Name: Jordan Peterson and Theo Von Discuss Sobriety
Uploaded: 2020-02-13T21:00:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jordan Peterson and Theo Von Discuss Sobriety' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-13. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jordan Peterson and Theo Von Discuss Sobriety' from Theo Von Clips on Comedy Buff. Published 2020-02-13. Transcript available.

well i'm sure this must have happened when you decided to stop drinking you
must have thought
this isn't good i'm not going to be funny anymore i thought that i thought i
thought there was going
to be ramifications yeah okay and so what were they what what did you what did
you foresee
happening i thought i wouldn't be funny i thought that people wouldn't like me
i thought that um i
wouldn't be able to meet girls if i wasn't drinking or or you know or having
drugs or um
right so that was what you were afraid of giving up if you stopped drinking
right what were you
afraid of happening if you kept drinking um i was afraid of not achieving my
dreams i was afraid of
you know uh ending up a drug addict yeah i'm afraid of dying in my sleep
something you know dying under
the influence okay so there so there yeah it's not like that doesn't happen to
comedians right
happens a lot it's one of our it's one of our go-to rules well right exactly
well it's not an
occupational hazard because you're up late at night you're around bars all the
time it is it is because
it is because you're up late at night and yeah chris farley right here right
right
well and it happened to all sorts of comedians and rock musicians usually
happens at about 27
you know weirdly enough so okay so you were afraid you're afraid you're going
to die or you're afraid
you're going to become addicted so so let's say what what of life what would
have life like being like
you for for you if you were addicted so you don't have a career anymore no
right so you've given all
that up and failed so that's fun so that's going to drive you even more towards
drugs yeah it would
have been all my dreams it would have been miserable right it would have been
hell exactly is that so
why quit drinking so i don't end up in hell hey there's a reason there's a
reason to stop and then
if you make that hell real it's like here's all the details of my personal hell
yes let's avoid that
right so then you have something to run the hell away from right so now you
have something towards
and something to run away from and i'll say this too as you for if there's any
young men or women
out there who are listening to jordan feeling like well i still i don't know if
you know if i start
like my friends are going to act assert yeah they are they are yeah yeah but
you're also you're going
to start creating conversations you're going to become the intrigue because you're
going to be
bringing something new to the table you're also going to find out who your
friends are yeah because
if you're starting to put your life together and you have friends that object
those are not friends
those are just people you know they're not friends because a friend is someone
this is one of the
hallmarks of a friend here's two hallmarks a friend is someone you can tell bad
news to and they won't
tell you why you're an idiot and they won't interfere with your suffering they'll
just listen and maybe
they'll suffer along with you okay so you can tell bad news to them and they
won't tell you some worst
thing that happened to them they'll listen and they'll suffer along with you
but a friend is also
someone you can tell good news to and the friend will say wow in this veil of
tears something good
happened to you great man i'm wonderful it's rare it's unlikely good for you i
hope 10 more things
like that happen and they're not envious and they're not jealous and they're
not one-upping you
and if you're trying to get your life together it's actually if you're trying
to get your life together
and your friends get in the way that's actually real useful for you because you've
now identified who
your friends aren't and you might think well i can't give them up it's like oh
yes you can and not
only can you you should and it would be better for them because if they're
aiming down and they want
you going down with them there's nothing good about what's happening to them
and there's certainly
nothing good about that for you yeah they're not gonna and then they're gonna
learn wow if i i'm
gonna lose friends if i continue in these directions yeah exactly exactly is it
hard for why is it hard for
people to let go of what's so familiar with to them even if it's bad well
because it's complicated
you know and the thing that's a really good question you discount the risk of
familiarity
that they're familiar with so like let's say because people are in
relationships people are
in relationships with the drugs and alcohol people are in relationships with
humans people are in
relationships with jobs people are in relationships with their own selves and
they live they're they're
living a lie every single day but it's it's familiarity yeah well you say i
have a job i hate
it's like well yeah but i'm not dying from it it's like not as bad as it can be
so
you you kind of you kind of that you've factored in the risks already they get
invisible you think
