Sault-born, Toronto-based stand-up comedian Alex Wood is a natural-born storyteller.
Born with a comedic wit and an ability to tell a good tale, Wood has in recent years taken his stories from the stand-up stage, moving them online in 2017, to now publishing a memoir due in April.
Wood lived in the Sault for the first six years of his life before moving to Ottawa with his mother and siblings.
Between then and his high school years, he bounced back and forth between the two cities.
“I would come back [to the Sault] to spend every summer with my dad,’ says Wood.
“I attended St Basil’s in Grade 9 but otherwise spent the rest of high school in Ottawa.”
With plenty of family remaining in the Sault, it was a place he continued to visit regularly.
“I was just visiting this past September and I got Aurora’s and Mrs. B’s in the same night,” he laughs.
The roots of Wood’s natural ability to tell a story and find a quick turn of phrase originated in the Sault.
“I have a lot of storytelling in my stand-up act,” says Wood.
“It’s in my blood … the Wood side of my family are all from the Sault and they all love to tell stories. Comedians have the gift of gab but they also seem to have this strange magnetic field in their lives for attracting wild events and people.”
Some of those wild events led to another important aspect of Wood’s story.
He is also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, something he is very open about.
“Opening up and talking about my addictions first and foremost just lead me to other people dealing with the same struggles as me,” says Wood, who notes that brought him to AA meetings.
“It’s important to see people that are doing okay now talking about how they got there.”
For Wood, who once referred to himself as an “unreliable addict,” coming to grips with his own addictions required him to see that it was actually possible to overcome them.
“It’s like running the 4-minute mile,” he says.
“It was seen as this impossible thing and people tried and failed for hundreds of years. Then Roger Bannister does it, and suddenly people were doing it every year. The mental barrier was stronger than the physical one.”
In 2017, Wood began an online podcast called Alex Wood Quits Everything.
In each episode of his podcast, Wood shares his experiences as he talks to other recovering addicts.
“In my opinion, podcasts are one of the very best mediums around today,” he says.
“First of all, from a listener’s perspective, there’s a podcast for everyone: comedy, history, politics, sports, books, music, cooking and almost anything you can think of has dozens of podcasts about it, for free. There’s an intimacy and level of depth you get with podcasts that I don’t see a lot of other places.”
As for the production side of thing, Wood sees podcasts as one of the most accessible platforms for creators.
“I did my entire first season with just a USB mic, my laptop and YouTube tutorials. Anyone can start a podcast at any time about anything and usually that confluence of events leads to some pretty good art.”
As the title of his podcast suggests, Alex Wood Quits Everything, each episode additionally follows his efforts to quit things other than drugs and alcohol.
These vices include things like sugar, porn, and social media.
“I was always so messed up from drinking and doing drugs that I really wasn’t aware how negatively other things were impacting me,” he says.
“Once you get sober you start to become more aware of so many things in your life. I started seeing how similar the thought patterns were with different substances, the justifications for them, the reasons for indulging in them, the bingeing, the regret and most of all the addiction.”
Understanding the connections between mental health and the addictions themselves has become such a centrepiece in the support and treatment of individuals like Wood, who are in recovery.
“It took me a long time to come to grips with my mental health issues,” says Wood.
“I was never intentionally trying to make my comedy or my podcast about that. I think I was just trying to figure out what was going on with me. And it turns out, there are other people out there trying to figure out what’s going on with them too.”
Addiction to social media is something that is now only coming to light and being studied.
Working in the public space that comedians do, and having to utilize mediums like social media to promote their art and connect with their audiences requires a balance that Wood is very aware of.
“I wish I was able to inoculate myself from the negative aspects of social media but I still struggle with it, to be honest,” he says.
“Especially since the pandemic started. Social media does this weird trick that a lot of addictive substances do, where it provides a distraction from your problems while it’s adding to your problems.”
Wood has set boundaries and safeguards for his use of social media.
“I try not to just mindlessly scroll. I won’t check it within an hour of bedtime. And most importantly I won’t check it while I’m supposed to be doing something else. I’m also trying at the same time to shamelessly plug my Twitter account @woodcomedy.”
All of this experience and growth as a person and as an artist has led Wood to the point where he is now publishing a book, Float Like a Butterfly, Drink Mint Tea: How I Beat the Shit Out of All My Addictions, released on April 1.
“I never thought I would write a book,” he says.
“I was so conditioned to the immediate gratification of live performing that it just seemed like a waste of time. Why would I put so many hours into the only writing I don’t get to see people enjoy?”
Wood was writing an article for Vice about his podcast and his journey to overcome substances when the idea first became a serious prospect.
“A great comedian and author I know named Charles Demers read the article. He had just started his own imprint ‘Robin’s Egg Books’ with Arsenal Pulp Press and he messaged me asking if I ever thought about writing a book. I sent him a screen capture of a message I sent to a friend an hour before saying, ‘I think I’m gonna write a book.’ So the timing was perfect.”
Writing Float Like a Butterfly, Drink Mint Tea: How I Beat the Shit Out of All My Addictions came at an unexpectedly good time for Wood.
“Having writing deadlines for my book during the first eight months of the pandemic definitely helped keep me busy,” he says, noting that live comedy hasn’t been easy to come by for the past year.
“I started running weekly stand-up shows in my backyard during the summer and it was a big hit in the neighbourhood. I’ll do them again once lockdown lifts.”
At one of those backyard shows, Wood recorded an album with two other great comedians, Rob Bebenek and Tamara Shevon.
“It’s called ‘The Pandy’ and it comes out March 16th on iTunes and all the streaming platforms. I [also] taped a television set that I’m not allowed to give the details on but it airs nationally sometime this year.”
Alex Wood may indeed be quitting everything, but he seems to be doing a lot of great things with the things he isn’t quitting.
“Alex Wood Quits Everything” is available online by clicking here.
Wood’s memoir, Float Like a Butterfly, Drink Mint Tea: How I Beat the Shit Out of All My Addictions will be available April 1 online and in book stores across Canada.
Find out more about Alex Wood on Twitter.
Read a previous Sootoday story on Alex Wood here.