Light Hustler: Making Your Mess Into Your Message

Writer Ethlie Ann Vare is a woman of many hats: a prolific TV and film writer, she's also the author of Love Addict: Sex, Romance and Other Dangerous Drugs, as well as 10 other books. Her popular blog AttentionDeficitDisorder expands on much of what's in Love Addict—namely, her own experiences with sex and love addiction, her recovery from it and information for potential SLA's out there. Have we mentioned that she's also been a rock critic for Billboard, Variety and The Hollywood Reporter as well as an E! TV talking head, not to mention the fact that she's a serious historian? Oh and guess what? You can get answers to your sex and love addiction related questions on that aforementioned blog of hers. (Teaser: she's also going to be answering some questions soon enough on AfterPartyChat.) In this episode, she and AfterParty's Anna David discuss bottoming out on love addiction, the time she spent in jail for drug dealing, the husband that got her into that and much, much more.

Musician Aaron Akins has opened for Bob Hope, contributed to various projects for Russell Simmons Television and performed everywhere from a festival in Jakarta, Indonesia to the House of Blues on the Sunset strip. He's also performed at the Vatican and at the annual Music Cares benefit. But if there's anything Akins likes talking about more than his singing (and acting) career, it's his passion for recovery. This is a guy who firmly believes that healthy thinking is the direct result of a connection with a Higher Power—and isn't shy about telling people as much. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David discuss what it's like to be constantly surprised by alcoholic thinking, suddenly becoming convinced your sponsor hates you and how a police chase can convince you to give sobriety another try, among other topics.

Author Patrick O'Neil is not only one of AfterPartyChat's most talented authors; he's also a former roadie, author of the forthcoming memoir Gun Needle Spoon and alumni of what he calls "several bad bands." And boy did this guy love heroin: he shot it for 10 years, only taking a respite to shoot speed because he thought it would cut down on his heroin cravings (and it did!) That love for heroin took him to some extreme places—most notably bank robbing, a topic he's written about here, and which eventually got him busted and sent to jail. Though jail was a reunion of sorts with his former junkie pals, he managed to get strung out there as well. After a behavior modification program left him sober but without any support system, O'Neil eventually turned up at the Salvation Army rehab in San Francisco and, despite these low-bottom circumstances, has stayed sober nearly 14 years. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talk about his struggles with bulimia, getting kicked off of Lollapalooza and just how

Recovery coach and one of the stars of the A&E show Relapse, Patty Powers has led what in any context or circles would be called an interesting life. Growing up in Canada, she experimented first with acid but when she moved to New York City at the age of 17, graduated right to heroin. And rest assured she was doing the whole underground New York deal: living at the Chelsea Hotel, hanging out at CBGB's and even working with Andy Warhol. Of course, the fabulous life had to unravel at some point and unravel it did—to the point when Powers was living in an abandoned building, getting robbed by her homeless friends and planning to kill one of her abandoned building "housemates." Now sober 26 years, Powers has managed to build up a massive business as a recovery coach, traveling the world with musicians and other clients and helping them to stay sober while also working on more creative pursuits (including writing for AfterPartyChat). In this episode, she and AfterParty's Anna David discuss how hard she had to

Actor and director Ronnie Marmo may be a soap star but the truth is he's so very much more. Sure, he played Ronnie Domestico for three years on General Hospital (yeah, the character was written for him) but his main passion is directing theater. The Artistic Director and Cofounder of Theatre68 (which has an outpost in New York as well as LA), Marmo has produced over 30 plays, including the critically acclaimed Bill W. and Dr. Bob (in which he's also played Bill). He's also been in numerous feature films and guest starred on Jag and The Young and the Restless, among others. But more significantly, he's been sober over two decades after years of crack addiction and drug dealing led to him coming to at a San Diego 12-step picnic (you gotta listen to get the whole story). In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talk about hating the taste of beer, why the whole world could benefit from 12-step and always imagining dying young, among many other topics. Photo courtesy of Cinesnatch

