It's just the humans behind the food. spectacular yeah it's just about the human condition yeah and you know we saw each other recently and I know because I have had other people say it to me being able to see Mike

when he was alive. Not because you're alive at Christmas, but you're not alive. To see him alive, to see him firing on his beautiful... inner life was it it made me it made so many people so happy because you you hear about him before you meet him then you meet him And it's manic. And then you meet him and it's angry. Then you meet him. And there's so much of this, what we're here to talk about. Like there's so much of that illness going on.

And it was really nice to be able to spend some time because every person we know in recovery, every person was a baby, was a joyful... a live creature before the illness took them.

Like really knowing that in your bones and seeing everybody that at one point there were, what imprints that on you? Like, where did you learn that the most? Did you learn that becoming a mother? Did you learn that and recover? Like, where do you see that? Recovery. Recovery. How so? Because.

I had to pull the... Look, I can make shit look good. That's like sort of, you know what I mean? I'm a girl. I can make stuff look good. I can make my environments look good. I can make myself look good. I can make everything seem really good. And the beautiful part of sobriety and recovery for me is the looking in the mirror and realizing you are looking at the problem.

you are the problem. You're also the solution to the problem, but nothing out there is the problem. And it's very easy to victimize ourselves and have it be, well, this is happening and so I'm this. My mother didn't do this, and so I'm like this. I've had... I mean, how many women have I heard in recovery talk about the sexual abuse that they suffered? Families, it's awful. It's enough to think you would never, ever, ever, ever, ever be able to be a functioning human.

And they can through the program of recovery. They can actually look in the mirror. They can wrestle the demons. They can put them into their proper place. They can try to... like figure it out. Maybe they have some good therapy. Maybe they don't. Most people don't. Most people can't afford fucking therapy. They can't afford it. It's a luxury to be able to pay someone to help you.

through, untangle the Gordian knot of the shit you've been through. But the goal is recovery, is to walk freely. Nobody gets sober to walk with the... stone of oppression on them all day. The whole idea is to drop it and say, that was the past. This is now. I have made a decision to walk free from it. and walk through all of the pain and shame and and terrible suffering to get to something better and so to me sobriety is the great

wash of freedom. I was telling you a little bit about what's going on with me and what's going on with my wife's sister and going down there and getting this little baby out of... out of that situation down in Florida. You know, the great news is that there are other people that she can meet who have a very similar story to her. And it just takes one person.

saying something where she doesn't feel so terminally unique, so alone. So this is so unique to me. No one can understand what it is I'm feeling or doing or whatever. And the minute somebody else says something.

and you have the humility to say, I need help, there is that grace moment. Did somebody say something to you? No, actually, a fellow addict.

uh an actress very very close friend of mine and i who used to party together who used to partake in all the ways that people can recreationally never in any sort of seemingly career-changing or life-changing way, we thought, who... you know both of us had been married and there were children and and we reconnected late in the game and at that point i was running a 10-year secret opiate addiction i had

gone cold turkey drinking at one point for four years where I just was like, I'm not going to do that anymore. And was very sort of rigid about it and sort of very self-prideful about it. But like secretly, at the same time, I wasn't drinking, but I would, when I could get my hands on them, I would take opiates. And the opiates were never to get high...

And the way some people think addicts live, which is, by the way, the way you end up living that way, for sure. There's nobody who ends up at the top of their game. But I was at the top of my game and it just was taking the edge off. It was a way to maintain my feelings, but no one ever knew. There was no one in my life who knew.

My husband did not know. My close friends did not know. It hadn't taken me that far. I'd be dead today, of course. I'd be dead today because I would think I would score some opiates. from someone thinking that they were a Vicodin or a Percocet. And in fact, they would have been fentanyl and one pill would have been 25 times stronger than, and I would have taken five.

thinking they were five milligrams or 10 milligrams and they would be 250 milligrams, I'd be dead. I would, you know, unfortunately be dead. That's how so many, many, many, many, many, many people now are. recreational drug users who get a hand, get some opiates and it turns out that they're all fentanyl and that they're way stronger than they thought and they die. That's just what happens. By the way, just watch anything about opium deads.

those opium dens where people were just lying on couches and smoking opium. That's what I think we all think an opiate addict ends up like. But you see, I was maintaining it, but it just took the edge off. So I could quit drinking, but I was secretly taking those. And what literally happened was I knew that that was a problem. I knew that wasn't normal. I knew that wasn't like what everybody was doing, but my denial was telling me it was fine because I was at the top of the game.

I was doing my best work. I was successful. I was married. I was everything you want to be in show business. And I was that. So this little side hustle was... not going to be something that, you know, was a huge cause for concern, but did you feel like one, one, one sort of created the other, but it wasn't a huge cause for concern. It's just, I knew my dependency on it.

I knew I was dependent, but it wasn't causing any ripple in my life anywhere. And what happened is I went over to my friend's house to have a play date with our children, and I actually...

found the same courage for someone who's outspoken and seemingly sort of... You know what I mean? I'm a joyful person. I have a lot of fun in my life. I like to... throw down and be you know outrageous a little yes you do i love it yeah because it's my life force it's just who i am it's how i am and i i no longer sort of worry about it i'm just like okay

I may be too much for some people, but some people dig it. Okay. But I can't tell you the truth, how I feel. I can tell you a lot of things, but to tell you a truth. It'd be very hard for me. I just wasn't raised where feelings were a language that I was raised around. Not to blame that. It's just... the truth. So it's a weird combo. You're very public, you're very this, but you can't say a feeling. And I went to my friend and I knew that I had a dependency.

on opiates and this was 25 years ago and i went to her and kind of like you know finally at one moment our kids were playing and i kind of turned to her and i was like um You just don't want to say the words because you're terrified if you say the words out loud once that you can't get it. It's like the genie out of the bottle. You can't get it back in.

