The Confidence of a White Man: A Discussion on Privilege in Pursuing Creative Pursuits • The speaker expresses confidence due to being a white man. • The confidence is built in due to privilege. • The speaker had family support for their creative pursuits. • The speaker had a safety net due to their station in life.
Speaker 1
Yes. I don’t know if you have noticed this, but I’m a white man. That is what gave me that confidence. I love that. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Sorry. I’m really unfamiliar with what you’re describing.
Speaker 1
It may be pixelated here, but I am a white man. The confidence is built in. You know, if I don’t have the confidence, it’s my own damn fault. But also I was lucky enough to have a family who had encouraged me in my creative pursuits. And so I thought, well, what’s the worst that can happen? You know, I don’t write 30 minutes worth of good songs and the 10 people in the coffee shop don’t like what I’m doing. Fine. I can handle that. And the reason I felt that way is because I knew there were people who cared about me in the world. And also I knew that any amount of embarrassment that I felt would go away soon because I would have other opportunities just because of my station in life. You know, I didn’t have any money at the time. My parents didn’t have any money and their parents didn’t have any money. But we had a lot of encouragement and we had very little resistance and I did feel sort of cushioned in a certain way. Like, you know, this is not going to end terribly.The Truth About Addiction and Personal Responsibility • The speaker admits to being emotionally and psychologically aggressive in the past. • The speaker wasn’t loyal to their first wife and broke promises. • Addiction was a scapegoat for the speaker’s actions, but not the actual cause. • A quote from a drive by trucker song is mentioned: ‘The liquor don’t make you do the thing. It just lets you.’
Speaker 1
And, and you know, I wasn’t like a physically aggressive person, but I can be emotionally and psychologically aggressive in a way that is very vicious and very harmful. I was just a mean bastard. I would say mean things to people and it would hurt their feelings. And you know, I wasn’t loyal to my first wife, I broke some promises and the bottom line, you know, you don’t do that. You don’t break promises. And, um, and I don’t want to say this is because I was an addict because it wasn’t. The truth is it wasn’t. It just, the addiction just gave me something else to blame for it. So, you know, addiction was a scapegoat for me because it’s so easy to say, well, I did do these things because I’m drunk. People do it all the time now still in these half ass fake apologies online, you know, but there’s a line in one of the old drive by trucker songs that my friend Mike Cooley wrote. He says, the liquor don’t make you do the thing. It just lets you and I always loved that line. I love that. It just allows you to be the asshole that you wanted to be.
Speaker 2
Um, so, you know, you eventually leave the ban. I mean, folks ask you to leave for a break and then it becomes a law extended break and, um, and you keep drinking, right?The Role of Song Writing in Sobriety • The speaker is now able to make more decisions for himself after getting sober. • He still makes mistakes but believes his average is getting better. • Getting sober allows him to make choices for himself, including being loyal to his wife and family. • He now decides when to go to bed, wake up, and how much time to devote to his art. • The role of songwriting in his sobriety is not yet discussed.
Speaker 1
Yes, all of it is still there. It’s all still there. That was me and this is me. Only now he gets to make more decisions, you know, rather than look up and think, how did I wind up here, you know? And I don’t always make the right decision, you know. I like to think my average is going up as time goes on. I’m just able to make the decision because I don’t have to choose to get another drink or to find whatever drug I was doing or to be around people because they have access to that or because They think it’s okay for me to behave that way. Like I just simply get to make the choices for myself, like the choice to be loyal to my wife and to my family. I get to make that choice, you know. And what time I go to bed, what time I get up in the morning, you know, how much time I devote to my art every day, these are things that I get to decide for myself now. Yeah.
Speaker 2
I’d love to dig into the role song writing has played in your sobriety because, you know, it strikes me that as a songwriter, you’re kind of getting this constant pulse of where you’re At emotionally, right? Based on based on what you’re expressing in your music or what you’re finding yourself incapable of expressing, right? You’re getting signals in both directions. And I think very few of us have a profession that serves as a mirror of sorts that’s constantly reflecting our emotional states back to us.The Role of Songwriting in Sobriety • Songwriting played a significant role in the speaker’s sobriety journey. • Songwriting allowed the speaker to have a constant reflection of their emotional state. • Before sobriety, the speaker wrote songs for an external audience, but after, they started writing songs about themselves and their own experiences.
Speaker 2
I’d love to dig into the role song writing has played in your sobriety because, you know, it strikes me that as a songwriter, you’re kind of getting this constant pulse of where you’re At emotionally, right? Based on based on what you’re expressing in your music or what you’re finding yourself incapable of expressing, right? You’re getting signals in both directions. And I think very few of us have a profession that serves as a mirror of sorts that’s constantly reflecting our emotional states back to us.
Speaker 1
Well, there was a huge shift in the reason I wrote songs around that period of time. So when I got sober, I was very, you know, wrong, like, like emotionally sunburned, you know, up until that point, I had been writing for an external audience. I had really been writing songs to show people what my experience was. You know, this is my family. This is my father. This is the place where I grew up. But then I sort of, you know, unconsciously started writing songs, you know, where I was looking at myself and I was trying to make some sort of estimation of who I was. And if I was doing okay, yeah, and that shift happened right then. And you know, I hate the term like confessional songwriter because I think that’s very limiting and sort of derogatory. But I think I went from trying to communicate withNavigating Addiction and the Challenges of Life • The lyrics ‘It gets easier, but it never gets easier’ resonates with many people navigating life’s challenges. • Villainizing past self and glorifying present self can stunt personal growth. • Romanticizing addiction can hinder progress towards recovery.
Speaker 5
It’s Easier, but It Never Gets Easier. I can say it’s all worth it, but you won’t believe me.