Us Weekly TV critic John Griffiths is on the public awareness task force for the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention and is the founder and president of the Gay & Lesbian Entertainment Critics Association. Yet the 51-year-old Angeleno wasn't always such a do-gooder. After having his first drink at five (!), little Davy Griffiths (as he was known then) eventually ended up at USC, dreaming of being a TV programming executive a la Brandon Tartikoff but spending more time being the guy who talked about wanting to be a network executive while actually being the life of the party. Despite the chemical chaos racing through his system (alcohol! pot! ecstasy! meth!), Griffiths was able to build a successful writing career, first at People magazine (where he and I first met) and then as a contributor to such magazines as Cosmo, Redbook, The Advocate and In Style, among others. In this episode, he and AfterParty s Anna David talk about how fussy kids can turn into alcoholic adults, discovering hookers an

Actress Mo Gaffney was on the seminal show Absolutely Fabulous and rest assured she is absolutely fabulous. After launching to stardom with the off-Broadway show The Kathy and Mo Show (which she created with friend Kathy Najimy), Gaffney went on to: a) Win Obie awards for it; b) Make it into an HBO show; c) Work non-stop, on everything from That '70s Show to Friends to Mad About You to Mike & Molly to pretty much every other show you can name. It may be inappropriate to say this when you're writing about a recovery podcast but it's clear Gaffney was what's known as a fun drunk. Still, after becoming a mom and noticing, increasingly, how drinking was negatively impacting her life, she sobered up—joining five other siblings and her mom in recovery. In this episode, she and AfterParty's Anna David discuss martinis, pretending to take ecstasy, missing smoking and craving a companion to read with, among many other topics. Photo courtesy of AfterPartyChat

Yoga and recovery expert Tommy Rosen is, despite his serenity, not a man who sits still very long. The Hatha and Kundalini yoga teacher (who's been sober for 23 years) has been one of the pioneers of the yoga-recovery model (in short, practicing certain types of yoga can help your recovery—a lot). He's also created a new movement called Recovery 2.0, which launched as an online conference series that featured such luminaries as Dr. Gabor Mate and Richard Branson (as well as AfterParty's Anna David). Now he's published the remarkable Recovery 2.0 book and is touring the world sharing the principles from it. He does all this, by the way, when not hosting retreats with his wife Kia Miller (also a yoga teacher). In this episode, he and David talk about getting addicted to sugar before drugs, discovering (and being saved by) the Grateful Dead and acting out in sobriety (girls! gambling!), among many other topics. Photo courtesy of HuffPo  

Comic Lisa Sundstedt has not only written on and produced such TV shows as Girls Behaving Badly, The Chelsea Handler Show and Chelsea Lately but she’s also the creator of the longest-lasting all female comedy show in the country. Yep, that’s right; Pretty, Funny Women has featured everyone from Chelsea Handler and Margaret Cho to Natasha Leggero, Maria Bamford, Stefanie Wilder-Taylor and AfterParty’s own Danielle Stewart. But it’s not all pretty, funny performances for Sundstedt: she’s also a bipolar alcoholic who speaks openly about these issues (including the fact that she lost her Chelsea Lately job because of one of her bipolar episodes). In this episode, she and I talk about the way your scores can change when you take quizzes to see if you’re alcoholic, how depression and pot smoking is prevalent in the comedy community and being a non drug taking alcoholic, among other topics. Photo courtesy of AfterPartyChat  

Comedian Sarge Pickman is less a comedian who talks about his recovery and more a recovering addict who incorporates his comedic gifts into the work that he does. While he started off working the comedy circuit in LA and still does plenty of comedy gigs, Pickman's main career path these days is leading groups at treatment centers, doing what's known in the recovery world as in-the-trenches work. The Sarge story, in short, is this: Florida-born and dwelling, Pickman was adopted by Jewish parents and raised on Long Island where, as a mixed race youth, he suffered from plenty of identity confusion. Drugs and alcohol helped him to handle these feelings and all that led where addiction can lead—to homelessness, hanging out under the Manhattan Bridge and feeling hopeless. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talk about smoking angel dust, realizing that chasing stardom is an empty goal and realizing an ultimate purpose, among many other topics. Photo courtesy of DPreview