well i can't jump out of this job because what about all the risk it's like
yeah no kidding you
got to make a you got to get your resume in order you got to send it out you
got to send 50 the damn
things out before anybody will call you back then you have to go get
interviewed and maybe you're not
any good at that you have to come up with a story while you're a good employee
and maybe and maybe
you're not yet so you have to figure out how to do that it's like what about
all these risks if i go look
for a new job it's like yeah absolutely man those are risks and they're harsh
and no wonder you're
avoiding them what about the risks for you to stay with this job you absolutely
hate well let's think
that through okay so i have this dead-end job i hate it i'm getting bitter
where am i going to be in
five years i know where because i've watched this with people you're going to
be you're going to be just
like you are now except a lot more of what's good about you is going to be gone
and a lot more of what's
terrible is going to be amplified and you're going to be like in five years you're
going to be 10
years older instead of three years older yeah right and because it kills your
spirit oh man yeah so
it's like you think oh my god there's a terrible risk in pursuing this new job
it's like yeah there
is a terrible risk there's a terrible risk and you stand with your job right
now and so one of the
things that's really really freeing to understand is that you're screwed no
matter what you do
there's no secure path forward give it up it's risk everywhere oh my god that's
terrible it's like
yes except for two things you can pick your risk that's the first thing so you
get to pick your
poison that's something and second you're a lot tougher than you think so even
though there's risk
everywhere if you confront it forthrightly what you'll find is that you can
actually handle the
risk and that's the security that's beautiful and there's so much growth to be
had right there
when you realize how much like there were times i was like man i could never be
a sober person because
i'm afraid of you know i can't communicate with women or i'm afraid to you know
stand around in a
circle with tough guys without having like a beer in my hand you know or like
all these little crutches
you know i can't and then i remember when i got like 90 days sober i was just
like holy shit man like
it was like the first time i'd ever done something uh like for myself you know
yeah and it just
man it felt it felt unprecedented yeah yeah well it was it felt like i felt
like i'd gone to the moon
how old were you when you started drinking uh i don't know probably like 17 or
16 you know kind
of regular yeah it was pretty basic and i never did a bunch of it you know but
my biggest thing was
just emotional sobriety like i was so drunk on my own insecurities and low self-worth
alcohol
alcohol really is a good drug for coping with anxiety that's why people use it
so it does too if you if
you really like alcohol it does it does two things to you it makes you more extroverted
and enthusiastic
while you're on the ascending limb of the blood alcohol curve which is why you
have to keep drinking
once you start because if you plateau that goes away so you got to keep
drinking okay so that's one
thing it makes you more enthusiastic and and more full of positive emotion and
the second thing it does
is reduce anxiety yeah and so if you are a bit more socially anxious and you
also have that positive
response to alcohol which everyone doesn't have by the way then it's a great
drug but the problem is
it's well it's a great drug for the moment right right there's there's
consequences yeah this sounds
when it's not great well it also alcohol is an interesting drug because it it
it actually doesn't
make people stupid this is being tested like alcohol people who are drunk will
take far more risk and
you might say well that's because they're too stupid to understand the risk it's
like no they're not
if you ask them about the risk when they're drunk they can outline it perfectly
what it stops them
from doing is caring about the risk it's actually and that's part of the anti-anxiety
components like
yeah the risk is that's why you can drive around drunk at high speed in a car
which is a really stupid
thing to do yeah we used to do that in the back roads of northern alberta it's
fun yeah you know but
but people died all the time doing it especially in the winter it's like wow
this is great it's great
until your head's gone through the windshield you know like so many things yeah
it's like jumping off a
cliff it's i'm flying which is true until the last one tenth of a second it's
like then you're not
flying man it's like yeah yeah so so alcohol alcohol has exactly that effect it
is a great
anti-anxiety drug but it does stop you and he said it stopped you from learning
the skills that you need
in a social circumstance to be able to cope with that so then it actually stops
you from dealing with
the anxiety you don't have to learn how to overcome it that's not good yeah so
yeah you yeah you're not
really learning you're kind of just staying in the you're just you're baiting
the end you're you're
kind of meeting the anxiety with a little bit of light medication but you're
never getting through
