Andrew Zimmern credits Minnesota community with helping him overcome addiction
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Celebrity chef Andrew Zimmern owes a debt to Minnesota that he can never replay. Zimmern — who is also a well-known TV host and author — says the state has played a critical role in his decades of sobriety. He also credits the people who helped him rebuild his life in the early years of recovery.
Zimmern will deliver a keynote address at the Minnesota Association of Resources for Recovery and Chemical Health conference Monday in St. Paul. He spoke with MPR News host Clay Masters about struggles with substance abuse, his road to recovery and the importance of human connection in helping people working to overcome addiction.
Before becoming a nationally known personality, Zimmern struggled with alcoholism and drug addiction.
“I was at the end homeless, [a] heroin addict, pill addict, alcoholic, criminal, user of people, taker of things,” he recounted.
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He says his turning point came after a failed suicide attempt.
“My first thought was, thank God I'm alive,” Zimmern recalled. He said the feeling surprised him because it was counter to what had led him to attempt to take his own life.
“To have that complete turnaround was sort of a jolt to my psyche, and at that point, almost immediately, I just wanted to be well,” he added.
Zimmern says the experience helped shape the way he approaches others facing similar struggles. Rather than immediately telling someone what they need to do, he believes it’s more effective to establish a personal connection with them through shared experiences.
“If I tell you my story and tell you how I felt and what I was thinking at the time, having experienced it and gone through it myself,” Zimmern said. “The response that you get nine out of 10 times is, ‘Oh my God, that's me too. That's how I felt.’"
Zimmern describes the process as “co-regulation before operationalizing.” In other words — connecting with someone emotionally before trying to offer a solution.
He expresses the philosophy through the phrase: “Be the dog.”
He laid out how dogs behave. They don’t necessarily try to solve the problems of their owners. Instead, they stay close and offer companionship and comfort.
Zimmern recounted a story of learning this lesson with his son. One day, he was angry and hid under his bed. Rather than trying to coax him out, Zimmern said he just laid down beside him. It made him realize being present can have a massive impact.
Zimmern said Minnesota gave him more than life-changing addiction treatment; it provided a community willing to help him get his life on the right track.
“I needed a lot of time,” he said. “Some people come and need rehabilitation. I needed habilitation. I did not know how to live.”
After leaving treatment, Zimmern faced significant financial problems, including a huge tax debt. He remembered Minnesotans offering him a place to stay, hiring him to do odd jobs and inviting him to their tables at holidays.
“I was loved up by this community, and that extended beyond the recovering world to the people who gave me a place to live, to the people who gave me a job, to the people who invited me to their holiday table, to the people that fed me.”
“It was staggering, and that's why I'm always saying that I owe a debt to the people of this state in that that I can never repay,” he concluded.
