Drunk-ish - A Sobriety Podcast · Stefanie Wilder-Taylor

The First Sober Comics and the Friends They Lost Along the Way

·51 min·3 clips

Rich says Mike McDonald tried “just a beer,” then returned to shooting up drugs and eventually died from liver damage.

1. Drunk-ish - A Sobriety Podcast uses Rich Scheidner’s comedy career and May 11, 1985 sobriety date to frame a conversation about recovery in stand-up. 2. Stephanie Wilder-Taylor hosts Rich Scheidner, a comedian with The Tonight Show credits, sitcom and movie work, the book Kicking Through the Ashes, and the History of Stand-Up YouTube channel. 3. The episode asks how a comic built a sober life in a scene where “23 hours to kill between shows” often meant drinking or drugs. 4. Rich says he moved from Washington, DC, to New York City in 1979 to “join the circus” of stand-up comedy. 5. He describes a 1980s cluster of comics who got sober around the same time and started a yearly benefit show called Yuckaholics. 6. Rich says he used alcohol, cocaine, weed, mushrooms, and acid before going onstage, sometimes on paid sets. 7. He tells a story about performing on acid at the Cellar Door in Washington, DC, while opening for Spirogyra and being hit with a roast beef sandwich. 8. Rich says his first meeting brought him face to face with a woman whose polished appearance reminded him of June Cleaver, but her story matched his own experience. 9. He says that meeting made him realize he was not alone and that he wanted only one thing: to quit drinking and drugging. 10. Rich argues that sobriety worked because he was truly done, and because alcohol and drugs were “done with me.” 11. He says people told him he was funnier when using, but he points to five a.m. skin-crawling and the long wait for the liquor store as the reality. 12. Rich explains that sobriety changed his marriage because the old “script” no longer fit what he was saying and doing. 13. He says some relationships ended because anything that threatened sobriety had to be removed, including jobs and romantic partners. 14. Rich recalls a woman who kept arriving “coked up, drunk,” and who left with another man after he told her the behavior could not continue. 15. He says sober comics often formed a visible crew at the Comedy Store and the Improv, which made road life less isolating. 16. Rich says he lost a Showtime sitcom role after refusing to join a house writing session that was really just drinking and drugging. 17. The conversation becomes more personal when Rich describes Mike McDonald, a close friend from Toronto who came into the rooms with him and later died after returning to heroin. 18. Rich also talks about Sam Kinison trying to get sober and about the fear comics had that they might lose creativity without alcohol or drugs. 19. The tone is conversational and reflective, with Stephanie asking direct follow-up questions and Rich answering with detailed road stories and specific dates. 20. Listeners who care about sobriety, 1980s stand-up, and comedy history will get the most out of this episode, while people wanting a fast, joke-heavy chat may skip it.

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