As long as you don't say the words, as long as it lives in your head, it's in you, nobody else has to know. The minute you say it, you're terrified of the consequences to that. And I said it to her. I said, I am... addicted to Vicodin. I said it and she turned to me and said, me too. Isn't it the best? And... Like immediately, it was like, yes! Yes, queen! I was like, yes! All of a sudden, now my old coke friend was like back. We were like back.

And she even had a source for it. And I never really had a source for it. It was always fairly sporadic. And... I left her house with a handful of vikes, a number of a doctor to call, who apparently would prescribe them.

And I came home and that night, somehow between getting home, wasn't far away from here, somehow between getting home and the next morning, I had the moment of clarity that... many people talk about in recovery. My moment of clarity was this. She was going to die and I was going to go to her funeral and I was going to hug her kids.

and I would know I was hugging her children with her blood on my hands. Or I was going to die, and she was going to go to my funeral, and she would be hugging my kids, saying how sorry she was and how sad it was. And she would have blood all over her hands, hugging my children. And that was my moment of clarity. That understanding that somehow this person I had gone to for help was now just another enabler.

Another person saying, yeah, let's go. Let's effing go. And that somehow that was the moment of clarity for me. And I literally woke up that next morning and thought. Oh, I'm fucked. I am fucked. I am fucked. I'm dead. And two other things happened. So that happened on February 3rd.

1999 and i ended up calling a friend a male friend who was in recovery and told him this and i said i want to go to a meeting but i'm terrified And he said, I will have somebody meet you. I said, I'm a public person. And I was terrified of the anonymity of walking into a room of recovering people and that somehow I would be, I would lose something.

I didn't realize what I was going to gain. I thought I was going to lose. I thought somehow that information would be then released and that I would then all of a sudden, that would be the thing about me. Because I kept it. quiet, private. And I was terrified to go. And he said, I know somebody who's in your business and I will have them call you. She called me five minutes later, the way we do.

And she said, I'll meet you at a meeting tonight. And that was Wednesday night, February 2, 3, February 3, 1999. That was a Wednesday night. I haven't had a drug since. Or a drink. That was it. That was the moment. As soon... As I said, I have a problem. For me, in 12-step work, you know, it's a step program and it's a process of discovery. It's discovery. It's like a little journey. It's really fun.

actually because you really get to like get into it and kind of go oh wow and but that first step for me would be like trying to step on top of this building For me, for other people, there's a part of it with inventory and you have to write some things down. People freak out. They think it's a term paper. They think they're applying to Harvard. They say, I've been working on my fourth step for five years. I'm like...

Five years? I don't think so. But for me, that first step was like fucking Everest. Because in order to take it, I had to acknowledge that I was powerless over my addiction. to opiates. And I am not powerless over anything. But I knew I was powerless over it, but I didn't want to acknowledge it. Admitted I was powerless over something was a huge thing for me.

And it, of course, has just opened the gates of joy and freedom that I never knew it would. So, and the other two things that happened were this. And it's important that people remember this because my telling you this. isn't to like get attention, by the way. I'm telling you this because you're going to go, oh yeah, I did that too. So my sister, my elder sister, came and lived with us at this very house.

when she was working on a play and she had gotten injured on the play and they had given her Vicodin. And I remember she arrived at my house. saying, I'm recovering from a rib injury, thing, thing, thing, and I have these things and I don't take them, they make me sick. Well, you tell an addict that there's a bottle of Vicodin in their suitcase and you don't take them because they make you sick?

Oh, really? Oh, I'm so sorry they make you so sick. Yeah, they're really bad. Well, of course, over the course of whatever two months she stayed with us, I cleaned her out and she was leaving. She was moving into an apartment. And I knew she was going to pack up. And I knew she was going to open her whatever. And there was going to be an empty bottle. And I wrote her a letter. Because she was leaving the next day.

I knew she was packing and I wrote her a letter. And I acknowledged that I had a problem. And my sister is an Alana. And my sister, when I got home that night... you know chris was with the kids or something and i walked in the kitchen and i heard her say jamie come here you know you just like the walk of shame it's like the like uh and i remember walking in the room and she hugged me And she said, I love you. And she said, and you're an addict. And I love you. But I will not watch you die.

That's what my sister said. And by the way, the letter I wrote my sister and the letter I wrote my friend that morning, February 3rd, I also wrote my friend a letter and said, look, I came to you for help. You gave me drugs. I'm going to take a step away from you. I'm going to take a step away from things. I'm going to try to get sober. We're both going to die. This isn't cool. Anyway, I have both those letters.

So that's the only evidence of my addiction I have are the two letters that I wrote, my sister and my friend, saying I'm an addict. It's the only thing I have anywhere in my life. I don't have a DUI picture. When my friends get sober, when my sponsees get sober, I'm like, do you have a DUI picture? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, oh, great.

Or if they don't, let's go to the police department. Let's get it. We're going to blow it up big. We're going to put it on your fucking refrigerator. So that you look at that every day and go, oh, right. That's what my mind told me was fine. Do what I did and then get in a car. Luckily you didn't kill people. But I didn't have any of that because I was what they call a high bottom. My bottom was very, very, very, very high. So I don't have.

Real evidence to remind me. And I have those letters. But the other thing that happened was the December before. So this is February 1999. The December before that was. It was the millennium, but it was the year before the millennium. So December 31st, 1998, meant that then... December 31st, 1999 was going to be the moment we rolled over into 2000. And a group of friends got together and they put wishes in a bottle. And we were going to all be together the following year.

And so we wrote down three things for the world, three things for ourselves. And we rolled them up, put them in a bottle, sealed it with wax. And then we were going to meet next year. on the millennium, you know, as the millennium switches switched and open it and look at our lists. So that was that Christmas. And someday in late December, we had a house guest, a Brazilian healer.

who's a friend of ours, who's a masseuse, delicious person. Her name is Ruth. And Ruthie was staying with us. And I was heavy into my disease. And I had a handful of vikes and a glass of wine.

and it was you know vika clock and i was i was cooking dinner in the mountains beautiful beautiful place looking out at beauty doing the dance of making dinner for the family and it was the holidays and all the obligation and the thing you're a mom and you put the one who puts all the presents under the you know blah blah blah and i was standing at the sink you know

Palmed a handful, took a glass of wine, you know, was standing and looking out the window and behind me, I heard this. You're not Jamie. She's from Brazil, by the way. She's from Sao Paulo. She's like... you know jamie you know i see you with your little pills you know you think nobody sees you but i see you with your little pills You think you're so secretive and special. She said, you're not. You know, you're dead. She said, you're a dead woman.

