Scott Steindorff: Killing Myself with Drugs and Alcohol

Scott Steindorff - Be Your Authentic Self

Movie producer Scott Steindorff gives an interview about overcoming substance abuse and how he won the internal battle against his inner critic.

Transcript:

Picture myself at the age of five and my dad handing me a martini and it's very symbolic of what happened in my life and it was a different time. I was raised by two parents and they didn't express emotions and feelings and addiction or substance abuse is what I learned because I was around it. And then my environment got worse. I got bullied in school. I was a really good student, I was very creative, very shy, very inward. And the kids started bullying me. So I started feeling less than. My grades deteriorated. My self-esteem, self-worth deteriorated and I felt terrible about myself. I didn't like who I was. I call it the inner bully. And I've done it my adult life until I came to a place and said, "Oh my God, I'm doing what those kids did to me."

I have an inner bully inside me that's beating myself up and then I'm beating up people that work for me and everybody because I've got that bully engaged inside of me, so I fired that bully and got rid of him. Something shifted inside of me. I used to call it a spiritual experience but I don't call it a spiritual experience. I call it a consciousness shift. I realize there was a power within myself that could change me and I got connected to that. And suddenly the stress was released from me, the fear was released from me. Something shifted and from that moment on, I never wanted to try to kill myself through drugs and alcohol. I just gave up. I've been sober ever since. And it was a release.

We all love to share, "Oh I won a big award. Oh, my movie made this amount of money. I have a hit TV show. I have this and that." How about the failure? We need to be able to openly talk about it and it is shifting. It is changing. You know where people talk about, "Hey I got to where I am right now because I failed a thousand times." And so the more we talk about that and the more open we are, the better we're gonna get as a society. And that's what's kept me sober, connecting with that power within myself, that I have the ability to change and grow and evolve and work on myself. Having a lot of money, having a lot of fame, having a lot of success, doesn't change how you feel, so those same feelings are still there.

Don't be worried about what people are going to write about you. Be honest and transparent. Be your authentic self.