The Rich Roll Podcast - Chris Davis Should Be Dead: Life As A Sober Warrior

Episode Date: May 23, 2016

This week we shift gears. I admit it. Having famous celebrity guests on the podcast is fun. If you had told me three years ago that people like Moby, Arianna Huffington and Russell Simmons would actually reach out to me to sit down for a long conversation, I would have said you were insane. More gratifying is introducing you to important people from my personal life. Anonymous and relatable everyday men and women who also happen to be extraordinary. I believe these people form the heart and soul of the RRP. It's what truly distinguishes this show from the others. Chris Davis is one of those guys. He isn’t famous. He hasn’t written a book. He’s just a guy. A husband, father and worker among workers doing his best to navigate this messy labyrinth we call life just like the rest of us. But dig deeper and you'll find an extraordinary man with an astonishing story. Because Chris Davis should be dead. From alcohol-fueled blackouts in Germany to crack-induced psychosis in Long Beach, Chris Davis was a lost cause drug addict / alcoholic on a crash course with jails, institutions and ultimately death. Miraculously, he recovered from what by all accounts was a hopeless and incomprehensible state of desperation and demoralization. His reward? A beautiful life. A family. The gift of helping countless achieve and maintain sobriety. Then liver cancer. The prognosis? 14 months. Get your affairs in order. But Chris had his own plan. This is a story about survival. It's about the insanity of addiction and the miraculous mysteries of sobriety. It's about human will, courage, faith and surrender. The story of Chris Davis is a hero's journey worthy of Joseph Campbell himself. It's a privilege to have this man in my life. It’s a privilege to call him friend. And it’s a privilege to share his story with you today. Peace + Plants, Rich

Something in me shifted, and I can't explain it. And people are like, what happened to you? I go, I still don't know, other than I was this way, and now I'm that way. But I remember clearly who I used to be. And I'm nothing like that guy anymore. But I can be if I take one drink, which a lot of people are like, oh, that's dramatic. I'm like, you want to see dramatic? Like, let's go out drinking.

That's Chris Davis, and this is the rich roll podcast the rich roll podcast hey everybody how you guys doing what's going on what's happening greetings my name is rich roll i am your host welcome to the rich Podcast. Thank you so much to everybody out there who has shared the show with your friends and your colleagues. I appreciate you subscribing to the show on iTunes and, of course, for leaving a review. If you haven't left a review for us on iTunes, please do that. It takes a minute. It really does help us out a lot. It really helps with the visibility of the show as well. So, thank so much. And of course, mad love to everybody who has made a habit of always using the Amazon banner ad

at richroll.com for all your Amazon purchases. That really does help us out tremendously. It doesn't cost you a cent extra. You can click through that banner ad on any episode page on my site or just type in richroll.com forward slash Amazon. Today's episode is brought to you by... So I was in Cleveland a couple weeks ago. I was speaking at the VegFest there, which incidentally was a really fantastic event. Beautiful facility, great city, warm reception. The whole thing was phenomenal. Thank you to everybody who turned up. I enjoyed every minute of it. But while I was there, I did an interview with a young guy. His name is Ross Settleage. I know he's listening. Shout out to Ross. How are you doing? And Ross asked me a question, and it's a question that I get a lot. And that question is, who inspires me?

And my answer to that question might surprise you. It's not the typical candidates of super inspiring, famous personalities in the world. I mean, of course, I derive a certain level of inspiration from people like that. But the folks that really move the needle for me are just the average, normal, everyday people who face crazy, seemingly insurmountable obstacles anonymously, and then somehow find the wherewithal to overcome them and go on to live pretty cool and sometimes even magical lives. So as fun and as awesome as it is to have super famous guests on this podcast, the Ariana Huffingtons and the Russell Simmons and Moby and Steve-O, like I admit it, I love talking to all those people. But this week,

I want to shift gears a little bit because one of the things that I think really sets this show apart from the others that really distinguishes it is that I entertain the prospect and I absolutely love bringing people on the program who are just average people from my life, anonymous everyday people who happen to inspire me. And it's awesome to provide them with a microphone and an opportunity to share their story with you. Like I find inspiration from it. And to be able to provide that inspiration to you guys through this platform is just a super cool and very, very unique thing. So Chris Davis is one of those guys. He's not famous. He hasn't written a book. If you Google him, you're not going to really find anything about him. He's just a dude, just a guy trying to make it through life like the rest of us, a husband, a father, but also a man with a pretty insane background when it comes to alcohol and drugs and all forms of insanity that include the military and cancer and survival.

I think we all need people in our life that we turn to for advice, for counsel, for guidance. I call it having a board of advisors, and I have different people for different topics and situations and life categories and dilemmas, people I can count on for everything from relationships to diet, fitness, marriage, career, parenting, finances, and the like. But in the area of addiction, alcoholism, sobriety, recovery, Chris is a guy who really looms large as one of my go-to advisors. A guy I can really count on for honest, at times incisive, but always smart and helpful feedback. He's a guy who just grounds me,

a guy who really keeps me honest. And he's also a man who's too humble to tell you how many people he's helped, how many lives he has literally helped save over the many years of his sober journey. But I can tell you, it's a lot. He's a straight shooter through and through and everybody needs a guy like that in their life.

And if you don't have one, you should find one. Finally, a quick note before we get underway today. A fair amount of foul language in today's conversation. Yes, it's true. I think that makes three shows in a row with a bunch of F-bombs. Look, I'm trying to run a clean show here. I even have that clean lyrics graphic on my iTunes show page. Maybe I should look into changing that.

But that would require that I know how to do that, which I don't. In any event, I'm just pointing it out for the sensitive among us or if the kiddies are around, you know, pop in the earbuds, whatever. Just a heads up. All right. It's a privilege to have Chris Davis in my life. It's a privilege to call him friend. And it's an absolute privilege to share his story with you guys today.

That went well. I was actually impressed. You liked the Jack Canfield one? I did. I did. He was tricky because, you know, it's funny because i was thinking about you during that interview and i'm like what would chris davis say to a guy who wrote a book called the 30-day sobriety solution how to cut back or quit drinking in the privacy of your own home yeah i like that he was like it's all a trick like they're not not gonna have to go to aaa he's kind of saying well he wasn't entirely saying that but i feel like the title of the book is somewhat disingenuous as to the message

that he spoke to in the podcast, right? Because he was kind of saying like, listen, of course you need community, you got to talk to people, you have to like be around people. So the idea and the title that you're going to do this in the privacy of your own home, you know, and just solve alcoholism through isolation. He does know how to sell a lot of books.

