Addiction Recovery Is a Disability

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LINDSEY WELLS, HOST: From KVMR and in partnership with FREED, this is Disability Rap. 

MEAN DAVE: Basically, if you look at our recovery program as an accommodation, it is our ramp per se, our metaphoric ramp for people with the disease of addiction and alcoholism to get up to the curb of being a functional member of society. 

WELLS: Today, Comedian Mean Dave on his journey to sobriety and why addiction recovery is covered under the Americans With Disabilities Act. 

MEAN DAVE: I bring disability advocacy into the rooms of recovery because people don't know about this information in the rooms themselves, even when some of them benefit from direct actions that are because of the ADA. 

WELLS: That's all coming up on Disability Rap. Stay tuned. 

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CARL SIGMOND, HOST: Welcome to Disability Rap. I'm Carl Sigmond with Lindsey Wells. 

WELLS: Today we are joined by Comedian Mean Dave who is a fixture in comedy clubs around the San Francisco Bay Area. He is in his 10th year of addiction recovery. In October, Mean Dave MCd the Comedians with Disabilities Act when FREED brought that comedy trip to Grass Valley for a fundraiser at the Center for the Arts. Mean Dave has also opened for Josh Blue, Jay Mohr, Judy Tenuta, and Big Jay Oakerson, and has toured many universities across the United States. Mean Dave has been very candid about his addiction and recovery. We are excited to talk with him about that, his comedy, and more. 

SIGMOND: Mean Dave, welcome to Disability Rap. It's so great to have you with us, and thank you for coming up to Grass Valley in October for our show. That was such a big success. We want to begin by just asking you how you first got interested in comedy and then go from there. 

MEAN DAVE: Since I was a child my parents really were probably my first window into standup comedy. I'm a child of the '80s. I was born in '76, but I grew up in the '80s, so that was the '80s comedy boom. My parents were just like a lot of people. They watched standup comedy and I took an interest in it. I love to laugh. I understood some of these people that were doing it at the time enough to get laughs out of it. I may not have understood the jokes per se, but comedians like Bobcat Goldthwait, Bill Cosby, [laughs] and Dennis Miller were my favorites when I was a kid. I think Bill Cosby, I understood his humor, and Bobcat and Dennis Miller had a delivery that I really enjoyed. 

It wasn't just them. There's a lot of comics that I watched on shows like Evening at the Improv and stuff like that and Late Night. That was basically my window into it. Throughout my life, standup comedy has always had an influence on me. I played music for many years in many bands, writing original music, and standup comedy was always an influence on some of my art, I guess. I got into comedy via that because I had a comedic band. I had two comedic bands, actually. Then I thought doing standup comedy might help promote one of them and I was wrong because then the band quit and I just stuck with doing standup. [chuckles] 

WELLS: I have a question for you, Dave. You mentioned in your act about how the ADA acknowledges that addiction is considered a disability. How did you first learn this and how did that impact your recovery? 

MEAN DAVE: I learned that through our ringleader of the Comedians with Disabilities Act, Nina G. The way Nina would describe a dyslexic brain, she has dyslexia, it occurred to me that the way that I was understanding my recovery and how I was approaching it from it recognizing it as a disease and that my brain operates and thinks differently and that I have to work my life and work my thinking and my actions in and around the way that my brain operates and showing that parallel. 

It was Nina who actually heard that, which was cool because it meant she was paying attention, and she actually had a light bulb moment and she looked it up. That's when she discovered that under the current definition of the Americans with Disabilities Act, people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction are covered since it's considered a mental illness. I was not going into this with an exploitive mind that now that I learned this, it was the beginning of entering this world of intersectionality that I was unaware of and that ever since I've learned and continue to learn a whole lot. 

Not only that, that I bring disability advocacy into the rooms of recovery because people don't know about this information in the rooms themselves, even when some of them benefit from direct actions that are because of the ADA involving sober living environments and things like that. It's been incredibly helpful. I've spoken about it in meetings too, and as a result, I've actually been able to help a couple people here and there when certain benefits were trying to be denied because some organizations didn't recognize recovery as a disability. I said, "Actually, in fact, it is." We looked up and found the verbiage and shot it to them and we got to educate some people trying to deny people's rights. It's things like that that just show that it's not just a great gig to help me in my comedy world, but it's even more important that I'm carrying on the message of recovery as well as learning the message of disability rights and advocacy. 

SIGMOND: So many follow-up questions there, but for people who don't know or may be hearing for the first time that addiction recovery is covered under the ADA, could you briefly explain that more? What is covered? What is protected? What rights do people in recovery have under the ADA? 

MEAN DAVE: People with disabilities have rights that enable them to live manageably in society and that this act was something that helped to advocate for things simply as requiring ramps to get into places that every abled person can get to and then also that people with learning disabilities and such have the same consideration and accommodations to be able to access education and such that anybody without those can. 

