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[0:00] Bobby Steggert: I'm Bobby Steggert, and this is The Quiet Part Out Loud.

[0:15] Bobby Steggert: Every good musical has a bar song. I'm serious. Oliver, Les Mis, Rent, Grand Hotel, Crazy for You, Sweet Charity, Beauty and the Beast, Promises, Promises, Cabaret, Hamilton, Guys and Dolls, Merrily We Roll Along, Hadestown, Three-Penny Opera, Annie Get Your Gun, The Drowsy Chaperone, Napasha Pierre, Oathwild Parties, and every song Elaine Stritch ever sang. And that is just a list I made offhand. The point is, the theatre is a place that romanticizes drinking on stage, and from many years of experience, I can report that it is deeply embedded in the culture of the theatre for any professional who works in it. And to take an even wider view, there is no activity on Earth, I don't think, that is so thoroughly normalized and integrated into every aspect of human culture, from celebrations to grief, while being so deeply damaging to so many lives. I'll share here that I have been a fairly regular drinker since I was about 18. My family is one that gathers and bonds through alcohol, and it has been a normal part of my social life in every era. It was my years in the theatre that were especially packed with drinking. All the parties, with open bars, the drinks after the show, sometimes every show. When you're young and somewhat invincible, or at least you assume you are for some time, you can get away with it without too much worry. I'm always fascinated nowadays when a client comes into the room on a Monday and talks about how tired they are from the weekend, sometimes making no connection between their exhaustion and the four drinks they had the night before. Let me say, there is no moral judgment or even criticism here. I share my own history of extremity to make the point that we often aren't conscious of how disruptive some of our choices are when those choices are being made by so many others surrounding us. I'm really grateful that Telly Leung wanted to share his experience with drinking here on the show. He's a contemporary of mine in the Broadway community, and the many anecdotes and stories he shares about the backstage and post-show life of a Broadway actor were almost identical to mine. We're both in our mid-40s now, and if there is a gift to the limits of aging, it's that your body starts to tell you what it can and can't handle with a lot more specificity. We've both made choices more recently to look at and modify our lifestyles around alcohol, and we discuss the benefits and the costs of those choices. And I'll admit here, absent complete sobriety, there's a lot of gray area, and for me, a lot of ambivalence around the whole thing. What Telly offers is an equally honest assessment of the gray area that he has explored, as well as some really attractive options for experimenting with sobriety if you happen to be interested. It's something well worth considering for any of us, including myself, who's leaned into substance use. And as with all the conversations on this podcast, my hope is that instead of judgment or self-rejection, it can help you to be curious about the part of you that might rely on alcohol. It's a solution for many things, but in my experience, it always comes at a cost.

[3:15] Bobby Steggert: We're going to talk about Broadway and alcohol. And I will say that I have run the gamut as a performer from someone who is drinking every night after every show to experimenting with sobriety, the whole range. What is your younger Telly version of that culture as a performer?

[3:42] Telly Leung: In my 20s, as a performer, I just remembered thinking to myself, gosh, this eight shows a week is really hard. And you were living for Sunday night. You were living for the last show of the week. Getting through to the end.

[3:56] Telly Leung: Getting to the end. And then it was a reward at the end. You get to go out and let loose and drink with your friends. I also quickly learned in my 20s, I was like, oh, all of my friends who don't do this, they have weekends. They have a Friday night happy hour. They have Thursday night sometimes. That's right. Thursday nights. They have Saturday dinners out with friends. They have Sunday boozy brunch. And I was like, oh, I don't have any of that because I have Friday, probably two shows Saturday and a Sunday matinee.

[4:23] Telly Leung: Right. So after the Sunday matinee was my weekend, my one and only weekend. And you had to behave and be good Monday to recover so that you could do the show Tuesday and start the whole cycle all over again. So it was a work hard, party hard sort of 20s for many of the work made the party extremity and extremity as well.

[4:42] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. You had to fit it all in like at Sunday at five o'clock when you got down from your matinee. Right. If you were lucky and didn't have two shows that day. And if you were lucky and you didn't have an audition on Monday or something. Right. So if you didn't have an audition on Monday, you go, oh, guys, I guess I'm giving up my one day a week of drinking and letting loose with my friends because I actually have to go home and sleep and drink water and have an audition.

[5:02] Telly Leung: Were you really that well behaved during the week, though? Because I remember going out on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights and it was dependent on the show. So, yeah, when I was in the ensemble, maybe not. And also when you're 20, I just opened my mouth and sang. You get home at three in the morning, wake up and do the show again.

[5:17] Telly Leung: Yeah. There is a sense of invincibility. That's my memory. Did you imagine you could just do anything?

[5:22] Telly Leung: Yeah, absolutely. I never thought about the cost of alcohol. I just remembered having a good time with my friends and living the life. And when you're lucky enough to work a job and make money, you can afford to drink. So let's live it up. Let's do it. Even one hundred dollars at the bar that night is nothing. Yes. But also like those social settings were also where you met people like you met other theater people. You went to a Hell's Kitchen bar. You probably met other designers and writers and directors and choreographers that were out in a social way. It almost felt necessary.