Comedian and entrepreneur Claude Shires is no ordinary comedian or entrepreneur (um, to start with, you don't see that hybrid too often, amIright?) The Florida-reared husband and father was sent to a year-long treatment program at the age of 17, after which he enrolled in the military—where he stayed for five years. Moves to Boulder, Colorado and San Diego followed before he relocated to LA to pursue stand-up comedy. (While he didn't end up staying sober consistently that entire time, he's now been sober 17 years.) While becoming a working comic, he started an editing company, UnReel Media (which he still runs), and is also now the co-creator of TubeStart, a Kickstarter for TV and film. Have I mentioned that his dad is one of the doctors who invented Gatorade? In this episode, he and I discuss unemotional fathers, whether or not drinking non-alcoholic beer is a slippery slope and why women love men who are in therapy, among many other topics. Photo courtesy of UnreelLA  

Writer Alice Carbone has not been afraid to explore the dark side—in her blog, her podcast and her essays for AfterPartyChat. But as her more recent pieces have shown, she explores the lighter side just as poignantly. Carbone's story in brief: after moving to California from her native Italy in 2010, she lost everything and found sobriety—and eventually happiness. The author of The Sex Girl (due out this May, 2015 from Rare Bird Books), Carbone is currently working on her second novel and developing her podcast and blog as a TV show. In this episode, she and AfterParty’s Anna David discuss what Carbone’s bottom looked like, the mentors who have helped her along the way (Leonard Cohen!) and how to tell the difference between serenity and external circumstances going well, among many other topics. Photo courtesy of AliceCarbone  

For reals, what is there to say about Moby that hasn't already been said? (Well, there's one thing that's at least never been in print: How f-ing psyched are you that he agreed to do AfterPartyPod?) The legendary musician, who burst onto the scene with his fifth studio album, Play, is also a DJ, photographer and soon-to-be memoirist (we all know he's a descendant of Herman Melville, right?) And it's not just his own music he's had a hand in; the active animal rights supporter has remixed, co-written and produced music for many of the other greats. But we can find all that out everywhere so let's talk about his sobriety. After a bout with sobriety when he was a Christian, Moby developed this reputation as something of a puritan. But he was actually boozing it up, as well as taking plenty of recreational illegal substances, while he brought the party back to his place. It wasn't until he got to his 40s and the hangovers started to get debilitating that he started to look at the possibility of sobriety. Now he's

Earwolf co-founder Jeff Ullrich is something of a podcast legend—ever since he and Scott Aukerman created the podcast network Earwolf in 2010. Now arguably the biggest network in the game, Earwolf hosts everything from Comedy Bang Bang (since turned into an IFC show), Kevin Pollak's Chat Show, Sklarboro Country, Who Charted? and How Did This Get Made? among many others. But Ullrich has actually recently left the company he launched (in his own words, he fired himself). Sober for two years and change, this is a guy who took a somewhat lengthy route to alcoholism: though he drank as a kid, he spent the next decade a teetotaler who lectured other people about partying before joining the heavy drinking brigade in his mid-20s. After a good run, though, it all got unmanageable by his late 30s and now he's navigating the next sober chapter of his life as a father and husband (cute fact: he grew up across the street from his wife). In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talk about supporting yourself by play

Comedian Mike Gaffney is a bit of an anomaly—a guy who got his start doing recovery-oriented comedy and has been able to build a solid career from there. Sober since 1983, Gaffney was a semi-finalist on Last Comic Standing (not to mention the guy who made judge Wanda Sykes cackle—no easy feat—and was featured in all the promos for the show). Though he'd been cracking people up since he was a kid, he didn't decide he wanted to pursue comedy until 2002; since then has appeared on The Artie Lange Show, Gotham Comedy Live and 30 Rock. He also performs all over the country and (like all of us) has his own podcast. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talked about his mom coming and yelling at his former drug dealers, why speakers in meetings always tend to look at him when they talk and how he might have won Last Comic if he'd managed to stay in the moment, among many other topics.