In the case of recovering addicts and alcoholics, if you've ever met anybody who's both in the disease of addiction and anybody who's recovering in the disease of addiction, it doesn't take long to figure out that there's definitely some mental health issues that always need to be addressed. Our program itself is the very thing that allows us to be functional members of society. I'm not speaking on behalf of any 12-step program itself. I'm just speaking in a general sense of recovery. That's an important thing in our traditions. Just that I'm representing myself, my experience, and also just how my understanding of it is. I'm not sitting here speaking on behalf of any anonymous organization. 

The 12-step program itself is pretty much what it is an accommodation in and of itself for addicts and alcoholics to become functional members of society. In order to do that when the pandemic hit, that was actually one of the biggest parts or pieces that showed where the ADA came in because before people really met online for meetings, everybody met at meetings in person. When the pandemic hit, that is a large portion of what people need in order to keep an ongoing recovery program going. When it happened, one of the biggest things that kept going on there was a big rumor mill amongst the worlds of recovery where people were saying that it was illegal for people to meet. That was not true. 

The fact is that obviously, we wanted to be considerate of society and be law-abiding citizens but at the same time, people were still able to go to the grocery store because we had essential needs, essential working, and all of that. People were panicking. It was understandable but at the same time, what was not being clearly communicated because people didn't have an understanding, this was unprecedented. When I started to put it together, the Department of Health was not giving anybody a hard no about whether or not addicts and alcoholics could meet legally. There was a reason for that. That's when I realized, "Oh, I know why they can't do that, because this is an ADA issue." 

It's not obvious, it's not apparent, but that's what it is. Basically, if you look at our recovery program as an accommodation, it is our ramp per se, our metaphoric ramp for people with the disease of addiction and alcoholism to get up to the curb of being a functional member of society. That was something that when I understood that concept, I talked to people that had a better understanding of a lot of legalese and stuff. They looked further into it and they were like, "Oh my God, he's absolutely right." I was like, "Yes, got one." 

Now, a lot of meetings went to Zoom, and that's great. Meetings on Zoom, I'm all for it. It took me a minute to adapt to them, but I love them. I meet people all over the world, thanks to my little computer here and having meetings on a regular basis on my computer. However, not everybody in recovery, especially when they're new-- There are people who are homeless, there are people who don't have phones, there are people who don't have laptops, there are people who don't have wifi access or can't get it easily. 

They don't have the luxury of just getting to a meeting on Zoom. That is why it was important to at least have a few open facilities through the pandemic where some people who can get to, if they're trying to seek recovery especially if they're new, especially if they're having a lot of troubles in their life. There were some. I was part of a fellow fellowship that was staying open through the pandemic, albeit they were a little more distorted in a lot of their intentions within it. 

There were enough people in there too that understood where I was coming from. I was being of service there while also being cautious because I know that the disease of COVID is very real and those are some very real concerns and whatnot. That's one part of it. That was one of the biggest applications of it. Some of the other areas that I learned was again, there's a lot of people who in order to maintain their program need certain services. 

In one case, there was a young woman who didn't drive and she had ride services that were provided to her from some program that she was involved in. I forget what it was, but it was a social program that allowed her to get rides to and from her meetings in line with her disability issues that she had. This particular department basically stated to her that they were cutting her off from the rides to and from her recovery meetings because they didn't qualify as being in line with her disability as such. They were really just looking for ways to cut costs in any way they could because social programs ain't always perfect. 

They're not the bad guys here, they are just thinking that they're doing their job. In this case, this is a person whose recovery-- she needs her recovery to be a functional member of society. This is an accommodation that the ADA covers and why we're there as such in order to make that happen. I remember she asked if there was language that she can show them. Again, I'm not the most well-educated on it, but we have Google, we have a lot of resources at our disposal. I just did a quick Google search and I forget what the lines were, but I found the website that had some of the language that was exactly what she needed and it seemed to have worked out. 

I know that there's other aspects that a lot of it involves sober living environments and there's been some exploitation of that as well. I've learned about that through a movie that I saw. There are other aspects that involve housing and whatnot which I think was one of the reasons why it was included under the ADA. A lot of it all again, just revolves around addiction and alcoholism is a disease and mental illness that causes people to do all kinds of things outside of their intentions. The disease is [unintelligible 00:18:14] baffling powerful as we've come to discuss it. 

When you have a program and you're able to be a functioning member of society the ADA gives you entitlement to your ability to do that. If you have a job that's say, granted, we work in anonymity, so albeit you may not want to disclose to them that you are a recovering alcoholic or addict. However, if you are functioning at this job and you need meetings and to work your recovery in order to be that functioning member of society, technically, if a job finds out that you go to recovery meetings they cannot fire you over that. That is fundamentally against the law in this case. 

In a sense, if a job is trying to give you any kind of grief over the fact that you may need time off to go do recovery functions and whatnot you have rights in that regard. Now, a lot of people probably don't think of it that way and may not be willing to advocate for themselves in that sense. If they wanted to, it's there. Again, there's other cases where it's more specific. We are part of this real gray area I've found but when you look into it more it does make sense. 

