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[0:00] Lauren Van Hemert: Hi everybody, I'm Lauren Van Hemert, and this is Beltline to Broadway, where we talk about the theater from inside the beltline in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I am, to the bright lights of Broadway and beyond.

[0:14] Lauren Van Hemert: I need to ask you all to do me a favor and click on that subscribe button so you don't miss any of my candid conversations and interviews with Broadway insiders and theater makers across the globe.

[0:42] Lauren Van Hemert: Brian Westbrook, a Triangle-based actor, is a recovering addict who has spent some of his time during this pandemic reaching out to help others. He says that one thing that is paramount to both theater and 12-step recovery is the power of story. Here's our conversation.

[1:04] Brian Westbrook: I was a theater kid in the sense that from a very early age, I had a great, great love of musical theater. Um that was um certainly encouraged by my parents and family, but we didn't have theater that much. We had some summer theater growing up. Um I didn't actually do much of it because for whatever reason I was off doing other things, I think, um when I was a kid. Um and we had very, very little um theater. I think we did two, maybe three plays when I was in high school, no musicals. But I quietly on my own in my room cultivated a very, very deep, deep passion for musical theater from the uh from fifth grade. I very, very clearly remember the moment it happened was when I saw Little Shop of Horrors on TV in fifth grade.

[1:51] Lauren Van Hemert: I love Little Shop of Horrors. That would be have you played that role?

[1:55] Brian Westbrook: No, I haven't. I have um I've played in the pit. Um, I have assistant directed it. Um I have done several numbers from it, but I've actually never been on stage in the production.

[2:08] Lauren Van Hemert: I'd love to see you in that production.

[2:12] Brian Westbrook: I'm ready.

[2:13] Lauren Van Hemert: I'm ready.

[2:14] Brian Westbrook: Actually, I think you should just play all the parts because you just a one man Little Shop of Horrors.

[2:21] Brian Westbrook: Well, in the original Broadway and off-Broadway production, most of the ensemble is played by one person. And so it's it's it's very gentleman's guide like somebody who's donning different costumes and very quickly changing. Most of the time when it's done now, it's expanded out. So um you've got you know more people on stage, which is great. But I would love to play all the characters.

[2:43] Lauren Van Hemert: Yes.

[2:44] Lauren Van Hemert: Something else I really do want to talk to you about is addiction um and your road to recovery. A couple years ago, Bo Clark I interviewed him. A lot of you may remember Bo Clark, he was a member of the acting community here, the performing arts community, wonderful actor, and and he's moved. He moved to Utah to work at an addiction center there, recovery program there. Before he left, we spoke about his recovery journey, and he was so candid. And when I published that podcast, the response was unbelievable. Um, in fact, I would say in the 87 podcast interviews I've done, that one received the biggest response because people were thankful that we were talking about it. So I do want to have this conversation with you.

Talk to me a little about your journey with and I don't even want to say addiction. I want to say recovery because you we talked a little bit about the fact that you're in 12-step recovery, 12-step you you said it better than I do, but talk to me about your journey.

[4:03] Brian Westbrook: Yeah, sure. Well I I and I I appreciate you and I applaud you for having the conversations too. I'm not surprised that you got that kind of reaction previously because it's something that's not talked about enough you know because the stigma is still up there. So I am I am in currently in long-term recovery and uh 12-step recovery from drug and alcohol addiction. And addiction is is part of that. So yeah I'm in recovery but I'm I am an addict and and an alcoholic. And I have been um for as long as I can remember. But like with any other sort of health journeys particularly mental health journeys or uh or health issues that are not quite as understood um as others it's not a straight line you know to recovery um and it could be very very bumpy.

And for me I uh I started my sort of road recognizing that I had a problem and then starting to try and fix it way back in like 2007, 2008 when I was still living in Ohio and was working for a theater company up there and I just, you know, it was spiraling. And um, and I had a support system there, but it wasn't a professional sports system to you know equipped to deal with uh addiction. And so, you know, took some steps there, fell a couple back, moved to North Carolina, and um and did all right for a while, and then really kind of crashed and burned hardcore after I moved back. It was a big change and I just didn't have the foundation that I needed and did not understand, most importantly, I didn't understand addiction.

