Yassir Lester Doesn’t Want the Phone to Ring

Yassir Lester Doesn’t Want the Phone to Ring

How do people cope with the challenges of staying sober? Writer and comedian Yassir Lester joins Really Good Shares to talk about fear, ambition and why he jumps every time his phone lights up. Talking with host A.J. Daulerio, Yassir sets the tone early with a line anyone with chronic dread will recognise: "I'm not afraid of my phone ringing.

I'm afraid of what the phone ringing could mean." For him, the sound of a call is wired to bad news, grief and career rejection, and he compares it to earthquakes in Southern California – you know one’s coming, you just don’t know when or how bad it will be. The conversation moves through anxiety, growing up broke, and living with a constant sense of financial scarcity. Both Yassir and A.J.

swap stories about debt, under‑earning and that weird shame of feeling like you’re walking into a room wearing a shirt that just says "DEBT". It’s funny, sharp and uncomfortably relatable if money fear has ever shaped your choices. Sobriety runs right through the chat. Yassir describes years of heavy drinking, crashing cars and chaos, then the shift that happened when he stopped.

A friend once told him he’d be better on stage sober; he admits he hated hearing it, then realised it was true. Off alcohol, he speaks more like himself, performs better, and has a simple rule that keeps him grounded: even when things are rough, they’re still better than they’d be if he were drinking.

You also get a candid look at ego and competition in comedy and writing – wanting to "mop up" on stage, wanting to be the best, while trying not to slide into recklessness. If you’re in recovery, sober‑curious, or just anxious every time an unknown number flashes up, this conversation might make you feel a little less alone. What meaning are you attaching to your own “ringing phone”?