You're not alive. You're dead. And I love you. And so that was December of 1998. That happened. My sister was before that. So I had acknowledged it out loud to my sister. Now, Ruthie, December of 1998. Then there was an article. So the reason I'm doing your podcast is because in January of 1999...

I don't know why I ended up with a copy of Esquire. I was at a doctor's office, probably. I don't know. And there was an article by a man. who had written about his Vicodin addiction and it was called Vicodin, My Vicodin. And in the article, he was writing it and outing himself.

as a Vicodin addict. So you know that as soon as he hit send to his editor, he was outing himself to his editor, his family, his friends, and in the article... um it was vicodin my vicodin and it in the article he said at the opening of it and i paraphrase i don't know what exactly it says but i have a copy of it it said I can't tell you where my children's birth certificates are.

I cannot tell you where my graduation diploma is. I can't tell you where this is. I can't tell you where this is, but I can tell you where every single Vicodin is hidden in my house. And he then went on to say, in the bill... of my Chicago White Sox. Are they Red Sox or White Sox? White Sox. Okay. Sorry. Sorry, everybody. Sorry. You know, in the bill and the...

rim of my Chicago White Sox hat, there are four of them. There are two in the right boot in the hall closet in my cowboy boots. There are four. And he went on to explain where all the Vicodin were hidden in his house.

and that's john when i knew i was not alone that i'm not the only person who hid them in my house in places and that i knew where every single one of them was that told me oh i am not alone i am not the only one and that is why i got sober because it was after seeing that article and then going to my friend and saying i have a problem at that moment that was the moment when she said

I have a problem too, and here's a number to get them, that my moment of clarity was I was going to die. And it was because that man wrote that article that I'm sitting here. Because most people don't want to talk about this. You don't want to talk about this.

This is what you talk about. Because someone watching this or listening to this is going to go, oh, oh, that's what I did. And it's just the playing field is fully level here. for sure i don't give a how much money i have i don't care what my work is i don't care that of the shiny things in that you When in our work and you walk around with thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, and my husband, my good marriage, my children, my life, my family, my service, none of it means anything.

The playing field here, I am no different than your sister-in-law or your sister or your wife's sister. I am her. What is her? Don't say me her name here, but... I am her. I will ask you for a way to reach her. I will reach her because I am her. And honestly, she and I are the exact same people. There is nothing different about me and her. Nothing. at all and that to me reduces us all to a place of i can help you you have to trust in something bigger than you and let's go

My Hand in Yours. And My Hand in Yours is a charity for Children's Hospital, but the thought of it is My Hand in Yours. We are alike. I relate more to your sister-in-law. than I do to you, certainly all these lovely people in here, more than I do to my husband, more than I do to my best friends who aren't in recovery. And by the way, that friend of mine... is now many, many years sober, and we are back besties. Back besties. Besties. Because we are recovering together. But...

I'm telling you, that to me is the message here. There is nothing different about me to anybody who's struggling with an addiction to an opiate. I am you. I understand you. In my recovery meetings for years, Because at first they were alcohol-related recovery meetings and people didn't talk so much about opiates because they weren't as prevalent and they weren't as easily accessible.

At some point, once I was two or three years sober, and I would go to a meeting and somebody would bring up an opiate, the whole room would sort of turn and look at me and go. Jamie like I would go like oh hi come talk to me because come talk to me which by the way would be a really good name of a podcast come talk to me yeah

Because come talk to me because I'm your fucking girl. Yeah. And the only other thing I'll say about recovery is that the program of recovery that I... adhere to a 12-step program was invented by two men who met and realized their common problem.

and that there was this framework of a solution. It wasn't... as clear as it is now it wasn't as articulated as it is now it was more theoretical it was working a little here it was working a little there they heard about it it was a little bit it was a more it was as not formed as it is now that there is actual good solid recovery available to people but it was just the two of them and then they were called to a hospital where there was a patient

who was a deeply addicted alcoholic. And they were called to this person's bedside. And there's a very famous Saturday evening post. painting, drawing of two men in suits. I think they have hats. Maybe the hats are on the chair. I'd have to look at it. We'll look at it after. I have it on my phone. And a guy in a metal frame bed in a, you can't say wife beater anymore, right?

You can say whatever you want. I understand, but you shouldn't say wife beater because wife beating is not good. Like a t-shirt or something. Right, like a tank top. We call it a tank top. Like girls call it a tank top. In a white tank top. And the guy is in the bed. He's the patient. And there's this picture of these two guys in suits sitting next to the bed. And the story is that when that guy's wife showed up...

Because these guys visited him one day, and then they went back the next day and visited him. And when they were visiting the next day, the guy's wife showed up. And the guy said in the bed, oh, honey, come on in. These are the fellas. These are the fellas I was telling you about. They're the ones who understand. And that's how recovery grew from that. That's then they were three. Then that guy joined them. Now, maybe that guy went out, but another guy came in.

That's how it began. So the idea to say to somebody, they're the ones who understand. That's all we want to be is understood from little tiny people. understand me, see me, appreciate me, love me, and understand me. And so for me, that is everything. That's why I'm sitting here. Because maybe, somebody, maybe, Somebody listening is going to relate to that and just go, oh, they understand. John and Jamie understand. And that then will yield them maybe.

reaching out to somebody and saying, do you understand? Oh, you do understand. Oh, okay. And then it grows and grows and grows. And it puts them uniquely in a situation where then they could go reach out to somebody else and the power of that. But that's all it is. That's the whole thing. It's just the whole thing. It's just the whole thing. It's not about money.

