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Information you need to live your best-recovered life. Join host Damon Frank as he brings you addiction recovery stories, news, expert perspectives, and features about life in sobriety and addiction recovery.
[Announcer]
You're listening to the Recovered Life Show, the show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives. And here is your host, Damon Frank.
[Damon Frank]
And welcome back to the Recovered Life Show. Look, we all know that recovery is serious business, guys, but taking yourself too seriously in recovery and that sober journey can spell disaster. I wanted to talk a little bit today about laughing, enjoying yourself in sobriety, and having a good time.
And I'm pleased to introduce my guest, Tim Grealish, to the show. Tim is an interventionist. He's located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
He's here to tell us about his experience in his recovery journey and also being an interventionist and also having a good time and laughing. Right, Tim?
[Tim Grealish]
That's exactly right. So good to have you on the show. Well, I can tell you, being from Pittsburgh, anybody that's in recovery that's either a Baltimore Ravens fan or a Cleveland Browns fan, you probably need some mental health help because there's something terribly wrong with you if you're not a Steelers fan.
[Damon Frank]
Oh, there you go. See, it's that whole Pennsylvania criticism of sports, right?
[Tim Grealish]
Yeah, I like to come on a show and immediately make as many enemies as I possibly can. But yeah, you introduced me and said that I was an interventionist. And some people say, what do you do for a living?
And I guess the best way I could describe it is to tell you that I organize dysfunctional surprise parties. So if I come to your house one morning with your whole family and you didn't know we were coming, you're screwed. You just put 28 pairs of underwear in a bag because you are officially mine and I'm dragging you into rehab, usually kicking and screaming.
But yeah, that's what I do for a living. I have a lot of contracts with some unions and help people get into treatment all the time. I put probably between three and four people per week into rehab.
So I'm a busy, busy guy. The way I started was, of course, in active addiction, years of active addiction. And I'm not going to go into that in great detail.
I tried beer because I'm Irish Catholic and it says on your birth certificate you must drink. My parents would rub whiskey on my gums to the point that I think – I think I'm still blowing a .16, but that's another story entirely. So yeah, drinking was no good.
I tried weed. I liked that. Then I did pills.
Then I did coke. Then I did heroin. It's just that incredible – just the progression was very, very obvious with me.
And the way I got clean was I had actually some mean, mean people who I owed money to, and they were coming after me because they had fronted me with a bunch of dope that I ended up being my own best customer. And so I went to rehab to hide. And I hid so well that they haven't found me, and that was 37 years ago.
So my clean date is April 4th of 87. I get my recovery in Narcotics Anonymous now, and believe you me, based on the traditions, I'm not here representing AA or NA or Al-Anon or not. I'm not representing any of those.
I'm just saying this is me. This is my story. This is how I got clean.
So yeah, I'm clean today, and 37 years. I should probably tell you that I got clean when I was eight. Would you believe that?
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
[Damon Frank]
We're both in the over-30 club, and I love that. You know what? I love it when I see people who have long-term sobriety that are happy and that laugh and smile.
And that's why I wanted to have you on the show, because look, we all know that getting sober is serious business. This is a life-or-death thing, and you're right on the front lines of it, Tim, because you're right there. And look, people's decision could be, I'm not going to get sober.
I'm not going to do the intervention. I'm not going to go to the 12-step meeting. I'm not going to take positive action, and they could die.
It's serious business. But if you live your whole life uptight, on the edge, in sobriety, that's no way to live, man. That is not going to keep you sober really long-term, in my opinion.
And you have to kind of wear sobriety like a loose garment, taking everything so seriously all the time. Isn't it a recipe for disaster?
[Tim Grealish]
Yeah, it is. The bottom line, and I've said this to thousands of people, if I couldn't have fun, I'd just get high. Not that getting high was fun at all, because it's not fun to be strip-searched in a prison.
It's not fun to be in jail when your cellmate wants to take 16 showers a day and drops the soap. None of that is fun. But, yeah, it leads me to where I am right now, because I discussed with you, I do some stand-up comedy, and I work for some rehabs.
They've got the reunions that they hire me for, some conventions, AA and NA conventions that I do. And if I couldn't do that, I think I would waste away to nothing. I am really involved in my home group, and because of my home group, there are people coming in all the time who are in their early 20s who are coming off some pretty rough stuff.
There's really no heroin on the street anymore. It's all fentanyl. They're trying to come off of this stuff, and they sit there, and they get serious.
Well, I tell them, for me at least, and this is just for me, I don't take myself seriously at all. I take my recovery very seriously. I'll make sure I go to meetings.
What I found was some other people, when I first started to go to meetings, who played softball, and some played golf. And I don't know what it was about Western Pennsylvania, but these maniacs over here, they had fun bowling. Well, you know, that's Laverne and Shirley.