WELLS: Thank you Dave for that. That was a great analogy and very good information about that. I want to incorporate what you were saying about you believe that this is a disease. Why do you think that some don't believe that it is a disease? In that regard, even those in recovery sometimes think they don't have a disease. What would you tell us about that? 

MEAN DAVE: I get that, [laughs] because I lived many years not thinking that I had a problem. The best way to describe it, it's an old saying of just, "I'm allergic to drugs and alcohol. every time I drink or I do drugs, I break out in handcuffs." That's an old joke. It is described very much similar to an allergy. I can totally understand. I don't sit here and try to convince anybody else who may not believe it's a disease that it is because we live in such a climate right now where people really have trouble thinking in any terms of abstraction. Everybody has a real literal mind these days. 

in my mind, anybody who's been in the grips of addiction, you can feel it when you want to get better and you can't. You want to stop and you're telling yourself, "I don't want to do this anymore." The disease of your mind knowing that you want to stop, you still keep putting yourself in scenarios and situations. You keep compulsively going back to that very thing that-- The best way to describe it to many people, people have a lot of issues with food. They have issues with sex. You can have issues with shopping. Compulsive behavior is not limited to drugs and alcohol, however, mind-altering substances can definitely take you to other areas of your character or lack of. 

The reason why I think it's so easy to not see it as a disease is because it's so easily perceived as a choice. It is to much an extent. It's a choice as far as, oh, all you have to do is just not drink or not do drugs. Believe me, I tried that. My friend Nina G saw me try that. The thing was that I never thought my disease was that big a deal. I played in bands. It goes hand in hand, having a few beers, smoking a little herb, and doing a little more every now and then, and it became a daily thing. 

Then it became a thing where the music was the second priority and my job and everything else is a lower priority. I'm now calling in sick a lot more. I'm basically suffering from what the biggest symptom of the disease is, is unmanageability. I'm living an unmanageable life. My finances are not in order, my relationships with friends and family are being affected. I'm living a lot in a state of denial. Everybody else is the problem, not me. There's a lot of all of that. 

I think why it's so easy to not see it as a disease is because it looks like a character issue. Technically also, it is. However, if you've ever experienced any level of compulsive behavior, you can start to understand that it's not a choice. It's compulsive. If you compulsively itch yourself, that's kind of what it is. I don't want to keep scratching myself, but I keep compulsively doing it. 

That's pretty much the way that I've understood it and what I've suffered from it in the disease. I didn't get into recovery until I was 37. I picked up my first drug when I was 15. However, what I've come to learn is that drugs and alcohol were just a symptom of my disease. I suffered from chronic self-centeredness and compulsive behavior before I ever picked up my first drug. Even if I avoided drugs and alcohol in my life, this part of my disease of chronic self-centeredness would've manifested in some other form. 

That's where I've come to see it. We see a lot of compulsive self-centeredness, sociopathic behavior in society today and it gets rewarded too. People that are sharks with money and business and politics and all kinds of stuff, you see a lot of compulsive self-centeredness be very rewarded. There are people that live in this disease that don't see it as a disease. It is a compulsive need to fill this empty void in you, and it never gets filled. It's self-seeking behavior to constantly try to do what feels good, but once you keep going for more and more and more, that beast never gets fed. You're just going to find yourself eating yourself up obsessing in that direction. 

All this is, is just the specifics of drugs and alcohol. Drugs and alcohol being mind-altering substances. Albeit, I wasn't such a physically addicted person in my disease. I did do some physically addictive substances, but at the same time, I didn't have as much of a state of withdrawal as many other people do. That's a whole other level that I really have a profound respect for when people get off of that. With me, it was very mental because I could stop on my own, but I couldn't last more than three weeks. When I would relapse, I can hold it together for a little bit, maybe get away with a couple beers here, just a joint and few bong loads here, but it always turns into a binge and a bender. 

I just know. I played the tape in my head over and over, and I always wind up hurting myself, hurting someone else within the grips of the law. The literature in most recovery programs always says these roads lead to all the same things, jails, institutions, and death. The point of it being a disease is not really for the outside world to accept it as that, it's for us who are trying to get well, to see it that way so that we can understand the 12-step program is really our treatment. 

There's no cure for this disease, but there is a treatment, and that is these 12 steps and working it. That's really where that comes from. The fact that it got incorporated into the ADA, I think goes back to just where it comes from. This all stemmed from Dr. Bob who wrote the big book for Alcoholics Anonymous. 

SIGMOND: Dave, on that note, thank you so much. 

MEAN DAVE: Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. 

WELLS: That was our conversation with Mean Dave, a comedian with the Comedians with Disabilities Act.  

That does it for the show. Disability Rap is produced and edited by Carl Sigmond and Courtney Williams. You can go to our website, disabilityrap.org, to listen to past shows, read transcripts, and subscribe to the Disability Rap podcast. You can also subscribe to our podcast by searching Disability Rap on any of the major podcast platforms. We are brought to you by KVMR in partnership with FREED, and we're distributed by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange. I'm Lindsey Wells with Carl Sigmond for another edition of Disability Rap. 

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