Recovery RoCo

Here's my stab.

Boy meets girl:

Boy is in recovery. An office drone and a failed stand-up comic, he is intervened on by some of his customers and club owners. During his time as a failed stand-up comic he meets a girl who rejects him and maybe that's the romantic interest. You could even have him be so egregiously bad at a gig that the (small) crowd follows him out into the elevator to heckle him, and that's where he meets the girl? Don't know. Thinking of "meet cute" scenarios.

So boy goes into AA. Meets all sorts of zany characters, none of whom take themselves too seriously, all of whom have some hilarious character quirks/defects. One of the people the boy meets is a very hyper, very sleazy and disingenuous young guy who the boy takes home from a meeting...the young guy is living with his sister, who happens to be the same woman whom the boy met when he was a sauced-up flop comic.

Now that boy is sober, he has stage fright. His AA buddies try to find ways to get him back onstage. Once up there he can't remember anything and ends up talking about traffic. However, he is staying sober...and has a date with his buddy's girl.

Boy gets girl:

Boy dates girl, shares hopes/dreams with her. They are opposites. She's from a good family and until her brother, nobody has ever had any problems with sauce.

Boy goes to girl's house to meet parents. Due to his extreme stage fright, his AA buddies go with him. Hilarity ensues.

During this time the boy is still struggling with his stage fright but he's found another job and seems to be doing all right. However, due to some bad influences, (the girl's brother) he's taken a drink or two? Something to set up his fall from grace.


Boy loses girl:

Here I was thinking that the brother would have to be involved in some way. The brother of the girl would perhaps spike the boy's drink with a beta-blocker or a valium, some kind of anti-anxiety medication, but an excessive amount, in order for the boy to not be so stricken with stage fright. The girl is there watching and sees something is wrong. Boy has become the same combative, abominable comic as he was when she first met him.

Just thinking out loud here.

Complication. The girl's brother begs boy not to rat him out. He won't have a place to live, etc. He's afraid he'll go out for real, etc. Boy could then catch this guy using again and realize that he wants to do this recovery thing for real, and not mess around.

Boy gets girl back:

I don't know how that should go yet, haven't thought that far. But maybe he'll tell jokes about his friends in recovery, how screwed up they are, and that will get him back onstage. Maybe he'll take an office job to prove to the girl that he can be versatile, I don't know.

Was thinking of a "training sequence" here, set to "Eye of the Tiger" in which boy is show eating donuts and drinking coffee in slow-mo. His sponsor will have boy working at a clubhouse, handing out chips, sweeping floors, shaking hands...all a part of the "training" montage.

Lots of humor around strange characters and the unfunny comic as the central character. I'm thinking of a character for his sponsor who is a cross between John Goodman from "Big Lebowski" and RTB. I'm thinking a no-compromise, very strange sponsor who nonetheless guides him in the right direction.

Anyway there's my stab at it.