I don't understand bowling, but I went bowling anyway. The meeting after the meeting was just as important sometimes as the meeting itself was. So I forced myself into groups of people that would go out for coffee afterwards.
And, you know, look at us. We're drinking coffee before the meeting. We go to the meeting, we make coffee.
We drink tons of coffee. Then we go out after the meeting, and we drink more coffee. I'd come home, and my wife would say, it looks like you're doing cocaine.
And I'd go, I don't know why you'd say that. All I did was have coffee with my friends. It was just too much.
I'd have coffee, and then I'd have to clean the coffee. You know, talk a million miles an hour. My addiction has taken another turn.
I am now, I have to go to Coffee Anonymous. I can't believe it. Exactly.
[Damon Frank]
You know, Tim, I'd love for you to share your transition, because it sounds like, you know, getting sober wasn't easy for you. I know it wasn't easy for me. It's not easy for a lot of people.
And I think at some point you have to let go. You know, I was talking about this with some friends the other day, and I was like, you know, there is at some point you have to let go and trust that God or the universe or whatever your higher power is going to be that you're going to be taken care of and that you can relax a little bit. You were talking about fellowship.
And I find that to be more beneficial now in long-term sobriety, because it's that connection with people. And I found I had a really hard time with that. And I found that the more I was able to connect to people, Tim, the more I actually found myself laughing and having a good time and not obsessed with myself.
[Tim Grealish]
Well, you're lucky that you have that, because so many people come in and they're kind of withdrawn and afraid to speak up. And they're in a completely different atmosphere. You know, it's really easy for you to say, I'll have so many bags of dope or give me a bunch of crack.
But to ask somebody, hey, can I go have some coffee with you afterwards? That becomes virtually impossible because they just can't get it out.
[Damon Frank]
So- It's so crazy. It's terrifying, isn't it? It's like- It is.
It is. It's terrifying. Like, I hate that.
I hate asking for help.
[Tim Grealish]
I hate asking to connect with people. I've got an idea, and this has worked for me. I don't get a newcomer's phone number.
I won't do it. Well, I mean, I won't give my phone number. I'll get their phone number, because I know they're probably not going to pick up the phone and call me.
So I'll call them. And people say, wow, that's really something that you're doing that. And I go, yeah, but to a certain extent, it's selfish because we keep what we have by giving it away.
So I've got to welcome somebody into my home. I've got to welcome somebody into a meeting because part of my responsibility as a guy that's got some long plane time is to help new people feel a little more comfortable. And once they feel comfortable, all of a sudden, the laughter starts.
And as soon as the laughter starts, we've got you. We have got you. We're going to keep you in this 12-step fellowship, and you're going to enjoy it.
And that's what happens. The way I got into this, I went into rehab, and I went into rehab to hot. And I'm coming off a dope, and they're giving me 81 milligram Johnson's baby aspirins.
And I was losing my freaking mind because it was just so much. And I can tell you this. After two weeks in that rehab, I remember being in my room, and I woke up, and I looked at my nightstand, and I had money there and a half a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.
And that hadn't happened to me in 20 years. I'd go to sleep. I'd wake up.
All my money's gone. Everybody's gone. But this is gone.
And honest to God, I felt better than I had in probably 20 years. This is after two weeks in rehab. And all of a sudden, I became, and I'm already completely maniac.
I become fervent and started talking about it, and I became the star of rehab. And then they warned me. They said, you know, you're doing way too good.
You better tone it down, Mr. Big Time Ego. And you know what I did? I listened to them.
I thought I had all the answers. And I did have all the answers. If you want to stay high and you want to go to jail and you want to ruin your life and you want to rip your family apart, I have all those answers.
I had to listen to some people who knew better than I did, some people who had been through the same stuff that I had. And when I started to listen to other people in this rehab who were talking about the things they went through, I started thinking, you know, maybe I'm not that bad. These guys are freaking nuts.
And all of a sudden, I became a member. These were my people. And you know what?
They were walking around without shame. It's not like I don't feel guilty about some of the things that happened in my past, because I do. But I can accept the fact that that was caused by a disease I had that I didn't know I had.
I didn't know how to handle it. I didn't know anything about it. So I went to rehab, and they told me, here's what you need to do.
You need to go to 90 meetings in the first 90 days you're out. And I went to 154 meetings in the first 90 days I left. And left treatment.
Now, that sounds like a lot, but I didn't have a car. My higher power was Port Authority Transit, because it restored me to sanity. The bus was taking me to meetings.
So yeah, once I got out and got into the meetings, it was great. I'd listen to people talk about their experiences, and it was like they were spying on me. It's like they were living my same life.
I was astounded by this. So yeah, it was pretty cool.