[5:55] Telly Leung: Yes. Yes. It was like the other part of the networking part of the job that sometimes you would see those people and have and you shared an experience with them or you shared a fun night with them. And I think in your 20s, you think, oh, that's going to help me. I don't know. It's interesting. It's like now I'm not a completely sober person, but I definitely have made myself more aware of what alcohol chemically does to me. I'm also a math science like nerd person. So like I was like, oh, like I drink alcohol. My body has to make the as how the high to like totally process the alcohol that's poisonous, that my body like makes all the adrenaline to counter that. So I feel buzzy. But then my body goes, oh, wait a minute, you're not trying to poison yourself. So it stops making it and then you get drunker and drunker. So it's this vicious cycle that I've like now realize what's happening in my body when I put alcohol in my body that so it just doesn't make me the best social creature. I'm actually not at my social best or smartest or most clever.

[6:45] Bobby Steggert: What was the story that about what it did for you?

[6:48] Telly Leung: What it did for me was it loosened me up. Yeah. It made me forget about anything I was stressed out about when I was out with my friends. Momentary denial. Yes. And it was like core memory making. That's true. With my social circle. And oftentimes that social circle was also people in my professional circle. So sometimes being out in those settings, having a couple of glasses of wine to feel loose at a cast party because you have to talk to some Tony award winning choreographer or director. It just made that conversation easier and yet something to connect over. And both of your inhibitions were down. So meeting people wasn't as hard. I was able to quiet some of those voices. Oh gosh, it was liquid courage as they say. You know what I remember because I would often play supporting roles and sometimes they would be siphoned off from the ensemble in certain ways. What are my tools of becoming close with the young people in the cast? Yeah. And being part of the scene. Did you ever feel that was part of it?

[7:45] Telly Leung: Absolutely. So I had always heard about Alan Cumming having his dressing room at Cabaret become Club Cumming. And now Club Cumming is an actual bar in the East Village. He called it Club Cumming. His bar now in the East Village grew out of that dressing room bar that he had as the emcee in Cabaret. And you know what? I always said to myself, if I ever get the chance to be a leading man in a show with my own dressing room, I'm going to have a bar and I'm going to leave my dressing room doors open. I started in the ensemble, so I like having that feeling of everybody in the same room. And when you get to be a leading man, your responsibilities are different. Your dressing room is different. It's a little bit more lonely.

[8:17] Telly Leung: Yeah. So I did. I had Bartelli and I remember the first Bartelli was Allegiance on Broadway because it was my first time as like a true leading man. And listen, Bartelli came in handy because after the show, people came to visit. I had some place to host people. So why wasn't it George? Why was it you?

[8:35] Telly Leung: I don't know. Because George doesn't drink. Ah, okay. And that wasn't his way of... No. And Leia was very disciplined, only drank on the night. But me, I would sometimes sneak a cheeky drink in the middle of the week because I had people over and I hosted. Bartelli was also very useful the day we got our closing notice. I remember it was January when we got our closing notice. I think it was after a Sunday matinee. And I remember Leia saying to me, Bartelli, now. So it was also a place of refuge and comfort for the cast too.

[9:03] Bobby Steggert: Did it almost feel like your responsibility as a leading man?

[9:06] Telly Leung: Yes. Because I was taught, not taught in any sort of academic way or scholastic way, but watching other leading men and other leading ladies in their shows, not only be leads on stage with their performance, but they were morale leaders. So they were able to rally the troops. That's especially important on a show like Allegiance that was not a commercial hit, where we're struggling to find an audience for the entire four months we were on Broadway. It's important to go to a company, guys, let's do this. This means something to us. This means something. Let's get out there. Let's do it. Don't look at the empty seats. And you had to lead by example. You had to get out there and give the same show you give for a sold out house as you would for a 50% house. And you also had to go, okay, guys, like Sunday night, party in Bartelli as a way to keep the troops going.

[9:49] Bobby Steggert: Do you think it's also that we romanticize in the Broadway world alcohol use to the point where we'll watch old videos of Elaine Stritch trying to get her song out in the late nights when they're recording the company album and we almost fetishize?

[10:02] Telly Leung: Yeah, she did in her one woman show. I remember very clearly she's had a different drink for every show. And for her, it was like a friend. She was like, on this show, my friend is champagne. This show, my friend is vodka. On this show, my friend was schnapps. And she was like, I don't go out there without a friend. So it was so romanticized that it was personified. She personified alcohol, this thing in a cup as a companion.

[10:26] Telly Leung: And she was messy and fabulous.

[10:28] Bobby Steggert: Correct. And she's celebrated icon in our world. That was the other thing. I sing for my supper. That's what I do. I personally can't. I was never a big smoker. I mean, not a weed smoker. But I could sometimes get away with a drink and doing the show. Not a lot. And I couldn't be in a noisy bar. But I could certainly have a little shot of whiskey on a Wednesday night or a Thursday night and still be able to come and do my show Friday night. Now, I can't do that at 46. But I could do that when I was younger.

[10:55] Bobby Steggert: I'm going to compliment you. You might not accept it or maybe you will. But like when you're a great singer, isn't it just easier to fake it?

[11:01] Telly Leung: Oh, I don't know. That's a really good question. I think that there are many versions of your voice and you're like, I have enough voice to do the show Friday. So you get by. Yes.

