I Acquired All the Drugs and Alcohol I Could, and I Just Couldn’t Get High with Paul Gerard

Paul Gerard is a chef with a lifetime of experience cooking for discerning clients across New York, in Los Angeles, and internationally. A native of South Brooklyn, Chef Paul Gerard honed his craft in the intense, fast-paced kitchens of 1980s New York, where he began cooking at just 13 years old. His culinary journey led him to New Orleans, where he spent over a decade in some of the city’s most celebrated kitchens, including Restaurant August, Peristyle, Lilette, and Gautreau’s. He later led acclaimed culinary programs as Executive Chef at Soho Grand Hotel, Soho House, and China Grill Management. On this episode of the Bodyway Intuition Podcast, chef Paul shares a deeply personal conversation about food, grief, addiction, spirituality, healing, and the intelligence of the body. What begins as a discussion about cooking with intention, food as support for grief and fear, and the relationship between taste, smell, and memory evolves into a profound exploration of trauma, recovery, meditation, and spiritual awakening.He reflects on a life of addiction that began at age 11 and shares the pivotal moment that transformed his relationship with drugs and alcohol when, despite taking them, he could no longer get high. Paul describes the experience as evidence that there was something greater than himself, which led him more deeply into meditation, prayer, energy work, and spiritual study. We also discuss emotional sensitivity, intuition through the body, silence, grief, conversations with Radhanath Swami, mythology, India, and learning how to surrender, heal, and reconnect with both the body and the soul. This conversation is a rich reflection on what it means to truly feel, transform, and allow life to open you spiritually.