The Small Bow Podcast

As we get closer to the holidays, I wanted to bring back fan favorite Peaceful John for another round of questions from listeners (and from me). I go to John when I’m feeling stressed or consumed by dread and self-loathing, so I hope he can be of some help to all of you. We talk about self-forgiveness, humility and how to resist punishing yourself for past mistakes. We also answer questions about...

Writer Paulina Pinsky hasn’t always known what it meant to be “right-sized.” As the daughter of TV’s Dr. Drew, Paulina struggled to understand how she was meant to perform for the public, especially when it came to the parts of her story that undermined her father’s persona. In this episode, we sit down for a conversation about disordered eating, body neutrality, the role her dad played in her rec...

If you would have told me thirty years ago that I’d be interviewing former 76’ers Team President Pat Croce about Zen Buddhism, I would have said you were crazy. But here we are. If you followed Philly sports in the 1990’s, you knew Pat Croce as the high-flying architect of the Sixers turnaround that rallied the city around a team of underdogs. These days, Pat has turned into a full-on seeker, comm...

Please Note: This video discusses heavy themes, including suicide and mental health struggles. If you are experiencing distress, please utilize the free, confidential resources below. United States & Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. International: Find free, immediate support lines specific to your country at https://findahelpline.com David Marchese talked to Sir An...

From a rehab that burned down to a fall from a second story window, Nick Thune has escaped death many times. He’s found a way to tell his story that makes space for the terror he felt in the depths of addiction and the compassion he now feels for the person he used to be. Nick spins a good yarn, and there’s a lot of those in this episode— featuring broken limbs, petting babies, gang leaders, and m...

Rainn Wilson is best-known for his role as Dwight Schrute on The Office and his Soul Boom Podcast. He’s a serious, thoughtful guy who had the strange experience of becoming an international celebrity almost overnight. We talk about how the experience of sudden fame dovetailed with his addiction and how AA and a return to his Bahai faith have helped him to find his footing again. Plus, we discuss h...

Please Note: This episode discusses heavy themes, including suicide and mental health struggles. If you are experiencing distress, please utilize the free, confidential resources below. United States & Canada: Call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline. International: Find free, immediate support lines specific to your country at https://findahelpline.com If you are in the music indus...

Have you ever jumped when the phone rings? Yassir Lester does it every time. The writer and comedian (Girls, Black Monday, The Carmichael Show) stops by for a conversation about anxiety, success, growing up poor and how to deal with the fear of surprise. Plus, we talk about why quitting drinking made him a better comedian and the fuzzy line between being courageous and being reckless. I could talk...

Carey O’Donnell celebrated 10 years of continuous sobriety on the same day Perez Hilton bloodied himself on TikTok Live. Perfect time to come on this show and talk about anniversaries, celebrities and the gnarlier side of addiction. Carey and I both experienced our darkest moments in New York and this episode is full of those memories: 42 minute train delays, yelling your opinion at book club and...

This is an episode about parenting and recovery. How do I talk to my kids about my own story? How do I protect them from repeating my mistakes? How do I give them the feeling of safety that I didn’t have when I was young? What do I do if I recognize patterns of behavior in them, that I’ve tried to fix in myself? Erin Khar is a writer and advocate. She’s the author of the memoir Strung Out and the...

Sometimes I think I either want to join a cult or start a cult. Tommy Rosen definitely has cult leader charisma, but if you peel back that air of authority, you realize he’s just a guy that’s been seriously kicked around by life and arrived at a place where he wants to help as many people as possible. Tommy is the founder of Recovery 2.0, an organization that hosts Yoga-informed Recovery workshops...

This week, Kathryn Jezer-Morton joins the show to talk about emotional sobriety and the internet. Kathryn writes about digital culture and parenting for many publications, including her fantastic biweekly column for The Cut called “Brooding.” Her new book on social media is called The Story of Your Life. Emotional sobriety is this term that gets used to describe how we manage and regulate difficul...

Anna Holmes could walk into any newsroom and immediately run the show. She created and ran Jezebel while I was at Gawker and her writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The New Yorker and The New York Times, where she formerly wrote the weekly “Work Friend” column for the Sunday Business Section. But as we discuss in this interview, she still struggles with feelings of inadequacy. In this conversati...