Comic, TV writer and podcaster Mick Betancourt is, to put it mildly, a survivor. The host of a popular podcast, Betancourt endured a childhood that might give Oliver Twist a run for his money. The offspring of teenagers, Betancourt went to live with his mom after his father died, where he withstood spirit-breaking abuse, started drinking seriously before he turned 10 and soon found himself taking on the role of designated driver when his mom took him to bars (no matter how wasted he was himself). When his beloved grandfather died and he was shuffled around a bit, he had to resort to panhandling and stealing in order to eat. He nevertheless launched a career as a comic and then managed to get sober a little over 12 years ago. A happily married father of two and TV staff writer (Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Chicago Fire, et. al), Betancourt is also one of the cheeriest people alive—and not in one of those I-swear-I'm-cheery ways. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David talk about finding a spi

TV writer and podcaster Caleb Bacon is not only on the writing staff of Vince Vaughn's TBS show Sullivan & Son and the host of the popular Man School podcast. He's also a journalist, sound expert, former weightlifter, San Fernando Valley resident—and many other things you'll discover when you listen to this episode. Oh! He's also sober seven years, after a drinking career that started when he made his first alcoholic concoction from his parents' liquor cabinet in junior high to his last night out there, which involved Special K, bus stop punching, nudity—and a 12-step call from his boss, NYPD Blue and Deadwood creator David Milch. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David discuss being low-achieving drunks, boozing in England, bottoming out in LA and why Disneyland sucks, among many other topics.

Comedian Alonzo Bodden is far more than just the winner of the third season of Last Comic Standing. The former aircraft mechanic had no idea he even wanted to pursue comedy until he got sober over two decades ago and met people in recovery who actually loved what they did for a living who all worked in the entertainment industry. (Also, he'd realized through sharing in the program—and also through teaching aircraft mechanics, arguably the least amusing topic in the world—that he was funny.) And so began a career that first started at the Montreal Just For Laughs Comedy Festival, has included appearances on Conan and Leno, acting roles in Scary Movie 4 and Bringing Down The House and hosting duties on 101 Cars You Must Drive and America's Worst Driver. In this episode, he and After Party's Anna David talk about hot women being one of AA's best initial attractions, discovering your dreams in recovery and how he donated his remarkably clean kidney to his brother, among many other topics.

Actress Morgan Walsh may look like the very picture of innocence but it took quite a journey for her to earn her sobriety. Now married to Veep star and UCB founder Matt Walsh and the mother of three, Morgan did the full alcoholic dance--drinking, passing out, smoking pot, doing coke, spending time in a psych ward---before eventually quitting drinking and continuing to smoke pot and then, when she got pregnant with her first baby, quitting it all. Despite all those babies, Morgan has appeared in a succession of shows and movies--including Burning Love, Children's Hospital, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and Happy Endings. In this episode, she and AfterParty's Anna David talk about bottoming out, quitting drinking but continuing to smoke pot and going from a single lady in Venice to a married mother of three, among many other topics.

Comedian John Heffron may have been introduced to the world at large when he won the second season of Last Comic Standing but he's been in the comedy game since college. Since then, there have been Comedy Central specials, The Tonight Show, Chelsea Lately and numerous VH1 talking head shows, among many other appearances. He's also been Danny Bonaduce's wingman on Detroit's number one radio show, appeared on Courtney Cox's Dirt and done stand up at numerous Fortune 500 companies. But he can also claim a gig that few comics can: an NA convention—an interesting irony because though he's been sober many years, he doesn't continue to go to meetings and disagrees with some 12-step tenets. Though Heffron doesn't recommend the path he's taken to other addicts, he's able to find freedom through a series of brain exercises and philosophies. In this episode, he and AfterParty's Anna David discuss why meetings make him want to drink, temporarily believing a shirt is going to fix things and the assistant we plan to share,