We're Talking The Cost of Alcoholism

0:00Plan B is a backup birth control option that's there for you when things don't go according to plan. It specifically works after unprotected sex and before pregnancy occurs by temporarily delaying ovulation. Plan B is available nationwide at all major retailers and through delivery apps like DoorDash. No ID, prescription or age requirement. It's the number one OBGYN recommended brand of emergency contraception and it won't impact your future fertility. That's freedom to be. Use as directed. Welcome to We're Talking. For Alcohol Awareness Week, I'm looking back at two powerful conversations with AJ McLean and Louis Spence about addiction, sobriety, family, and the pain that alcohol can leave behind.

0:51Before we get into today's conversation, I just want to share a content warning. This episode includes discussion of addiction. If you or someone you know needs support, we've included resources in the show notes. Your family, or they know you as Alex, feel like the world knows you as AJ. True. How do you define the difference between the two? You know, it's still a work in progress. But when we finished up the last tour, the DNA tour, we finished it in May of 2023. Um, my wife and I were already separated, so we're living separately. So I kind of had a little bit more freedom to kind of go where I want and do what I need for myself.

1:42And I decided to take a little trip to Scottsdale, Arizona. Okay. And, uh, I did a IOP. And for those that don't know what that is at home, it's an intensive outpatient program for mental health. Uh, you know, I was already going into two years sober at the time. Um, so my sobriety was good, but I wanted to dig a little deeper and figure out what was at the root of my addiction. Because a lot of people don't realize that as an addict, the drugs and the drinking, that's all symptomatic. It's not at the core of the issue. it's different for everybody whether it's ptsd trauma abuse uh for me i suffer from a condition i i call piece of shit ism uh so yeah i'm gonna tm uh piece of shit ism where literally you know my entire life i never felt good enough i never felt uh worthy of success or love or respect or compassion or you know uh flattery or you know compliments any of it so would you say then that you had low self-esteem very low self-esteem okay and it and it shocked most people because they're like how can you have low self-esteem and do what you do and i said no it's it's when i'm on stage that's my safety bubble okay at least it was that's my safety bubble i'm untouchable i can do what I want, say what I want, be who I am.

3:21And nobody can judge me or they might be judging me quietly, but I'm not hearing it. Um, so when I went to Scottsdale, I did this program three hours a day, five days a week in a group setting, uh, under the premise of love and relationship addiction. Okay. And really dove as deep as I possibly could at more than I've ever in my life to really try to hone in on my relationship with myself. They call it the trauma track. So you're doing like a week of trauma stuff. And I didn't think I really had any trauma, but it was suggested by my therapist. So I was like, all right, screw it. I'll go give it a whirl, whatever.

4:04I'm out here for me. I want to do whatever I can to better myself. Yes. And that was a big turning point. Like it was very intense. And you were chronicling what happened. Yeah, like going from birth to 17, which really for me was at the core of the developing of low self-esteem. And then if you want to come back again for Trauma Track 2, it's 17 to now. Okay. And I didn't really feel that I needed to. At the end of all of it, I learned a plethora of things. Number one, authenticity. Number two, that AJ is a character in a band. Alex is who I've always been government name I was born in that name that's who I've been my whole life but Alex kind of got stifled throughout my 40 year career and AJ just dominated and took over and AJ was the one got all the attention you know good bad and the ugly and thrived off of that that external validation that constant need for attention going above and beyond, telling tall tales, fabricating stories, lying, manipulating all the shit that addicts do.

5:22And I was a late bloomer, too. I didn't pick up a drink till I was almost 26. Wow. And it just latched on to me. And again, you know, it was a it was a bandaid for what was really going on inside. Do you recall rock bottom moment? I do, but it wasn't my true rock bottom. But it was a rock bottom moment then. Okay. My rock bottom was years later. But rock bottom moment for me then, I swore to myself that I would never do drugs before a show or drink during or before a show. And I held true for a while. And it wasn't until the end before we had to kind of take the tour down for a minute. and I went to rehab and all those things that I was drinking on stage.

6:19We had a little skit before the call where the phone would ring, like the intro to the song, and I had a prop phone, and I would be like looking at the fans. Is that you calling me? Is that you calling me? And then I would turn around and look at my band and I'd be like, is it you? Is it you? And I would specifically walk over to our percussion player, and he had a red solo cup. and everybody out in the audience is going to assume it's water. Right. Just big old quad shot of Jack Daniels. And I would just shoot it. And we had two songs left in the show. So towards the end of the encore, the alcohol started kicking in between the heat, the dancing and everything.

6:58And I started the buzz. So I was ready to go. The minute I walked off stage, like straight to the bar, I was good to go. But that was, that was a low for me to like know that i'm now drinking on stage right you know and you've crossed the boundary that you set for yourself yeah you know in that but then you said then years later it was rock rock no rock rock bottom for me was which was initially the turning point to really get my shit together. I had a show in South Beach.