[Damon Frank]
How do you – I have to ask a question, because you're around a lot of high-pressure situations where people are crying and screaming as an interventionist. I mean, I'm sure that a lot of people that you do interventions on, they know you're coming, right? So it's like they know that they're, quote, softer interventions.
But still, there's a lot of fear, doubt, and worry, I'm going to say. How do you interject some brevity into that so that people, especially the people around the people who are going into treatment, don't feel so overwhelmed that it's just all so serious all the time, right? Yeah.
I see that all the time. It's funny, because most of the things – and one of the reasons we did the Recovered Live show, honestly, Tim, is I saw all the stuff towards recovery was all dark, gloomy, horrible, the worst ever, the rock bottom. Most of the recovery experience is not like that, in my opinion.
There is a small part of it that is, but most of it's not. How do you interject humor and having fun into your life, into sobriety, and into the process of being an interventionist?
[Tim Grealish]
Well, I just did an intervention with my brother, and he brought me in to talk to one of the leaders of industry in western Pennsylvania, a big name of a guy, and I'm talking to him, and he looks at me and he says, so what if I don't go to treatment? What are you going to do then? And I said, I'll tell you what I'm going to do.
I'm going to go down to my car, I'm going to get my 3-iron out of my golf bag, I'm going to bring it back up here, and I'm going to beat the living crap out of you. Before anybody can say anything, my brother says, don't worry, Tim can't hit a 3-iron. And, of course, everybody started cracking up, and I said, look, if you want to continue to run your life the way you're running it right now, there's nothing I can do about that.
If you want to change, that I can help you with. So all you've got to do is say yes and give it a try. With families, they're already beaten down pretty bad emotionally, and they're not seeing any humor in any of this.
All they're doing in many cases, these interventions, they are trying to avoid planning the funeral. That's what they're trying to avoid. Because by the time my phone rings, people have had enough.
They're ready to kill somebody. And I say, look, you're talking about a person who's sick. So an intervention isn't a – we're not trying to make a bad person good, we're trying to help a sick person get well.
And I know what the medicine is, and you do, and probably most of your viewers know what the medicine is. The medicine is don't pick up the first one, go to meetings, get a sponsor, get a home group, get a higher power. And if you do those things, we, as addicts, we complicate the crap out of everything.
If we would just sit back and let it kind of waft over us, all of a sudden you start to smile and you feel humor in your bones. Think of some of the crazy stuff that you did, and I guarantee you you'll laugh if you're clean. If you're not clean, you won't laugh.
It will just be more tears.
[Damon Frank]
You know, it's interesting. I've been looking back on my sobriety a lot. Like every sobriety birthday, I look back a little bit.
And when I was about 28 years sober, I kind of woke up and I said, you know, I need to have more fun in my sobriety because I feel that there's stages. A lot of times people come in, they're freaked out, they don't know if they can stay sober, and then they piece together maybe a year. And they're starting to kind of have a little fun and really have a life.
And then it hits them, oh my God, I've been screwing around the last decade, out drinking and doing drugs. I've got to become a serious business person and serious. And I think I got sucked into a lot of that, Tim, where a lot of my sobriety was, it wasn't that it wasn't quality sobriety, it was out there doing the thing and achieving things and doing things, which is part of life and part of sobriety.
But what I found is, is that it all became a little too serious and the fun started to evaporate. I started to lose a little bit of that fun. And around 28 years, I said, you know what?
My goal this year is to really enjoy my life. It's to enjoy my life. You know, it's dangerous, I think, if you get to a place where you're just that sober robot doing it over, I'm now going to this meeting, I'm now going to the, you know.
And it happens, especially in 12 step groups, because you get into that routine of it all.
[Tim Grealish]
Well, I show up a half hour, sometimes an hour before the meeting starts. I help set up and there's a few of us that go there. And somebody said to me, why do you do that?
And I go, well, we get there early to talk about the people who aren't there early. Now that's not true. We're not doing that.
But I am not going to have any fun unless I allow myself to have a little fun. And I, you know, just working in the treatment business as long as I have. And I've been doing this for over 35 years.
What I've seen is people that work in a treatment business. Don't go to meetings. And because they don't need to go to meetings because they're working in recovery.
And I tell them you're working in active addiction, you maniac. You need more meetings now than you did before. And then you'll find people that are going golfing and you'll find people who are on three different softball teams.
I had to quit because I'm fat out of shape and slow. And I slid a head first into first base that you never do that. I had a rash from my forehead all the way down to my ankles.
But this idea of having fun, you have to actually do that yourself. And you will find out that as soon as you take a step in that direction, you'll find a whole group of people who are exactly the same. Maybe need to be a little less serious.
Again, about your recovery. You want to be serious. But less serious about yourself and, and, you know, sit back and have fun.