[11:12] Telly Leung: So you fake it with a percentage of your voice. But you don't have all of that, all of the facility and you don't quite meet the potential of what your voice could be.

[11:21] Bobby Steggert: Here's the other question, because I always did relatively short runs. And so the pressure was always there. Did the pressure change for you if you ever were in a long running show smack in the middle of it where the New York crowd isn't coming? It's more tourists. Did you lower the stakes for yourself in terms of your drinking or health standards?

[11:40] Telly Leung: I'm not sure. I think I haven't been in that many long runs either.

[11:44] Bobby Steggert: Let's say Aladdin.

[11:45] Telly Leung: But Aladdin, I did that for two years on Broadway. There was no thought that show was going to close anytime soon. So I wasn't like hustling for the next job. I wasn't auditioning a ton on a Monday because I knew this is where my contract ended. And when it ended, the show was still going to be running. It's still running today, 12 years later.

[12:01] Bobby Steggert: Wow.

[12:02] Telly Leung: You're right. Maybe there was more of a permission to be social. Aladdin was also very difficult. It wasn't a difficult show for me vocally, but it was a difficult show physically.

[12:10] Bobby Steggert: Sure.

[12:11] Telly Leung: I remember there was not a day goes by that on that show that my knees didn't hurt or my hammies didn't feel strained or ankles and joints weren't sore. You're jumping up and down on a metal deck for two years straight.

[12:23] Bobby Steggert: We talked about how drinking leads to a lot of justification. Did you ever use a sore body to justify drinking?

[12:29] Telly Leung: I think so. Yeah, it feels good to drink. It helps you relax to drink. I also used to say to myself, oh, I feel so strung out from the adrenaline from the show. I need some sort of like thing to come down.

[12:40] Bobby Steggert: That's right.

[12:41] Telly Leung: So a little shot of whiskey helps. It's a false narrative. Once you dig into it and go, what's the science behind drinking? It actually makes you more anxious when you wake up in the middle of the night because you've had that shot of whiskey or whatever. And you go, your body doesn't sleep right. Your REM sleep isn't good when you drink. All of that stuff that I don't think I was aware of in my 20s and 30s that I am much more aware of now in my 40s, especially because I turned 40 and the pandemic happened. So my drinking then got out of hand during the pandemic, as it did with a lot of people. But it also the drinking came without the need to do eight shows a week.

[13:01] Bobby Steggert: There's no pressure.

[13:18] Telly Leung: There's no pressure. I was like, I don't need to sing tomorrow. I don't know when I'm going to ever sing again. Let me drink because I can. Let me drink because I'm bored. And it's like helping me dull the anxious voices in my brain that come up if I'm because I'm bored and I don't know what's going to happen to my career or my industry or this thing I've dedicated my life to. A drink or many drinks during the pandemic help quiet all of that anxiety. Just help dumb myself down a little bit to not spin out of control.

[13:42] Bobby Steggert: I was already a therapist, but was it also, oh my God, I don't have to keep myself in shape for eight shows?

[13:46] Telly Leung: And that too.

[13:47] Bobby Steggert: Is it the relief of getting to let go for a bit?

[13:50] Telly Leung: Yes. That for sure was what it was in the beginning of saying to myself, I don't have anywhere to sing. I can have a drink or two in the afternoon if I want. I can have that margarita and a wonton soup carton from Arriba Arriba if I want. And I'm supporting a small business. So bring on the wonton soup containers.

[14:05] Telly Leung: Margaritas and I'll take them to the park with me. I don't remember that container. Oh, it was how Ariba Ariba has a soft place in my heart, in Hell's Kitchen, because it's where my husband and I had our first date. So 22 years ago, I was like, we're keeping this place open during the pandemic. We will not let Ariba Ariba go out of business. So we're like, that means we have to go and get margaritas to go. It just spun out of control, the drinking. When do you remember it turning on you?

[14:28] Bobby Steggert: I had an aha moment, and I'll never forget the date, because it was 4-20.

[14:33] Telly Leung: Okay.

[14:34] Bobby Steggert: 2022.

[14:35] Telly Leung: Two years later.

[14:36] Bobby Steggert: Yes, I had friends over. And because it was 4-20, we were all vaccinated by then. We're starting to come out of the pandemic. We're in like pandemic pods still, I think. But it was 4-20 and friends came over and they were like, we're going to smoke a little weed and make some drinks. So I was like, I'm not, again, not a big weed smoker, but I said, sure, it's 4-20, I'll do this with you. And believe it or not, in that marijuana moment, I said to myself, wait a minute, I've had a drink every single day for the last two years.

[15:04] Telly Leung: Ironic that it was on 4-20 that I figured this out, but I said, I've basically had a drink since March of 2020 when Broadway shut down, and I've at least had one every day.

[15:12] Bobby Steggert: I think I did the same.

[15:14] Telly Leung: And it felt normal.

[15:15] Bobby Steggert: Normal.

[15:15] Telly Leung: I've normalized it. And now I said to myself, I don't need smoking weed with my friends, something I rarely do. And I don't really need this glass of wine that's in my hand right now. I don't even, I was like, this wine doesn't even taste like wine anymore. It just tastes like water now. Like I've gotten so, my tolerance has gotten so high. I don't fit in my clothes. That's the other part. It's like the sedentary nature of COVID and the drinking. And it was like not great for me. I was starting to lose my hair even a little bit. Like all of that. My skin didn't look right. I felt bloated. Like I just had an aha moment in that high moment. And I said, I need to make a bit of a shift here.