7:35And at that time, I had taken pretty much all my dealers out of my phone. And I did the show in Miami, went out, party on a boat, was drinking, met some random people. They had drugs, did a shit ton of blow. didn't realize around that time was when fentanyl was slowly creeping in. So I dodged a big bullet, but you know, in my mind as an addict thinks, you know, if I drink some coffee, I'll mask the smell. If I do this or do that, nobody will be aware. and at the time my wife knew she had discovered that i had a allergy to vodka and that was at the time that was the drink that i was drinking um i didn't realize i was allergic to vodka but my face would get splotchy and break out and shit so if if i didn't facetime her she knew something was up or if i facetimed her and she saw my face she would wait for me to be honest And of course I wasn't until two weeks later.

8:52And then, oh yeah, by the way, I was drunk that night. You know, she's like, of course I knew. But I flew home, smelled like a bar, hadn't slept in like two days. Went to give my youngest a hug. And she wouldn't hug me. And I was like, what's going on, babe? And she's like, you don't smell like my dad. And I've never had a bigger bitch slap, gut check, god shot in my life. And I just felt like the most worthless piece of shit I've ever felt. And the very next day, I went to a meeting. And here I am four and a half years. So that single moment changed your life. I will go down in history saying my daughter saved my life.

9:48and I don't 100 % think she understands it I mean she's extremely intelligent she's 8 but she's my little genius yes like 8 going on 35 and like talking about non-newtonium fluids and stuff with me I'm like what what what yeah but I share stories from my past with my daughters every year that they're getting older and I make them more and more graphic intentionally not to scare the crap out of them but I want them to know this was daddy this is where I hope you both never ever go down this path yes they've never seen me drunk and they never have to and that's a great thing look at that they both talk about how much oh we're never going to drink that we hate alcohol well you don't know unless you try it so you can't say you hate it Yes.

10:46I said, as your father, I pray that you both have an allergy to it. And or you may just never even want to try it. What's also beautiful here is that your daughters really love you. Oh, yeah. You know, I can ride or dies, man. They're my little homies. Yeah. You know, it's interesting is I sometimes get chills when guests say certain things. that moment where you said your daughter saved your life I got I got chills

11:27she mentioned your mother in there you mentioned your mother passing away and I'd like to if we could just talk about how that impacted you i mean i've never spoken about this anywhere before i mean when my mum passed like literally about two weeks later i was on the rain and she said you want to you know do you want to say anything and i was like absolutely not no one in the love of anyone's business i'm not going to have people giving me sympathy because my mum's died you know i don't want that i don't need it but and i'm sure i'm absolutely sure like i say i'm very close to my family and I'm sure they won't mind saying the circumstances I mean my mum was an alcoholic but she was a functioning alcoholic um my nan her mum died of alcoholism um my my nan's twin sister my great aunt my mum's aunt died of alcoholism my uncle my mum's younger brother just died of alcoholism so but my my mum was always when I was growing up she was always glamorous she was beautiful I mean she had a great body you know she was really glamorous she was you know and I suppose a gay man a gay boy you know when she used to go out she was wearing the achilles tight tube dresses and beautiful like stiletto heels and my sister sometimes would be mum you can't go out like that I'd be like oh mum you look fantastic she just looked stunning she looked beautiful so my mum always struggled I think and this is where I think we I get it from um I think she was always looking for something that wasn't there happiness that wasn't there anyway I was in London a lot so I didn't really notice my mum started to drink because my mum when we were younger was very military she'd have two Bacardi's and Cokes wherever she went that was the limit two Bacardi's and Coke and she'd have a packet of 10 number six which were a packet of cigarettes and that's all the cigarettes she would smoke she wouldn't drink anymore because obviously if she drunk anymore she might be sick it might make her feel anxious she might you know all of these things why i've never drunk why i've never taken drugs the control yes so she she only did what she was in control of i didn't really know um that she had been drinking as long as she had and as much as she was so she had got to the point where she needed alcohol to get through the day so she didn't she'd wake up in the morning like I didn't see that I go home one day like you know from London I go and I look at my mum and I think she looks a little bit sallow you know a bit you know she's always like got quite a nice tanner but she just looked a bit sallow and I was I was like, I mean, look a little bit, do you feel all right?

14:05You look a bit, you know, pasty a bit. No, no, no, it's fine. Stay there, wake up the next day, yellow. I said, there's something not right there. I hadn't put two and two together. Right. I took her straight to the doctor. He suggested I take her to A &E. And then the doctor in the A &E took her behind this curtain and started to examine her. And I'm the other side of the curtain. And I hear her go, oh, she's tender there. And then he says, well, yeah, Mrs. Spencer, you were told last year that if you didn't stop drinking, then, you know, she was told the year before she had cirrhosis of the liver, right?