Tell a joke, read some jokes on the internet, memorize them and tell them to somebody else. I've got, I've got some of probably the worst jokes you've ever heard in your life. And I'm not going to share any of them with you now because you will cut me off.
[Damon Frank]
It's definitely. So, you know, Tim, just to say you've taken humor to a dysfunctional level in sobriety, you actually became a standup comic and do that kind of other side too. Right?
So what was that experience like? You know, what was it like to be a standup comic and go in from somebody who's sober and then like, okay, now I'm going to go and kind of make fun of myself and sober people.
[Tim Grealish]
Well, I was working for rehab and doing trainings. I do reasonable suspicion trainings and trainings and the drug and alcohol policy and how you do that. And I was doing some work with, and I'm remember I'm in Pennsylvania.
With a place called Glen Bay over in Ohio. And they said, we need somebody to present. if you're going to do that and it's well known in Western Pennsylvania, will you do it?
And I said, yeah. Then they send out postcards. With a, and they wanted something like humor in the workplace.
That's what I was supposed to do. But they sent out these postcards with microphones and stars and said, Tim, really stand up comic. I'm not a standup comic.
I didn't train for this. So I did this presentation all of a sudden. Apparently I was funny enough that people started saying, Hey, will you come and do that at our place?
So I started to do that. This was not planned. And I want to tell you something.
I have been skydiving and jumped off a plane out of a plane before. And that was pretty scary. But going up and standing on stage and trying to talk for an hour and make people laugh is much scarier than that.
[Damon Frank]
But so far, I bet so far so good. You know, it's funny because I, I have this. I have this little thing that I always say to him.
It's like a lot of times people get sober and they get stuck in the church basement. They're just afraid to do something new. And why I wanted to have you on the show is that you have a big life, you know, like you're doing new things and what you're 37 years sober.
That's not a, that's not a couple of weeks, man. You've been doing this for a long time. And also working in, working in treatment as well.
It's like this constant pushing yourself. What have you, what have you found is the key? Do you just get to a point where you're like, okay, I'm being complacent.
I'm going to push myself a little bit and go try to speak to an audience or become a standup comic or, you know, maybe even try to hit that three iron, which we know isn't going to happen. What do you do when you get in that position?
[Tim Grealish]
Here's what I do. Wow. I complain about my schedule because I do so many things.
And I was talking to a guy that I sponsor and I'm saying, I can't believe that I do all this crazy stuff. And he said, well, who does your schedule for you? And I said, shut up.
I hate you because it's me. My phone never stops ringing. And I think in the Greyhound bus station bathroom wall, it says, call Tim for a good time and detox and has my phone number because these calls are coming from all over the place.
So I'm not really pushing myself. I'm getting pushed by what I've set myself up to do. My brother has said, why don't you think about retiring?
And I, you know, I could retire, but the truth is I like what I do. So I'm going to do the exact same thing. And if I quit, I'm going to do the exact same thing.
My phone's not going to stop ringing and then no one will give me any money. So I may as well keep doing this. And yeah.
So. I just. I'm afraid to not do what I'm doing.
I'm afraid to stop because everything so far has worked out pretty successfully. I get up and I thank the God of my understanding for another day clean. And off I go doing whatever I do.
[Damon Frank]
And so far it's worked so far. So good. Tim, final thoughts here.
If somebody is listening to this and they are hating this whole sobriety journey, they absolutely are like, ah, man, this is just dread. Getting through another day sober. What would be your message to them?
[Tim Grealish]
It's you're not going to like hearing that. I'm hearing this, but people like that. I said, well, you know what?
The bars are still open. The dealers are still on the corner. And if you want to go back into that hole, Everybody in that business is going to welcome you back into that hole.
See what we're trying to do is bring out of the darkness. We want you to come with us, hang out with us, see what that's like. You give us a chance, give us 90 days.
And if it's still bad, go, go buy booze, go buy this, go buy some practice, something like that. But give us a chance first. And I guarantee you, if you give us an honest chance, you're not going to go back there.
You will not go back there.
[Damon Frank]
Great, great, great message, Tim. We're going to put how you can get in touch with Tim, all his information in the show notes. And if you're watching this on Recovered Life TV, we're going to put everything in there as well.
So you can contact him if you want to chat with him or connect. I'm sure that you take incoming. We know you take incoming calls because I just saw your calendar, but probably respond via email as well.
Tim, thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the Recovered Life show today.
[Tim Grealish]
Thanks for having me. I appreciate being able to carry the message and can only hope that, look, if one person gets something out of this telecast, it worked, right?
[Damon Frank]
It worked. Everybody go out and live your best Recovered Life. Sometimes addiction recovery can be a lonely battle, but you don't have to fight it alone.
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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.)