[15:51] Bobby Steggert: I started to come out clean to my friends. I have a little support group of my college friends from Carnegie Mellon. The class of 2002, because of the pandemic, decided to get on a Zoom call every Wednesday night. And we would sit in front of the Zoom screen and we would drink a lot. We would have, here's the cocktail of the night. We'd drink and catch up with each other. And I said to them, I said, guys, we can't keep doing this. Like this pandemic is going to end. We're going to come out of this. Life is going to resume. My life doing eight shows a week is going to resume. I have to see what my life looks like after this. I don't want to keep drinking like this. Is anybody else going through this?

[16:23] Telly Leung: And there was one of my classmates that says, yes, I'm going through it. Let's take a walk in Central Park. And we did. And she ended up telling me about this wonderful program that was by this woman named Annie Grace, who had developed a program called The Naked Mind. But she developed this program for alcohol called The Alcohol Experiment. And I just want to say, I'm not a sponsor. This is not an ad. In the same way that my friends share this with me, I'm sharing this with you on this platform to help other people can look into it if they're curious about it, too. But basically, the program says make a commitment for 30 days to go alcohol free. And just notice. And treat it like an experiment. Every single day, there is a chapter in the book. Maybe there's a little bit of workshopping that you do with filling in the blanks for some entries. There's also accompanying videos that are free online. She also made an app that's free that you can watch the videos about that particular subject for the day. But every single day was another opportunity to interrogate and dispel the myths we tell ourselves about alcohol.

[17:24] Bobby Steggert: What's the myth that held on for you the longest?

[17:27] Telly Leung: That I needed to have alcohol to have fun. That I needed booze because it was such a big part of my social life with my friend. That I said, and everybody else is still drinking. That what if I'm not drinking? Am I missing out on something? Am I not sharing a part of this experience on something? And full disclosure, when I went on this experiment, I did lose some friends. I had some friends that I went, oh, those are drinking friends that I drink with. But for the most part, my friend friends with a capital F, they were like, we support you. So let's find things to do that don't involve booze. And so it was actually very eye-opening to do that. I read This Naked Mind. I think it's an incredible book. It's such a great alternative to AA if you don't want to go hardcore into that community. And I remember so well in the preface, she said that her turning point was videotaping herself while she got drunk.

[18:20] Bobby Steggert: Yes.

[18:20] Telly Leung: Do you remember that?

[18:21] Bobby Steggert: Yes.

[18:21] Telly Leung: And she watched it back and remembering feeling kind of sexy and funny was so offset by how sloppy and dumb she observed herself to be. Did you ever re-examine your behavior on alcohol in that way?

[18:35] Telly Leung: I did. First of all, I love that she did that as an experiment because she basically said, let me control this experiment by isolating alcohol for what it is and what it does to me. Take it out, disconnect it from the social situations and the having a good time, developing new ways to be social and developing new ways to have a good time that don't involve the booze. And also saying, by the way, during these 30 days, notice, take note of how you experience life without the booze. And she says, I guarantee you'll experience it in a more full, sensitive way. You're actually going to have more fun without it because your senses aren't dulled by the chemicals in the booze. For me, it was something that was very eye-opening. And I think AA is great for some people. It really works for some people. And I think it's amazing. It's done miracles for some of my friends. For me personally, I am not an all or nothing person. I live in the gray. And so I was aware I had a toxic relationship with alcohol, but I also did not want to sever all my relationship with alcohol because I said, if I'm at my friend's wedding, I do want to participate in the champagne toast. I want to be aware of what that champagne is going to do to my body chemically. And I want to be aware that because I've had that champagne at that wedding the night before that I am consciously giving up a productive morning because I might be a little hungover or I can't get to the gym or I can't do the reading I'm supposed to do for grad school or whatever it is. But I've made the choice. It's not an unconscious habit that I've developed where during COVID, especially where every five o'clock I'd reach for a cocktail.

[20:10] Bobby Steggert: I'm curious also because drinking is also about genetics and family culture. And when I watch some of my family members drink, I see how they can't stop. And I think there's a lot of functional alcoholism in my family. So I have to be aware about it, about my body. Did you have influences in your family in terms of alcohol?

[20:25] Telly Leung: No, nobody really drank. And in fact, my mom and dad never drank. And it was actually one of the things that when I went into show business, they worried about. They were like, going into show business, you're going to lead this rock and roll life and don't drink too much. And I think they noticed, even though I probably had drinking very much under control when I was working eight shows a week or doing whatever, because again, the discipline of having a healthy body to do what it is to be relatively healthy. But I think they noticed. They were like, Telly, in his world, they drink a lot. It's true. There's always a post-show drink or there's an opening night party or there's a gala of some kind. And it's always free booze. And you have to drink in those situations. And every time I saw them, they would go, don't drink too much. Like they would say it. And I would go, mom, dad, of course not. But in my brain, when I think drink too much, I'm thinking of like the alcoholic, the drunk guy yelling on the street. You know what I mean? Like I'm thinking about the hobo on the street who's like a drunk. That's the image I have. I never thought of myself as drinking too much. But there are definitely times where I do drink too much in my...

