Episode 259: The Untold Struggles Behind 'Lying Drunk': A Conversation with Tony Hicks

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Hey everybody. This is Dr. John back with another episode of The Evolved Caveman Podcast, and it is my pleasure to have with me today. A very old dear friend Tony Hicks. And Tony goes back with me as far as Pine Valley Middle School. He is also one of the funniest guys that I met in middle school and high school, and he just wrote a book called Lying Drunk about his travails and struggles with Alcohol.

Tony, how you doing? I'm great. How are you, John? Good, thanks.

So I love the title of your book, Lying Drunk. So what layers of meaning did you intend with that phrase?

Tony Hicks, Author: I didn't intend any it wasn't my idea. Christine Carlson, but you, who you might be familiar with, who wrote or co-wrote a lot of the don't sweat the small stuff.

Books. Oh, yeah. Yeah. She is an acquaintance of mine and she really got behind the book, which was very cool. And in our discussions I was trying to come up with a title and she threw lying drunk out there. And I absolutely hated it. 'cause who wants to be called a drunk? And a lying drunk.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: But Right.

But the thing was that the, the first chapter in the book the, first part that I wrote was about lying. And it was, the premise was that alcohol turns you into a complete liar. And you don't just lie when you're drinking, but if you're an alcoholic and you're in that and you're in your alcohol, if you're in that zone.

Even when you're not drinking, you're lying about things and it takes so much work. And I know this sounds strange, but it's it's really a lot of work being an alcoholic, which I, think one of, one of my chapter titles refers to that. You in my case, I had a wife and, kids and if you're drinking every day and sometimes you're drinking as early as six in the morning.

You, have a lot to hide.

And not only are you hiding empties, but you're hiding your behavior. You're trying to figure out ways to get out of the house when you run out of alcohol to get more and saying that you want to buy a Popsicle at nine 30 at night, only flies so many times with one's wife and, the lying is what really gets people. It's what really upsets people.

And so it took me a couple months still to come around to the idea of calling it lying drunk. It took me, I was probably on my third or fourth rehab before I could I could call myself an alcoholic. I grew up with an alcoholic in the house, so I heard the word a lot when I was a kid and it, once I accepted that, and that's that's the first step and the most important step of 12 steps of AA is 12 steps.

Yeah. I haven't done the 12 steps and I probably never will for various reasons, but the first step being is you have to admit to yourself in the world that you're an alcoholic. Yeah. And until you do that, you can't deal with it. So anyway it, just, it, it made sense. And there was also the double entendre that Yeah, there were times I was laying completely unconscious drunk.

So yeah, I guess I'm the lying drunk and I hated the idea of. Anyone asking my kids about the book. I hated the idea of someone referring to me as the lying drunk, but yeah, it is. It's it's, an appropriate title. And I won't lie, it's a title that Chris argued and she's absolutely right.

It gets people's attention.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: And I wanna sell a book.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It's also funny because I think it's a title that's personally painful to you from what I'm hearing you say. There's, a sting to it every time it comes up. Yeah. And, so what, yeah. There is what were some of the most powerful lies you told yourself to justify your drinking and how'd you finally start telling yourself the truth?

'cause that's that, finally start telling yourself the truth piece is critical.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. For example.

The first time I went to rehab was in 2006. My first marriage was falling apart. And I wasn't anywhere near drinking the way I would drink. Even a few years later. But I went to rehab.

To save my marriage. At least I thought I was saving my marriage and I didn't wanna save my marriage as much as I just bought a big new house. And I had two daughters. And the magic of my marriage had been gone for years. But I wanted to preserve this, a adult life that I had come in too.

And, it's rare, I don't know what the percentages are, but it's really rare that anybody gets sober and stays sober. Their first rehab.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It, is very rare.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. Yeah. It's funny because people have been to rehab multiple times. You can always tell the new people because they all come in and they all talk about how they fit rock bottom.

And then they described their rock bottom and nobody says anything, but it's you haven't hit rock bottom.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: That's not, rock bottom yet. I'm always amazed at what rock bottom actually is.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I had a client once that I was taking him to rehab and I think he was still drunk from the night before and he had agreed to go, but along the way he was like, Hey, could we just could we just stop at a liquor store and I can get a little flask of vodka before going to rehab?