14:50And she didn't stop drinking. And then after that, they admitted to a hospital hospital and i was doing pantomime and i got a phone call on the 2nd of december we were told that she had sarocer of the liver she had damaged the liver part of the liver will never function again right this is this is not sure that's shocked to me because i was but she she'd have about five years because she damaged the liver and the liver normally can replenish itself but where it's that damaged it can't so for her age and what liver she has left the life Not great, not great, but you know, okay, we can deal with this.

15:30We go home, have tea. About two hours later, they tell us you have to come back up to the hospital now. We're like, what? We've just left. We go to the hospital.

15:46And they take us into a room. My dad and my sisters. we had no idea this was coming and said do you want to resuscitate her and we're like what you just told us two hours ago she's got five years you know and and now we've just gone home for two hours and come back and you're asking about resuscitating her and i was like my dad was beside him i mean complete shock you know there was no sort of build-up to it anyway I actually can't remember what was said I think we said no we want to resuscitate her I think we were so shocked anyway we went back into the room when we went back into the room at this time she now had this full mask over her face like a snorkel mask but completely over her face with this tube coming out from an oxygen machine you can see the levels of oxygen going like this so anyway we stay there they've given her morphine so she's a bit in and out of consciousness this and then they she she tries to take the mask off of her face so without this mask she hasn't got oxygen so she's gonna die right because this mask you know thinking you know she leaves it on then she'd get a bit better and then you know but if she takes it off now the oxygen's so low she will die so then i'm pulling this mask back on her face pushing it on her face calling for the nurse call it no one came right um no one came we were calling for them no one came anyway you've got to think so she's been totally on moving like totally out of it sort of like this i swear to god she sat bolt upright took the mask off and said i've had enough i was like mum i said you know if you take this mask off you're not going to be able to breathe.

17:49She said I've had enough. As clear as clear and like I say this whole time she's been like this on the oxygen you gotta bolt upright. That's it. She laid down within 20 seconds, 30 seconds. Literally said that's it I've had enough. She went like this and there's this horrible gurgling sound it's like a gurgle and then just boom she was dead um and I was very matter of fact as in she was dead I looked at her and I said no longer than two or three minutes I said right then come on let's go got everyone out my dad said my dad as well so that boom i went so what do we do then oh you need to get a birth right next day i was up there you know birth you know death certificate and like i say it didn't really hit me till about three or four years after then i realized she wasn't there and that could i've done something could any of us done something but you know the thing is when people die of an addiction it's really hard because you think you know she chose that over my dad over me over my siblings now even though we weren't shown physical love I know how much my parents love us and I know how much my mum loved all of us through the sacrifice and everything she'd done for us it's still hard to battle with the fact that you know

19:25to not

19:30to not blame them for choosing that over you

19:39I think like I say I always I always said my mum is her own person she can choose that was her choice you know and I try and separate it from being my mum to being a human being and I could make those mistakes anyone could and people have but it's really hard if she had chose you know you hear about people what have got through it why didn't she you know I feel like I say my mum was always searching for something that wasn't there a happiness I think that she found happiness in alcohol because it made her forget it made her you know but then it got to that point of no return so she'd already gone so far knowing that she'd damaged herself that far so what's the point of living another however many I don't know I don't know and you know like for my dad you know I feel for him um and my siblings but I don't blame her you know I really really I promise you I don't I'm not angry with her I'm just sad that you know there's so many joyous things that have happened since she passed you know well one is thank you for sharing that story yeah um because i know you haven't shared that story i haven't never only because only because like of my family you know but like i say we're we're a strong family and i i know that my my siblings or my dad are not ashamed of my mom that's one thing i'm not ashamed of i'm not ashamed that she was an alcoholic i'm not you know she was an incredible mum she was a wonderful wonderful person and you know I am part of her as my siblings are I am the person I am because of her there was greatness in her and there was love and joy in her and that's what I'll remember you know so and there's many people in families who have bigger struggles or going through the same or people going through that and maybe this conversation would make them look before they've been given that five years left or they can have a whole life yes you know you can have a whole life left so you know i don't know it's their choice i don't know my mom wasn't strong enough i don't know i don't know yeah you know i um i um i mean there's so many questions i have but just that story alone tells me so much about you you know and how resilient you are and actually how much of a pillar you have not just been, I think, to the community.

22:17And I say that there's many communities, but in particular to your family. How, you know, in those moments, I always see that there's someone who kind of steps up because everyone else is in this fog. I've had various family members and friends pass away. And oftentimes there's that one person that really steps up and takes responsibility for everyone, regardless of age. And it sounds like you were that person. It's definitely me. Yeah, for your family. And if you want to hear the full unfiltered stories from today's guest, you can check them out on the We Need to Talk page. Drop a like, leave a comment, and hit subscribe.

22:57See you next week.

23:10with some mixing somewhere. ...