That he does. 97% of those books will never leave those living rooms. And I will say this, that he, we're talking about Jack Canfield. Did we say his name? Yes. The listeners. Jack C.

Yeah. The thing about him is that, and I said this, I think as I recall on the outset of the podcast, like his real gift is that he's able to translate these spiritual tenets and set them forth in an extremely digestible way for the average American. And I think what you can infer from that, that he's like spirituality light, you know what I mean?

But then when you talk to him, he's super steeped in all these traditions and he knows all about it and he's read all these books and he's experimented on himself so i think that you know he runs a lot deeper than his books sort of you know might give you the impression the books might give you an impression that he's kind of operating at a surface level but the more you talk to him you realize like there's a lot more going exactly yeah he presents it like he's scratching the surface and then you're like this dude's been down in the ore mines right and has hit the mother load a number of times over and over because some of the stuff i'm like i need a dictionary to listen this fucker he was like he's like oh and then i was doing this like sufi mysticism and i'm like

of course you did and you study that then you move on and then you move on what about the tapping you know i fell asleep as the because i was listening to your podcast at like three or four or five in the morning and i started hearing the tapping and i could hear him explain it to you and he's like oh dude it's all over youtube just go there like they're giving the whole store away and i was like look at canfield he's like yeah and just away and I was like, look at Canfield. I was like, yeah, and just try. And I was like, I'm like you, I'm open to all that stuff. Right. Well, let's unpack it a little bit.

Cause you know, first of all, say thank you for doing this. It's refreshing to do it with a friend. And it's nice that it's not about like a book that's coming out or some kind of agenda that you're pushing. Like, I just thought it would be great to sit down with you because I consider you to be in many ways, a mentor in sobriety and somebody who's like full of wisdom

and has an incredible personal story. And I just thought it would be amazing to be able to share the Chris Davis experience with the audience at large. So where does it all begin? With your large audience. Cause I'm looking, I'm like, oh yeah, Russell Simmons, that was great.

Joseph Knauss. And I listen to all of these. And then I'm like, oh yeah, let's see, Doug, who's getting ready to change the planet. Doug Evans, yeah. Jasmine, who's like awesome. John Joseph, who's hilarious. I love that guy.

And you know him personally. Yeah, ran into him. And then Ariana and then Jack Canfield. And then like me. And I'm like. Here's the thing. Let me just say this right up front. Like, it's really cool to have people like Ariana Huffington and Russell Simmons on the show.

And obviously, you know, that's like a boost for the ego. And that's probably going to get more downloads and attention. That's like a boost for the ego and that's probably going to get more downloads and attention. But for me, the most personally gratifying experiences that I've had on this podcast are having people like yourself on, just like somebody that no one really knows about who I think is personally inspiring,

who has an amazing story and opening up with them. That's really the most fun and where the real kind of heart of this show lives, I think. That's what we're doing. I'm down. It may get a little noisy, the most fun and where the real kind of heart of this show lives I think that's what we're doing I'm down it may get a little noisy not as noisy as Russell Simmons was right we're in some kind of weird building right here that's like half rehab half like private what is going on you own this building or you're renovating it what are you doing building was taken over by a rehab they

have a million dollar kitchen I don't know if you saw that independent film Jon Favreau did called Chef. Yes. That's the kitchen right there. Oh, right behind us. Yeah. Right. So it used to be like a private dining hall. It was a public restaurant and they asked me to come in and help put together the kitchen because they have a lot of clients and a lot of these guys and girls are used to eating in gas station parking lots in jail and whatever right so i saw the kitchen and i was like well let me bring in an executive chef who knows what he's doing so i thought it's a good opportunity i brought him in i was just like you gotta hire this guy and they're like great you gotta manage him and i'm like i don't manage

people and then they're like oh yeah and you're gonna manage the building too congratulations so then i did that i took the private dining room we designed based on tiny houses we now have like five soundproof perfect therapy rooms that are just busy all day long so people can go in there i've got like you know that could be spa music is it like a sober living or it's like a rehab i mean do people are people, are there people living in this building? No, no, no, no. The rehab next door is the, what they call IOP, intensive outpatient. So all of the, they call them clients. I call them fucking patients, but they bust them in.

I don't know a lot of clients that ride in like econoline vans. My client. Yeah, yeah. I always remind them, I go, you're kind of an inpatient, but that's awesome. It's hard to build self-esteem when you have none. So throwing high self-esteem, like client, I don't buy that bullshit. So they all come in from different sober livings and recovery houses. They do all of their groups and things next door they have like dudes doing sound bowls and gong and like they do education they'll help them get jobs and all this stuff and clean up and like teach them about alcoholism and drug addiction and they were feeding everybody across the street

but there's so many clients now like we're feeding in here 130 people a day just lunch and it is like a fucking plague of locusts like at noon it's just a line you don't want to really fuck with and then it it's sort of like 27 the population is similar to like the people that go to claire yes or salvation army or prison or county jail or welfare lines or it's kind of... So who funds this operation then? The people that own it, their company's called Community Recovery, and they're just like, hey, let's just help everybody.

I mean, rehabs do the rich and famous. They got their own agenda. But this guy's kind of like, you know, the American mental health system and medical system, it's fucking failed. It failed in the 80s. Reagan killed that thing. That's when the population of homeless people exploded,

and the term became homeless. They were called bums when I was one. But everybody's got, like, client? Homeless. So anyway, he's just kind of like the net catching them in the gutter before they actually go into the drain and never get another chance again. So this is last exit to Brooklyn. Yeah, and there is a thing about putting a, I don't know.

I used to design stuff in commercials and music videos. So I designed all this, put this in to break up the dining room so it wasn't a giant mass hangout. So they do yoga in here. They do groups. They bring in guest speakers and stuff like that. And right across the street, is the Tuesday night meeting still go on in that facility across the street here? I think so.

But I think it's limping along. Right. Those things have their shelf life. All right. Let's backping along. Right. Those things have their shelf life. All right, let's back it up. I want to get to the superhero origin story that starts in the South, right? South Carolina. Oh, yes. Yes.

Charleston. Is that where you grew up? I mean, I know that's where you kind of went to high school and stuff like that. If you're on Charleston and you look yonder to the big trees that look like they're floating in the ocean, that is James Island that is connected to, at the very tip of James Island, connected to a place called Fort Sumter, where at low tide, all the rednecks ran across and took over. Well, it's called Fort Johnson.