I was like, no, we're not fucking stopping to go to a liquor store, are you? No. And I, yeah, that same guy. We had to later, after, I don't know, one or two rehabs, I had to go to his apartment with his dad and we had to take him to the er, and it ended up with him, actually, his liver was so non-functioning that they had to put him into a medically induced coma to save his life.

Tony Hicks, Author: Odd.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And, now he is six, seven years sober and he's good. But

Tony Hicks, Author: that's great.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I'm, I've always been amazed at what rock bottom actually is.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. I didn't it, took me probably, I don't know,

5, 6, 7, 8 years before I could get to the point where I was. Anywhere near rock bottom. But as far as admitting I was an alcoholic that probably didn't happen till my third or fourth rehab. I, remember the second one, I was with my second wife. This was probably 2008, 2009. And I'd gotten to the point where I'd started drinking during the day and that.

That was a big shift for me. I'd always waited till night or I waited till the weekend or whatever, but I would, I got to the point where I maybe I was tired of the hangovers and suddenly I found this wonderful way to get rid of a hangover. You keep drinking the, next morning and it got to the point where.

I was drinking not to be drunk or all the goofy reasons I drank for decades. I was just drinking to be myself to get back to normal. In the second rehab I went to Kaiser and I went to their evening sessions for eight weeks or whatever it was, and I, my, my whole goal was. I knew that they tested and it was random testing, so they could take you at any point any day.

They, did not tell you, test you, and I knew that if I didn't drink all day, I would be fine for the evening session and nobody could accuse me of drinking. I'd get through the eight weeks and I had absolutely no idea what was gonna happen after the eight, weeks. But my goal was just to stop day drinking.

So of course I wasn't anywhere near admitting I was an alcoholic. And of course every night I'm out of the session at 9:00 PM and by nine 30 I'm at the liquor store buying a bottle, and I would go to bed at 10 or 10 30. That's. That's when the insanity really started kicking in. It was like, why in the hell would you drink a half hour to an hour before going to bed every night?

Yeah.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Just to go to sleep.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. But by then my body wanted it and I thought that I was really showing some restraint. I thought I was making progress. And I was still drinking seven days a week. I was just doing it at night. And of course then the weekends were a completely different story.

But yeah, that's, that, that was, I look back now of all the insane things I did, and there were a lot that just seems and I was very serious. Like I'm here to cure myself of day drinking. It's like the story Sharon Osborne tells about taking Ozzy. To the Betty White Clinic. Betty White?

No, the Betty Ford Clinic. Excuse me.

Yeah. Betty Ford Clinic in the eighties. And she told him the only reason she got him there is because she told him that he was there to learn how to drink like a gentleman. So he went in and the first thing he did was look for the bar. And he tried to leave, but it was too late.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: I, was there to learn how to not drink. And work at the same time. Which is insane. But yeah.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Let me ask you a question.

'cause one of the things that I've noticed in dealing with addiction over the years, especially with alcohol, is a lot of my clients that were dealing with alcoholism had this anxious piece to them and they would drink, and in the morning they would be hungover.

But the symptoms of the hangover mimic those of a panic attack or at least being very anxious. Yes. And so you get the sweats, your stomach's upset, maybe the heart rate's increased a little bit and their automatic interpretation was, oh shit, I'm having a panic attack. And I'm like, no, you're just hungover.

Yeah. And so it took some while to reinterpret that, which I thought was interesting.

Tony Hicks, Author: That's an interesting point I've had and I have anxiety. I have anxiety right now.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: No, you're doing great.

Tony Hicks, Author: Normally eight or 10 years ago if I would've done this I would've had a couple pops beforehand.

I was actually, when I was music critic for the East Bay Times, I I did a weekly spot on an XM radio show. More often than not, just that hour of, and back then I was covering celebrities. I was talking about the Kardashians and meaningless shit like that. And I would have a, couple pops just to be able to get on the radio.

I, public speaking was kind of part of my job when I became a columnist. Because my public profile was bigger and there was never, like I would, I was on the radio eight or 10 times. I would occasionally speak to groups. Spoke to a group of 200 out at Ros Moore twice. And I would get there a few minutes early to make sure I had a few pops before I did it because I couldn't imagine tackling the anxiety that came with it, but.

It's a great point that you bring up because now I wonder all the anxiety I had over those years, how much of it was because I was in this cycle.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: And I had two, I've had two full on panic attacks in my life, and the first one was right after I moved back from LA in 1994. I rediscovered drugs for a while.

