When we try to redeem 2020, Thom Hofman‘s story is a great place to start. After a life of scoring beers at 6am landed him in the hospital for the fifth time, he got sober by learning to “resensitize to the mundane.” He’s been home helping his kids with their online learning, resuming his homeless outreach, and celebrating the 25th anniversary of his first date with his wife.

We talk books and music, living in the present, the mythos of boozy writers, and realizing that among his amazing canon of writing, he’s done his best work sober.

Links:

• The Dad 2.0 Community Facebook group
• John Mulaney checks into rehab
• John Cheever’s Falconer
• The Trip to Echo Spring, by Olivia Laing
• On NPR, The Mythos of the Boozy Writer
• Thom in The San Diego Reader
• How the Blues Brothers script was written
• James Garfield was shot by an anarchist
• In High Fidelity, Rob re-sorts his records autobiographically

Listen on Stitcher, Spotify, Apple podcasts, Google podcasts, and above.