And they ran over at low tide and took over Fort Sumter, starting the whole fucking annoying civil war. Right. And then apparently they just lined the side of the fort. The red coats or the red necks? The red necks. I think the red coats have been dealt with. That was a revolutionary war, right?

A lot of red. The red apparently doesn't win. It's not the color to pick. Paint the picture of a young Chris Davis in the South. Mom, Montessori school teacher. Dad, spending a lot of a young chris davis in the south um mom montessori school teacher dad spending a lot of time in vietnam dropped out of the citadel where he was going to be an officer vietnam came there's some weird patriotic thread in us where we're just like fuck yeah let's do there's a lot of military in your family right a lot yeah grandfather navy war two dad vietnam me dancing

around in the 80s in frankfurt in germany and then re-enlisted went right back to germany it was awesome we had a good record collection over there but it was all peacetime but my dad was in vietnam my mom moved us we were she went up to virginia to be close to where his parents were. They were fucked up. So she came back to the South, kind of brokenhearted, because she was Montessori school teacher. So I went to school for two years before kindergarten. I still remember the shit I did in those classes. My mom's like, I still have your stuff. So we went to the South and then went back there and then stayed there.

Because my dad came back from vietnam my mom was like what the fuck like he was out of his mind he did four tours in the tours four and how long is each tour i was like wow is either mom is really annoying or this dude's patriotic as fuck so or there was something you know that thing that just needs to be in the middle of where it's all happening i don't know because you know when i think when parents separate and divorce and you know me my mom's raising me and my two brothers i have a brother who's 11 months younger which is kind of fucking horrible when you think about it i was like the fuck are you thinking mom she's like i loved your dad i was like apparently constantly and then i got another

brother five years younger so my mom raised three of us and you know typical southern poverty thank god her sister helped us get a house or it would have been there weren't a lot of trailers there's a few trailers and on james island but but not many and all of those people end up murdered or inbred or shit like that so I just grew up kind of bewildered because I'd been up to Virginia. My mom had taken us to like the Smithsonian. So I remember seeing like Rodin's Gates of Hell, which is this giant bronze.

Right. I still remember the staircase because you had to come in from like the second floor and go down to it. It's the guy who created the sculpture of the thinker. And the gates of hell, I believe, is every piece that he'd ever done incorporated into these giant, like 20, 30 feet tall. I was probably five or six when I saw it. so I'd had this glimpse of what education was and then back down into poverty where you know we're all just like staring at shit and poking things with sticks and

touching stuff I mean I mean what'd you do as kids just run around and like you know shoot snakes and stuff or you know play around at the beach I didn't fuck with guns that much but we were right by a beach so I turned into like a skater and a surfer and like long-haired like skater dude and surfer and the ocean's beautiful it's warm it's lovely it's a great place and all the creeks are good like nature's beautiful down there the people aren't so beautiful and you know i i really didn't connect with everybody. I liked sports. I did all that stuff. But, you know, that's where we grew up, playing baseball. There was a YMCA right up the street from us. And when did drugs and alcohol start to enter the picture? I can tell you exactly.

My cousin, who had also been in Vietnam with my dad, I grew up across the street from an aunt and uncle who had six kids, my first cousins, literally across the street. And one night my mom was doing something and had one of the uncles babysit and him and his brother came over and they were like smoking weed and drinking. I was 12 years and nine months old we were watching i remember what was on the tv we're watching this movie called valley of the guangui where these cowboys are chasing a steer or something and they go in between this rock thing and it's like jurassic park and they're like oh shit a t-rex i remember watching that and they were like hey you know you want a sip of beer

it's fucking awesome it's on on Netflix or Hulu now. I watch that shit all the time. I love shit like that. I remember they had a beer, and they were like, hey, have a sip. And it was like, okay, you know, a little joint. And I'm like, oh, you know. I was already smoking cigarettes at like 12 1⁄2. So, you know, pot, it just looked like the poorest cigarette on earth you're just like

oh that doesn't look like a cigarette and i remember drinking that then later on like nothing spectacular happened but it was did you have that moment where you're like oh man this is what i've been looking for and did it was it not until three months later when i was hanging out with one of my cousins. She had a boyfriend. We were all hanging out at the beach. And they went somewhere to do something. And I remember this guy's name, Dirk. I have no idea where he is.

But he opened up this little wooden box. And it had dry ice in it and this little smoke. And it had like a dragon or something on it. And I grew up really poor. so still to this day like shiny shit you're like oh what is that it was a neat box and he opened it up and like little smoke came out because there was dry ice in it and he had a syringe and a bunch of these bags of powder and you know and i saw him like fix something up and like shoot it up and then he fixed it up again he's like stick your arm out and i was like boom and then i was like holy i remember

it was awesome it should have been a sign of like was that so it was coke or heroin i still don't know what it is because in the south we have drugs that you're not going to hear about on the news because we're all poor and stupid i mean it could have been math well it was they called it t like the letter t so there was peanut butter tea, chocolate tea, and crystal tea, because I really explored it after that first time. And it was this real clean high. If you haven't taken drugs, you'll have no idea what I'm talking about. But it was kind of like mescaline.

And mescaline in the South where we did it, it's got strychnine in it. So you trip good. But at 3 in the morning, you get these terrible stomach pains from strychnine poisoning. But you work through that. So it was like mescaline with a little bit of weed and a little bit of liquor on it. It was great. I just went out. I surfed all day.

Like, the sun was beautiful. But you're like 12 like 12 this happens it was the weekend i turned 13 right just turned 13 yeah barely any experience with drugs or alcohol and you got a needle in your arm yeah and it was fucking awesome but the fix is in right you have this amazing experience oh yeah i mean was it like all, when am I doing that again? Oh, yeah, yeah. It was just like, oh, that was awesome. Inherently, I knew, well, we're not going to do that at Thanksgiving dinner in front of the family. But it was like, I'm not going to do that.

There was no shame or weird. It was just amazing. It was like, wow, that was great. Because I smoked a little weed and drank a little bit. Everybody was getting into it.way ludes were huge and then lemon ludes hit the street and second all and tune all this downer stuff which i wasn't a big fan of i took it all but i wasn't a big fan of it started killing all of my friends so this must have been like 75, 76, 77. Yeah. I was born in 62. So 13, yeah, 75, 76. Right.