This isn't money. This doesn't cost you anything. People are like, I'm paying the money. It's not about money. It is not money. It's understanding.

And you can't pay for understanding. The things that I think make people so afraid and we build up these fears in our head and these barriers for getting there. Can you, if it's cool and if it's not, don't worry. Can you tell us what it was like, the process of then talking to your family about it and talking to Chris? Oh, yeah. No, no, no, no. I mean, talking, again, the step.

To saying I had a problem and that I couldn't handle was ginormous. I was raised by a Marine and a conservative Republican. And he was from a family of great wealth, but he was the illegitimate son of this great wealth. You know, his mother married a man with great wealth. and who raised, she was a single mother, which back in the day, you know, meant you had a child.

out of wedlock as a teen or as a young woman. There's a stigma. Oh! And so when this woman married this very wealthy man, much older, and... He already had had a family and his kids were older even than my stepdad, Bob Brandt. And he was brought into this family, you know. The rule was you just don't say anything. And so Bob was raised in wealth, but kind of as this adopted child into it. And the mother and the father were gone.

His mother and stepfather were gone for months and months on European trips and all that. And he was left alone with staff. And he grew up, he became a Marine.

businessman and marine and you know his motto was need nothing and no one that need is weakness vulnerability is weakness and need is is something he then felt both my parents my mother had very dependent parents you know my mother became a big movie star and her parents needed her my stepdad's mom uh after that marriage still needed and so need dependency you know what do we say depend where i'm drug dependent alcohol dependent children are by

birth dependent, 100% dependent. I watched an elephant give birth on Instagram, which you can watch apparently. And you know, that elephant baby was up and walking. You know, you watch a horse. That baby's up and running within minutes. A human baby cannot survive. Cannot survive. They're 100% dependent. They can't even lift their head. They're 100% dependent. So dependence is so beautiful when it comes to children. But if you're a...

an adult who feels dependence is need and needing, and it becomes a pejorative. I was raised, don't need anybody. Don't ever put yourself in a position to need.

because it's a sign of weakness. People won't respect you if you need them. So I will tell you that this whole idea of saying what's going on with me and saying, I need help. was very difficult so for me the giant part of that was that telling my husband that i had a secret opiate addiction and that i was going to go into recovery and that i was going to be

in recovery with people. He was great. My kids were great. Of course, you know what happens when you've lived with someone with alcohol dependence or drug addiction or any dependence outside of your body. What happens, of course, is you get sober, but they don't get sober. So I remember my daughter beautifully said to me once about something. She was like, well, you got sober, mom. But I didn't get sober.

And so things have changed, but you have to remember, I'm the girl who was here when you weren't. So...

That's a process so that everyone can change. That was easy. Work was easy. I outed myself in a magazine. Two years into my sobriety, I outed myself because somebody was, it was a woman's magazine. And, you know, I write books for children and it had to do the thing. And at some point I was talking about how great everything was.

how great my relationship with my daughter was and how great everything was. It was all about how happy I am, how creative I am, how great my life is. And at one point she said, well, what do you attribute all that to? She wasn't fishing. She wasn't like trying. It wasn't like a Barbara Walters, I'm going to get you kind of, I'm not the, by the way, I just threw Barbara frickin' Walters under some awful journalistic. tropey thing of like people who try to get you

Like, gotcha journalism. Sorry, Barbara, rest in peace. You were awesome. But she always got people to cry. Always. But my point is, you know what I mean? Like, I... this woman was not like baiting me. It wasn't like she put the hook out. She was just curious. We were sitting here shooting the shit over at the other house. And I kind of looked at my daughter and I looked at this woman and I looked at her and I went...

Fuck it. I said, well, I think the reason I'm probably so happy right now is that I've been sober for two years. Now her eyes, you know, kind of bugged out and you could see she was like, oh my. goodness me I've got a story you know because before it was just gonna be like Jamie's happy little life and now she's got a story and then of course she asked me more questions by the way I would too and

And she started asking me questions about it. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I'm not going to really tell you anything else except that's what happened. So that was me just realizing. This is a very personal decision I am taking because I don't need to hide it. I'm not afraid letting people know that. And now over the years, I have to a smaller or greater degree.

shared that with people. You know, you were talking before about how you're really good at... coming in with this force and this energy. And I've seen it. You blow me the fuck away. And I'm very much... Oh, I love you. I love you. And I'm like very much in awe of you. I'm fascinated by you. And in a lot of ways, I want to be you. Well, you are. Well, but you know, man, you know, I mean, there's so much about that. There's so much about, you know, I'm finding it harder and harder and harder.

When I was a younger guy, I could find these... pillars. I could find these saints. I could find these buoys in the water that I said, okay, that's it. We are not saints. That's it. But I understand, but that's the first thing. That's the first thing that you recognize because it can't be a buoy in the water unless you can reach them.

If they're so fucking grand, you're never going to reach them. There's got to be something that's so utterly human and real and honest and flawed. You said you have this ability to come in with this force. make things and and and i get it that at times i imagine that can be a smoke screen because you said what's hardest is to say the truth but what i see in you is somebody who is sort of allergic to anything that's the opposite of that. And I'm wondering...

In this industry and in this thing, I know how important performing and this craft and this art is to you. I know it. There's no way you could do the things you do if it wasn't... absolutely and utterly sacred to you. I can see it. It's sacred to me. It saved my life. And a little bit of me lives in fear every fucking day that that's going to get taken from me. I will fight like hell to, to, to.

to keep going because I need to be doing this forever. As long as I'm breathing, I need to be doing this. I know that, right? Yeah. I imagine that this process and this honest... sort of deep dive into yourself and this excavating and this thing that you've been through, what has that done to your ability to kind of tell the truth, both in your work and in your life? And is that still...