It was funny. I, moved to Hollywood and I stopped doing drugs which usually it's the other way around, but I was out and I was an adult and I was in a real band and I had to pay bills. Plus I didn't have my drug dealer up here anymore. So, I stopped for the three years I was down there.

But when I moved back, I did some. And I'd been on a bender for about a week and I was driving across the San Mateo Bridge and that narrow bridge. And back then they didn't have an emergency lane. They've since added one, and I just freaked out and I started sweating. I, couldn't see straight. I had all the symptoms that you have physically of a panic attack.

As soon as I got off that bridge pulled over, I got outta my car and I put my head between my legs and tried to breathe my way out of it. The second time was after I was diagnosed with diabetes, probably 20 12, 20 13. I, actually. Didn't drink for six days, which doesn't sound like much, but it was in the 10 years of my second marriage, it was the longest I went without alcohol.

Six days. Wow. Day seven was my birthday, and so you know what I did on my birthday and I drank the excess and I ate sugary food and I did everything I wasn't supposed to do because I figured I was getting outta my system. The next day I was driving. Next morning I was driving and I had a full on panic attack at a traffic light.

And I had to drive through the light when it was red and I had to avoid cars coming. And I had to get to the side of the road and get outta my car and do the same thing that I did back in 93 or 94 and just breathe my way through it. And both of those times it was induced by a substance. So yeah, anxiety.

And I also wonder because I, don't drink anymore, but I still have anxiety, and I wonder how much of that is just left over.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. I, can bond with you over panic attacks. My first panic attack was during student orientation in my PhD program at uc, Berkeley. And I went into that program not having a whole lot of background in psychology.

And at new student orientation, there was probably 50, 60 people there. There was new students and my class and my program was only five students, so there was nowhere to hide. There was older students that had been in the program for a while, and then there was professors, and at one point they said, they just took a break and they're like, why don't you guys just kinda mingle and talk amongst yourselves, a thing. So I found myself in a conversation with an eighth year student, which meant he'd been in a PhD program at Cal for eight years. And I made the mistake of asking him, so what's your dissertation on?

'cause I could think of nothing else to say. And he started talking and after about, I dunno, 10, 12, 14 words out of his mouth. I had no fucking clue what he was saying. I didn't even know what language. He was speaking in because the words were so big. I didn't under and, I didn't come to find out later, a lot of the professors there didn't understand his dissertation either.

Immediately, like I start sweating profusely, my heart rate goes up. You get the constriction in your throat, mouth goes dry. And I'm like excuse me, I gotta go to the bathroom. And I had to run to the bathroom and take off my shirt and fan it just to dry it out. Wow. It was brutal.

And it was all fueled by. I'm not smart enough. I don't belong here. I'm not worthy of this. Yeah. And it's, interesting 'cause then I took me a little bit to figure out like, oh shit, that's a panic attack. Yeah. I guess I need to do some work there. How did you, so what did you do?

Tony Hicks, Author: No, I was just gonna ask how did you, get through that?

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I just went, I hid in the bathroom.

Tony Hicks, Author: But long term because then, the fear of the fear comes and you're afraid of the next panic attack.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. But I've, anxiety and depression have been part of my makeup most of my life.

And so I realized from a very young age, I would say 16, that if I feared something, it was a good idea to go directly at it. So for instance, like I was student body president in high school, right? That idea scared the crap out of me. I didn't want to talk in front of the school, but I also knew because I was afraid of it, that if I went after this stuff, I could systematically begin to knock 'em out one by one.

And when I got to Berkeley, I just made a point of, I remember my dad telling me that in dental school at Northwestern, people were assholes to each other. The students, like they would sa sabotage each other's results on purpose. That kinda stuff. And so I didn't want that to happen at Berkeley.

I didn't know if it was going to, but I just pulled the five of us together and I was like, Hey look, I'm gonna need your help to get through this program and I wanna work together cooperatively. So my suggestion is that we band together and help each other out and support each other where we can in an effort to get outta this program as quickly as possible.

Tony Hicks, Author: And the eighth year guy was okay with that?

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: He wasn't part of that conversation 'cause he was a different cohort. Plus he, I, yeah. Anyway, but yeah and, then I think it's all this work on stress management, relaxation techniques, reframing there's all sorts of things that go into it, but it I'm an emotion geek at heart, so I've tried pretty much my whole life to work to manage my emotions because I think that's the path to less suffering, but also being happier.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I knew that the dumbest, most shameful, most embarrassing shit I've done in my life was all when my emotional mind was in charge of me.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. And it matters when you start to have kids because you wanna project some control and you wanna project some wisdom because if you have something to say, you want them to listen. Yeah. And you want them to take it to heart.