Spirit of America. I still remember the bicentennial. All right. So anyway, where does it start to ramp up and begin creating problems for you? Well, high school took a dismal turn. I would go to school early in the morning if i got up on time and just smoke weed with my other friends before school and i'd always take these fucking hard classes first period like biology and algebra and it was just like i was so stoned

i'm like biology was cool because i. I'm like, biology was cool because I could look at like pot leaves under the microscope. But- That's such a Spicoli maneuver. It was so weird, but that's what I would do. And at night I started finding out in downtown Charleston,

some of my friends from high school were going out to the dance clubs and it was just a free-for-all. I mean, there were just drugs everywhere in the 70s. Everywhere in the early 80s. And, like, nobody was getting sick with AIDS or anything. Nobody knew what that shit was. So it was just, like, every club was awesome.

And a lot of my friends, I found, I mean, my two brothers never did. But I found all the other people who took drugs. So I got introduced and learned quickly and realized I had a taste for amphetamines and speed cocaine mainly. Right. Which I love because it's just like, oh, awesome. And so this is the phase where everything's working.

Oh, it's fantastic. Right. And so, you know, is this bringing you like, what is the, you know, what is the, the disease that this is easing for you? That's beneath, you know, like that's beneath the drug use that is like at the core of, you know, Chris Davis, the kid. I always had this odd feeling that I didn't fit in. And later, years later, when I got out of South Carolina, because I joined the military, I'd left for a very long time.

I came back and nothing had changed. And then years later, then I moved to California. And then I got a perspective. I was like, oh, I was right the whole fucking time, but there's no way. I didn't have the coping skills or the dialogue or the intellect to express that or process it. So it was just like, you're like the kid with three arms

hanging out at the pool party. It's just like, people are like, well, maybe if we're playing volleyball, we'll talk to you. But short of that, like just stand over there by the tree. It was just that weird. I don't know if it – I think it's self-ostrosized. When you're ostracized.

I can't use long words. So it was one of those self-imposed – which I learned down the road is the ego. It's like a beautiful, clear bubble. And a lot of people are like, yeah, use your ego. And I found out it's the most dangerous thing in the world to me because it puts this clear bubble around me and I can see and hear everything, but I am literally disconnected and separate from everything on earth. And drugs bridge that gap. Drugs made me not aware of it. I didn't give a fuck. It didn't fix any of that shit. It just, it made my bubble comfortable, I guess. I didn't notice it. It just distracted me from like, oh, yeah. So you ride this out through high school. Do you go to college or you go right into the military well my third year in ninth grade in the south which i believe makes me retarded on an education level or very

special education my third year in ninth grade i was sitting in the car of my buddy, Jimmy. I won't use his last name. I think he's dead. But he had one eye. And his left eye was out. And we were sitting in his car smoking weed, just like fucking Spicoli in the van. And the fucking principal of the school walked up on Jimmy's blind side and just opened the door and looked at us. Jimmy's like, I was just like, and he's like come on me guys and he walked us over to the office and him and jimmy went in the office and i just walked home i was like i'm done i'm done i went home told my mom i quit school it was like i don't know what to do and then i got this weird idea to join the army so i had to take my ged

army so i had to take my ged how old are you are you already 18 at this no no i was 17 my mom had to give me permission and she was pissed because she's like you're just like your father and i'm like okay it's weird for a child to hear that because you're like and what what was your relationship with your dad at this time and was he he was gone he disappeared i hadn't seen that dude ever so four tours in vietnam and then divorced and then just out of the picture yeah and then he just disappeared up into dc or virginia around where his parents live you don't have any relationship oh no we he showed up my middle brother who's like an awesome dude, family guy, community guy, like really helps out. I don't know where he gets it from. But he tracked him down when he had his first kid,

and he wanted to go track down my dad and track him down. My dad had started calling me in the early 90s, but I was just like, whatever, dude. Like, I got nothing to do with you. I kind of blamed him, probably rightfully so, for growing up in poverty. But I realized everybody around me was just as poor. So it wasn't a big deal.

But for some reason, I'm really super hypersensitive to that. Like, I don't know if I inherited it from my parents or if it was the ego at play, but I used to be super hypersensitive to people around me and would kind of just basically turn into like a piece of background furniture. Right, just withdraw.

Not to get attention, yeah. Because it's just weird. I couldn't even take a, I mean, I used to jaywalk all the time because I couldn't handle going across at a crosswalk when the light was in my favor. But the drugs and alcohol probably brought you out of that shell a little bit,

allowed you to like sort of maneuver socially. Didn't even bother me. And once I got in the army, like I said, I showed up. It was awesome. I showed up in bird wells's flip-flops, some ripped-up fucking, like, Hobie T-shirt or something, Led Zeppelin shirt or something that had just been ripped to shreds.

I show up. I got hair, like, halfway down my fucking back. They shave our heads. Actually, yeah, they shave our heads. They don't give us an army. So I go to fort jackson which is 70 miles from my fucking house i'm like oh awesome they mix some shit up they send me and these two other kooky dudes out to fort leonardwood missouri on a fucking bus we get out it's freezing cold

i've never been at freezing weather really in the rain we're standing outside they're already pulling all this army shit on us. And we're like, dude, we're not even fucking in yet. So we're out in the rain. We're on this trailer. We go through a day of this getting introduced.

And then they're just like, you fuckers supposed to be in South Carolina. So back on the bus, still damp back to South Carolina. We get to South Carolina. It's fucking hot and humid, which i love but after being in the freezer section for a while then they put me in the fucking the food

warming lamp we were in there getting sworn in i passed out like i guess i was from exhaustion and pneumonia and i woke up you know like a dent on my head. And that was my introduction to the army. Like already I was like, oh, there's scheduling conflicts going on in here. A little bureaucratic confusion. I thought they'd be organized. Like there's one me. Right, so this is like a foreshadowing

of your army experience to be. My fucking life, basically. Right, and then you end up like, how long before they send you over? You were in Germany for a long time, right? Yeah. I went in. They got me sorted out at Fort Jackson, ironically where I was born too.

So I'm never going to go back there because I was born there. I went into the army there. I exited the army there. I figure out if things play out the next time I'm there, I'm dead. So I'm just going to skip Fort Jackson. I'll drive through Columbia. It's in the middle of the state. But I joined the Army.

I went to basic training there. I loved it. It was summer. It was hot as fuck. Like, dudes from Missouri were dying. They were yelling at me to, like, get out of the sun with my sleeves up. But I just grew up in that. Did that. They sent me to what out of the sun with my sleeves up. But I just grew up in that. Did that.