How do you manage it now? What are the signals when you feel like, you know, I'm not telling the truth here. How does that manifest now? Yeah. I try to live the truth. It's harder for me to tell it and live it. Can you explain that? Yes. So I've also done psychoanalysis. So I've also been able to and been able to afford to really excavate a lot of shame and a lot of family stuff and, you know.

without placing blame i look at my parents who came from absolute my mother was was born in poverty and became you know just like really hard life really hard early life and, you know, was discovered and someone saw her picture and then brought it to Hollywood and then they called for her and then she ended up becoming an actress and became a...

giant movie star and tony curtis was in the name a young guy from new york hustler you know handsome talented but like was in the navy and you know saw his face in the reflection of the light thing that you do this and on a submarine tender when he was the signalman and he was like oh i'm handsome i would look good on a movie screen and literally also got discovered in the streets of new york and became a giant movie star so

I understand, and the amount of shame and tragedy in both of their lives. You know, my mother was from poverty and... Her father ended up killing himself when he asked for money from my mother. And Tony was the elder of three brothers in New York on the streets who was responsible for his... younger brother who was killed by a truck under Tony's watch. And the other brother was schizophrenic. And now Tony is Tony Curtis. And, you know, his mother berated him about like...

that he wasn't doing enough for his family. So both of them had a lot of shame and both of them had alcohol issues and drug addiction. My father very much so publicly, my mother not publicly at all. But the... paralysis of being able to say really what I felt is a long-held tradition in my family. And just last week, I was sent a letter It's too long of a story that was written by my mother when my father left her for a 17-year-old German actress. And he left my mother and the two girls.

to leave her to go be with this woman in Germany. And my mother at that point was a very big movie star. She had done Psycho. She was just about to shoot the Manchurian Candidate. I mean, she couldn't be a bigger star, beautiful, you know, whatever. And he left her. And my mother wrote a letter.

to my father in Germany, to the Hotel Kempinski in Berlin. Wow. On June 22nd, 1962. And it was... kept by the publicist who was with Tony Curtis in Germany, trying to hide out from the press, because of course he's now with this young German actress, and of course everybody wanted pictures of them, and it was a big scandal.

And he had held on to this letter. And he found me through my charity, My Hand and Yours. And he found an address and sent it to me. And it's a letter my mother wrote my father. You know, it's Dearest Tony. And she goes on to say, you know, I didn't take your call when you called from Germany because I was upset and this and that and ba-ba-ba-ba-ba. And of course the girls...

I agree with you about the children. Of course, they will know their daddy loves them. And oh, by the way, I took them to Disneyland. They had the best time. And in the letter, she says... I hope your trip is going well. And I hope you find what you need. I'm doing great. Fondly, Janet. What that told me...

was that I was raised by a woman who couldn't say, listen, you motherfucking cocksucker. I didn't take your call because I don't want to ever hear your fucking voice again. And you know what the letter would have, should have been. How dare you have the temerity to ask me like anything. You don't have the right to me. Like, fuck you. And what I learned is that's what I was raised by.

So how was I at three years old ever going to cry because my daddy wasn't around? Because my mommy would have been like, you have a new daddy now and everything's going to be great. And all I'm saying about that is.

That's what I was raised in. That was a new discovery a week ago. and it has blown my life apart. Wow, wow, wow. It disabused me of a story that I had played in my head about my parents. Which was? Oh, this is way too boring. There's a... My mother went to South America where Tony was making the movie with the German actress. And I had always assumed that Janet had flown or we had gone as a family.

so that she could lay her claim on her husband who was cheating on her. That's the story I always heard. There's this famous picture of Janet and Tony and the two girls on the ship. that we went in to Argentina on. And I always have the story my sister and I told about, well, that's him meeting us at the thing and there's tension. The truth is...

I found out after this letter that in fact Janet and Tony and the girls went to South America all together. Like you're talking about keeping my dog with me. Like they went as a family and she set up house in South America. And I broke my collarbone in South America. My sister went to school in South America. And then at some point, Janet and the girls left and he started this affair with this young woman. The letter then opened a door and I opened the door and then...

five other doors opened. For me, the point of the whole story is more will be revealed. It's a phrase in recovery that we say over and over again. Because if I had to... live with the reality of this moment only in my life. And I was in the middle of a shit storm. And by the way, the phone behind me could have gone off 10 times. And I'm waiting on a business thing that could go south.

and i'm waiting and i was waiting all morning someone's overseas and like they weren't re like if if when we finish here and i turn on my phone that's very possible a big job i am working on may have gone south. And I might have a lot of feelings about that. But what I will remind myself is more will be revealed. Rejection is God's protection. There are

There are phrases and ways of living through. By the way, both my parents have died in recovery. I've had horrible shit happen in recovery. Horrible, terrifying shit happen. So it's not like everything's just been, oh, you won the Oscar and everything's great. It's not. It's shit has happened in recovery. I have lost friends.

People have died. People have had life-threatening illnesses. I have had illnesses and all sorts of things. But more will be revealed. And that's, to me, the reason why the doors keep opening. So a letter that I got. out of the blue, sent by a 94-year-old man who has held on to it since 1962, written by my mother who's just been left. for a 17-year-old girl and its dearest Tony fondly Jay. It just told me everything that I've long suspected.

That feelings were not allowed in my house. When do you think you would have become the person that would have written the letter that you just voiced? Would you write that letter? What's the date today?

That's why I'm saying more will be revealed. I say I would write it today. I think I would write that letter today. That's not going to happen, by the way. No, I mean, it's not. What was shocking to me was how it was devoid of feelings, and it was pro forma, and it was, I'm doing great. Bullshit. Bullshit. I call, what was that beautiful girl who stood on the steps of the Capitol after that school shooting?

And it was like, I call BS. In Parkland, yeah. Parkland, right? I call BS. I call BS on all of it. It was all fucking fake. And movie fake. And it was before, you know, this was when movie stars were photographed. Rarely, you know, paparazzi were. would catch them, but it wasn't like them at the supermarket like it is now. It's like that weird intrusion. It was all BS. I can only imagine for your-

mom growing up the way that she did in that day and age than in being this enormous star and understanding sort of I imagine she understood the sort of fleeting nature of it and that this thing was She wrote a book called There Really Was a Hollywood. She really believed in the dream of it all because she came from nothing. Yes. And was beautiful. Most...

