transcript

Speaker 1:
[00:00] Today's episode is brought to you by ALMA. At different periods of my life, therapy has been really helpful, but the process of finding a therapist can be overwhelming. Between finding out the right fit, figuring out insurance and cost, it's tricky to know where to begin. That's what makes ALMA so helpful. ALMA is on a mission to make high quality affordable mental health care more accessible. They've built a nationwide community of over 20,000 diverse therapists, and you can browse the directory without an account. With filters for insurance, therapeutic approach, identity, and more, ALMA helps you find someone who fits your needs. 99% of their therapists accept insurance, and people who use ALMA to find in-network care save an average of 80% per session. Plus, their free insurance cost estimator tells you exactly what you'll pay upfront. A year from today, who do you want to be? You don't have to figure that out alone. A year from today isn't that far away. Get started now at helloalma.com.

Speaker 2:
[01:01] Okay, quick question. Why are we still acting like sky-high wireless bills are just part of being an adult? For years, I've watched my phone bill creep up, feeling like there wasn't much I could do about it. And then I remembered. Free will extends to my wireless plan too. I've been looking at different options, and Mint Mobile is at the top of the list. With them, I can still get strong coverage and fast data, but with a much better price tag. Mint exists to stop the cycle of overpaying just because that's how it's always been. Their premium wireless plan started just 15 bucks a month. You got high-speed data and unlimited talk and text on the nation's largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone and number, activate with eSIM in minutes, and start saving right away. No long-term contracts, no hoops to jump through. If you like your money, Mint Mobile is for you. Shop plans at mintmobile.com/moth. That's mintmobile.com/moth. Upfront payment of $45 for three months, five gigabyte plan required, equivalent to $15 a month. New customer offer for first three months only, then full price plan options available. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details.

Speaker 3:
[02:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Dan Kennedy. Many times, stories are about taking the long way. They're about what happens when we make the difficult decision that we knew would be good for us, and we made it even though it was tough. But what about the times when we don't exactly rise to the challenge? This week, two stories about taking short cuts. First up, we have Lawrence Wood live at The Moth Story Slam in Chicago, where the theme of the night was gangs, clicks, and crowds. Here's Lawrence.

Speaker 4:
[02:34] When I was a teenager, I read only what I had to for school. And there were rare exceptions. In ninth grade, my English teacher took me aside after class one day, and she gave me a book called The Learning Tree by Gordon Parks, who's best remembered now as the director of the 1971 movie Shaft. And it's a good movie. It was a good book. And The Learning Tree is his autobiographical account of growing up black in the deep south in the 1930s. And it was banned in my school because of a brief sex scene at the beginning that was not nearly explicit enough for my taste. But I liked the book. But still, it didn't trigger a love of reading that my teacher hoped it would. I still only read what I had to. But that finally changed my senior year when I took an English class from a teacher who at first I really didn't like at all. She had us read and write a book report on Jane Eyre. And the night before the report was due, I banged out a first draft and I typed Jane Eyre on the title page because that's what the paper was about and handed it in. And a week later, she holds my paper up in the air and she says, this is not Jane Eyre. This is a very poorly written analysis of Jane Eyre. And then she said D and she gave me the paperback. But then she started assigning books by more contemporary authors that I really loved. And I finally understood for the first time why people read for pleasure. And from that point on, I read constantly. And many years later, I joined a book group. And this book group had some academics and English professors, people who took literature very seriously. And one of them was a woman named Laura who taught English at Northwestern University. And she got to assign our book two months in a row. And the first book she assigned was The Secret History by Donna Tart, which is about this group of pretentious college students who kill one of their own. And I just hated it. And when I looked at the author photo, I thought, oh, this is why she recommended it. The author looked just like her. And it was long and boring, and only one of the characters died, and I wanted them all to die. And the next month, she made us read, or she told us to read Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. And I didn't read it, partly because it reminded me of the 19th century novels like Jane Eyre that I hated in high school, and partly because I was still so annoyed about having to read The Secret History. And so I knew I'd have to miss the discussion, but on the night this discussion was scheduled to take place, I stomped off at Tower Records, and there I saw a whole rack full of those yellow and black study guides called Cliff's Notes. And I saw one for Lord Jim, and I thought, maybe I can go to the discussion. So I went, and I offered, as my own insight, something that I had read in the Cliff's Notes, and Laura said, well, that's really interesting. And then she asked me more about the comment I'd made, and so I repeated what I could remember from the study guide. And we went back and forth like this, really dominated the discussion for the whole evening. And at the end of the night, everybody agreed that the discussion had been a success. And even though I should have just been relieved and kept my mouth shut, I confessed to reading the Cliff's Notes. And everybody just stared at me, and Laura looked like I kicked her in the gut. And when I got home and told my wife what happened, she said, what were you thinking? And she had been in a book group for many years, another book group, and she knew that these things were just not done. And the next morning, a guy from the group called me, and he said, look, after you left last night, a few of us were talking about what happened, and we decided it would be better if you didn't return. And I said, you're kicking me out? And he said, yes. And I said, of a book group? And he said, yes. And I said, because I read the Cliffs Notes. And he said, yes, because you read the Cliffs Notes, Larry, you cheated. And I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I had never heard of anybody getting expelled from a book group before. And neither had my wife. And when I gave her the news, she said, well, that I didn't expect. And she sounded sympathetic. So I said, well, can I join your book group? And she said, absolutely not. Thank you.

