Bela Koe-Krompecher on Life, Recovery, and Music

have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf m Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Baila cocrom Pecher, a writer, social worker, professor, lecturer and

owner of long time established record label Anyway Records. If it doesn't spoil his credibility too much, He is also an old friend that Eric and I have known for many many years. Today, Baila and Eric discuss his new book, Love Death and Photosynthesis. Hi Baila, welcome to the show. Hi Eric, thank you for having me. I appreciate it. It is a real pleasure. Your book is called Love,

Death and Photosynthesis and it is really really good. And we're going to get into all that in a minute, and we're gonna talk about how you and I know each other in a minute. But let's start like we always do, with the parable. In the Parable, there is a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He's is in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always

at battle. What is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. He looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life today and in the work that

you do. You know, we've known each other for a long time, and when you first tell me about the podcast. In the Parable, over the years it's changed for me as I listen to the show and I hear it, and I hear what you know other guests have have talked about. I think they're just connected. They're part of the same animal, right that you can't have one without the other. And as we live in these bodies, the bad wolf and quotations is just as much as part

of us as the good wolf. What I think about when I hear it now, though, is discipline of being able to not fall back into the laziness that comes from feeling overwhelmed or tired of looking for a cure. Again, quotation marks that what we feel eliminates the tiredness or the mundate of life. I work in serving people as a social worker, and there's so much shame attached to the bad wolf, which clouds any sort of change because

people get stuck with it. So I think for the good wolf is learning those practices and being mindful of them, and finding people who help us be involved in those practices, you know, and Buddhism, they talk about the song like how important that is. Now, if you're somebody like me who really likes time alone, it's really easy to separate myself from that so just like a wolf living among the pack. That is something that I think for myself, I tend to shy away from that, but that's what

I need to be on the ball. I guess it's interesting to think. I reflect on this often that some of the times I was most thriving, and I think you probably were too, is when we were pretty ensconced in the community. That community was a recovery community for the most part, you know, and there are some things about that that make it less desirable to us than it once did. But I just I often think about that, how how transformative it was to be in a community

of people who are trying to change for the better. Yeah. I think the calmest I ever felt in my life was pre children. I have been sober for a few years, but really being able to devote myself to a lot of meditation and community that we were involved in. And then kids came and college came, and well, those were all good things, and I learned a lot about discipline and things like that, really learned how to be sober and active like in my life, not just in that community.

I took a lot of what I learned, but I was calm there were periods where nothing, it felt like, affected me. But as we were talking before, I have to be really careful we're talking about something else, of like not to romanticize that because that takes me from where I am at today. But it is true when I when I am meditating every day, when I am journaling, I have better days. That's just the way it works.

I do a lot of walks in the evening now, and that is extremely helpful for me, you know, just to go with the dog and whatever like at night. That's helpful for me. But I think like back then, it was long ago, like we didn't really have smartphones. We had cell phones, but we didn't start funds. We didn't have this like little thing pulling at us to distract us, this idea that we feel we need distracted,

which we really don't. And so you and I have traveled in the same circles for a long time, I mean probably all the way back into the time frame that your book talks about, which we're gonna get to in a minute, but we didn't really know each other. When we did meet was when I came back to recovery the second time I've been sober eight years. I went out, I drank again for three or four years.

I came back to a A and I met you, and you became my sponsor for a while, and that was really where our friendship sort of you know started, and has been very close since. As you were talking about that, I was thinking a little bit about sort of in Buddhism, the monastic path versus the layman's path, and I was thinking a little bit about my early days in a were a little bit like that was a little bit monastic, right, Like all I did was go to twelve step meetings, take care of myself, meditating.