I could show you pictures would drop you to the ground right now. How gorgeous my mommy was. I mean, just jaw-droppingly beautiful. And I've figured it out. freaking like you know i mean it was she was like banging like like you guys when you guys improvised all that stuff about claire bear yeah like i watched you guys improvise that shit in the christmas episode yeah like

Your whole riff on her just made me smile and giggle because you were like, and the body is bang. You and Richie were hilarious. A pair of assholes. Just, but it was such a... honest description of somebody who you've known when they were younger and now, oh my God. I mean, it was just, it was so beautiful, but you know, my mommy was just gorgeous. And by the way, I think.

all of my current... I think she would be happy for me. I know she was proud of my sobriety. I think this interview would be hard for her. I think the way I look in the bear would be hard for her. I think the way I looked in everything, everywhere, all at once would have been hard for her. She was a beauty. And it was when Hollywood was beautiful. And even, you know, Betty Davis in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, that was a really rough.

but still beautiful version of a really fragile, mentally challenged human. The way you can shoot with no lights, the way, I mean. Look, I've surrendered my ego. Like at 60, I was like, you know what? I've got stuff to do. I'm not going to worry about what I look like and have just moved. And it's so much more fucking beautiful. I mean, that is so much more alive. Yeah. And that's what is beauty. But it would be, I think this.

all would be very hard from both of my parents. My father, who struggled with fame. You have to remember, they had such enormous fame. And then it's taken away from you. You know, there is going to be a day. I hope you will get to work until you die. I hope you get to work until the point where you go, I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm physically unable to do it, whatever. But I hope you have opportunities to do it. Most people in our profession don't. One day the phone stops ringing.

The phone, nowadays there is no phone. Nowadays it's maybe an email. there will be a moment for me, there will be a moment for you. I watched both my parents. But you see, their fame doesn't diminish. They were still famous people. My father would... walk into restaurants and be like an emperor. He was this grandiose guy. And you know, people loved him. They loved him. And he loved it.

But there was a bitterness and a sadness that the very thing that made him that didn't want him anymore. And the same with my mom. And I watched both of them lose their faith.

their ability to do the thing they love to do. Can you talk about your relationship with that? Well, I've been... retiring i've been joking i'm i've been joking i'm near death since i was 30. and i've been joking that like no one's ever going to hire me again since i was probably 35 or something. I've been the one beautiful and sad byproduct of being raised by people who had fame and had it taken away is that I know it's going to go.

And so I don't want to be the girl not invited to the party. I want to disinvite myself from the party. I don't want to feel the rejection. Honestly, it's rejection. And both my parents were addicts. And so I know it added to their need for comfort. Because where do you put that kind of rejection? It's an awful industry. It's a really rejecting industry. And it does not hold the value of an elder having some...

life experience that is like worth respecting. Like it's an ageist business where, you know, and so I know it affected them both. So I have. Like I'm the one, I want to leave the relationship before you leave me. There you go. Because I don't want to feel the rejection that I know is there, that I have felt, by the way. times if i told you the amount of jobs i lost to deborah winger oh my god i mean every great every great thing she starred in

I probably auditioned for. You're right there. Yeah. Like she was that person. No, there, there is not a single one of us. I don't know who your person is. There's a fucking list. Yeah. Well, mine was Deborah Winger. Yeah. Fair enough. Just.

like she was there and so the rejection and not it's she's brilliant but you know it's rejecting so it's a rejecting industry anyway But then to be fully rejected where you are no longer allowed to even be considered for something is... heartbreaking and i've seen too many friends of mine go through it and so i've always had this sort of like funny self-deprecation of like yeah well i'm gonna get the out before you get me the out like i'm not gonna i'm just gonna do it okay like

I don't, like, it's the, what is it? What is it? The French exit? Irish exit? The thing, like, I go to a wrap party, and I'm like, oh, hi, everybody. I'm there five minutes. Yeah, bye-bye. I'm like... Hi, everybody. Oh, it's so great. Oh, yeah. This is going to be so fun. You know, I left something in my car. Yeah. Gone. Fucking gone. Fucking A. Fucking A. Where's Jamie? Oh, she was here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Gone. Yeah. Because I don't want.

to have to say goodbye because I, you know, I worked with you a brief time. I'm too fucking connected. It would be too hard. I can't say goodbye. I hate the raps. I hate when they go, okay, it's a picture rap. And you have to like stand there and feel the feelings. And then...

Fucking leave. I know. Look, and in this business too, I mean, this is like a, you know, it is a motherfucker because there's a lot of that. There's a lot of getting super fucking close and you've got to bounce. And I will say, you know, I lived in Russia for a few years when I was...

when I was young, it's where I went to study. And, you know, in Russia, there's this thing where they say, we don't believe in goodbyes. And so the way that you say goodbye to somebody, especially if it's going to be a long time years, you know, when I left. place you know I didn't have an email account I didn't have a cell phone you know I didn't know when a lot of those people I will never see again and I haven't seen since but some I have and the thing that they believe in is that

You shake hands, you turn your back, and you walk away because they said saying goodbye is inherently a dishonest activity. There's no way you can express everything you can express in a goodbye. But a hello is as honest a fucking expression. as there is. You can really say hello to somebody you love and you can really... Well, we said hello to each other at D23 the other day. Yeah, it was beautiful. In a parking lot. I know.

