Comedian Dusty Slay is about more than a good time.
The quipster with two Netflix stand-up specials under his signature trucker hats, currently on “The Neighborhood Guy Tour,” tells USA TODAY “at this point in my life, I almost want to do more serious things because I feel like I got the funny thing [down].”
Slay viewed his collection of essays, “We're Having a Good Time (And Other Stories…),” available now, as an opportunity to be more earnest with his fans amassed since his stand-up start in 2008.
“I don't know that all comics would agree, but I think with stand-up comedy, the audience must be laughing all the time,” says the 44-year-old hailing from Opelika, Alabama, just outside of Auburn. “If the audience is not laughing the whole time, in my
opinion, you're doing it wrong. But with a book, I felt like we got a little more freedom to do some serious stuff, do some funny stuff. As long as it's interesting, I think it's OK.”
Throughout the book named for his catchphrase (which is also the name of his podcast), Slay recalls growing up as a child of divorce and becoming more conscious of living in a trailer with his mom. He remembers the mischiefs of childhood, which resulted in a collapsed lung at age 5 when a cousin shot a BB into his chest, falling for wife Hannah Slay (née Hogan) while they swapped conspiracy theories, experimenting with drugs, and giving up drinking.
“I talked about doing drugs and whatnot, in a way that I've never really talked about before,” Slay acknowledges of the “short phase”. There’s “one big reveal,” he says that his parents are unaware of. “I think it will be disappointing to probably a lot of family members, but personally, I don't really think it's that big of a deal.”
After graduating from Opelika High School in 2000, Slay wrestled with hopelessness.
“I was working at Western Sizzlin', I was getting high every day, and I was bored, and I was pretty sick of my life,” he says. One day, a customer came into the restaurant, and piqued Slay’s curiosity with his experiences in the Army.Slay signed up in 2001. In July, just weeks before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, Slay was arrested for consuming alcohol while underage and possession of marijuana, which kept him from being able to join the service.
“I think all the time that God got me out of joining the Army and saved me from whatever I might have gone through,” says Slay.
After his arrest, Slay’s license was suspended for nine months, and he received two years of unsupervised probation. He was sentenced to 40 hours of community service and fined $900.
“So I was just stuck,” Slay says. “I already found myself stuck in a place, but now I'm stuck even harder than I was before because now I don't have a driver's license, and this is just what goes on in my trailer during that time.”
In the chapter that follows his arrest, Slay writes about trying meth. “I enjoyed it, but I could take it or leave it,” Slay writes. “By the grace of God, I never felt like I was addicted to it.”
Alcohol was a different story. “I’d spent my entire 20s aimlessly wandering around, pounding beers, smoking like a chimney, dipping my lip away, ruining good relationships with good people, and somehow still being shocked when I ended up miserable. I never had a grasp on my life,” Slay reflects in one essay. “I just had a grip on a Bud Light.”
Slay quit drinking in 2012, but he’s not entirely sure how.
“I'd been on like a three-day bender,” Slay says. “I woke up the next day [after going on a date and drinking and smoking cigarettes], and I felt the worst I had ever felt. I just knew I needed to change my life … I think if I didn't smoke cigarettes, I probably would not have felt as bad as I felt, and I might not have quit drinking … but I basically quit smoking [cigarettes] and drinking in the same day, and I never looked back.”
Though Slay didn’t rely on AA’s program to become sober, he references one of the organization’s well-known quotes: “For an alcoholic, one drink is too many and a thousand are not enough.”
“That definitely applies to me,” Slay says. “Where it's like as long as I don't drink, I'm OK. But I know that with the kind of addictive personality that I have, if I do drink, then it won't be long until I'll be right back to where I was at.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Comedian Dusty Slay opens up about drug use, arrest and the moment he got sober