I mean, I had all these I mean, that was my life, you know. And then career started getting to be something important, children and other relationships and and you know, and then I moved more into you know, if we were to use the Buddhist term, the lay person, you know had a life that that you know, mattered. And so it's been a process of really learning how do you live life in the world that you still remain connected to that deeper Yeah, I think that's the challenge

that we all face. I think it's growth. Though again we can look back fondly on that period of our life, but the other thing that I have to be honest about when I look at that, or might feel bad. You know, my depression might be really bad one day, or you know, something in my personal life isn't working out like like I like it. Try not to get

hooked onto those issues with that. So I think for me and what you have done is really transformed those early exercises that we did, those spiritual exercises that we were learning as part of that group, and the readings we did, and the hours of meditation and integrate that in our lives. I don't think I would be nearly as effective as a therapist or social worker if I didn't do all of that right, if I didn't have

that process. Although it's really easy for me to say, oh, I remember when I could you meditate twice a day for twenty minutes or an hour and every Sunday, you know, we would go to the meditation center that that we went to. How I would look forward to that. It's easy to romanticize that as we do the work that we do now, because like I said, I don't think I could be involved in the misery of people's lives

their existence as I do now. A friend of mine called me yesterday and said I read the book, and I'm paraphrasing here was basically she was like, I never realized how many burdens you carry for people. And my response was, I don't carry any I don't do that that. I'm trained enough or I'm realistic enough to not have that. Does that make sense totally? If you carried the burdens of everybody you worked with, I mean, your work is

filled with deeply suffering people. Yeah, you know a lot of whom don't get better, you know, and if you carried that, it would crush you, It would crush me. So I tend to live life with acceptance and non judgment. I'm not always successful, and especially with myself. I think I judged myself harder than I've ever judged anybody in my life, which is part of the trouble probably why I do what I do. Your book is I mentioned love, Death and Photosynthesis, and it is different than the normal

sort of book we have on here. It's really a I guess I would call it a memoir, but it's not a sequential memoir. How would you describe it? I don't really know. So it's a book about music, but not music, because it's a book about friendship, it's a book about substance abuse, it's a book about mental illness, and there's also a book about failures of like the system. Right.

I didn't set out to write a book, So even the nonlinear arrangement of the book where it goes from one year to a different year and then it might jump from to nineteen seventy seven to two thousand and eight back to because I didn't intend to write a book. But memory and emotions aren't linear. So we hear something, where we see something, or we're with somebody may bring

back a Russian memory or a Russia of emotions. So that non linear narrative to me was having the freedom because I'm not a writer by profession, A allowed me to concentrate on whatever I was writing about in that moment. And I didn't want to have a story arc where like Jenny May, she was born and she had all this potential and promise and she died from alcoholism and

her mental illness. Somebody just wrote in the Wire did a review of it Byron Coley, and he really eloquently said, you know, her life was a was a slow dance towards death basically, and it's true, but I didn't want her story to be that. I wanted to infuse everything with the humor and the time that we lived in without one romanticizing it, and not to have it filled with pathos as well. And so the book is again you mentioned, it's about friendship, it's about music. Besides you,

there are two main characters. There's a whole cast of characters, people in the Columbus music scene in the you know, late eighties through now. Really, so there's a cast of characters, but the two main people are two of your best friends, who are both now dead. You know, I think the way you wrote it does allow us to experience those people without it being so linear, to really experience the moments of their life, like them alive, like you really

bring them to life. Thank you. Yeah, I think if you're somebody who was somewhat fortunate not to have a child early, because none of us had kids at that time, from our early twenties up until our our thirties. I certainly didn't have children until late, you know, late thirties. But living in that world, that underground rock scene or art scene that many of us who felt like misfits

or unmoored as children were attracted to that. I think people, even though it's based in Columbus, most people who lived through that kind of lifestyle, No, somebody like Jenny May and Jerry Wick who struggled with not just substance abuse and men alonness like we mentioned, but also expectations for themselves and trying to reconcile that with the way they were raised and what happened to them trying to navigate that.