whatever the anxiety was yeah you don't look you don't have to learn the skills
well you said you
like to stand there with a beer in your hand will give you something to do you
didn't know what
else to do then you didn't have to learn right i had the same issue like i
started drinking when
i was 13 probably yeah and and that's late in canada yeah that's right i mean i
was way behind
my neighbors they were slogging it back when they were four oh i've been in edmonton
and i've seen
people i mean it's just people love to drink up there they certainly do it's a
fun culture right
it's a cultural thing on the farther north you go the more the drinking becomes
necessary especially
in the winter you know so and there's not that much to do in those isolated
small towns yeah i drink i
drink my own blood probably yeah well that's it well that's funny when i used
to go back to the
little town i was from when i was an adult even if i hadn't i hadn't really had
anything to drink for
years it was like well what are we gonna do well let's go to the bar why well
because there actually
isn't anything else to do so you know and so you end up there but but the but
the the the alcohol is
it's it's well it's a hell of a it's a hell of a drug man do you think watch it
do you think it's
going to start get out to get outdated i start to think that alcohol is almost
a drug of the past
slowly like i could see us like with psychedelics and stuff like that becoming
a little bit more in
like the common sphere of conversation um well it'd be interesting to see that
we just legalized
marijuana in canada yeah yeah like it's not it's not completely legal yet but
the bill was passed and
so canada is doing this countrywide experiment and i know there is some data
showing that in counties in
the u.s where marijuana has been legalized the overuse of of opiates for pain
has decreased
substantially and the crime rates have gone down interesting well people stoned
on pot
like it's hard to pick somebody's pocket yeah break into a building i don't
think so
you're just not going to get it together you might knock for a long time i
think you might knock at
the front door i don't think you're going to break in and you're not going to
you might that's right
you might knock you're not going to go out what are you going to go in the
alley and have a fight
no you're not a real slow fight well while you're watching your hands like yeah
so it's like chess
with your hands exactly exactly that's not going to happen so yeah who knows
like i mean if we had
to make a bad drug legal the worst choice was alcohol it's definitely the case
you know and i'm
saying that as somewhat of a fan of alcohol no me too well yeah i like it it's
but it's a bad drug
and is it also starting to become archaic as we get into drugs that are you
know like uh you know
people are using psychedelics more where people are a little bit curious about
drugs that make you
think um instead of instead of drugs that make you not think right yeah right
yeah yeah because
alcohol is kind of an escape into well it's not full unconsciousness although
it certainly can be
yeah but yeah and alcohol also makes people aggressive it's the only drug we
know that actually
makes people aggressive so and so so you see a massive effect on crime rates
because half the
people who murder someone are drunk oh yeah and half the people who are
murdered are drunk
and you know and you're most likely to be murdered by a family member so i've
been joking with my
audiences is like well if you really want to get killed the best thing to do is
go drink with a
family member so which is actually statistically true which is terribly
terribly comical it's like
yeah go get drunk with your family if you want to die thank you guys for
checking out this clip
and if you want to see another clip then you can look at this clip or this clip
either one of these
so did you pick one or you still just watching me do this because this is
alarming

Jordan Peterson and Theo Von Discuss Sobriety

well i'm sure this must have happened when you decided to stop drinking you
must have thought
this isn't good i'm not going to be funny anymore i thought that i thought i
thought there was going
to be ramifications yeah okay and so what were they what what did you what did
you foresee
happening i thought i wouldn't be funny i thought that people wouldn't like me
i thought that um i
wouldn't be able to meet girls if i wasn't drinking or or you know or having
drugs or um
right so that was what you were afraid of giving up if you stopped drinking
right what were you
afraid of happening if you kept drinking um i was afraid of not achieving my
dreams i was afraid of
you know uh ending up a drug addict yeah i'm afraid of dying in my sleep
something you know dying under
the influence okay so there so there yeah it's not like that doesn't happen to
comedians right
happens a lot it's one of our it's one of our go-to rules well right exactly
well it's not an
occupational hazard because you're up late at night you're around bars all the
time it is it is because
it is because you're up late at night and yeah chris farley right here right
right
well and it happened to all sorts of comedians and rock musicians usually
happens at about 27
you know weirdly enough so okay so you were afraid you're afraid you're going