In Anaheim. I know, and I needed that. And I needed that. But you see that hello? Yeah. sustained me for a lot of the harder parts of all that which was like a lot of freaking energy but you know and you you just uh

It's not just the work. It's how you handle yourself. It's how inclusive you are. It's that you bring this energy that is like it is here. You have no fucking choice. I'm fucking here and this is going to be positive. This is going to be joyous. This is going to be hard. This is going to be... for it there's nobody's skirt there's nobody skating through this and you know at a time

When I think that everyone, not just in this business, but everyone, period, is so fucking concerned with image and am I going too far? Is this too much? Who's going to see me? That this... This absolute sort of kinetic... Honestly, I don't really give a fuck about what you think because I actually love you and I love being here. It's so rare and is so rare for, excuse me for saying this, but for someone who- Near death? No.

But who isn't? For me, I am fascinated by the people who just get better, who just at least seem to just get happier, just get fuller. It is so fucking rare.

I don't know. Speak on that shit. You know what? No, I can't speak on that shit because the truth is it's just the process. It's the part of staying out of the way of... at all like not trying to control something i look at i have said and done a few things and i have my friends call me and go like hi how are you doing and i'm like great what's up

Oh, Instagram. And then I'm like, what? And I've had some really weird shit happen, which I'll tell you off camera because it will literally get me killed. But... It involves something in this very room, but I'll explain it after the fact. But I've had to hire disaster PR people to give me counsel. Do I speak to this or do I just let it be? Because you can flame a fire with oxygen or you can squelch a fire.

with removing the oxygen. But that can be counterintuitive to speaking your mind and speaking the truth. We're in a weird, we're in a world where the word truth doesn't mean anything. We're in a world of politics where words don't mean anything anymore. People say untruths and there are people that believe them and they are untrue.

facts. And yet people, and we're at the point where this orange cup that you gave me, it's fantastic. And it's orange. And I just think, or it's purple. It's a beautiful purple cup. Now, at some point, someone's going to say, oh yeah, Jamie had a purple cup in her hand. Even though it's not, it's your lovely real ones, black, double, oh, it's just all matte. Oh, I like it. It's very matte. It's a very, I like it. She's purple.

It's purple, but you see, it's truth. Words don't mean anything anymore. So we are in a new dream of what is real, what is honest, what is truth. And so I've had to navigate that a little bit. And I've... I've certainly gotten into trouble a couple times, and I've also tried to take responsibility for things that I have said in a flippant, stupid, show-busy...

moment of frivolity and I've said something stupid. Does that get to you? It gets to me that I can that. In this day and age, something can be so viral so fast that you almost can't catch it. But what's the end fear? Like, what are you afraid of? Well, the fear is that it will affect you getting hired. Right. It will affect your charitable work. It'll affect your creative work. It'll affect your livelihood. I imagine you're working now.

In a way, as much as you ever have and on things that you would... Yes, but I mean, it would be unthinkable for someone to come on a podcast and say the F word and talk about... the truth about something that has to do with drugs and alcohol. That doesn't scare me. There's an authenticity to...

owning your truth and being able to say it and hoping that it reaches somebody. I'm the only reason. I'm not here for the mug. Although apparently I'm getting one and you're going to sign it. In a bikini. And we're going to sell it. on myhandandyours.com to help raise money for children who are fighting for their lives. Every second of their lives. Here's what I'm going to tell you. I once did some...

It was like, I think it was like a PETA Awards or it was an Environmental Media Awards. It was a good cause and there was something and I was going to this award show. It was at Paramount and... I was going to be a presenter. I believe my daughter was coming with me and we were going to present something and talk about that, whatever. And you know, you arrive and you are assigned a volunteer, someone who has volunteered for the cause.

And they're like, I'm here to help you do the event. What can I do? Oh, you're going to be assigned to Jamie Lee Curtis. Your job is to get her from the car to the backstage area, to the press line, and then...

You'll have the timeline, and then you need to get her backstage at a certain time, and then she'll go out and do her thing. Here are her remarks, blah, blah, blah. Here are the... And I remember getting in the car, and this woman was there, and we were saying, it was an animal rights group. uh now that i remember it and i remember we were talking and i said to her what do you do she said i'm a burn i'm a

I'm a nurse on a burn unit, a pediatric burn unit. Now, this is a woman who has volunteered her time for animal rights. Her job... is to bring me, the fancy girl who's going to get up on that stage and be fancy and be, you know, sort of orate to the people and get them going and kind of thing and thing. This woman's... job is to basically get me to the stage. And I've never forgotten the look on my face and the look on hers. When I looked at her, I said, you're a burn.

You're a nurse on a burn unit, pediatric burn unit. Do you know what nurses on pediatric burn units have to do? They're the ones that have to debride the skin. So for people listening or watching or... By the way, this is a podcast that you watch. We need to have a conversation because I have a lot of views about that whole idea.

When did we start filming podcasts? I hear you, man. Why are they all of a sudden on television? I know, I'm a slave to the system. I work for these guys. I'm a slave to the system too, but I'm like, call it a TV show. Yeah, fair enough. Call it John Bernthal's. TV show, real ones. The TV show. Anyway. Just saying, there was my little opining. I'm just saying. I have some opinions about it. But when you have a child who's been burned.

anybody who's been burned, you have to take off the dead skin. That's excruciating. And you cannot anesthetize them enough. You cannot give them enough pain medicine. to not have it hurt. It hurts like if you've ever had a burn, a little fucking burn, imagine your entire arm or your entire torso. And that nurse has to do it. The doctors don't do it. The nurses do it. And they have to be able to exist in a world where you are hurting a child.

who is screaming in pain because what you're doing is going to help them recover. That's the equalizer for me, that woman. I don't know her name.

That's when this whole bullshit about show business and all of the rest of it, I've always understood. being a member of a group of people, creative people, be it someone who brings you food, someone who makes the food, someone who writes the words, someone who puts the makeup on you, someone who does it. It is a level. playing field. It isn't financial level playing field. And that's a whole conversation to have with people. But as far as I'm concerned, we are the same.

It's why I ask for name tags. I want everybody to know everybody's name so that we are all, so not everybody just knows mine. But that's to me, that woman in that moment, her volunteering. giving up her night at home to maybe relax and and not have to imagine what the work's going to be the next day for her at work. that she was there volunteering to help animals, and her job was to walk a celebrity woman around. When I was...