And in the middle of that there was me with with my own substance abuse issues and my own issues with depression. I talk about a suicide attempt I had fairly young in my early twenties of eventually getting sober and finding this spiritual path that I've tried and still try struggling with incorporate in my life of I came out, and then Jerry died fairly young, and then Jenny didn't. I mean, she never got out of the clutches of

mental illness and substance abuse and it killed her. And I tend to think what if Jerry could have had followed the path that I had, his own path, and I think he was there. I think he was right there. He died fairly young. He was a year or two older than me, so he was around the same age as I was when I got sober, and I know that was it was something he was struggling with. But he was working and he had just bought a house,

so what would have been for him. So they both died, and then he was at the four and he couldn't make that decision of where he was going to go. And then so I went this way and Jenny went

this way. That raises some really interesting questions because you and Jenny may come from the same small town, you live the same chaotic early adulthood life of music and sex and drugs and rock and roll, all that stuff, and then your paths do diverge, and yours leads towards sobriety, recovery all that, and Jenny's is just I think that line of a slow dance towards death is a good one, Like she just stayed on the path of mental illness

and alcoholism and never got better. And looking at that from the outside, it raises a question that I know you have no answer for. What's the difference? What caused you to be able to go on direction? Jenny to go the other. And I know you wrestle with this question because you work with people all day long who have substance abuse and mental health issues. And so is there anything you can glean about this great mystery of

why some of us make it and others don't. So I'm gonna put on my sort of professory social work hat here so and change behavior. For people to change, they need several different types of support in their life. If they don't have those changes almost impossible. I don't want to say entirely impossible, but it's very difficult. So when we look at change that people need in their lives too, for instance, change their relationship with substances. One

is they need access to healthcare. They need an income. They also need the support of a community, whether that is a partner, whether whether that is a family, whether that is friends, whether that is a faith based community, or whether a twelve step group, and they need to have access to it. So they need to have access to transportation, they need for the most part, not entirely,

but they need some stability in their life. They need housed. Basically, they need at least three of those things in their life to change with Jenny, she didn't have very many of those things. She did best in her life when she was married. She was more successful in her life in managing what was going on when she was involved in like a music community, which she was. Her life really took a nose dive when she moved to Miami and she was away from that community and she got

really involved. She went from alcohol to cocaine, and her mental illness got worse and worse than worse, and it wasn't long before the one support she had in her life and he died, that she became homeless. There's also

the issue of trauma that people experience. The trauma she experienced growing up, the trauma that she experienced as a woman was much worse than the trauma that I had, which involves when people have trauma at an early age, their trust mechanism is broken and it takes a long time to repair that and some people it's never fully repaired.

And so for her, for instance, when she first started getting help seeking help for her substances use, which she was somewhat ambivalent always about, but the focus on her when she encountered that system was not treating her mental illness. It was a lot of blaming her for being having a severe alcohol problem. I'm also really mindful of the terminology I use, so I try not to ever use the term addiction, which implies that somebody's sort of cursed

and there's a stigma attached to it. So I always try to use the clinical term substance abuse and a relationship. I think it's important the language we used to define our problems is extremely important because there's so much shame. I also don't use the term denial. Most people who have substance abuse issues or any sort of compulsive behavior who are well aware of it. So I want to add that because I think that's really important for the listeners to hear that, and they may be saying, why

is he using these terms? So when she was introduced to the system of help, there was a lot of blame from professionals with her. And the fact is that she had Schizzo effective disorder that was not diagnosed for many, many, many years. That a lot of her behavior was blamed, even when she was experiencing severe hallucinations and extreme paranoia even in the hospital, they would blame it on alcohol withdraw or cocaine psychosis, even some of the health care

issues that she was experienced. She had a heart condition that went undiagnosed for years because doctors said, oh, she's she's a heavy drinker, and she did. I've known a lot of heavy drinkers, and she drank more than maybe anybody I ever met. That the system that was there built for her wasn't supportive. Whereas for me, when I quit drinking, I had a wife who had insurance, I didn't have to work, I had transportation, I was in a commune entity that embraced me. I didn't have all