to die or you're afraid
you're going to become addicted so so let's say what what of life what would
have life like being like
you for for you if you were addicted so you don't have a career anymore no
right so you've given all
that up and failed so that's fun so that's going to drive you even more towards
drugs yeah it would
have been all my dreams it would have been miserable right it would have been
hell exactly is that so
why quit drinking so i don't end up in hell hey there's a reason there's a
reason to stop and then
if you make that hell real it's like here's all the details of my personal hell
yes let's avoid that
right so then you have something to run the hell away from right so now you
have something towards
and something to run away from and i'll say this too as you for if there's any
young men or women
out there who are listening to jordan feeling like well i still i don't know if
you know if i start
like my friends are going to act assert yeah they are they are yeah yeah but
you're also you're going
to start creating conversations you're going to become the intrigue because you're
going to be
bringing something new to the table you're also going to find out who your
friends are yeah because
if you're starting to put your life together and you have friends that object
those are not friends
those are just people you know they're not friends because a friend is someone
this is one of the
hallmarks of a friend here's two hallmarks a friend is someone you can tell bad
news to and they won't
tell you why you're an idiot and they won't interfere with your suffering they'll
just listen and maybe
they'll suffer along with you okay so you can tell bad news to them and they
won't tell you some worst
thing that happened to them they'll listen and they'll suffer along with you
but a friend is also
someone you can tell good news to and the friend will say wow in this veil of
tears something good
happened to you great man i'm wonderful it's rare it's unlikely good for you i
hope 10 more things
like that happen and they're not envious and they're not jealous and they're
not one-upping you
and if you're trying to get your life together it's actually if you're trying
to get your life together
and your friends get in the way that's actually real useful for you because you've
now identified who
your friends aren't and you might think well i can't give them up it's like oh
yes you can and not
only can you you should and it would be better for them because if they're
aiming down and they want
you going down with them there's nothing good about what's happening to them
and there's certainly
nothing good about that for you yeah they're not gonna and then they're gonna
learn wow if i i'm
gonna lose friends if i continue in these directions yeah exactly exactly is it
hard for why is it hard for
people to let go of what's so familiar with to them even if it's bad well
because it's complicated
you know and the thing that's a really good question you discount the risk of
familiarity
that they're familiar with so like let's say because people are in
relationships people are
in relationships with the drugs and alcohol people are in relationships with
humans people are in
relationships with jobs people are in relationships with their own selves and
they live they're they're
living a lie every single day but it's it's familiarity yeah well you say i
have a job i hate
it's like well yeah but i'm not dying from it it's like not as bad as it can be
so
you you kind of you kind of that you've factored in the risks already they get
invisible you think
well i can't jump out of this job because what about all the risk it's like
yeah no kidding you
got to make a you got to get your resume in order you got to send it out you
got to send 50 the damn
things out before anybody will call you back then you have to go get
interviewed and maybe you're not
any good at that you have to come up with a story while you're a good employee
and maybe and maybe
you're not yet so you have to figure out how to do that it's like what about
all these risks if i go look
for a new job it's like yeah absolutely man those are risks and they're harsh
and no wonder you're
avoiding them what about the risks for you to stay with this job you absolutely
hate well let's think
that through okay so i have this dead-end job i hate it i'm getting bitter
where am i going to be in
five years i know where because i've watched this with people you're going to
be you're going to be just
like you are now except a lot more of what's good about you is going to be gone
and a lot more of what's
terrible is going to be amplified and you're going to be like in five years you're
going to be 10
years older instead of three years older yeah right and because it kills your
spirit oh man yeah so
it's like you think oh my god there's a terrible risk in pursuing this new job
it's like yeah there
is a terrible risk there's a terrible risk and you stand with your job right
now and so one of the
things that's really really freeing to understand is that you're screwed no
matter what you do
there's no secure path forward give it up it's risk everywhere oh my god that's
terrible it's like
yes except for two things you can pick your risk that's the first thing so you
get to pick your
poison that's something and second you're a lot tougher than you think so even