I didn't understand what it was that my body, brain, and spirit was going through. And so then I really started to make serious strides and serious attempts um around uh 2011, and that's when I found 12-step recovery and learned a lot more. Um, and learned you know the truth, which is that it is a progressive disease, and that untreated uh that I was going to die. So the two things I had to I had to know right away or as soon as possible was I had to know and believe that that it was a progressive disease and that it was going to kill me. Then I had to know and believe that I didn't want to die because alongside addiction comes a whole mountain of shame and maybe some some co-diagnoses with with mental you know mental health, which I certainly had that can lead to um lead to suicidal ideation.

Um and certainly unfortunately that's how this ends up for a lot of people. And so I think the I think that's the first that's the most important thing that you have to try and keep in mind. I I know I had to keep in mind is that it's a it is a deadly, deadly disease. And I know that um that I wouldn't be here if I hadn't treated it. So yeah.

[7:07] Brian Westbrook: One of the things though and I spoke about in our podcast interview, talked about the different kind of addicts, and we talked about addictions specifically in the performing arts industry. And he drew this connection between addiction and actors, addiction and artists, because some of it was performing enhance performance enhancing and that kind of thing. For you, was there a direct connection between performing and addiction?

[7:43] Brian Westbrook: Um so I uh I I think it's I don't know that it's actually true that there is a sort of higher percentage of uh of addiction in in performing arts or whatever. I think maybe more noticed or seen because obviously we know famous people and that's for saliva and everything. But every industry, every career, every type of person has just as much of a chance of being affected by this disease, um because it it doesn't discriminate. I I do think that being in the arts and in the performing arts, what that can do is it can um can heighten your uh your sense of your sensitivity towards life and and experiencing life and and you know uh wanting to get to different emotional highs and places and things like that.

I can't say that I uh that I never went on stage drunk or high, but I I did it was not a common practice for me. I always took that, and I've always taken that part of what I do very seriously, but being an active addiction hindered my ability to actually take it as seriously as I wanted to, because it eats up time, it eats up resources, it eats up mental space, and and all of those things. And even in even in recovery, I've had to make sure that my motivations for being on stage are what they need to be, that it's never about wanting to escape from my life, um which is surely the motivation I had for a large part of my life was going on and seeing that that really believing that my only value in the world was on stage, that my only value that I was bringing to the world was in in performing.

And um that was a dangerous, dangerous place to be because you think rejection is bad for a healthy spiritual person. When that's the your only value, when you feel like that's the only place that you have any value, it's absolutely devastating. So one of the gifts of being in recovery is to realize where my value is really in the world. Um and uh and that's part of it. It is part of how I think I make you know, I leave the world better than I found it and provide usefulness. But when I think about my life today, that is not where I place, you know, uh my biggest value. It was in the relationships I have with my closest people, and frankly, the most important work that I'll ever do in my life is to stay sober and help other people get and stay sober. Far more important than any artistic value or or anything else that I do in this world.

[10:24] Lauren Van Hemert: I love that you said that. And I'm hoping that this conversation and and and the conversation, you know, following up on the conversation I had with Bo will really help people. May I ask, what age did you start drinking?

[10:37] Brian Westbrook: Uh I actually didn't start really um uh using substances, alcohol and and drugs. I I mean I drank a little bit when I was in high school and then a little bit at the beginning of college. It wasn't until about my sophomore year of college that my behavior became to be uh addictive behavior. Uh I started to drink alcoholically and and the way you recognize that is when you start to see priorities in your life shift and uh and consequences that start happening in your life that you can draw a direct line to the substance abuse.

[11:12] Brian Westbrook: So that's when the addictive behavior um start, you know, began. So I was guess I was about 21, 22. Was alcohol a gateway to other drugs? So I I don't like the term gateway because it's uh people can become drug addicts without ever having a drink. People can drink all their lives without ever, you know, picking up a drug, and I've seen everything in between. Um, I've got uh periods of addiction with different substances throughout my life. Alcohol was basic was pretty much a through line all the way through, with only you know a couple maybe periods here and there where I wasn't drinking as much. But that was always, you know, what I would call my drug of choice, you know, for for the majority of my life and behavior.

Being an actor, there's cast parties, um, people unwind by going to a bar after a show. How do you navigate that? And I guess for actors who are in that situation of feeling like they are an addict and then they don't know how to navigate these situations. Uh, can you speak to life on the other side on the recovery side, how you navigate those situations?