The problem with me though is my daughters, my, my, my two daughters who live with me now are 23 and 17, and they've seen me at my absolute worst.

They've basically seen me passed out. They've seen me overreacting. They've seen me demonstrate every emotion that there is in the human brain. And not only demonstrating those emotions, but doing them at about a hundred times what's considered normal. They've seen me pick fights with people.

Just everything you don't want your kids to see you do. I've done, and I I've done it in front of them. So they haven't they haven't read the book. They're in the book, of course. And I haven't barred them from the book and they're, rooting for me. My, my girls are great.

The, fact that I've been an insane raging alcoholic for most of their lives, yet the two of them both choose to live with me over their mothers. I always remind myself of that, and that's not to say their mothers are so bad, but they both are more comfortable with me and it, I think. A lot of that might be just this stark honesty because you get to the point with the lying where you lose track of your lies and it all becomes just this wound up big giant ball of bullshit.

And you don't remember what you told who, when, why you don't remember any of this shit. So I think that's why I got to the point where. I just have to be honest.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: And that's what, that was why I wrote this book. I just felt like there was this big mental and spiritual boil that had to be Lance.

And not only that, but I, disappeared. So I quit my job in 2017. I quit it. They, should have fired me two years before I quit, but I quit it in anger. And the same day my dog died that afternoon unexpectedly, which was a really great day. That's brutal. And I tried to get my job back and I couldn't.

And my marriage fell apart a couple weeks before then, and I was living with my mom and stepdad.

So from early 2017 until early 2020. So for about three years I was unemployed. My kids weren't really seeing me because I was drinking off and on. I'd been kicked outta my parents' house at least three times.

I'd been to the hospital at least four or five times. I'd been to the psych ward same weekend. I was in jail the next night. The next night after that, I slept in a park bench in Martinez, wearing shorts and a t-shirt in January.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Oof.

Tony Hicks, Author: It was, the most insane three years. I couldn't keep a job.

I was probably, I was sleeping in my mom's car for a while, so probably 10 to 15 nights. I was homeless, which I tell people, especially people from where we grew up in San Ramon, which is upper middle class, and so many of my friend group have gone on to. Earn really nice living livings.

A lot of 'em live back in San Ramon in Danville. And to say I was homeless, it people have nothing to say. Their faces just dropped. Yeah. It doesn't compute. Like we didn't have homeless people where we grew up.

So those three years, and it was funny because I quit drinking. Just as COVID started I really, I had two and a half year sobriety just, and I started, just as COVID started when the rest of the United States found the greatest excuse in the world today, drank for months.

I quit drinking, which is typical for me. I just do everything I asked backwards. But, those three years there were, there, there have been at least three or four people. Once I work for Bay City News. Now I'm back to writing news after 17 years at the East Bay Times of being a music critic and a columnist and a film critic.

I'm back writing local news now. It was, the job the one job I could manage full time. And it's great, but I've literally had the past three years, three or four people when I've been out on an assignment or doing something. When they asked me about my background, I said I, worked at the East Bay Times for 23 years.

They have literally asked me, whatever happened to that guy who used to write funny columns

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Oh, wow. About

Tony Hicks, Author: his kids. And all of the stuff that he was fucking up at home and blah, blah, blah. And I said to one of 'em yeah, that was me and the other ones, I said I didn't wanna talk about it.

So it was like, oh the business has changed and blah, blah, blah. And I don't know, I don't know where anybody is now. But, so I guess the book answers that. And, my friends, I we were talking right before you, we started recording and like I said some of my friends since eighth grade, so we're talking 45 years I haven't seen in 10 years.

And a lot of 'em, I don't, they have no idea what I've been doing. I don't get invited to weddings anymore. I don't get invited to. Christmas parties. I see that they still have them on social media, and I know why I don't get invited, so there's no hard feelings. But one of the nice things about the book is since it came out two weeks ago, I've been hearing from these people.

And they bought the book. They heard about the book, and they bought it. And the one thing I, keep hearing from 'em is, I had no idea you were going through this. You, don't advertise when you're sleeping on park benches or you're in your mom's car for the night. There's not really any way

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: to advertise if we're getting, there's really

Tony Hicks, Author: not SCOs behind seven 11 depressed tax, sleeping for the night and getting up and stealing your breakfast in the morning 'cause you have no money.