They sent me to what they call AIT, which is school. Turns out I was kind of smart. So I got on this radar system called the ANTPQ-37 Firefinder radar, which is still in existence. And the class, they told, I was like, this is fucking bullshit. This is like Star Trek bullshit. But it really did work. It was Hughes Aircraft put it together.

Or McDonald dug. I think it was Hughes Aircraft. They all buy each other, but it was one of those. I went out to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and did my training. And after that, they sent me to Germany, which was just fucking awesome. Right.

So you're like a crazy bachelor in Germany, running around, going to all the clubs, just letting loose. And even though I'm from a very regional, segregated, racist, uneducated,neck getting high i got turned on to of course leonard skinner which i fucking still love to this day and zeppelin even though they were from england which is the mortal enemy of the united states which the heart of the u.s is the south according to us um then i got turned on to hendrix because i was doing a lot of acid and psychedelics then i got turned on a new wave because i was going into the city and a couple of my friends from high school were gay so we were going to gay bars which is had the best music in the world so

devo the b-52s all this stuff so when i landed in europe it was just like, here's the club. You have your ID. You have money. You already got a fucked up haircut like everyone else in Europe in the 80s. So come on in. It was fantastic. It was fantastic. And so how long were you living there? The first time I was stationed there for over a couple of years.

I learned to speak German quickly and fluently because I started looking around, and I realized the dudes in the barracks on the weekends, they would just take off their shirt that had their name tag on it and their rank and just stay in everything else, take their boots off, and they're just in green and brown T t-shirts green socks you know they're fucking green pants and until monday morning they put on their shirt and i was like oh these dudes

never leave like so i started like catching the trains i had i think the second night i was there it was around christmas and in germany they do this thing where they scrape all the the beer breweries they scrape all the something out whatever the fuck they make beer in and they come out with the stuff called like doppelbach which is like it should say black death poison beer right because it's just the goo that sits at the bottom. But like super concentrated. And they had like triple buck. So I'm in the barracks. It's like my second day there. I remember everybody had their own stereo.

There's like 16 of us in a room, half this size. Everybody's got a reel-to-reel, a turntable, a tape deck. Everybody's listening to like Billy Squire, the Scorpions, all this shit. I'm the new guy guy I got my little bunk they're all drinking we're smoking cigarettes and like you know I remember taking two sips off of this thing and then

I come to I'm half naked I still don't know if I'm getting into bed or getting out of bed with this smoking hot German girl. It's completely naked. Like, I don't know where I am.

I don't speak a word of German. I've been in the country two days. But she seems cool. I seem cool. Nobody's bleeding. Nobody's fighting. I hear all this noise in the front, and I'm like, you know, put my pants back up, put my shirt on.

I go out. There's a dude on the fire escape shooting a shotgun off in the air because it's around New Year's Eve. And I was like, I'm familiar with shotguns because I was like, oh, these guys are like my people. And there's like 15 people in the living room. I had no fucking idea where I was. And I was, it turns out, like three miles away from the barracks i don't know who these people were

i just kind of excused myself made it back i didn't know what barracks i was in i made it back to my barracks and i stumbled back in the room and i'm like where the fuck did i go and they're like who are you and i'm like i'm the new guy and they're like, who are you? And I'm like, I'm the new guy. And they're like, we don't fucking know. It was like, that was like the second night in Germany. And it pretty much stayed like that. Like, awesome clubs. Hey, how'd I get here? Got my shoes, got my watch.

And peacetime. So it's not like, I mean, what does the Army have you doing? Well, we trained on the radar all the time. Like, we would go out and do war games, ironically, for a month at a time. And just train and just work on it. And, like, it's a lot of training. You just train and train and train for the inevitable going to war. Right. But it was the Cold War that was going on.

So we would sit, you know, go check out the border of czechoslovakia it was a whole communist thing and all of us in europe were aware like america and russia were going to bomb the fuck out of each other with nuke so yeah this is this is mid cold war not comprehend it is so much stress to know that like all the clubs were full and if you really listen to a lot of new wave and post-punk dance music it was like we knew we're gonna get melted you can't stop these fucking power mongers and these egomaniacs from battling each other you know yeltsin and fucking reagan and these fucking weird guys who are like and we just knew we're gonna catch the fallout and just get nuked into the ground so we were like you know

the punk rockers were like change the government it's 1999 and the new wave guys were like well fuck it we're gonna melt so i'll just be dancing around depeche mode and new order you know and all of that music it's fucking doom and gloom there music, it's fucking doom and gloom. There's really a lot of doom and gloom in there. But it's like, well, if you're going to get melted, don't sit around gloomy. Just fucking dance around. It's got to get beat.

You're like, fuck it. Coming back for more, but first. So let's accelerate this uh addiction snowball to uh to you know where it all kind of meets its maker because you went through the ringer pretty pretty intensely like it got pretty dark number of times but i could always pull myself out i had no idea what was going on it was just status quo for me it was like you know felt know, felt alone my whole life. So I kind of was alone my whole life. I'd had like really nice supportive girlfriends. My family was always supportive, but you know, to me, it just got annoying and interfering. Like they felt like

nosy, busy bodies. It was like I said, I'm really hypersensitive so burned a friend for coke not a large amount in South Carolina I went back to South Carolina after the army I had saved a ton of money I had bought my first car I had a when I re-enlisted they gave me a fucking fortune

and I was like holy shit cause everybody who went into my MOS that's your job, for this radar, they split after two years. They were there for college money. College should never. I was like, I'm never going to college. It's for rich people. It never occurred to me to try to save.

So I bought, like, my first car was, like, the Trans Am from Smokey and the Bandit. It was awesome. And I remember driving it home, seeing my mom, my grandfather. Her dad was at our house because we had all left. He had cancer, and he was dying, so my mom was taking care of him. And I drove home to see her, and I was in my Army uniform, and I got out of the car, and my mom was crying. I'm like, oh, it's so good to see you, too, and she kept crying. I was like, what's going on? She's'm like, oh, it's so good to see you too. And she kept crying. I was like, what's going

on? She's like, that car, it's so white trash. And I just looked around James Island like, where do we live? Oh, I should have parked it behind the castle. Like little shit like that I remember because it's literally

felt like I mean, I just felt like the biggest pussy all the time because shit like that, I remember it because it's literally felt like, I mean, I just felt like the biggest pussy all the time because shit like that would fucking cut me to the quick, literally. And it was like, I had no way to process it. It's like, oh, another wound to deal with. And it was just like, you know, I just learned for years just to take my licks and keep moving, you know, like that weird, sad kid in a movie, like, you know, everybody's bullying him and then some other kid hits him in the head with a rock.