When I first moved out here and I had every fucking door slammed in my face trying to audition for a soap opera or WB show and they took one look at my big fucking nose and giant ears. They just, I mean, casting directors, I'm walking in the room and they were like offended.

with my grotesque, you know, it was just, you could feel it. And it was just rejection after rejection after rejection. I was living in an apartment with my girlfriend, who's my wife now, and she's an ICU trauma nurse. And I remember...

I remember one night, she's working the night shift. She comes in. 7 30 in the morning she's working down at harbor in ucla uh she's working out at harbor down in in torrance you know what i mean and and and that's the place where they all you know the gunshot wounds the bad car accidents everything and she gets in bed with me after that long night and i'm sitting there

crying into my pillow saying baby it's just not happening like i'm just not i can't do it like it's just not fucking happening and you know she kind of like looked at me and held me and like it and it just like dawned on me like how is your day like what did you what did you go through yeah last night how is like what the fuck's going on in your life and i just you know the moments it gives you it gives you such unbelievable perspective and as far as this podcast the one

person I have wanted. Everybody says, who is the one person you want on your podcast more than anyone else in the world? And it's my fucking wife. And there's not a chance in hell. She's just not going to do it. Why won't she do it? If you asked her to do it, I bet she'd do it. No, you know why? Why? Because she doesn't need to do it. She's doing it every day. She's doing her own version of a podcast. She's also...

raising your children. She's also helping her sister's child. She doesn't need to be on your podcast. You do your podcast. You get people like me who are...

like virtually unemployed at this moment. You get the fuck out. No, I'm unemployed today. By the way, I want to remind people two things. I have two things to finish with. Please. One, I'm unemployed. I do need to remind you, you're weeping into your pillow. It's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. It doesn't happen for 99.999% of people who want it to happen in our industry. It doesn't happen. I'm unemployed today.

I was employed. I am what they call a freelance actor. Freelance actor means unemployed actor. So the truth is I am unemployed today. I today have some confidence that I will be employed in the future, but I did not have that confidence when I was 19. And I certainly didn't have that confidence all the way through my life. I have it now because I've established, I'm also now hustling my own work so that I'm not waiting for somebody else to say, hey, I have a job for you. I have a job for myself.

which is also just the beauty of being near death and doing my thing. The other thing I wanted to remind you is something that you said to me earlier, and I corrected you. which was a little obnoxious, but it's because I wrote it in one of the books of recovery that I have, like the first week I was in meetings. You know, I would go to these meetings and sit there and... kind of be like, I didn't know what the fuck. So I was like, what? And I remember somebody said,

in order to stay sober, you need to replace the word have to with get to, and you need to replace the word can't with unwilling. And I wrote in that book, you know. have to, cross, get to, can't, cross, unwilling. And it's the perspective shift that sobriety offers people. because you get to help your sister's child. You get to do this work. You get to go off. and do work that you love to do, even though you have to sacrifice. I know how much you respect the military. Think about those.

military members, men and women who have families and children, who women have three little kids at home and they are deployed, they have to say, Mommy gets to go to work, and now this is going to be a tough time for our family, but we are going to get through it because Mommy is going off and doing her work she loves to protect our country.

And we are all going to have to sacrifice. Your family's going to have to sacrifice, John, when you're gone. That's right. You cannot make it okay for everybody. Your puppies are going to be sad, but they're dogs. They'll figure it out and your family will get by. And that's why I said, is there help available? Because again, I didn't get sober by myself. So have to get to, so that's the, and can't.

is not possible. I am unwilling to do something. And that just puts you in the perspective of that your life is glorious and you can really do it. We live in America. Apparently it is. We are free to do whatever we want to do. And the limits and the blockades are of our own making. And, you know, I don't... Whatever you think politically...

watching the Kamala Harris speech, for me, it transcended politics. It was the human condition writ large playing out in her mother's early life, her mother's decision and love for her daughters, and her edict to them to do something, to... to do not wait for other people, do not blame other people, do something yourself, and then the accomplishments of this woman's service to this country. Whatever your politics, I don't care. Don't agree with her politics.

but agree with her fucking service. Don't you dare besmirch her service to this country. It's gorgeous. So there's an example of somebody who just...

never said I can't do something. Maybe she was unwilling to in a moment, but she has been willing to grow and change. That's all I'm doing here. And I'm doing it in my work. I'm doing it in my... personal life i'm doing in my family in my marriage my children i'm doing it with my friends i'm doing it in recovery and that's the the the lesson for me of all of sobriety were those were those two things. Replace the word can't. No, replace the word have to with get to. And it shifts it.

Like that. Like the minute you say, I get to go to work. How many parents? How many parents say, mommy has to go to work. Mommy really? What are you telling your kid? That work is awful. Yeah, yeah. And that it's something that we all have to endure, that mommy has to go to work. Oh, mommy really would rather stay here. Rather than the message, mommy gets to do a job that then brings joy to mommy.

So you have a happy mommy. And mommy is coming home with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches because mommy earned the money to buy them. And so mommy is taking care of our family. Everybody has to sacrifice. It's okay. That's right.

You can be sad. Both things can be true. I can miss the fuck out of you and I can be sad to leave you, but I get to go do this and it's a blessing. Because this is America and I get to go off and have a job and work toward my dream. That's what the American dream should be. And we've turned it. it into this weird thing where work is like a problem and you know the messaging of that and then of course the last thing again not to reiterate is

You can do anything. I did not think I could get sober. I did not think I could go a day without drugs or alcohol, let alone like day three was gnarly. Because by day three, all of the like, oh, I'm going to do this and I'm going to be better. And then all of a sudden the feeling of like, wait, I can't do that again. So, you know, we can do anything. You know. All right. Turn those off. Make them go away. I'm going to hug you, but we're not saying goodbye. Watch this. We're saying hello.

Hi. Dear person. Alright, turn them off. I see red lights.