There's not a lot to be proud of during those years, other than I lived and. I have a job and I have my kids back and I live in a pretty nice house in Walnut Creek and things seem to be doing, and I wrote a book, so things seem to be going much better.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: And I'm, glad to hear that the book is leading to some restoration and repair of some of these old friendships.

'cause I know you guys were really tight back in the day.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah, I had the same group of friends. For more than four decades.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: Which is amazing.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: So let me ask you this, how do you see, what's the relationship between emotional pain and alcohol for you? Was drinking anesthesia, was it armor? Was it something else?

Tony Hicks, Author: All of,

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: Was it fun?

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. You mentioned in, when we were talking earlier, that you were never funnier, you were never better looking. Yeah. More charming, personable.

Tony Hicks, Author: I get a few pops of me and I'm way better looking and way smarter and way funnier. Yeah it sort, it fueled me in, high school, but as time went on yeah, the anxiety, it makes the anxiety go away.

Now it's a chicken and egg thing. What, came first? The drinking, the anxiety what, would I have all this anxiety if I wasn't drinking and using as much as I was? That's just, I'm never gonna be able to answer that question. But yeah, and it's still, there are still times when I'm doing something that brings me a little bit of anxiety that I, want to have a couple drinks before I do it.

Just doing this I wanted to have a couple drinks before we started. It's, just, it's always there. And, one thing I, always marvel at is the longtime alcoholics. The guys who have been sober for 30 or 40 years, they say the same thing. They still want to drink when they have anxiety.

And it's still, it's such a fragile thing. Sobriety I know someone who was sober for 25 years. And one thing set him off and he drank. And what happens is, it doesn't matter how long you're sober, however, you were at your worst point when you start drinking again within two or three days, you're right back at your worst point.

And this guy the, day after he drank for the first time in more than two decades, he crashed his car into another car, got a DUI. All sorts of bad. His relationship ended. It's, really fragile. When I, like I said, I I had a year of sobriety and then I had a speed bump as I call them.

And then I had two and a half years.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Alright.

After that quick bathroom break let me just dive in with a different question. How do you define sobriety now? Is it simply abstaining from alcohol or is it something bigger to you? Emotional clarity, radical honesty, spiritual awakening,

Tony Hicks, Author: theoretically, all of that. And I know you're familiar with the idea of being a dry drunk, which just means that you're not drinking, you're not white knuckling the things that you're supposed to deal with.

Yeah. Which I've, gone through that. I've definitely done that. I have found and, especially when I've come out of rehab and I've been to rehab, I honestly don't know how many times, 10 or 11 is my best guess. Usually when I came outta rehab, I would transition back to regular civilian life.

With a lot of AA and a lot of support in the community. I'm not a joiner. And the only thing I've ever really wanted to join were bands and a few sports teams. Even though I've probably been to thousands of AA meetings, I'm not a big AA guy. I've had to find my own way, and I've done that through.

Exercise every morning, seven days a week. I'm up 6, 6 30, going to the gym before I work. And it literally makes the biggest all the clutter that shows up in my head when I don't drink, or I'm sorry I don't go to the gym, reminds me of how I used to feel when I drank. 'cause a lot of that stuff comes back.

I stay really busy. Boredom and downtime is just the devil for alcoholics.

I try to meditate spiritually. That's always been tricky for me and it's part of why I will likely never do all the 12 steps because I think six of them refer to God. And I am not an atheist.

I am an agnostic. I have issues with religion for my own reasons, which is tough because there are AA meetings where there are 200 men in a room. Everybody's calling everybody, bro. And every, everybody's giving the bro hugs and the high fives. And I had a, guy once I said I was new to this meeting that's what you do in the beginning of the meeting.

And i, I don't know if I said that I was struggling with the God thing, as they say, but I had a guy when he was talking to the room and then he pivoted toward me and he took a step toward me and he started pointing at me and he said, the God thing is going to come. It's gonna come.

He's gonna save you. You'll get it. You just keep showing up. And I was okay you're treating me like a child. It's like when religious people show up at your door to try to convert you.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. It feels like proselytizing.

Tony Hicks, Author: At, one point I go, I, I say to these people now, and they don't come so often anymore, but I say, how do you know?