The hero doesn't come out of the Disney movie and beat everybody up. You just kind of walk away with like a swolly, bloody eye and you just deal with it. And you go to a new town and you hope they're not going to be like that. And of course, the nature of that is you know kick dogs get kicked it you seem to bring that out in people so it's really kind of a weird thing but i got out

of the army went home to south carolina nothing had changed burned some people for coke had to split had a girlfriend who moved to california was moving we were going to move together then she got bummed out when i ripped off one of her friends for coke that was a whole drama not a big episode but annoying so i convinced her to let me come out with her she was horrified by how much weight i'd lost when i showed up. And I'd like rip somebody off, wrote a bad check for a plane ticket, flew out, and you know, we tried to, she really tried to make the best of it. We moved to

Long Beach, and I just like collapsed. I left her. She found a big bag of syringes. She had no idea I even got high. She found all these syringes. So you were doing the IV thing. Was that going on the whole time? Not in the Army. I realized they couldn't drug test you for LSD. So I tripped all the time.

But I wouldn't fuck with pot or drugs. But when you got out of the Army, then back to the needle? Well, when I got out of the Army, I could drink so much. The night I got out, I went out to a bar with my friends. And I drank 24 Budweiser's and was like, had to pee all the time and wasn't buzzed and was really annoyed. So I started drinking liquor. 24 beers, no buzz. Nothing. Nothing. I'd been in Germany.

Yeah, you're used to the triple box. It's super strong over there. And I didn't realize, I never thought I had a drinking problem at all because it's legal they showed magazines tv people famous people do it everybody I know does it everybody does it it just I never saw a red flag so I got wasted that night like really drunk and my friend was like dude you got to do some coke if you're gonna drink like that i was like so i did a couple bumps and it was like oh and then immediately was shooting drugs again within a half an hour it was like oh good back right so that and then i brought that with me out to california and then my girlfriend and i separated because you know when you're dating a girl and you take drugs, the girlfriend's the fucking mistress.

Like, she lives in the other neighborhood, my priority. I never knew this. I learned all this stuff later. But, you know, I had to split. She's like, what are you doing with these needles? And I was like, do not throw that shit away. Went, got it, got my bag, found an apartment down the road from her and then just you know i could get jobs quick you know i know how to charm i use my x military i'll use whatever

tacky thing i have to for self-preservation so i did that i was doing good then i started smoking crack which that shit was awesome it was i know it gets a lot of bad publicity, but holy shit. That stuff was amazing. Did that like kind of qualitatively like change things? I mean, that's what I hear. I've never done crack. It destroyed. It completely destroyed me, my life, my mind mind my body

in probably five months I just smoked it non-stop it was amazing such an amazing high and I never saw the effects it was having on me like I'd just smoke all

day long, I'd go to work, I got a job I won't say which company but building airplanes for the military. Union job, ex-military, easy union, lots of money. Pay all my bills. Never paid my bills. Lived in an apartment. Got so cracked out. I moved out of my apartment because when I would smoke crack in there in between going to work and nothing else if i'd smoke crack in the bathroom i'd hear all these people in my living room so i'd go out there and it wasn't a huge apartment and they'd split so then i'd smoke in the living room and somehow they'd get in the

bathroom even though i lived on the ninth floor uh-huh no fire escapes and after about six days of that invisible friends i got so aggravated i'm like i gotta get the fuck out of here it's so loud like crack induced psychosis so i dipped i just moved out behind my well i went out to take a walk which lasted for months and i just i would go into my apartment every six or seven weeks to bathe because i would just get really offensive. And I just went super-duper-duper-duper crazy. Crazier than I had ever been from too much acid or lack of sleep or coke or pills. So you have this apartment, but you're literally walking around the streets and sleeping on the sidewalk? Or what are you doing?

No, I would sleep usually on a bench by the public library in long beach because i don't be tacky i don't want to lay on the sidewalk there's bugs and shit so like bench dude i'd go to the library and i'd read the german newspapers because i learned to speak and read german because i didn't want to be like the other bums even though i was i mean i'd look like something that came out of a fucking landfill. It was unreal. And I was so skinny, I kept putting on more layers of clothes. Looked awesome. I just looked like a fucking scarecrow.

And how long did this go on for? Probably about five months. The whole time I was doing crack. Crazy. Crazy. And then I started seeing neat shit on the street. And after a while, you can only carry so much stuff. So that is why homeless people push shopping carts because there's so much cool shit to pick up

when you're out of your mind and like the sun hits it and you're like, shiny mine. So I started acquiring things. So you're actually pushing a shopping cart around? Well, I was strolling with one. It didn't feel like pushing. Pushing sounds like a lot of effort. God forbid. I don't want to mischaracterize this. I just had my stuff with me. Well, I had other people's stuff that was now mine. And you have any friends at this point who are trying to intervene a little bit? I mean,

there must be people in your life who are yeah i had one friend who was really trying to help me out didn't understand what had happened to me invited me over for dinner i stole his mom's checkbook and wrote thousands of dollars of bad checks but i would write checks to people i smoke crack with for like 860 dollars and i'd be like go cash this and i write it out in their name forge it they'd go to the bank and cash it and i'd give them 40 dollars and then they all started getting arrested for that yeah i wasn't raised to be that guy it's just i would help you know we'd all make like homeless signs to go out but i was too you know shy to stand out there on the corner with a sign so i would write signs for everybody like please help but i would always

spell words wrong just to make them look like you know idiot it was and how does this you know where does this end end up like how does it play out this is only going in one direction yeah too awesome town one day reagan had shut all the mental health facilities down and they were dumping crazy people legitimately mentally ill people onto the streets by the score and is this like what year are we talking about? This is 86 or something? 89, all right. 89. And there were fucking homeless people everywhere around Long Beach. And I was one, but I felt like a part-time one. I remember I was shooting speed and I was like...

By choice. You had an apartment. It's very strange. Right. But it was annoying. And I also had this other thing that developed where i wouldn't go into the sun under any circumstances i didn't think i was a vampire i love the cure but i'm not goth but something just said dude don't go in the sun so i would have to luckily there were tall

buildings around my area in long beach so i would have to wait for the sun to make a shadow to cross certain streets. This is like a weird OCD thing going on. That's a nice way of calling completely fucking insane. Right. Oh, he had OCD. So that's what I turned into, this guy who would just hide in the shadows. I was freezing all the time. I didn't realize how skinny I was.