[21:22] Bobby Steggert: What was the first job back after the pandemic?

[21:26] Telly Leung: Oh gosh, that's a really good question. What started happening during the pandemic was I started directing a bit more and producing a bit more. So I was starting to not perform as much. Again, not meeting my voice. My first directing job actually was during the pandemic at the University of Michigan. I was directing Godspell. And it was... We could have done on Broadway. Right. And because it was pandemic and it was university, the university said, this is the first time these students will be in person. They've been in Zoom University this entire year. We are going to attempt to actually do a show in a theater. They will be masked when they sing or dance. They have to be staged nine feet apart because that is the university social distancing standard for safety. And there's no audience. We're filming it. It's a four camera shoot and we're streaming it live. That's the senior musical of the year. And we'd like you to come and direct it. I said, sure. I went home and I had a drink every night because I wasn't doing the show. And not only that, but I drank a lot because it was also nothing else to do in Ann Arbor, but go direct the show and drink.

[22:25] Bobby Steggert: Did you even... Was one of the other myths that you could sit at the bar or in your housing and creatively come up with tomorrow's rehearsal plan?

[22:31] Telly Leung: Yes, absolutely. I never thought that drinking would actually inhibit my creativity. This is before I dug into Annie Grace. This is before I dug into Naked Mind and Alcohol Experiment and all that and was really aware. Probably that's a little bit where it started getting out of control because I was very functional. I put up a whole show in the middle of a pandemic and it worked and I was proud of it. I got away with it. And if I really think about it, my twenties too, like I drank in my twenties. Gosh, doing Rent. Rent was at the Needle Lander. Next door was a hotel that's no longer there called Hotel 41 and downstairs is Bar 41. And I only lived two blocks away. I lived on 40th and 9th. I lived two blocks away from the Needle Lander. So I went to the Bar 41 all the time.

[23:12] Bobby Steggert: Like every night?

[23:12] Telly Leung: Every night. And yeah, and it was also Rent. So it was one of those shows where I didn't necessarily need to have the most clean vocals every single night. Like it was okay that you had a little edge on your voice the next day. And I was in my twenties. So it worked and we got away with it. So I was just like, oh, I'm getting away with this. And probably that didn't help. But so the first job back, I can't remember what the first job back was, but the first like performing job back, I remember was I did concerts with Kerry Butler at Epcot Center through Disney. When you get the honor and the privilege of being a lead in a Disney show, there are concerts on cruise ships and at Epcot Center that they'll send you down to do and you sing from the Disney on Broadway catalog.

[23:53] Bobby Steggert: Got it.

[23:53] Telly Leung: And so Kerry Butler and I were paired together to do these concerts. And I, again, had to reign it in and keep myself very disciplined. But I did drink actually. Like I remembered that's what you do. You go to Epcot Center and you drink around the world. You have a margarita in Mexico and you have a shot of sake at Japan and you have a beer in Canada. You're mixing.

[24:11] Bobby Steggert: And you're right.

[24:13] Telly Leung: And I think I was smart enough and disciplined enough to go, okay, I'm only gonna do this on the day off. And again, I got away with it. Now, alcohol also decreases your immune system's ability to fight off diseases. So I did not get COVID until I was, until after Epcot Center.

[24:29] Bobby Steggert: How interesting.

[24:30] Telly Leung: Interesting. Kerry Butler and I both got COVID performing down at Epcot. It's also Florida, which was the wild west of COVID. But you really do attribute it somewhat to drinking?

[24:38] Telly Leung: I think, I don't necessarily think, I was coming back into a singing job, not at my healthiest because I'd been drinking the whole pandemic. And I continued to drink down there. I did not take care of myself to the best of my ability. Looking at it now, it's 2026. I'm 46 years old. I'm doing Masquerade eight times a week. The way I take care of myself, the way I hydrate, what I put into my body in order to do that very athletic show physically and athletic show vocally, it's night and day from what I did back in 2022 when I did Epcot Center.

[25:10] Bobby Steggert: So when did you make the formal choice?

[25:13] Telly Leung: The formal choice was really after that 4-20 date in 2022, after my walk with my friend Rachel in the park. And she said, I really want you to look into anti-grace. I did. And I started with her Instagram page because it's free. And I started to really dig what she was saying. The things that I really latched onto was, it's an experiment. So unlike AA where you get a chip or you get rewarded for like how long you go without alcohol, right? This is my one-year chip. This is my three-year chip. And there's a lot of pressure on you.

[26:43] Bobby Steggert: There's pressure.