That I am not as devoted to being agnostic as you are to your religion. Maybe being an agnostic is my religion. And they thought about that. They were like, okay. Yeah. And it wasn't necessarily the case, but I don't know.

I spiritually I was going to refuge recovery for a while. I dunno if you're familiar with that, but it's the Buddhist approach.

Sobriety and I was going to meetings. The meetings themselves are hard to find. There was one in Walnut Creek pre COVID that I used to go to. Now it's all online unless you're in San Francisco or la. But I I'm not a practicing Buddhist, but it makes a lot of sense to me.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I agree.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. But the spirituality thing I'm still sorting that out.

And I, I made the mistake once of saying this in a column saying, and you're not supposed, I shouldn't have talked about religion, but I did. And I made the mistake of saying, I wish I had religion. I wish I could be comforted by religion. And the idea of a God watching me and knowing what I think, and I must have had 200 emails screening me the next two days from people wanting to convert me.

I was like, shit, I did this like everything else. You

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: did bring that on yourself. Yeah. You invited that in and, I wanna say, just for the record my mom and I are big fans of your writing, and so all the work you did. For the East Bay, was it East Bay Times?

Tony Hicks, Author: It was the Times.

Former Contra Costa Times East Bay Times. Yeah. I don't

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: keep track of the name changes

Tony Hicks, Author: every, everything that was named times

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: in the Bay Area. There was such joy and irreverence and cleverness and, really vulnerability too in your writing. And I've always admired you as a writer. I, think it's just one of your gifts.

And I'm really glad that you've dealt with the alcoholism and hopefully you can continue to access that talent without the alcohol.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah, and I really appreciate you saying that. It's funny I've become friends with your mom, online buddies with your mom.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. I'm sorry about that.

Tony Hicks, Author: No, Your mom, I remember. I think I told you this before, when your mom was mayor of San Ramon being you were at

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: that party, weren't you?

Tony Hicks, Author: I was at party through and,

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: yeah.

Let me, just take a quick detour there because when I was 15, my parents left town for the weekend. My mom was mayor, first mayor of San Ramon.

I went to my friend Greg Olson. I was like, Hey, my parents are gone. Let's why don't we have a few people over by a few people? I was thinking like eight. And this was before cell phones. And he told a friend of his, and it was a Friday, the word shot through high school, like a grass fire. And I think there was 200, 250 people there.

There was cars up and down the street. There was, the cops came to break it up twice. It was great and terrible at the same time, but everybody was there. And then when my parents came home, I just threw myself on the mercy of the court. Sorry, I had a party, got outta

Tony Hicks, Author: hand

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: and they were pretty actually, I just remember,

Tony Hicks, Author: I remember we were, sitting there, I was there with Joe nor CISO and Sal Gallagher and, one of us went, dude, we're partying at the mayor's house.

And we thought that was the funniest thing. It's a classic story. I don't know what to say. We also, once when San Ramon finally got its own, well after it incorporated in, 83 and got its own police department. We once put our empties, we put three bags of empties in front of the police department.

That's the kinda shit we used to do.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. So sorry, you were saying something about my mom and, Facebook and, oh, your

Tony Hicks, Author: mom is, your mom's great. I just, your mom's become my online buddy. And yeah, and I hear from her a lot.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. And how old is, how old's your mom

Tony Hicks, Author: now?

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: My parent, my dad just turned 88.

Mom's 87. They're pretty house bound now. But I have a lot of respect for both of them. And I was pretty proud that San Ramon was recently, I dunno if they were awarded or voted. I think they were awarded number one city in the US for livability. And I, take a lot of pride in that 'cause my mom was first mayor and was on the city council for the first 10 years of the city.

And I like to think that she set us on the right path.

Tony Hicks, Author: Yeah. When I covered San Ramon in the late nineties, your people still spoke with a lot of reverence about your mom and I Once in a while, I'd use her as a source.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: Call her just to ask her what she thought of something that was going on in the city.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah. Yeah. And thanks. And it it wasn't always an easy upbringing because we had to present a lot of perfect facades, but I have a lot of respect for them. Yeah. As, you should. So let me ask you this in, wrapping up, if alcohol were a toxic ex, what would your breakup letter say?

Tony Hicks, Author: Oh boy. We had to do these in rehab. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. And mine, of course, would veer off in about 24 different directions. I would say you're poison, you're absolute poison. And the fun we used to have is absolutely impossible. It's I'm, you're going to kill me. I have a buddy who is also you say in the program, he he's.