[12:31] Brian Westbrook: Yeah, well, it's not it's not always been easy, but when I think about it today, I I don't think about it a lot today because I think the myth that I told myself for two for so long was that I wasn't me or I didn't have a life if I were if I weren't doing a certain number of things. So uh that I was that life sober just meant nothing. Or uh these are just all these myths that um that is just it's uh addict thinking and it's it's all designed in and and ways to sort of stay in addiction. Uh for me, I um the way I sort of uh I talked about to people is uh I don't I don't have a serious problem with being around alcohol, right? So like if I'm if I'm out to dinner with family or whatever and things and they might have a drink.

But I always um and this is this is my behavior, it is no one else was responsible for it. It is it my danger situations are being around intoxicated people. So I always make sure that I I'll avoid potential situations like that or I'll leave situations like that. You know, being around really intoxicated people is like looking in a really twisted rear view mirror that it does me no good. So I don't go to those situations. I also and then that even in recovery, the times that I have sort of like taken a maybe a risk and like said, okay, well, let me go to this cast party or this thing or whatever, you know, I've just found that it's also like I'm not missing much. I don't, you know, I'd I'd prefer to be going somewhere else, you know, and maybe that's that's just me.

I mean, I'm I'm a fairly gregarious person, but um, I just haven't missed it all that much. And I also don't think that I've missed out on the relationships and building and forming the relationships and family, familial sense that you get in theater that I always had before. You know, I might have castmates that that disagree with me, but I've always felt that I've been able to still establish even even better relationships now that mean more and that are more lasting um because they hadn't they didn't they weren't greased up by alcohol or something else, you know. It was all about the experience of being in the space and doing and doing the the doing the work together.

[14:38] Brian Westbrook: Bo talked about the people who enabled him, and the people who enabled him were not the people selling him drugs, the people who enabled him were his family members who were giving him a couch to sleep on or bailing him out. Um I would guess there are some people who have close family or friends who are addicts who are watching this and they love these people, they love their friends, they love their families so much. Um and they really don't know what to do. So I guess can you talk first about the enablers? And second, what would you say to people who maybe have a family member or a friend who's going who is an addict?

[15:25] Brian Westbrook: I'll just say that I'll and this is just me. This is not this is not any, you know, professional thing or anything. I actually even heard anywhere else, but I I kind of take issue with the word enabler because I've I feel like it it immediately sets up folks who were folks who are who are loved ones of people in recovery. It sets them up for um, you know, as um as already failing, and they don't even know what they're doing. You know what I mean? And um, and it so I just I'm and I'm a I'm a freak about language too. So I just I don't know what the bet the right word is for it, but the behavior that you're talking about is is is it's just natural, normal human loving behavior, which is trying to love somebody the best that you can with the tools that you have at the moment, and just like the person in active addiction doesn't know enough about addiction, doesn't know yet that that is a progressive disease that is that that will eventually lead to death untreated.

The people around them know even less about it because they haven't even experienced it. They're just seeing someone suffer, they're seeing someone that they love suffer, and so the behaviors that people refer to as an enabling, you know, which is the supporting and you know, and and bailing them out and all of those things, they're perfectly natural human responses to people you see that you love suffering. Now that is that doesn't mean that that doesn't take away the from the fact that it it does it can prolong the act of addiction because I know that it I it would have taken me a lot longer to get sober if I had not had the privilege of experiencing my own cons consequences for my own behavior, and everyone has the right to experience their own consequences.

And if you deny somebody the consequences of their behavior, then there's just no reason for that behavior to change, you know. You know, the only time that we change, and this is not just addiction, this is just human behavior. We will not change any of our behaviors unless the pain of staying the same becomes too great. It's gotta be, it's gotta be uncomfortable to stay the same. So that that's the way I'll say, you know, what I'll say about that. I and it there's all sorts of navigating relationships. That's why there is all sorts of other recovery programs for people who are loved ones of people in addiction, um, or people who grew up with uh you know alcoholic family members and are still in our or are dealing with that as adults.

There are all sorts of you know, uh support groups and things out there out there for people like that. So, you know, I I don't like giving advice, but if if someone is out there, you know, that is seeing you have a loved one that's going through it, just you know, educate yourself. Read up as much as you can about addiction if you believe that's it, and just learn as much as you can and really, really focus on what your behavior is and what your motivations are and what your feelings are.