[26:44] Telly Leung: And with her, she says, this is an experiment. So let's say you're into day seven of this 30-day experiment and you lapse and you have a drink. Don't beat yourself up. Instead, like any scientist, look into why you reached for a drink that day. Did you have a fight with your spouse? Did you have a stressful day at work? Did you feel like you were missing out on experience with your friends? Was there peer pressure? Were there friends that said, oh, just have one? And take note of that instead. And don't let that lapse discredit the seven days of commitment you did make. And then on the eighth day, recommit and keep going and recommit having knowledge now of that experience. This is totally de-shaming. I was like, oh my gosh, I love this. I love that gives you the grace. It gives you the grace to take sobriety at your own pace. And what I've learned since then, it's been four years since I've been embarking on this journey, is that like, it is up or down. And as part of the learning process of going, in that four-year time, I've definitely had nights where I've drank too much. Every time I have one of those nights, I say to myself, what did I learn from that? Not that again. And because I've continued to do that, I have less of those nights. And isn't that the goal, right? Isn't that the goal to just have better awareness and build better habits and be more conscious of what we're unconsciously doing to ourselves?

[27:09] Bobby Steggert: How did you learn that you weren't missing out? And are you missing out on some things, even if they're minor things?

[27:11] Telly Leung: I think I am missing out on some things, but the things that I'm missing out on, there's a price to that. And I think I've started asking myself, is it worth the price? At the moment, I'm doing mass radio times a week. I'm going to grad school. A decision I don't think I would have made had I still been drinking regularly.

[27:27] Bobby Steggert: What are you studying?

[27:27] Telly Leung: I'm getting my MFA in directing. And the University of Idaho does an amazing distance MFA program that allows you to keep working while you get your MFA. I went back and directed a show at my alma mater, Carnegie Mellon University last year, and I had an aha moment where I went, I think the five to 10 year plan is I want to be full-time in a place like this, in a place that was so formative for me as an artist. I want to be that for young people. I don't have kids. So in a lot of ways, this is my way of raising the next generation. I also know that I'd be nowhere without great teachers. And I also know that I'm not somebody that's teaching because I couldn't do it. I've done it for 25, 30 years. I'm ready for the next.

[28:39] Telly Leung: You know that you're most creative, that you're not physically capable to get through the day, so your physical stamina isn't good, and there's always a price. That's the price you're paying.

[28:48] Telly Leung: And now I say to myself, every time I am offered a drink, or every time I decide to drink, I go, is this drink with this experience worth that price? And sometimes it really is. I had a friend recently visit me from London that I hadn't seen in almost about a year. They came to Mass Gray, they came to the show, of course I was going to have a drink with them, because sharing that experience is worth me not having the most productive day tomorrow.

[29:09] Bobby Steggert: That's right. There's a reason that alcohol is part of religious rituals, that it's part of funerals. Sometimes it's actually an important part.

[29:18] Telly Leung: It's ritual, that's right. And who are we without it? Our rituals are so much a part of who we are and what makes us, and so believe in those rituals. I have been able all my life to justify drinking because I don't feel sick, I don't have physical hangover, I just get anxious. Sometimes I would ignore that anxiety was connected to a hangover. I was able to separate those states, the drinking and the anxiety.

[29:43] Bobby Steggert: Were you ever able to ignore aspects of a hangover?

[29:46] Telly Leung: Yes. Yeah, you just push through it. So you're like, I'm a little nauseous, but I'm not going to throw up, so I'm fine, I'll function. Like, I have a little bit of a headache, but it's not a migraine, and I'm sensitive to light, but it's fine, I'll just throw on some shades and I'll get on with it. And sometimes you go, okay, if I eat a greasy egg sandwich and I go to the gym, I'll be fine. And you are. Sometimes you can knock your body back into that place where you feel semi-fine.

[30:10] Bobby Steggert: How has it changed your body?

[30:12] Telly Leung: I think, oddly enough, I feel younger at 46 with a real control over my drinking than I did at 40 when I didn't have control over my drinking.

[30:22] Bobby Steggert: Your skin looks great.

[30:24] Telly Leung: Thank you. Thank you. It's a podcast, so all these people listening will have to just take your word for it.

[30:27] Bobby Steggert: I'm telling them.

[30:28] Telly Leung: But I think we look good for our age, and I think it's because we've made healthy choices, and hopefully that means that we get to be here longer because we're aging in reverse because we're making these healthy choices for ourselves. Again, I think alcohol took up so much room in my life without me being aware of it, the recovery from it. And even if I really look at the time I spent, yes, there are those rituals that you have with dear friends you haven't seen in a long time, and you share a drink with them, and it's a memory that you're making. But eventually, even the conversation isn't top quality because everybody gets a little dumb on the booze.

[31:00] Telly Leung: A couple more drinks, you get even dumber on the booze. So all of a sudden, that time doesn't become even that quality of a time where you're both firing on full cylinders. And I don't know. I feel like I'm so much younger and sharper now than I was even at 40.

[31:15] Bobby Steggert: How do you navigate differences with people that you're close to?

[31:18] Telly Leung: Yeah. The person I'm the closest to is my husband. My husband is a social drinker. He's a 9-to-5-er. So he gets the weekends.

[31:25] Bobby Steggert: That's right.

[31:26] Telly Leung: He gets weekends, and he does work very hard during the week, Monday to Friday. But the ritual of going, I'm going to go to happy hour on a Friday with my workmates, that's a thing. That's a thing that they do. I'm going to go and have Saturday night drinks with the boys, Sunday fun day, brunch, all of that. And when I started to not drink, I was just on a different level with them sometimes. And also, I didn't want to be in those spaces for very long. So sometimes I go, okay, honey, you have a good time. I'm not as drunk as everybody here, so I'm going to go home. Probably because I had something else to do, whether it was an assignment for grad school or prepping for an audition or whatever it was. I was filling my time with something else that wasn't getting drunk or recovering from getting drunk.