the trust issues. So, in our long, roundabout way, that's why I feel I was quote successful and she wasn't. It's really easy for people to sort of have knee jerk reactions when dealing with substance abuse and mental illness because it's in our mind, and our whole lives are based off the perspective of our mind, so we feel we have some control over it, and we project those subconsciously on those who are really suffering, saying why don't they do anything about how can they do that? How

can she do that? How can he do that? How can he ignore his kids and use all the rent money shooting drugs where so much more complicated than that. I heard a term the other day. You probably are familiar with it in your professional life, but the term was recovery capital, and the idea was, you know that certain people have more recovery capital. I often talked about this, you know, when I got sober the first time I

didn't go to jail. I was gripping treatment as an option once I sobered up, I had a family to go to. I had been raised in an upper middle class, so I had a high school diploma. I had a recovery capital that the people that I went through treatment with and I went through the House of Hope with, and the long term treatment simply didn't have concept of

recovery capital. Is is really really important? And still we can quantify all those things, and then there's still a mystery of why some people who seem to have no recovery capital do it, and other people who seem to have all the recovery capital in the world don't do it. Don't make it, you know, And so at the same time, there's this element of choice, but how much choice an individual has. I find a fascinating idea or concept, you know, if we talk about the level of choice you had

about taking a drink versus Jenny May had. Those might be very different levels of choice. So exactly what I was talking about was the recovery capital. And I like that idea that that you bring up choice because there is choice in it, but there's also one of having faith in your choices, of am I making the right choice? Do I have the internal apparatus to stick with those choices? Was I taught about those choices? We don't always know, so we don't know what somebody who we feel has

all that capital. What were they taught? Were they shamed constantly by their father? Was there some abuse issues going on? And then at the end of the day, there are some people that just want that life. And what I try to really do is live a life of non judgment. Especially for those people. I think it is so important to enter that relationship with the person I'm helping and just building trust, just being there present for that person.

Everything else comes after that, and sometimes that person won't change in the way that I wish they would, but also realizing maybe for that hour I'm with them, or maybe for that brief period there and treatment, their life is better that they feel better about themselves, that they have some hope in that moment, or that I make them laugh, that I bring some levity to their life.

What I always find is that people who are homeless, people who have substance abuse issues, people who have relationship issues, there's a humor there, and there's always that common ground. And we know laughter brings out neuer transmitters. We feel better, releases stress. That is so so so important for me and how I live my life. You know, you and

I laugh quite a bit. In fact, we were struggling about how we're going to get through this interview because we're just going to be laughing the entire way, and we took ten minutes to get it started because we were laughing, and now we're being very serious. But this nuanced idea is one I think that I think about a lot, and my thinking has changed a ton on this from the ideas I had when I came into

a twelve step program to where they are now. It is that element of for me, trying to walk that line in my own life and in the lives of people that look to me for any sort of helper guidance is sort of honoring the weights that they carry, but also showing them a vision beyond that, but not judging them if they can't quite get to it. It's

a very subtle thing. I saw gobor Mates speak. He I went to a training he did UM conference in Chicago some years ago, and I know he's been a guest on it, but he said something that that struck me, which was weird because I was sitting in the front. I have a d h D, so I have to, like, if I really want to be present, I have to sit in the front. And the night before I was actually sort of like stalking him. And he's small, he's Jewish. He actually looks a little bit like lou Reid. So

