Daniel Schwarzhoff discovered pretty late in life that he was not really a Schwarzhoff: that the man he had always considered his father was not his biological dad. It explained a lot. At least it gave a shape to the chaos that had marked his early life. He rose above that chaos with a career on Wall Street but brought a lot of it with him as well. When it eventually became too much, he found a twelve step meeting that really revealed how far gone he'd become.

Patti Clark grew up in Redwood City where she overcame a childhood marked by absentee parents to graduate high school and attend a good college. A sort of divine intervention shaped the trajectory of her life and then a tarot card reader helped her recognize her own addiction. She spent 13 years sober, determined to raise her own children in a way that was different from her own upbringing, but then - after 13 years sober - started drinking again. But she’s sober now and has a new book out - RECOVERY ROAD TRIP - which is part narrative and part work book - a compendium of weekly exercises to chart a more fulfilling path of your own. I thoroughly enjoyed this conversation.

Frank Conniff has been a stand up and writer and producer for many tv shows like Sabrina the teenage witch but he’s probably best know for his role as TV’s Frank on the Peabody Award winning cult hit Mystery Science Theater 3000 where he also served as a writer.

I discovered Frank as one of the many members of my extended clan of Murray-McDonnell cousins. When I started doing standup, everyone in my family asked me if we had met each other so I started following him on Twitter and discovered he was, in fact, sober. I had his email address from a family group email and here we are...