Ryan Stewart: Overcoming Addiction by Letting Others Help Me

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I suppose I could say I used to be an alcoholic but supposedly that means you're an alcoholic for the rest of your life so if you're reflective you can look back and you can see the markers that were always there like when we got introduced to beer in the seventh grade who was the one kid who drank too much and acted like a fool it was me right like all the other kids seem to be able to like get drunk or whatever and not destroy anything so the markers were always there that alcohol wasn't good for me but I didn't really totally spiral out of control until like maybe in my 30s I drank too much but I somehow was what was called functional and then I slowly start drinking more and I start drinking more and then when I get in trouble drinking you know I mean like let's say I'll get in a bar fight you know I'll get arrested or something like that then I have that to deal with that that type of shame you know and then so that adds to it I was in a dark place you know drinking and drugging and not liking myself and then I got these ideas that happiness was was maybe being famous or rich and I was in a haze like for decades you know like trying to be an actor and a dancer the reason I wanted to be a dancer was because I watched females when they watched guys who moved well and they liked guys who could move well so I'm like okay I'll be a dancer and so New York City is the center of the dance world and so that's where I'm gonna go so I came to New York see very quickly and I decided to go to this Alvin Ailey school and I got a scholarship there I was you know I was pretty good as whacked out flexible which helps you know then I talked with my primary ballet teacher who was David Howard and another mentor I had named Hillary Cartwright and they're like well we know Benjamin Hark-Harvey over at Juilliard you know he's the director of the dance program and so they sent me over there I got to meet him and then I started doing the interview you know the process to matriculate into Juilliard I was taking an adult ballet class at night because you know you take the professional classes during the day but if you're studying and you want to be the best you keep on taking classes all day long and so at night the adults came in and one of them was a doctor and she noticed this bulge from my neck and she said I you know why don't you come in for you know and come let me check that out for you and I laughed it off and said you know like I don't have any money you know I don't have any money or any insurance and she said don't worry about that I went to her hospital and she somehow waved me through everything you know what I mean like I just went in and got a chest x-ray and was out in a busy hospital with no insurance and no money and that night I was taking class and then the pianist stayed and played for me so I could do like practicing you know big movements and she came in with the big yellow envelope you know that has my chest x-ray and she said I think you better sit down and that's when I got my cancer diagnosis and she said we're going in tomorrow to memorial I know someone at memorial Sloan-Kettering and she got me into the best hospital like in the country for cancer so I did 14 months of chemotherapy you know lost all my hair but it was probably the happiest time of my life it might seem odd to be diagnosed with cancer and have it the happiest time of your life but I didn't have to worry about becoming something about being successful you know that pressure that you know what am I supposed to do with my life who am I supposed to make happy I didn't have to worry about any of that I just had to go to sleep at night and get better and all that's what everyone told me you know the doctor's like you know just get better and that made my life really simple all the nurses and doctors knew me you know it's like cheers like everyone knows your name there it was a happy time in my life it was a lot different yeah like from having everyone care about you to taking SSI you know because I was disabled due to my treatment and I was still getting some checks for it and one of my friends says how could you take that money look at you you look like you can work and he shamed me and he was right you know I could work and so the next interview at the office when they ask you like are you feeling bad you know like blah blah how do you feel the guy sort of encouraged me you know to like keep the checks coming you know he says you're only like a few months out from cancer treatment you know what I mean and I said no like I don't want any more checks I can work and he was in disbelief like in disbelief but my friend had shamed me and so I took myself off SSI and you know that's the contrast of like everyone caring for you to having like your friend saying you're a lazy bum you can't take money you can work when I left the hospital the my doctor said you cannot because you took a lot of money you cannot because you took a cardiotoxin as one of your chemotherapies you cannot lift really really heavy weights and you cannot take drugs that accelerate your heart rate so I disliked myself so much that I joined CrossFit that's weightlifting for crazy people and I became a cocaine addict so that's how much I loved myself for a lot of people it's something really terrible happens like they get a DUI and they go to jail for the first time in their life and they're shocked out of it you know like some one moment happens to them for me it wasn't like that it was just like at one point I just thought to myself there's nothing left of me like I'm just a tumbleweed now just blowing in the wind there's nothing left to me and I knew it was time to quit there's a reason people don't quit even though they're ruining their lives and they're killing themselves it's not easy to quit the first 90 days that was the hardest thing I've ever done going 90 days without drugs or alcohol I always thought like you see people accept awards or whatever or talk about their career and how like they worked so hard and you know they did a lot on their own blah blah blah that wouldn't be what I say I would I would be saying like every step of the way someone helped me and do anything alone you know it's like the peloton you know the beauty of the peloton which is the group of riders when you watch the Tour de France it just pulls the people in the front do the work because they hit the wind and so they're working the hardest and they go until they're tired and then they drift to the side and someone else takes their place and they come and they drift back to the middle of the pack or the back of the pack and then they rest there and everyone takes their turn you know like hitting the wind there's people who will step up and step up and help you and want nothing back from you and now I know the path forward is to always help others and I'm not doing it to try to be nice because I'm not really a nice person I'm quite a jerk sometimes but if you hold the door open for someone or you help someone with their with like a heavy load or something like that like you know you're walking down the street and someone's like struggling with something you help them for maybe five seconds or ten seconds you forget your own problems and your own concerns and you help that person and that person forgets their own problems and they they're like someone's helping me and both of you are just in the moment you're not in your own head thinking about yourself being alone you're you're in the moment with another human being through let's say a lifetime of messing up and just face planting right into the pavement and really having a miserable life that I brought upon myself I somehow retain the ability to learn from it like I learned from this and I've had fantasies before about being rich and famous and wearing nice clothes and having a nice car and you know what it's not me I was able with God's grace to remember who I truly was at the core and I only made it out by letting other people help me. And a beautiful job on the production by Madison and a special thanks to Ryan Stewart for bearing well bearing just about everything he talked about his early time and struggles bar fights and of course arrests and that's a struggle when it starts hitting arrests you're in trouble I was in a dark place I was drinking and shrugging by the way it simultaneously had this tremendous talent you don't just stumble into Alvin Ailey and Juilliard we have some people here who've been involved in the New York theater and know what those institutions are and this is the best of the best in the world and there's this lady who notices something wrong with this young man and she's a doctor and as he said she just waved me through everything and the cancer diagnosis came and he said it was the happiest time of his life because he wasn't working on anything else but being better and then of course he just kept going until he hit bottom and that's what happened and then the pathway back serving others getting out of yourself getting great people around you we love to tell stories of hope like this redemption like this and God's grace as he said in the end and feeling gratitude for who you are and where you are in life Ryan Stewart's life we love stories like this here on Our American Stories. 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