though there's risk
everywhere if you confront it forthrightly what you'll find is that you can
actually handle the
risk and that's the security that's beautiful and there's so much growth to be
had right there
when you realize how much like there were times i was like man i could never be
a sober person because
i'm afraid of you know i can't communicate with women or i'm afraid to you know
stand around in a
circle with tough guys without having like a beer in my hand you know or like
all these little crutches
you know i can't and then i remember when i got like 90 days sober i was just
like holy shit man like
it was like the first time i'd ever done something uh like for myself you know
yeah and it just
man it felt it felt unprecedented yeah yeah well it was it felt like i felt
like i'd gone to the moon
how old were you when you started drinking uh i don't know probably like 17 or
16 you know kind
of regular yeah it was pretty basic and i never did a bunch of it you know but
my biggest thing was
just emotional sobriety like i was so drunk on my own insecurities and low self-worth
alcohol
alcohol really is a good drug for coping with anxiety that's why people use it
so it does too if you if
you really like alcohol it does it does two things to you it makes you more extroverted
and enthusiastic
while you're on the ascending limb of the blood alcohol curve which is why you
have to keep drinking
once you start because if you plateau that goes away so you got to keep
drinking okay so that's one
thing it makes you more enthusiastic and and more full of positive emotion and
the second thing it does
is reduce anxiety yeah and so if you are a bit more socially anxious and you
also have that positive
response to alcohol which everyone doesn't have by the way then it's a great
drug but the problem is
it's well it's a great drug for the moment right right there's there's
consequences yeah this sounds
when it's not great well it also alcohol is an interesting drug because it it
it actually doesn't
make people stupid this is being tested like alcohol people who are drunk will
take far more risk and
you might say well that's because they're too stupid to understand the risk it's
like no they're not
if you ask them about the risk when they're drunk they can outline it perfectly
what it stops them
from doing is caring about the risk it's actually and that's part of the anti-anxiety
components like
yeah the risk is that's why you can drive around drunk at high speed in a car
which is a really stupid
thing to do yeah we used to do that in the back roads of northern alberta it's
fun yeah you know but
but people died all the time doing it especially in the winter it's like wow
this is great it's great
until your head's gone through the windshield you know like so many things yeah
it's like jumping off a
cliff it's i'm flying which is true until the last one tenth of a second it's
like then you're not
flying man it's like yeah yeah so so alcohol alcohol has exactly that effect it
is a great
anti-anxiety drug but it does stop you and he said it stopped you from learning
the skills that you need
in a social circumstance to be able to cope with that so then it actually stops
you from dealing with
the anxiety you don't have to learn how to overcome it that's not good yeah so
yeah you yeah you're not
really learning you're kind of just staying in the you're just you're baiting
the end you're you're
kind of meeting the anxiety with a little bit of light medication but you're
never getting through
whatever the anxiety was yeah you don't look you don't have to learn the skills
well you said you
like to stand there with a beer in your hand will give you something to do you
didn't know what
else to do then you didn't have to learn right i had the same issue like i
started drinking when
i was 13 probably yeah and and that's late in canada yeah that's right i mean i
was way behind
my neighbors they were slogging it back when they were four oh i've been in edmonton
and i've seen
people i mean it's just people love to drink up there they certainly do it's a
fun culture right
it's a cultural thing on the farther north you go the more the drinking becomes
necessary especially
in the winter you know so and there's not that much to do in those isolated
small towns yeah i drink i
drink my own blood probably yeah well that's it well that's funny when i used
to go back to the
little town i was from when i was an adult even if i hadn't i hadn't really had
anything to drink for
years it was like well what are we gonna do well let's go to the bar why well
because there actually
isn't anything else to do so you know and so you end up there but but the but
the the the alcohol is
it's it's well it's a hell of a it's a hell of a drug man do you think watch it
do you think it's
going to start get out to get outdated i start to think that alcohol is almost
a drug of the past
slowly like i could see us like with psychedelics and stuff like that becoming
a little bit more in
like the common sphere of conversation um well it'd be interesting to see that
we just legalized
marijuana in canada yeah yeah like it's not it's not completely legal yet but
the bill was passed and
so canada is doing this countrywide experiment and i know there is some data
showing th