He struggled with alcohol for 30 years in and outta rehab. And he had someone in his life who was such a toxic personality that I finally had to tell him, if you stay with this person, she's going to kill you. He had cirrhosis, he had all kinds of medical problems. If he kept drinking, he was just gonna die.

And I've known more people than I want to say I've known who have died. People I can think of probably four people we went to high school with who've died of this.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Yeah.

Tony Hicks, Author: And I told him, and I rarely but in to friends' business like this. This guy was a really close friend of mine. He still is. I said, she's gonna kill you.

And apparently I wasn't the only one who pulled him that, and he finally got away from her. But it's the, same thing with alcohol. Alcohol's going to kill me if I keep, if I, here's what happens when I fall off the wagon now, I disappear for a week, sometimes two. I'm not on social media. I stop going to work.

Although the last time I managed work. Not, it wasn't a great week, but I manage. But my life essentially shuts down and it's awful. It's awful for my kids. It's awful to hear from my kids the things that I did. So basically this is going to kill me. So if, I had to write that breakup letter I, would just say, you are literally going to kill me if I keep this relationship up.

But it's funny because it, it is like breaking up a relationship because alcohol was always there for me. It was there when I was anxious. It was there when I was depressed. It was there when I was bored when I needed to feel better about myself. When I needed to speak to a group and I didn't have the words alcohol, suddenly it was like opening up a thesaurus.

I had all these wonderful words. I didn't use it when I was writing my columns. That was still before the heavy day drinking. That happened a little bit later after I lost my column. And I was really, depressed that one of the big editors at the San Jose Mercury News decided I wasn't columnist material anymore.

And that was my identity. That's how I met my second wife and people recognized me in public and blah, blah. Yeah. You had a

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: degree of notoriety.

Tony Hicks, Author: I did for a while and I really, I won't lie. I really liked it.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Sure.

Tony Hicks, Author: Anyway, yeah I would just tell the concept of alcohol that you are killing me and I'm going to die if I keep using you.

And this may sound funny from someone in recovery, but sometimes we all wonder how we're gonna die. And I'm pretty sure. At least on some nights when I think about it, I'm pretty sure that eventually it will have something to do with me falling off the wagon. And it, could be at age 90 i, don't know, but it's, very conceivable to me that it could eventually kill me or have something to do with it.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: I, feel the need to say this and I, I hope it doesn't come across as patronizing. It's meant. As a sincere compliment. I'm really, fucking proud of you for having the courage to look at yourself and get sober. 'cause I know it's, a harrowing journey. It's brutal. Yeah. Thank you. And in some level it's not your fault, but it is your responsibility, right?

Like you didn't ask for the genetics, you just got 'em.

Tony Hicks, Author: They say alcohol is a disease of choice. And I didn't years ago, I didn't believe it was a disease. Now I know that it's a disease, but I do believe that it's a disease of choice because there is, the way I think of it is there's some sort of switch in my brain that turns on the alcoholism.

That, that the genetics kick in. 'cause I have alcoholism throughout both sides of my family. And what you have to choose to take that first drink. Now sometimes you're pulled towards it. It's like a magnet. It's always yanking at you. And but once you choose to have that first drink, if it's in high school, if it's in college, if you're in your fifties like we are that flips the switch.

And there's no, going back to when you were 17 and having a few drinks at a party and having the best night of your life. That is, that's long gone. Within two days, you are ready to be locked up in a rehab again. Because you're out of control. Yeah. And, knowing, and it's funny because you know that, intellectually, but it's still, you still feel it, it still pulls at you.

Why would, why in the hell would you want to drink at age 57 when you have all these decades of, just. Turbulence and sadness and anger, and you've, isolated yourself from all these people who love you. Why would you do that? But you still want to sometimes. Yeah.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: It's

Tony Hicks, Author: weird.

Dr.John Schinnerer, Therapist for Men: Listen, Tony, thanks so much for joining me.

I appreciate your time and sharing your experience with me. And the book is Lying Drunk. Great book just released on Amazon. Run out, pick up a copy, give it to your teenage children as a cautionary tale. And that is it for this episode of the Evolve Caveman Podcast. And if this episode was meaningful to you, please be sure to leave a review on Apple Podcasts.

It helps us to continue to spread the word and change the lives of people. And if you didn't like it, you don't have to do a goddamn thing. Thanks so much. Until next time.