But I felt my body start to fall apart like really bad. And one day I was shooting speed, just sitting on the curb, like, you know, shooting speed, looking at all these homeless guys across the street. And I'm like, I'm going to pretend every homeless guy in Long Beach is like an undercover federal agent. And even though I had said, oh, this is what i'm gonna do today because when you're insane you have to think of fun projects to do otherwise the days just get boring even though i knew i did that i couldn't reel back going oh i'm just pretending so i had a really terrible day because there are like 45 homeless dudes in my area. That's a common thing though. When you start doing that

volume of drugs, you start to think there's people. You develop that paranoia where you think people are out to get you or whether they're undercover agents or otherwise. I've seen a lot of people do it and sometimes when I was really high I would get a sense of like, oh, that paranoia is going to come on.

I never really suffered from it but I saw other people do it so I'm like, oh, I'm going to try that paranoia is going to come on i never really suffered from it but i saw other people do it so i'm like oh i'm gonna try that i'm gonna pretend but this time i literally felt i don't know how to explain it any other way but if you took like remember this big uh giant satellite balloons they used to send up those big clear kind of looking ones i felt like that was my mind and it had gotten a rip and it started tearing and i couldn't because i've always been about like how far can i go like i've done enormous amounts of lsd and like read books and gone hiking and done adventures and surfed and really pushed it but this time i was like oh no i, I've gone. Past the point of no return. Way into crazyville.

Like not only is there not a guardrail, my car doesn't have brakes and I have just gone through over the edge at like 97 miles an hour. It's 3000 feet down and there's not a drop of water. It's like rocks. And I felt like that for about two weeks. And I got over the feds. That thing calmed down after a couple of days. But I would stay up for like eight or nine days at a time doing this stuff. So it was getting a little weird.

But I sat down and I went to do something. I went to turn. It was getting a little weird. It was getting a little weird for me. So I remember I sat down. I went to do something. I went to turn. It was getting a little weird. It was getting a little weird for me. So I remember I sat down, I went to go get my crack pipe and I turned. If you haven't grown up in the woods, I don't know if you'll get this reference, but when woods are really, really thick, like small pine trees about this big around, basically.

Like six inches. Like the width of like a paper towel roll or smaller half a paper towel roll those trees some of them die but if there's other trees holding them up they look like a tree but you can it looks like a living tree but you can hit it and it literally disintegrates into it's just sawdust basically and i went over to reach for my crack pipe and i felt that happened to me inside and i was like oh no i'm gonna die so i called my mom i was like because that's what all tough guys do right called my mom and i was like um i've been smoking crack i'm not really i was like telling crazy shit every week if they would if i'd answer the phone

which i do all the time and then be all conflicted and in a hospital i was telling somebody that they're like just don't answer the phone i was like shit that never occurred to me like my mom they were checking in with you and you would answer the phone and tell some crazy story about yeah some you know working on fighter jets or you know right shit the same crazy shit my dad used to do uh-huh which is weird i'm working for the cia i'm like no you're wasted and you wrecked your car that wasn't an undercover operation like you're just drunk so i called and i was like i gotta go to a hospital because I'm going to die. Not like I need to get better or I have to stop. I was like, okay, 27, peaked.

Had a pretty good adventure. Like one of the very first copies of Blue Monday when it came out on vinyl. Met Freddie Mercury when I was doing 32 hits of acid. In Germany? Yeah. This giant gay bar. We used to go to this giant gay bar and buy sheets of acid, 100 sheets of bladder acid, and then sell in the barracks for an enormous profit.

But I liked acid too. And yeah, the same night I met Freddie Mercury, I had no idea the dude was gay, and I had no idea he had a British accent. Yeah, it's the funniest thing because when you look back on it now, it's like the band's called Queen. He's wearing like leather chaps. He's got that that must like the whole package is there no but at the time like culturally

it didn't you didn't do that math for some reason and also meeting somebody at that level was fucking unheard of unless they did a press interview and the cameras were always right there was no yeah there was no average person disconnected from. Yeah. From a celebrity. Right. Yeah. And they're like, actually meet this guy.

And the guy I was with was the chaplain of the base where I was stationed. His driver. So wait, hold on a second. You went to a gay bar in Frankfurt with the chaplain? The chaplain's driver. It was like the gayest dude in the army i was like i you know i'd had gay friends growing up you know since middle school like wasn't a big deal to me and but you know mark he kept his you know his uniform he kept it locked down yeah and you know he borrowed the

chaplains you know nowadays i'm like oh yeah that's right it's not like oh military there's no gay dudes in there there There were like tons of them. But we would go up to this bar because he knew where to get it, and I'd get the money. We'd do this. I met Freddie Mercury. I realized I'd taken eight hits of Superman. It was called Ubermensch, blotter acid.

It's called a four-way because you tear a piece of a square into four, and you take one corner. And you said eight. Well, I would just peel them and play with them. And I looked down, and I started counting. I was like, that was a fun night that I made through. That was good. What did Freddie say to you?

Well, my friend was like, I want to marry him. And I'm like, he's a guy. Like, can you get married? Like, I didn't know. Part of me was, like, super naive. You. Can you get married? I didn't know. Part of me was super naive. You're in a gay bar, though. But you don't know that Freddie Mercury's gay. Right, okay.

I mean, who would know that? I mean, a giant guy. This place held 5,000 people. Like a massive club. The DJ booth was a fire truck. A whole fire truck. Not painted on the wall, like a hole. It was gigantic.

That's good times, man. And my friend was like, oh, let's run down and meet him. But I'll tell you this. This was incredible. He walked in wearing like a black mink stole. I think that's what it's called. Like the long, long, long dress. Oh, a coat with a cape?

Like a coat with a cape. That was like 40 feet long with all of the this is way before bodybuilders this is like 82 83 uh-huh these fucking like 30 dudes all fucking super i don't know if there were steroids back then but just giant dudes and little white shorts and little wife beaters, but big ass motherfuckers carrying the thing. Right, his entourage. It looked like a chick who was the Wicked Witch in snow white, but with a little leather cap on. And then took it off and a little mustache and shorts. That is so amazing.