[32:07] Telly Leung: We did spend less time together. We started to develop a separate group of friends. He had friends that he would drink with that would be available to him to drink with. That used to be me, right? And now it's not me anymore. Also, going back into H.O.'s week, I'm like, I can't be in, I can't be at industry. It's too loud. I'll have no voice. Forget the booze. I can drink water all night. But if I'm at industry and there's a drag queen lip syncing to a loud song, I can't talk over this. So it's not fun for me anyway. That was the other thing. The booze made all of those places more tolerable.

[32:37] Bobby Steggert: Oh, absolutely.

[32:38] Telly Leung: And the booze would be like, I'm not really thinking about how loud I'm talking in this bar because I'm too drunk to really be aware of it. When I've had periods of not drinking, this very funny, moralizing part of me will sometimes come forward. Like, why would you ever?

[32:51] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[32:54] Telly Leung: Ignoring all the times I've drunk in the same ways that everyone else does. And do you ever have that?

[32:57] Bobby Steggert: I did. And full disclosure, that was a bit of conflict between my husband and I.

[33:03] Telly Leung: I see. Because as I found healthier habits, of course I want my partner in life to also be healthy. And of course there are moments where I go, honey, that's your third whiskey of the night. Like straight. No mixer. And I think I have to strike the balance of communicating concern when my partner is not making the healthiest of choices. But also not imposing my choice onto him. Because we are different people. And I think all I can do is voice my concern and say, I worry, but I also trust you to make that decision for yourself. I cannot impose.

[33:40] Telly Leung: I think the point of conflict came because he thought I was imposing some sort of sobriety on him or judging his behavior. And no one wants to be told what to do.

[33:48] Bobby Steggert: Correct.

[33:49] Telly Leung: And I wasn't necessarily judging it, but I was concerned. Also knowing the alternative. And it continues to be a challenge because we have to find things to do together that does not involve booze. And so much of our social life in the theater world, in the gay world, whatever that is, involves being out and having drinks.

[34:06] Bobby Steggert: What have you found?

[34:07] Telly Leung: But on the positive side of it, what shifted in the way that you spent time together? Okay, this is going to sound so nerdy, but I love going to museums. So my husband and I just went on vacation to Amsterdam and we hit every museum known to man. And it felt like I wasn't imbibing alcohol, but I was imbibing inspiration in a lot of ways. I will say this. Quitting booze or reevaluating booze, I did try to find other things to replace it. There was the snacking era where it was like I need something to still get a little bit of that endorphin high that I used to get from booze. Annie Grace talks about this too. You might binge on some sweets when you try to quit drinking the 30 days. No judgment, but be aware of it.

[34:45] Telly Leung: I do. I find that because I've made room to exercise more, I'll try to exercise more or eat healthier. Stuff like that. So if the eating is replacing the booze, I have upped my sweets intake for sure. I was never like a sweet tooth person. I do find that I go, oh yeah, I'm going to reach for those Skittles or the Nerds or something now. In the grand scheme, that feels pretty manageable.

[35:04] Bobby Steggert: Yes, it is manageable.

[35:05] Telly Leung: Totally manageable. There was also like for me, like the I'm not drinking, but I'll be California sober.

[35:10] Bobby Steggert: Sure.

[35:11] Telly Leung: So I'll do an edible instead. That quickly went away too because a lot of this stuff of what Annie Grace was saying in The Naked Mind, I was basically doing that with marijuana as well. Evaluating going, oh, I just feel dumber and more hungry. Or more anxious tomorrow. Depending on the strain of the marijuana. So I've really stopped doing that because I go, this isn't actually that much better.

[35:30] Bobby Steggert: Yes, it doesn't have some of the – your body isn't producing the acetaldehyde and it isn't giving you the cycle of like endorphins and dynorphins and like ups and downs. But it still wasn't doing great things for my body either.

[35:42] Telly Leung: So I've not done that either. So I want to end with a couple of more like uplifting questions.

[35:48] Bobby Steggert: Sure.

[35:49] Telly Leung: Which is, I guess, first of all, what have you noticed about your creativity when you're not drinking?

[35:54] Telly Leung: I find that I'm much more clear-headed. I am an anxious person. I run anxious. I think that's just like me being born and raised a New Yorker. But there's a different anxiety that comes with alcohol. There's a different chemically induced anxiety that comes with it that is different than just like normal tele-anxiety. I think I am more creative because I'm able to separate the two. Like very distinctly. What is my own anxiety that's natural and what was the chemically induced one that I feel when I drink is no longer there.

[36:26] Bobby Steggert: Is it that the natural anxiety can be better fueled towards creativity if you're separating it out?

[36:32] Telly Leung: Yes. And I think a little bit of anxiety is good for creative people.

[36:35] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[36:36] Telly Leung: Because it drives you and it keeps you going and it keeps you interrogating relentlessly as an artist. It is also something that for some people, it's also a barrier to their creativity as well. It's a fine line you have to dance and it's a balance that you have to strike of wanting it and wanting to find it and wanting to explore it. And also giving yourself the room to breathe and let it happen. Whatever that inspiration is. You can't force inspiration. I guess that's a thing. But you can set yourself up for the place where that can happen.

