Is Alcoholism Genetic? Lara Beitz' Sobriety Journey

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 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 used to party hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What made you? 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 know that some things that I liked about it where it made me feel comfortable talking to people. Crowds have always been kind of draining for me. Large crowds, especially if it's like people I don't know. 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, you know. It just got real. That's how I 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. 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. 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. 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 I did. I got help. It was free. What year was this around? January 21st, 2014. Wow. You know it by the day. Yeah. That's great. I only have like a, other than the birth of my children in my head like that. I have like the day I started comedy, dad 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 date. 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 called, 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 yeah, 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 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. Yeah. Yeah, I used to go on stage blackout drunk. I would not have any of the success that I have right now if I hadn't stopped drinking because I would blackout. And yeah, I went on and I told my jokes and some of them hid 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. There were times where I went on stage and I would repeat my jokes that I had just said. I would ask my friends how my set go and they'd be like, you are shit faced. You're drunk. It looked like you were really drunk. 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. And 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 onto 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 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 the on tour? I don't know. 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 Urban Barry. All right. James Urban Barry. He was very nice. I was very drunk. It was not his fault. It's a weird thing, that genetic propensity for alcoholism. Cause 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, they flip over. Like, you know, gerbils, you ever looking at gerbils eyes? No, we never looked at a gerbil's eyes. Dead, dead eyes. Like, like some people, their eyes just go, they black out, they get glazed over and they're not there anymore. Like, oh, Charles, not here anymore. 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 someone's black out drunk. 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