Name: Is Alcoholism Genetic? Lara Beitz' Sobriety Journey
Uploaded: 2021-04-03T18:28:53.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Is Alcoholism Genetic? Lara Beitz' Sobriety Journey' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-04-03. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Is Alcoholism Genetic? Lara Beitz' Sobriety Journey' from PowerfulJRE on Comedy Buff. Published 2021-04-03. Transcript available.

the Joe Rogan experience and there's no like predicting who's gonna get it and
who's not like there are people who go in and out of recovery and then one day
it clicks my dad was like quitting stuff for my whole life and and and
eventually got sober in jail when I was 12 and was sober for the rest of my
life
he was sober for the next 12 years until he died when I was 24 and I don't
think
that anyone ever really expected him to stop drinking you know so it's like
worth having hope for people but also my mom didn't argue him into finally
quitting drinking I didn't beg him into finally quitting drinking nobody
convinced
him except for like his own misery of like losing his family and then being in
jail you know you you used to party hard yeah yeah yeah what made you um do you
think it's a genetic thing yeah I do I think it's a genetic thing I think that
there also can be an environmental component you know I I know that some
things that I liked about it were it made me feel comfortable talking to people
um crowds have always been kind of draining for me large crowds especially if
it's like people I don't know um and I felt like I could talk to guys for the
first time when I started drinking but then I couldn't stop drinking once I
started drinking so I would be like laid out on a bathroom floor with the guys
I
liked like stepping over me to pee to pee you know it just got real that's how
it
always went I'd feel there'd be like a moment in the night where I was like oh
yeah I'm fucking hot and then I'd have like throw up in my ear and be fucking
pissing someone's futon so it just was always real rough and there was a period
of
time for like years where I woke up and started drinking and drank all day and
was a
blackout drinker every night um and then I actually had a boyfriend and I quit
drinking for him and then I started again and it just was always like it always
went back to the same place like I tried quitting what I tried quitting every
year
since I started I started drinking pretty much daily when I was 17 and then got
sober when I was 29 and haven't had a drink or a drug since but my bottom wasn't
when I stopped when I stopped was just when I was done mm-hmm it's an
interesting
thing but my last drink was actually just like a couple sips of a friend's beer
and
then I just was like I just something clicked and I knew I couldn't do it by
myself and I was willing to accept help I was willing to do anything I was
willing to do whatever
it took and so um I did I got help it was free what year was this around uh
January 21st 2014
wow you know it by the day yeah that's great I don't have like a a other than
the birth of my
children in my head like that I have like that's the day I started comedy day I
was married that kind
of shit yeah but that's a big one I don't know when I started comedy and I don't
know when you got
married but that's my that's my date yeah I started comedy August 27th 1988 and
I think
back to that day all the time because I almost pussied out wow yeah me too do
you almost pussied
out yeah what happened with you I um called yeah I you had to call the comedy
club ahead of time
to ask for a spot the comedy cafe in Milwaukee I don't think it's with us any
longer I think it
has passed away but um yeah you you called ahead of time to get a spot on the
open mic
and then you could do a set for five to seven minutes and so I like typed my
set out word for
word on a computer practiced it in front of a full-length mirror a million
times um and wanted to cancel
but I would have had to like cancel to cancel and I'm not a bitch so I did it
and you were drinking
back then yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah oh yeah they yeah um yeah I used to go
on stage blackout drunk
it I would not have any of the success that I have right now if I hadn't
stopped drinking because I
would blackout um and yeah I went on and I told my jokes and some of them hit
and some of them didn't
but I got that I got the fix I got that feeling of like telling a joke to a
room full of people and
having them laugh at it and I've been hooked ever since how did you remember
your material if you're
blackout drunk I wasn't blackout drunk at that moment oh other times I don't
know and sometimes I
didn't I mean I fucked up a lot you know there were times where I like went on
stage and I would
repeat my jokes that I had just said um I would ask my friends like how my set
go and they'd be like you
are shit-faced you know like you're drunk it looked like you were really drunk
you know I knew generally
if I couldn't remember it that it probably wasn't that good generally yeah
generally I'm like well
but I mean that's like the difference between then and now it's like what you
were talking about now if
you have an opportunity you make the most of it now if I have an opportunity I
make the most of it
I show up early I'm polite and professional and like nobody wets their pants
and I maybe get another
shot of the thing later you know you get to move on to like the next level on
to the next step
back then I remember in Milwaukee there was a headliner who thought I was funny
and wanted to see if
he wanted to bring me on the road and so he got me a feature set at a show a
one-nighter and um
I went and did it and got blackout drunk and don't remember anything he said to
me
on the ride home but I do know he never brought me on the road with him you
know like I know I'm not
on tour with him right now is he on tour I don't know oh I don't know I don't
think I I don't think
I've spoken to him since maybe he'll see this and maybe he will his name was
James Irvin Barry
all right James Irvin Barry he was very nice I was very drunk it was not his
fault it's a weird thing
that genetic propensity for alcoholism because I've seen it in people where
their parents are
drunks and they just can't fucking help it I've seen it and some people like to
think that it's all
willpower but I'm not so sure I don't have that thing I can have a drink or two
and I can not drink
for a month it doesn't bother me but I've seen it where like one drink and then
they get fucking
shark eyes it's like plink they flip over like you know gerbils you ever
looking at gerbils eyes
no I never looked at a gerbils eyes dead they're dead eyes like like some
people their eyes just go
they black out they get glazed over and they're not there anymore oh Charles
not here anymore
yeah Charles is gone now this fucking shark boy like is their eyes just glass
over yeah I mean I was
never there when it happened but that's exactly how my friends describe me they'd
be like I looked at you
last night and you weren't there that's exactly how they describe me it's what
it seems like when
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