[37:05] Bobby Steggert: Yes.

[37:06] Telly Leung: And I was finding alcohol was definitely not setting myself up for a place where creativity can like spark and fire organically on its own. Like I wasn't setting myself up for success. I wasn't putting myself in a healthy place to be inspired.

[37:19] Bobby Steggert: And it sounds like the two anxieties that you described when combined were a barrier.

[37:24] Telly Leung: I think so. For sure. Final question. If people are curious about experimenting.

[37:27] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[37:32] Telly Leung: What can you promise them is on the other side if they really get through the painful parts?

[37:37] Bobby Steggert: Yeah. The painful like hard part. Like the hard part of letting go of this habit. What's on the other side?

[37:42] Telly Leung: I think on the other side is more awareness of a habit that maybe you've become unaware of. That's what I found. Is that like I was mindlessly reaching for a drink. Now I'm very mindful about it. In fact, I'm very conscious of when I make that decision to do it. I also find that if you really give yourself the 30 days and you really commit to yourself. I think that there's also like something that happens where you go. You know what? I committed to something very hard for 30 days. I did that. There's a natural confidence boost that you've given yourself for achieving something that is not easy.

[38:16] Telly Leung: I also think that within those 30 days, you're going to learn that it is not linear. Like most things in life. It is not black and white. It is gray. It is going to be up and down. You're going to have good days. You're going to have bad days. And how do you roll with it? And I think probably this is why, like I said, this works better for me than AA. Because AA does feel like an all or nothing commitment. And for me, I was like I can commit to this moment. I can commit to like today, this moment. And I can at this moment look back on what happened yesterday or what happened 10 minutes ago and evaluate that and make a better choice in this moment. But, again, having that grace for yourself, I think, is good. And have that understanding that nothing in life is really linear. Really. And nothing is truly binary. It's not all or nothing for me. I also think that you'll start to realize the awareness of like how much room alcohol actually takes up in your life. And that when the room that you made for drinking, whether that's going out or the recovery the next day, when that room gets freed up, what else do you want to do? There's a lot of people drink because they're bored, right? That definitely happened during the pandemic. Everybody was drinking because they were bored at home and numb themselves from the anxiety of boredom. The anxiety of boredom actually isn't bad sometimes. If you sit with yourself for a minute, all of a sudden you're giving yourself that time to discover, to have those random ideas, to daydream, to deal with yourself. To maybe deal with those parts of yourself that you need to surface and that need to surface up and you need to deal with and need to listen to. I've certainly found that. I've certainly found that not drinking and being bored, especially as a director, sometimes is really good. Because it makes you sit there and go, okay, ideas come to me. Okay, nothing's here. Of course, that causes a bit of anxiety when you look at a blank page and you go, nothing's coming. But if something eventually does come and had you not put yourself in that bored place, you might not have been inspired. Or you might not have dug as deep as you did because there was something you weren't listening to or there was a voice inside you that you were drowning out with booze.

[40:14] Bobby Steggert: That's right. Your speaking is the heart of it, which is that people use substances to avoid themselves because it's hard to face yourself.

[40:20] Telly Leung: Yeah.

[40:21] Bobby Steggert: So for you, the reward is a much richer relationship to yourself.

[40:25] Telly Leung: Yeah. Yeah. I feel much more connected to myself. And it's interesting. I think the narrative we're always told as well, what's the Latin in vino veritas? Like in wine there is truth or something? I actually think that's the opposite. Like I found it's the opposite. That like it's not having the booze is the more truer version of me because I'm able to be fully aware of even the voices I don't want to listen to all the time. For me, it's a better way to live. The other flip of a motto is liquid courage. I think it's much more courageous to face yourself sober.

[40:55] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[40:56] Telly Leung: That's actually I think that's so true.

[40:58] Bobby Steggert: Yeah.

[40:59] Telly Leung: I just want to remind listeners that we're both speaking from the perspective of not being totally sober.

[41:04] Bobby Steggert: No.

[41:05] Telly Leung: And I don't think that's what we're proselytizing either.

[41:07] Bobby Steggert: No.

[41:08] Telly Leung: I think maybe I could see for myself one day I might. One day I might decide that I never again want to have to like make the decision about, okay, am I drinking with this friend or not? And what does that mean tomorrow for my date? Because that too takes up room in your brain and in your heart to have to make those decisions. And is life simpler without those decisions? Maybe. So maybe one day I'll go, yeah, I just don't drink at all because it's easier to say I don't drink. And it's just I never have to think about it again. But for this moment, I'm not in that place. And I do love that this conversation and I feel like the both of us have been speaking in draft a lot. But I think that's the process.

[41:43] Bobby Steggert: That's exactly what it is.

[41:44] Telly Leung: It's an ever evolving sort of relationship you have with alcohol. And sometimes it's a really good relationship and healthy. And sometimes it's really not healthy and toxic. Let's cheers our coffees.

[41:54] Bobby Steggert: Yes.

[41:55] Telly Leung: Cheers.

[41:56] Bobby Steggert: Cheers.

[42:07] Telly Leung: Cheers.