[18:42] Brian Westbrook: One of the best pieces of advice that I got from the therapist um when I was still in active addiction, and you know, I'm very close with my family, and so my family was going through it too. And and I remember a therapist, you know, talking to my parents at one point said, you know, when we're talking about this, just deal with the facts, just deal with the facts, and let's keep it at that level as much as possible so that you can when you can temper those emotions, which is really, really difficult when you love someone. It is very difficult, and then the relationship changes as well. There's a lot of things I think we don't talk about as much, uh talk about as much as we should. Mental illness is one of those.

Um, I went through a period of my life where I was clinically depressed, and I had a partner at the time who took care of me, and and he helped me get out of bed, he helped me go to class, he helped me do all the things that I was unable to do for myself. But the interesting part of it was as I went through recovery, our relationship changed a lot. And I realized he was really he loved the depressed person. He didn't love the strong, independent woman that I actually am, because he never knew me to be that way. And so it's really interesting too how the relationships change and how it affects everybody around you, not just the person going through it. And I'm sure we'll probably get to it, but the the prime, you know, sort of directive of 12-step recovery, as far as I'm concerned, sort of where it started and everything is connection with other people, you know, and the the I wish I could remember the quote or an article that came out a couple years ago that I saw that like, you know, the the most dangerous part of addiction is not the substance, it's the isolation.

You know, the one thing that I that I I I think I've seen in every single person that I have witnessed and talked with and worked through getting sober with is that the progressive part of the disease is that you are get more and more isolated, and that's that's how it that's how it ends. And so it only makes sense that the antidote of that is is connection with other people.

[21:06] Brian Westbrook: So talk about the difficulty, the danger in experiencing social distance, physical isolation, physical distance from family, friends, people you have these relationships with, and how that impacts being a recovering addict. So, you know, the touchstone, the hallmark of 12 step recovery is getting into rooms with people who have had similar experiences with you and talking about it, making those connections and telling the telling each other's stories about what it what it was like, you know, and what it's like now and what happened. And that to begin with, uh, above everything else that happened was the scariest part of this pandemic was immediately that life blood force of what we need as addicts to stay alive was ripped away from us.

[22:04] Brian Westbrook: We're also very dramatic people, so we gnashed our teeth and rang our hands a lot about it until somebody was just like, hey, we could do Zoom. Um, which you know, and of course we did because it's because like I said, this is a deadly disease. So I want to stay alive, so I gotta treat my disease. Moving that online is not ideal, and it's certainly not the way that I want it to go forever. But I'll say two things. The other scariest part to me about this was the number of people that are out there that then all of the new folks that don't have a place to go because it was such an important step for me, and I know it was for a lot of people to physically walk into a room and sit down with other people and admit that I was struggling and then have them tell me their struggles.

That's such a huge important step. And you know, it's no surprise that the rates of addiction and the rates of addiction-related deaths and things have all gone up because we are forcibly isolated, you know, and it's a tragedy. People talk about the sort of the silent pandemics and all these other sort of fallout things. There are tons, there are lots of different impacts that this is having on our species that we won't fully understand for years to come. That being said, there are also really what you know, sort of things that I look at over this past year that I'm really proud of, that I'm really surprised by, that I the miracles that I've seen, and you know, some of the innovative ways that people have really worked to get healthy and stay healthy in all regards.

And so, you know, those are the things that I focus on. And I do, I just make sure that I'm keeping my health paramount first, and then making sure that my hand is out and ready to help whenever, wherever I can and however I can. That's just as much of a part of recovery is doing that.

[24:28] Lauren Van Hemert: And would you have anything you could share with the person who is at the beginning of their journey or they haven't walked into that room yet and they're struggling alone at home? What do you say to them?

[24:41] Brian Westbrook: There are resources available. There are hotlines available. I've worked some of those hotlines and I've talked to plenty of people so I know that people use them. And when people are at sort of their lowest and at that point where they're able to reach out for help, we've got to make sure that there's a place for them to go. And so there are resources online. That's the other thing that's sort of a miracle about this is that there are now like at any moment of any 24-hour period you can go online and get in a room with other addicts who are recovering all over the world and connect in that way. And so in some ways that's a new experience, something that's going to be a net gain when we get out of this, connections that I know that I've made with people all over the place in recovery.