I had this weird thing. When I was seventeen and I met lou Reed, I was like, oh ship, there's goodle on my taste. I was like kind of followed him around. He's like a rock star in my world. So it was interesting. He was talking and so I had lou Reid in my head and and he said this thing. So he's talking to uh, you know, three hundred clinicians, and said, we need to be the mirror

to the people we serve, to give them hope. That's our most important job, which was crazy because like I'm freaking out in that moment because I'll be your mirror is one of my favorite Velbot Underground songs, and I'm thinking about it, and I just I was like, oh, sure, um, but that's true. We have to provide the hope. And I feel once we have the knowledge, like once you have the knowledge, and in a a is like once your cucumber to a pickle, you can't go back to

being a cucumber. Once we have knowledge of something, we cannot then unpretended we don't have the knowledge, which is I guess can be a curse at times because there are there are things that I would like to do that I can't necessarily do because I have the knowledge of how unhealthy if I take a drink for myself, I know what comes after that. I know that button

and me for myself is broken. So being able to carry the knowledge I have in the experience I have when I'm with somebody and giving them the hope, but also honoring the life that they've lived that has brought them to me, whether they're core ordered or whatever that looks like they're they're earlier, we talked about choice when they're they're seeking help. No matter what the motivation is, they're still there because at the end of the day,

people can choose to take their own life. They can choose to pick up a drink, they can choose to misbehave sexually whatever, or gamble whatever that looks like for them. But in that moment, they're with us. Whether it's in a client therapyist or spiritual advisor relationship, or whether it's our partner or our child, in that moment there with us.

It sounds kind of corny, but that's the sacred space and trying to build that and be present for that is imperative to be effective, not just for me as a clinician, but as a person. How do you flip from being the helper, the wise one, the guy who you know is gotta. I don't know what sort of degrees you have, but plenty of degrees, and yet being a person who at the same time needs to get help also. Has that been challenging for you or have

you been pretty good at navigating that. You probably know this answer because at one one time in the twelve step programs, I was your sponsor. But you know, over the years, as some of the issues I've had. If we had a scale, I'd probably come to you more for advice over the years then you did me early on. There is that tendency for me to hide too. As my therapist tells me, lean in when you want to

pull away, lean in. He also talks a lot about parenting the subconscious which my motivation is subconsciously is to want to feel accepted, is to want to feel loved. Whereas, deep down, because of the way I lived my life, in the way I was raised, there's this part of

me that feels completely will always feel somewhat unloved. So learning how to parent that and learning how to parent that part of me also involves seeking help, of being confessional, of trying to live a transparent life, which is really difficult as an adult who grew up with secrets that I can say. In all my relationships, it's always been an issue of I try to live a very honest life, but sometimes we don't even know the secrets we have, and we feed those secrets in really supplemental ways or

sometimes overtly ways. So one thing I do is I tell the people I'm involved with who are close to me, is I have depression. I have a d h D. I have these issues in my life. Please be aware of these and help me with those when I need to help. But I also I go to therapy, and whenever I feel myself being pulled one way, I call

my therapist and say I need help with this. So again, like with expectations, like we're talking about expectations earlier with the book, I don't want to have expectations for the book because the book was supposed to be out pre COVID, and of course that set it aside of As expectations ramp up for me, the depression rises. And that's all internal of something that should be joyous and happy. There's this way and that way is that old subconscious part

of me. But it's not the bad wolf. It's just they're of learning not to judge that or feeling bad about it. Right right, I think that's the thing is going well, okay. The wiser part of me does not want to have expectations about how well this book does. I know that tying myself to that sort of external measure of success is a bad idea, etcetera, etcetera. And and we we nurture and culture that and then recognizing there's another part of it. It's like, I really want

this thing to do good? How's it doing? And when we see that part, not looking at it and judge it and just going, oh, yeah, of course it's there, all right, that's I'm a human and it's it's okay to have want to have Paul Rubens play me in a movie. Who would play you in the movie, Paul, I don't think so. Paul Giamati. Maybe is that that's how you say that guys do? Yeah, he might be more on on point for you. Maybe he's already played me in Sideways. So let's have you read a section

from the book. I mean, one of the most powerful parts of this book to me was the juxtaposition of you getting sober and having children and the love of your family alongside Jenny's deterioration. It's so stark to me those two things. And there's a paragraph in the book that I think speaks a little bit towards that that I would like to ask you to read. I once had a dream I had to beat the devil. Literally. He was completely black, like a shadow, but also shiny, metallic.