Speaker 3:
[07:39] That was Lawrence Wood. Lawrence is an attorney, a Moth Story Slam regular, and a lecturer in law at the University of Chicago, where he teaches a seminar on poverty law. Lawrence has also won the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest, a record setting seven times.

Speaker 5:
[08:00] Do you remember Blue Apron, the subscription meal service? Well, I have news. The new Blue Apron has just launched, and they are totally subscription free. I love that I can order exactly what I want, when I want, with zero commitment. Blue Apron makes it easier to eat better without the stress of meal planning or defaulting to takeout. Every meal is chef designed and informed by nutrition, with options that have up to 40 grams of protein and a strong focus on fiber. Everything comes pre-portioned, so there's no guesswork. On busy nights, their new assemble and bake meals are a lifesaver. Five minutes of prep, one pan, I'm done. And when I truly have no time, dish by Blue Apron meals are ready to heat and eat in minutes. That's less time than it takes to listen to one episode of your favorite podcast. Same quality, way more convenient. Order now at blueapron.com. Get 50% off your first two orders plus free shipping with Moth 50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com/terms for more information. The beginning of the year can be overwhelming. All of this new year, new Utalk is tied up with money. Paying down debt, bulking up savings, setting big dream goals. But you know, you can set yourself up for financial success this year. Monarch is the all-in-one personal finance tool designed to make your life easier. What I love is that Monarch lays out everything so clearly. I can see where my money went and where it's going, everything. The projections, the investment tracking compared to the S&P 500, debt going down, savings going up, my network changing in real time. It's so clearly laid out. Every day I can see how I'm that much closer to my big dream vacation. Feel aware and in control of your finances this year and get 50% off your Monarch subscription with code MOTH. Set yourself up for financial success in 2026 with Monarch, the all-in-one tool that makes proactive money management simple all year long. Use code MOTH at monarch.com for half off your first year. That's 50% off your first year at monarch.com with code MOTH.

Speaker 3:
[10:07] Up next, Amanda Egge. And a quick heads up to our listeners. This story deals with drug use and addiction, so we just wanted to give you a quick note about that. Amanda shared this story at a Moth Grand Slam in Los Angeles. The theme of the night was The Deep End.

