HOW THE STARS OF ONE DAY AT A TIME TAKE IT ONE DAY AT A TIME

Ironically enough, two stars from the show, from two different generations, have learned the meaning of one day at a time when they got sober. Both Todd Grinnell and McKenize Phillips have spoken out about their sobriety, and how they both got there. A Sober Milestone Achieved One Day at a Time Todd Grinnell, who plays Schnieder on the new version of One Day at a Time, recalled walking into the writer’s room of the show, and telling the show staff, “I can tell you a bunch of sad stories.” When the showrunner said, “Tell us a funny story,” Grinnell said, “Well, they’re all funny now.” As Vulture reports, Grinnell was referring to his life before he got sober, but he’s now been clean for seventeen years. And on the show, the character of Schneider is also struggling with sobriety, and he eventually relapses when he has a trigger in his family. Grinnell has brought his sober perspective to the character, which has given the show some good texture and depth. Grinnell started out drinking when he was 13, and he graduated to cocaine when he was 17. Once he hit 25, he decided to get clean. Vulture reports that “there was no epiphany, just exhaustion” in his decision, and this links back to another popular AA phrase: Sick and tired of being sick and tired. Grinnell had no problem revealing his past to the staff of One Day. “At this point, those stories are from when I was a different person.” At the same time, when he was shooting the episode called “Drinking and Driving,” he admits it did get a bit close to home. “You bring whatever you can from your own life to these things. To get a really honest performance, it can affect you in a personal way.” A Troubled TV Star Sober At Last Many people who suffer from addiction have a tough road before they get sober. Mackenzie Phillips’ road to sobriety was very tough and full of years of tribulations before she got clean and became an addiction counselor. Phillips had a role in Orange is the New Black where her character had a drug problem. As she told the Seattle Times, “People said, ‘Weren’t you triggered by snorting fake drugs?’ I was like, ‘No, I was absolutely filled with the deepest gratitude that I don’t live that way…It’s pretty textbook that energy needs to be focused somewhere purposeful or you’re going to get high again.” These days we’re seeing addiction, recovery, and sobriety represented a lot on television, and much more realistically than how it used to be shown. Both Phillips and Grinnell thankfully made it out the other end of the dark tunnel of addiction, with the terrific irony that they’re both One Day at a Time alumni.