He had no features, just solid mass of slick, black nothingness, a moving whole of darkness. I felt him hunting me down. I felt his presence, and in the dream the hairs on my arms stood at attention, and the pleasure of rising fear surrounded me until I was almost connected to the devil, just inches away. The realization arose that I would be consumed by the devil if I could not

think of how to beat him. He slipped. They're around me, tall, thin and whispy, as if he were a cloak, the evil flecking off him as if he were an active volcano. There was only one way to conquer him. But how Knowing the devil communicates and riddles, I had to think quick let the answer come to me, And I knew it had to be obvious, because evil is never that complicated. So I thought of my young daughter and all the

love I had for her. I leaned in and hugged the devil, and with that the action of love, the evil from the devil melted away. I had beaten the devil. Thinking of your daughter, sometimes it is that simple reminds me of the old Buddhist tale of Milorapa, who comes home in a cave full of demons, trying to get the demons to leave. I'm going to shorten the story, but eventually the way he gets rid of the worst demon as he put his head in the demon's mouth

and just said, okay, have that here. I am you know, similar story, but I just love that anchoring to something as simple as the love of your kids. It's really easy to see the world as me versus them, or us versus them, or focusing on the one thing. This morning, I was speaking of children. I was meditating this morning, and my daughter, who's just oblivious to what's going on, sat down across from me and poured a bowl of popcorn. And first, it was early in the morning, so I

was disgusted that she was eating popcorn. But she was completely enjoying the popcorn. I e eating it very obnoxiously, and I had to in that moment remind myself because I was so tempted to say, put the popcorn away, eat with your mouth, clothes, don't smack. But in that moment, I had to remind myself, she's really enjoying the popcorn.

Allow her that. Even though I really wanted to turn that moment into my moment, when it's our moment, because we're all exist in the world, so learning how to take the pause and realizing that we all, we all are a fountain of love that we sometimes don't understand. So yeah, I love that. Nothing is funny to me is meditating with the goal of allowing whatever arises to arise and disappear, and then find something really annoying arising

and being like that should not be happening. And if I wasn't meditating, I would never catch it when it arises. As I'm actually meditating, I find it both funny because I still am like, stop eating popcorn, you know, and I then can also pause and be like, all right, hang on, can I do this differently? I think it gets so complicated too with kids, because then it's not just well do I want that going on around me or not? Then the whole complication of what role do

I have in teaching them, in guiding them. I mean, it just gets so complicated. It gets very complicated, and sometimes I feel so sensitive to everything around me. And right now, as you were talking, I was thinking about whenever I'm on a zoom meeting at work on Tuesday mornings, they come and cut the grass like every morning. So

when you mentioned that I was. I was thinking, Oh, it's like when my Tuesday morning meeting, they're cutting the grass and as I'm thinking about that, there's a longlower outside where that dude's just doing his job. It's funny. I've joked before that my greatest like my my co on in life, are gas powered leaf blowers. They are so loud, they are so obnoxious. Said to Jenny the other issues like, how do you feel about edgers? I was like, oh, edgers are okay. I mean, they're loud,

but you need an edger. She's like, what is it you think these guys with the leaf blowers are gonna do. I was like, well, how about a broom? And she's like, they can't use a about a rake? How about just letting the leaves be where they're at? Just let them be. It's so funny. But like you said, that guy's just mowing his grass just and to him, the center of the world is him mowing his grass, And to us, the center of the world is sitting right in this

ro and everybody has that experience. And he might in the center of the world. He might be loving, that might be his away from whatever is going on in his house and his head He might have his headphones on. Of course you can't hear him because the thing is on, But you know, he might be just really enjoying himself. This is his moment, and I'm judging him because he's interfering with us. Who would be mowing their grass on a Sunday afternoon, for God's sake, Dick day of the Lord.