So yeah, and I think just reach out. When you've got the impulse, when you receive and feel the impulse that you're struggling and you're ready to wave the white flag, which is the most important thing any of us can do when we're struggling, is to pull out a white flag and say I need help, I need help, somebody help me. Just follow that notion and seek help.

[26:00] Lauren Van Hemert: And you did, I will say after that podcast with Bo, you did share a lot of resources with me and I will repost those links when I repost this conversation as well so people can find a place to start. When I was doing a little research into the 12-step program or recovery program, there were two words associated with it. There was sobriety. I understand that one. And serenity. So talk to me about the serenity aspect of this.

[26:41] Brian Westbrook: I don't know if it started with a 12-step recovery, but the serenity prayer, you know, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. I imagine that's the context when you probably saw it. When I think of serenity, I think of it, it's just the opposite of the chaos that was my life. And chaos is, you know, a lot of times we use the word tornado of our past or whatever, that sort of chaos. One of the sort of epiphany, you know, ray of light moments for me in recovery at one point early on was that I knew that the hallmark and the barometer of my recovery was a feeling of safety, just because of how terrified I had spent most of my life.

And so feeling safe and serene, because those go hand in hand for me, that's how I know that it's working for me. I feel safe in my skin, I feel safe in my world, I feel safe in my space. And because of that, I'm able to be serene and do that too. But it's really, I think that word probably came just as an antithetical to the way that life is for active addiction, which is just mired in chaos and destruction, all of that.

[28:08] Lauren Van Hemert: What has 2020 taught you about yourself and creativity?

[28:15] Brian Westbrook: I'm not gonna give 2020 that power. I will say that in the things that I learned, like I talked about, staying involved and actually upping some involvement in my recovery practices over the past year has been amazingly important to me. But one of the other things that it's also reminded me of how foundational storytelling is to so much in life. But certainly, like I alluded to before, that's how recovery 12-step recovery started was sharing your struggles and stories with someone else and then making that connection with them. That is where the magic happens. There are 12 steps and there are all of these other things and everything, but that is where the magic happens. And that is the same, that's exactly what I miss and what is so vital and important about theater and about performing arts is sharing our human experience and the human condition, you know, with each other to help and better understand not just each other, but ourselves.

If you're able to go in there and take what you see from a well-told story and see where the overlap is with your life, or where there's no overlap with your life, and then become excited about learning other people's stories because it is exciting to know that there are other stories and that there are other ways of living and other perspectives. It is invigorating to know that and to learn those things. In the absence, we have not had live theater, but we have not stopped storytelling. The stories that have come out of this past year and the way that we've told them to each other and the way that we've experienced them and the way that we've connected with each other, it is even more important and more vital, and so it hasn't killed anything but it just reminded me that we're just nothing without it.

We really are just nothing without it because also without it we end up in that isolation place that I talked about that addiction will take people and will take any of us to complete and total isolation, and biologically, physically, spiritually, we're just not built to live that way.

[30:48] Lauren Van Hemert: Yeah, for me theater is about building empathy and I think when we share stories with one another and listen to the stories of other people, it teaches us empathy and it teaches us compassion. So thank you and thank you for your candor.

[31:01] Brian Westbrook: Yeah, and I thank you again for too, and I just want to say that the anonymity with which we, you know, that I speak about 12-step recovery and a lot of that is still a result of the stigma that there is around addiction and mental health and all of these things that science hasn't been able to provide a solution for that we've kind of had to go off on our own and with our own tribes figure out solutions for. So if you are struggling with addiction or if you're out there and you're struggling with a loved one with addiction, first just try and get rid of that stigma that you've got attached to it and deal with the person and the spirit and the heart that's in front of you.

[31:53] Lauren Van Hemert: Westbrook shared with me a list of resources and 12-step recovery programs, which I have included in the episode notes. If you or someone you care about is living with a substance use disorder, remember addiction is a disease. And as with any chronic illness, finding the right treatment is the first step towards recovering.

[32:24] Lauren Van Hemert: Leave us a review, follow us on social media, and visit us online at www.beltlinetobroadway.org. Until next time, I'll see you at the theater.