Speaker 6:
[10:27] I knew we had to quit heroin because we were running out of money. And honestly, being a junkie was not part of my life plan. At the time, I was 23, living in New York with my college boyfriend Dominic, our three cats, and $120 a day heroin habit. Dominic and I had tried quitting on our own, but we could never make it past the third day of withdrawal. For those of you who have never kicked heroin before, it's like the worst flu you've ever had times a million. But the hardest part is not the severe cramping, anxiety, diarrhea, vomiting, or cold sweats. It's knowing that the instant cure to your misery is just a subway ride away in Bushwick. Still, going to rehab seemed like too drastic a move. I mean, yes, I was addicted to heroine and I couldn't go more than a couple of hours without using or I'd start to feel sick. And heroine makes it impossible to orgasm so I hadn't come a year and a half. And I was so constipated that I found myself digging rock hard poop out of my butt with latex gloves. But I was also in the number one Ph.D. program for philosophy. And there was no way I could miss my metaphysics seminar. So I found an outpatient program that would prescribe you darvon, clonidine, and clonidine to help step you down off opiates. And we did that a couple of times, but we kept relapsing for stupid reasons. Like one day I was looking around the apartment and it was a mess. And so I wrote Dominic a note about it. And when I got home, he was sitting on the couch smoking heroine. And I was like, what are you doing? And he said, in your note, you said to pick up. And I said, I meant the apartment. But there he was, smoking heroine, so I did too. One day after another relapse, I started having a panic attack. And for some reason in that moment, I picked up the phone to call my mom. I said, mom, you have to come to New York. There's something I want to tell you. That's all I said. She didn't ask what it was. She just got on a plane. But the truth is, she already knew. She just didn't know it was heroin. My mom met with me and my therapist, and my therapist said, you need to go to rehab. And I said, no, I just need to go to Hawaii or something. And he said, no, you need to go to rehab. There's one in Arizona. It's called Sierra Tucson. And I said, let me think about it. So that night, I went home, and I Googled Sierra Tucson, and I saw on their website that they have horses. And growing up, I'd always love going horseback riding. So I decided that I could go to rehab because they had horses. Not to get off horse, but for the horses. I went in the next day, and I told my therapist, okay, yes, I'll go to Sierra Tucson. And he said, you can't now, your boyfriend is going there. And I said, fuck you, that's my rehab. And I stormed out of the room. My mom convinced me to come back in, and my therapist said, it's okay, there are other rehabs. There's one in Malibu. And I said, does it have horses? And he said, no, but it has celebrities. By the time I arrived in rehab, I was already 24 hours into heroin withdrawal. They gave me some stuff to help through the first couple days of detox, but I still felt like shit, and I couldn't really sleep for the first month. Heroin makes you super relaxed, and when your body gets used to that, and you take it away, what you're left with is edginess and adrenaline. At night, the rehab would take us to these outside drug and alcohol meetings, and there was these two guys from another rehab that I would always hang out with at the meetings because they were cute, but also because they were celebrities. One night, one of them said to me, hey, we huffed hair mousse today. How, I asked. I'd been sitting in the rehab bathroom staring at a huffing warning label on a bottle of air freshener for weeks, trying to figure out how to do it. They told me, and that night I went back to the rehab, and I went through all the other patient's stuff, and I stole every bottle of hair mousse that I could find, which was two, and I hid them, and then whenever I felt like I needed to get high, I would go in the bathroom and take a huff. Huffing made rehab really manageable. Then I ran out of the hair mousse, and I started requesting it along with my weekly carton of cigarettes, but for some reason the rehab never brought me any. And then one day this local Malibu girl came and picked me up to take me to a meeting, and I was riding with her in her car, and I knew we were about to pass by a beauty supply store, and I thought I should just ask her to stop so that I can get some hair mousse. And then my next thought was, Oh my god, am I just going to be a hair mousse addict for the rest of my life? That was the moment I realized that drugs were over for me. In rehab, they tell you that you have to hit bottom in order to get clean, but hitting bottom isn't like touching the floor of a pool. It's murkier than that, because no matter where your bottom is, you could always go lower. Dominic found his bottom when he used heroin one last time after he left Sierra Tucson, but for me, it wasn't the heroin that convinced me I was a drug addict. It was the hair mousse.

Speaker 3:
[16:01] That was Amanda Egge. Amanda lived through tragedy, comedy, and heroin addiction in her teens and early 20s, but turned her life around at the age of 23. She's now married with two kids and runs a popular home bakery specializing in decorated sugar cookies. We followed up with her to see how she's doing now, and she says, quote, I haven't used hair mousse or heroin since I left rehab in 2001. I live a pretty normal life now that looks nothing like it did when I was in my early 20s, and I did finally get that trip to Hawaii when my husband and I went on our honeymoon. Unfortunately, I didn't get to ride horses then either. Lastly, if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, you can call the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration's National Hotline 1-800-662-HELP. That's going to do it this time around, but we'll be back again soon with some more stories. Until then, from all of us here at The Moth, have a story-worthy week.

Speaker 7:
[17:02] Dan Kennedy is the author of Loser Goes First, Rock On, and American Spirit. He's also a regular host and storyteller with The Moth.

Speaker 3:
[17:11] Podcast production by Julia Purcell and Paul Ruest.

Speaker 5:
[17:17] I live a weird little life where I have been gifted a bunch of corporate swag. And I tell you what, when it hits, it hits. Now that it's my turn to make it, I'm having a blast on Vistaprint. There are so many ways to raise awareness for and gift The Moth. Of course, they've got sweatshirts and hats, but they've also got so much more. Who among us does not need another power bank? And how excited am I to get my magnetic car magnets? Designing and ordering is so easy. If I don't step away, I'm gonna have 500 perfect flashlights. Whether you're adjusting a design, starting fresh, or need a little human help to bring an idea together, they make the process simple and approachable. There's a reason over a million people trust Vistaprint for their small business print needs. It's about showing up confidently and looking polished as you grow. Vistaprint, print your possible. Right now, new customers get 20% off with code NEW20 at vistaprint.com.

Speaker 2:
[18:16] This episode is brought to you in part by Claude from Anthropic. The best creative thinkers live in the details, the moment that changes everything, the contradiction that makes someone real. Claude is built for creative thinkers. When you're working through an idea, considering options, thinking outside the box, working through roadblocks, Claude sits with the messy parts and helps you see patterns you might have missed. It's a thinking partner for the kind of work that deserves your full attention, turning scattered notes or incomplete thoughts into something clear. Try Claude for free at claude.ai/themoth and see why the world's best problem solvers choose Claude as their thinking partner.