Let's talk about music for a second. You've got a line in the book that I loved music was the bomb that allowed a mind to turn off and get lost in the wonder of being. I just think that's a great line. And you and I are both huge music fans. I mean, you know a lot of our lives have been oriented around it. You still own a record label of released tons of records, so music has been centrally important to you. Talk about the role that music plays in your life today and also just in

your healing and recovery. From my earliest age, I loved music. I still remember at folk waves records growing up, and I listen to them from my earliest age. And I discovered music really third grade, when my family had moved. I think I was going on my like fourth school or something it was. It was pretty crazy, but just discovering I could like put on a record and be lost. And people who have substance abuse issues tend to actually

process the environment differently. You probably know this already, but what is going on our physical environment, we process it differently. And so with music, I have such a strong emotional connection to it. It's always been the one thing I could trust more than anything, and it has always been able to reflect what I'm feeling inside or what I

aspire to feel inside. So if I was going to go out drinking or whatever, you know, I could put on a Ramons record or a Rolling Stones record, where when I got home at three o'clock that night, I could put on a Town's fans Ant record, or Tim Harden record or phil Oaks record, which was usually assigned not to be disturbed by whomever I was living with. At this point, I buy music a lot. Every week, I listened to music constantly. I don't I watch very

little television. I don't really enjoy movies that much, but I can always get lost in music. So I'm listening to it constantly at the gym, in my car at home, whether it's classical music or whether it's rock or I've been listening to a lot of reggae this year. That it is this opportunity to feel safe and to either, like I said, affirm my mood or change my mood. And you know, it's safer in some ways than sex. It's safer than coffee, It's safer than all of these

other things. I do wish because I have people in my family who I love deeply, like I love my sister deeply and my mom, but they don't have this relationship with music that I have, and I think it's

important for me to keep cultivating that. When I got sober, I really looked for artists that had the same experience as me, or that I knew they did, whether it was There's a series of Blue Reed records in the eighties that I call his Sobriety Records where he quit drinking with the Blue Mask and then legendary Hearts and New Sensations. Those are like his Sobriety trilogy. Those songs, even though I listened to him when I was younger, when I got sober, really made an impact on me.

Some of the Nick Cave records, a lot of spiritual type records of Van Morrison, and then a lot of classical choral music always has moved me, and I found solace in that. It was interesting. I always listened to a lot of country music, especially when I was drinking, George Jones, Merle Haggard, so on and so forth, and for years I couldn't listen to any because it was

too triggering for me. And now I can listen to those records and really really appreciate them in a different way without having to be pulled towards the bottle or pulled towards self pity, I guess, which is so common with substance use. Yeah, I think what you said there's really interesting to use it to either affirm or change my mood. It is helpful sometimes to affirm our mood, to feel what we're feeling and hear somebody else say it, and then sometimes it's really helpful to have it changed,

and it's interesting. I have a similar relationship with certain types of music that used to really speak to me that don't in the same way anymore now that I live a life that's you know, I guess focused on trying to heal or become better. I lost my love of just the complete darkness with no light stuff. I kind of want, you know, not hallmark redemption, but some

kind of redemption. I want, hope something. When you were talking, Eric, I was thinking about connectivity, which really is the one thread I think throughout the book, like searching to be connected, whether through substance abuse, whether through music. I think music is the core of it, even more than substance abuse or sex or friendship. Is like music is the one thing that that really binds us together. And that world that I lived and in the world I still live

in of wanting this yearning to feel connected. Music offers that, and it offers it for free, and there's nothing for For me. There was nothing greater at times than being in a room full of people, and I've always been somebody that had to be up next to of the stage. What I realized later was that had to do with my own social anxiety is being up front. I'm not in a crowd of hate being in a crowd. I don't even like going to the grocery store. But when I was up front, it was like me and then