Speaker 4
Come down, you let the air swallow your pride.
Speaker 5
You’d rather keep it inside. It gets easier, but it never gets easier.
Speaker 2
First of all, I think that resonates with so many people, not even just those navigating addiction, but just navigating life and the challenges of life. I think that I found so much resonance in those lyrics. And, you know, I think this touches upon some of the themes that we’ve already talked about, which is about, you know, villainizing past self and maybe glorifying present self because You’re trying to create as much distance as possible between those two, right?
Speaker 1
I mean, it’s easy to tell yourself that, oh, I fixed it, you know, it’s fixed. It’s solved to go on that kind of cruise control and think, well, I haven’t had a drink today, so I can’t hurt anybody too bad or I can’t do anything too terrible. And, you know, that can stunt your growth as an adult by saying this one big issue, like it’s a version of romanticizing addiction and not necessarily in a positive way.Lessons Learned from Navigating Sobriety • The speaker learned a lot about himself during his journey to sobriety. • He realized how far he was from being a satisfied and contributing member of society. • The speaker had been stunting his own growth by avoiding learning about himself. • The process of self-discovery was enjoyable for the speaker.
Speaker 2
Having gone through, you know, a very arduous time when you were, you know, so often under the influence and then navigating sobriety, what’s the biggest thing you learned about yourself? What’s the biggest thing that changed in terms of your self-perception, your understanding of who you are?
Speaker 1
When I got sober, I had no idea how far I was from actually being a satisfied and contributing member of society. I thought that, you know, I’ve got a job. I entertain people. I’m able to get in the van and ride to these shows and play these shit. People like me. I’m funny. I have enough money to pay my bills. You know, I’m doing great. I’m doing a good job. You know, but I had no clue how many millions of miles away I was from being a satisfied and self-actualized person, how much more I had to learn about myself because I had just been putting That off for so long and so aggressively stunting my own growth because it hurt so much to learn that I wasn’t perfect. And as a flip side to that, I didn’t realize how much I would really enjoy the process of learning those things. I mean, going to therapy, you know, and also just searching on my own, going into every situation, thinking, how do I handle this as somebody who knows myself and loves myself?The Process of Self-Discovery in Sobriety • The speaker was surprised by how much they had to learn about themselves after getting sober and realized they had been stunting their own growth. • Learning about oneself can be a challenging but rewarding process through therapy and self-reflection.
Speaker 1
When I got sober, I had no idea how far I was from actually being a satisfied and contributing member of society. I thought that, you know, I’ve got a job. I entertain people. I’m able to get in the van and ride to these shows and play these shit. People like me. I’m funny. I have enough money to pay my bills. You know, I’m doing great. I’m doing a good job. You know, but I had no clue how many millions of miles away I was from being a satisfied and self-actualized person, how much more I had to learn about myself because I had just been putting That off for so long and so aggressively stunting my own growth because it hurt so much to learn that I wasn’t perfect. And as a flip side to that, I didn’t realize how much I would really enjoy the process of learning those things. I mean, going to therapy, you know, and also just searching on my own, going into every situation, thinking, how do I handle this as somebody who knows myself and loves myself? And, you know, that process has been really challenging and the best possible way for me. And it makes me feel like at the end of every day, I have attempted to make myself better. And therefore, I have attempted to make the world better.
Speaker 2
It’s so interesting. What I’m hearing, and this is reminding me of something you said early in the interview, is that the very same personality trait that leads you to fear something that immediately want To do it, like you did with alcohol.The Slippery Edge: A Personal Account of Boundary Testing at Niagara Falls • Some people prefer to stay behind guard rails instead of going to the edge when visiting Niagara Falls. • Others prefer to test boundaries and go right up to the edge. • Being an artist allows for healthy ways to test boundaries and reinterpret weaknesses as strengths.
Speaker 2
And there’s some of us. I don’t even, for what it’s worth, I don’t even go to the edge of the thing to look over. I’m like behind the guard rails, some, you know, 50 hundred feet away. All right. That’s probably, that’s probably the healthiest way to handle the whole situation. Like somebody go take a picture of that and bring it back and show it to them. I’ll just, I’ll just Google it. Niagara Falls image.
Speaker 1
Okay, great. Done. I’ll get a t-shirt. I was. But some of us have to go right up to the edge, you know, and I am that person. I have to go right up to the edge. And I’ve always been that person and that’s just how I am. And so, you know, I just, I like to test all those boundaries. And you know, luckily there are healthy ways for an artist to do that. I mean, that’s probably why I’m an artist, you know, yeah, I love when, I love when we can reinterpret what we initially code in our lives as being liabilities and weaknesses.
Speaker 2
And then you start to think, well, what are the flip sides of it? Like what are the benefits? And it seems like in your case, Jason, that it would have been so easy to say, oh, I have this really frustrating habit where when I fear something, I jump right in and I can’t wait to just Rid myself of that instinct. And yet here you are in a later stage of your life learning that there’s, there’s an upside and that when you channel some of those very same instincts in the right direction, you can, You can have beautiful changes that emerge, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I love that.Transcript Excerpt: Song Lyrics, Followed by Podcast Outro • The podcast passage does not provide any discernable information or key takeaways. • The passage ends with a teaser for the next episode featuring a guest named Nora McInerney as the next host.
Speaker 5
Hard on the road Keeps a hand on the ground I’m not on the run, keeps my hand on the gun I can’t trust it more I was so sure of what I needed was more Try to shoot out the sun The days when we raged
Speaker 4
We flew off the page And the damage was done But I made it through Cause somebody knew I was meant someone Hey, thanks for listening Join me next week when I talk with Nora McInerney Host
