Eileen Tull grew up a theater (theatre?) kid with feelings of superiority, at least in part due to her religous morals. Sobriety was part of her personality until she was twenty — and then it very much wasn’t. When she decided it was time to have her first drink, she threw a party so she could turn it into an event and get all the attention she craved. Six years later she was sober again, but the time in between was a blur.

Eileen decided it was time to start drinking when she convinced herself that others got to fuck up and blame the booze, and she thought she should get that too. The good news was that she was half right about that. The bad news is that she was only half right about that. She fucked up plenty, but wasn’t able to just blame the booze. She hurt people, made bad decisions, blacked out a whole lot, and then one night found herself being dragged into her room by her mom after a drunken night out in Cincinatti. That’s when she decided to make sobriety cool again. 

I have to talk a bit about how lucky Dan and I are to get to talk to Decent Fucking Humans every week. We’re grateful to be trusted with such delicate stories, but it sometimes gets lost that so many of our guests are such Talented Fucking Humans. Eileen is one of them. Theater (and addiction) are in her blood. Her great grandfather was a broadway actor. She’s distantly related to Maud Adams, famous for her portrayal of Peter Pan. She’s now carrying on the family legacy as director of Household Spirits, a play opening next week at Theater Witt in Chicago. If you’re a smarter human than me, you’ll immediately recognize that it might just be an appropriate tale for the Halloween season. Get yourself a ticket.