the music and feeling that go through me. And it is still important. Of course, we miss that with with the way the world is right now. But being in a room full of people who are also feeling that is quite an experience that in some ways, like a crowded bar, crowded nightclub with like loud guitars, I fell at home because everybody was experiencing the same thing and it was joyous and it was wonderful, and it was unspoken. You didn't have to explain anything of what was going

on because we all felt it. And even in relationships, like even in really intimate moment mens like the best most profound intimate moments for me is when I don't have to speak or explain myself. When I'm with somebody, whether it's a partner, whether it's my children, whether whatever that is, I don't have to say anything that we just get it. We just get it. We're just holding hands or making love or laughing in that moment of

laughter where boom, it's it's like electricity. Yeah. I often think music for me is one of the easiest pathways into emotions, which are often something that I can be an arms distance from music and the other one is witnessing some act of genuine kindness. Those two things sort of like plug me right, sort of back into the heart um and so music has been reliable in that way for a long time. My kids love music. I really like listening to music with both of them because

they both have pretty good taste. I mean something some of my son will put on the mumble rap, although he's growing out of that, seeing them get lost in it and being being able to appreciate. My daughter really likes a lot of the newer female songwriters, Phoebe Bredgers, and she really likes Taylor Swift and Lucy Dacas that listening to those and remember like driving around and playing R a M. For my mom when I was fifteen. My mom was like listening to it and talking about it.

That again, like okay, what else, We're not going to talk about anything else, but we were experiencing this together. Yeah, that is a moment I felt like never got with my parents. And my memory is so bad, but I have a clear memory of my father and I don't have a lot of them, but I have one clear, very emotional moment. It was shortly after him and my mom divorced and I was in the car with him and I don't know who this song is. You know

that ain't nothing going to break him us ride. You know, that one was that I want to say Billy Ocean, but I don't think it is. And my dad looked at me and he said, this is kind of my theme song. And for my dad, that was a big opening of emotion. You know, that he would need a song to encourage him, to strengthen him. That was a revelation to me that, like I did, I mean, I needed songs all the time. That is about the only

glimpse I've seen of the same passion. And of course it's not a great song, but yeah, you're like, Dad, really Dad song, Well that's why we don't get along exactly. Although that song has a special place to me because of that that memory. That's funny you mentioned that because I had a stepfather. My mom married a Methodist minister and he had some pretty severe depression and some alcohol issues. He was a nice guy, but I remember one time he was driving me to the airport. I was third

grade or fourth grade. He was driving me the airport. I was flying back because I was living with my dad, and uh, a doctor hook song came in and I'm trying to think what spending the night together. It's a terrible song eight, but he was singing it, and uh, I remember that year I asked for that record for my birthday, which it's a terrible record, but because in that moment of this cold man, he was being real and singing along with this song. So I realized I

connected with him in that moment. And still every time I hear that song, which I want to say intentionally is not very often, but but if I hear that song, I still have the record. Uh, just because it holds that space for me. Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up sharing memories of music and our parents. The book is wonderful listeners, I highly recommend it. It is a great book. We'll have links to it in the show notes. And Baila, thanks

so much for coming on. I've been wanting to do this for a long time. Thank you, Eric and Chris. I shocked that we made it through an hour without curse words and saying something really obnoxious and cackling. We did pretty good. We did pretty good, and so I'm very proud of us. But again, uh, it means a lot that you invited me on, that you took the time in the generosity to read the book and Uh, that's like such a humbling thing when people read or

listen to something you put out in the world. So thank you. I appreciate it. Indeed, it is thank you m If what you just heard was helpful to you, Please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community. With this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now. We are so grateful for the members of our community.

We wouldn't be able to do what we do without their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted. To learn more, make a donation at any level and become a member of the one you Feed community. Go to when you feed dot net slash Join The One You Feed podcast. Would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.