Queen Conny is 96 years old and not afraid to die. She gets angry, she holds onto grudges and she has no tolerance for liars. She’s also got 18 virtual reality boyfriends and killer style. She’s been sober for 48 years and while she hasn’t always loved AA, she credits it with changing her relationship with God. This is NOT a conversation about aging gracefully. It’s a conversation about getting ol...

This week on The Small Bow Podcast, you’re invited to join us for a Small Bow Meeting. A Small Bow Meeting is not a 12-step meeting, but we rip off most of their format. It is not necessary for participants to identify as an alcoholic or addict. This meeting is open to people who suffer from issues related to mental illness, drugs, love, sex, food, debt, codependency, inadequacy, or anything else...

Swamp Dogg is a country, soul and R&B singer, musician, songwriter and record producer. He has influenced multiple generations of musicians with his defiantly idiosyncratic discography and has been described by Pitchfork as one of “pop’s great cult acts.” He also happens to sing The Small Bow theme song. He stopped by the studio to discuss his long career, his lifelong search for happiness, and hi...

Megan Koester is a writer and stand-up comedian who isn’t writing and won’t promote her stand-up. In my opinion, she should be doing more of both of those things but hey, it’s not up to me. I wanted to have Megan back on the show to talk about self-sabotage and becoming your own worst enemy. Plus, being an atheist in recovery rooms, EMDR and weaponized trauma and how to use craigslist ephemera as...

When I want to know what’s going on in Hollywood, I turn to Richard Rushfield. Richard is a columnist for the Ankler, his influential newsletter about the state of the entertainment industry. He is also sober, and decided to stop by our show on his 30th sobriety anniversary. We talk about how sobriety has changed his work ethic and made him more comfortable in his own skin. We also discuss the sta...

For this episode of The Small Bow Podcast, my friend Peaceful John joins the show to answer some of your questions about recovery. It should be obvious pretty quickly why I call him Peaceful John. We talk about how to set boundaries with aging parents, how to avoid turning your grief into a weapon, how to care less, how to feel more… basically how to deal with your own sh*t. Thanks to everyone who...

Mary H. K. Choi stops by the show for our annual meeting of the dead dads club and a conversation about her new book Pool House. We discuss the major changes in Mary’s life that informed the writing of this book, including her autism diagnosis and the loss of her dad, and the ways that this round of self-promotion has led to new appreciation for her community. Plus, why 12-step is genius, why 20 y...

Death, Sex and Money is where I go for a jolt of connection to something bigger than myself. Anna Sale hosts that show and is also the author of the book Let’s Talk About Hard Things. On this episode, we talk about the moment Anna realized she didn’t understand death nearly as much as she thought she did. We also get into the origins of Death, Sex and Money and the role that Anna’s visit to recove...

Ryan O’Connell had an uncommon path to fame. After starting as a blogger in New York, he wrote a TV script about his life as a young, gay man with Cerebral Palsy. When the show was picked up by Netflix, the network insisted he star in it as well. Now that Special is in the rearview mirror, Ryan has gone back to his roots as a writer. He has a new book of essays out, called Inspiration Porn, which...

Turns out Langhorne Slim and I have a lot in common. We both grew up in the Philly suburbs, we spent formative creative years in New York and we became dads in our forties. We’re also both in recovery. Langhorne’s got a new album out called The Dreaming Kind and he stopped by the studio to chat before playing a show at the Troubadour in LA. In this episode, we talk about the ways we’ve both strugg...

Dave Manheim (host of the Dopey Podcast) comes back on the show to drop some Dopey wisdom. We talk about ego, ambition, control issues, slowing down and how to be of service, self-servingly. Plus, what I learned from losing my wallet and why Dave hates the movie Inside Out. New episodes release every Wednesday. ➡️ Subscribe to The Small Bow Podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheSmallBow?sub...

As the publicist for some of the most controversial people in media, including Candace Owens, Clavicular and Adam Friedland, Mitchell Jackson runs toward chaos. I wanted to have him on the show to talk about his own sobriety and how he balances a professional life that’s full of drama with a private life that’s “drama-free.” We talk about Mitchell’s definition of cancellation, his dream clients (M...