Dax Shepard

My grandfather, I think he was a captain in the Navy, and he died in a plane accident over Phoenix in the 50s.

My grandfather on my father's side and my grandmother, these are

serious practicing Catholics.

So they had a family of five kids, very serious.

He passes away.

And now my grandmother is left with five kids aged seven through three months.

Woof.

Holy moly.

So she hauls back to where she's from, Bay Ridge, Brooklyn.

And that's where my aunts and uncles and my father grew up.

Father, the middle child, bigger pain.

So basically what happened is the two oldest were sort of saddled with, hey, you need to help me raise this family.

And the two youngest were very young.

And so my father, as middle kids do, fell through the cracks.

So, you know, my father was 100% messing around with heroin by the age of 13.

I am certain, based on talking to my aunts and uncles, he was addicted to heroin at 15.

It's really early, right?

And so I grew up in the 80s.

There was this war on drugs.

We can talk about that from a political point of view, but it succeeded in helping me understand that there are places and things you don't want to go and things you don't want to do.