So my buddy ran us down there and was like, oh, I need to talk to Freddie Mercury. And these big Germans, I was like, wow, we're going to get beat to death by these. But they led us in the circle. I was high as shit. But when he spoke, I was just like, oh, he's from England. I was like, yeah, my buddy wants to marry you. I go, we're in the army, so I don't know if he has time to do that. And that was the extent. It wasn't like, oh, here's here's why I wrote this song Chris I was out of my fucking mind

all right so back to mom you're at the end you tell your mom I've been smoking crack then because I still held a job and it was a union job I was like well I'll go to the hospital I'll die I have insurance. They'll cover the shipping and FedEx me home or whatever. And then according to my view, I'm going to go live with Jesus and grow corn and shit. I don't know what the fuck I'm here for. And you're like 26 at this point or something? 27.

Fried. So everything went wrong. These people were like, oh, we're going to put you in this outpatient thing. And I was like, they're like, you need to be here at like 10 a.m and to keep my job and i was like i don't know where i'm gonna be in 30 minutes like i tried to get to see some psychiatrist they'd be like it took me four weeks to make a 9 30 a.m appointment and i had to get to the place at like five in the morning i remember eating in this this Denny's. I had a little money. I was eating in Denny's,

and everybody just looked at me like I was a piece of shit. And I felt it. I knew it wasn't like, oh, I'm being sensitive. They were looking at me like, and I met this shrink and I was like, dude, I'm smoking crack. And I'd stolen some book. I think it was about Marco Polo doing the,

when he originated the Saffron Trail. And the guy's like, you can't be an addict. You're reading that book. And I was like, well, yeah, it's a great book, but I stole it. And I was like, I'll be right back. And went in the bathroom, smoke crack came out and they're like, that's, that's so funny because usually it would be the patient saying, I'm not an addict because I'm reading this book. And the doctor saying, no, that's irrelevant. I was like, I'm in trouble. And the guy's like, well, you're not addicted to it. You just, you know, and I don't know. I mean, I don't, I think it was all supposed to work out the way it did,

but I finally made my way into the hospital. The guy who my company contacted, some cab driver, he looked as bad as I did. I kept trying to get him to stop for crack on the way to this hospital and he wouldn't do it he's a dick and we got to the hospital and we got off the elevator and some staff started walking toward us and i go watch him he's a little squirrely because i walked ahead of him and they went to grab him he got really mad i was like i'm just kidding i'm the guy i didn't know it was a detox or a drug rehabber and i'd never even heard of that shit so they looked at me i talked with a couple doctors

people were kind of open about taking drugs i asked them if they had any they all laughed like oh we don't take them anymore i'm like oh it's amer. They gave me like half of an Ativan, which Ativan is just simply Valium became so destructive for so many years. They just moved a molecule around and now they call it Ativan. So they gave me that, which is half a Valium, knocked me out. I figured I'd die. And I woke up the next day with no plan B and then guys were like hey we have a problem kind of like you do and we'll help you and after I expressed in really derogatory and racist terms about the quality of people that were in my room that they should leave a couple people hung around and they were like you sad fuck fucker. Like, we're going to help you.

Like, I didn't realize I was in trouble. I was like, okay, I'm going to die. And then I didn't. So there wasn't like, it wasn't like you had this moment of willingness to. Oh, fuck no. Basically try to. No. And what happened was they took me to a couple of AA meetings. And I was like, wow, this is strange. Like, you know, it was aa meetings and i was like wow this is strange

like you know it was once again it was like upper middle class nicely dressed people bragging about how well they did and i was like i don't relate i don't want to i'll never make it up to middle class so you know was there like a disappointment that you woke up like now you're gonna love dude no plan b that's really it's like oh now i mean you run if you went on like hiking 12 miles up a hill to go camping and then you're like oh i forgot my backpack with my food and shelter that i was just like wow i have nothing so it's almost like this uh you know confusion about you know where you are what you're gonna do what's the next right action yeah bewilderment i mean it was it was sad and then i remember this lady talking and she goes

if you're an addict or an alcoholic and you can call yourself whatever the fuck you want but if you're anywhere near that shit you'll be high before you even think about maybe you will or won't. And sure enough, that fucking happened that night. Some dude found some crack in his bag. My new roommate. Well, you didn't have a desire to be sober at that point. It seemed like a terrible idea. I mean, I got the meth thing was getting a

little out of hand but you know what pussy can't have a fucking beer and then it was explained to me by these other guys who weren't pussies like well you you had a beer how did that work out where do you live currently i'm like long beach they were like no this week i was like on a hospital uh-huh and they were like you tossed out there or did that help like sort of shatter the denial and no place of well i got high again i remember this guy found some crack in his bag and he's like what do i do and i'm like give it to me i was right across from the nurse's station i grabbed a soda can and i started and i had a pen and i started i emptied the soda and I started making a pipe

and while I was doing this I remember clear as a bell going how do I know how to make a pipe out of this and I was like maybe I saw it on cops but I mean this has happened in seconds and I like I'd asked him over and over do you got any more do you got any more and he's like well my wife has an eight ball in the wheel well of the car, but she's not here till family day. And I was like, awesome family day. Went in and like smoked it and got high just enough to get in the hospital. Yeah.

In my detox room. And I came out and I knew this guy didn't have any more. And when I opened the door, he looked mortified. Like I had just eaten a human being in front of him. I mean, he was like shocked. And I knew he didn't have any more. And the first thing out of my mouth was like, do you have any more?

And something in me snapped like glass shattered. And I was like, oh shit, this is just what that lady was talking about earlier. Like I didn't even think this through like i saw it you know i'm like a crocodile just like jumping on it impulsively frogging a fly i'm like there's no and i was like holy shit i'm in trouble and then i feebly you know asked some guys for help and they were like well this is what we do and i was like god that sounds stupid and they were like well you're stupid so it's a perfect match like try it out and the guys that helped me were just cool about it and they were like you're probably gonna die so you know i mean look at you you're a disaster you know once they throw on my clothes

i weighed 130 this one guy's like dude you're like a someone stuck broomsticks and skin and talking about the civil war like shut up yeah yeah because you're like someone stuck broomsticks in skin and is talking about the Civil War. Like, shut up. Yeah, because you're probably, what are you right now? Like 175, 180, something like that? 193. 193. Yeah, so that's a huge difference.

We've known each other for a number of years, a couple of years at this point, and I've had the privilege and the opportunity to kind of see you in action. And you're somebody who is tremendously of service, incredibly giving in this program, and also unbelievably articulate in how you speak about recovery and the way you kind of lend an open hand to helping new people get introduced to these ideas. I try to emulate exactly what was handed to me.

And the first thing was like a simple act of kindness. Like I still remember them. And this has been like over 26 years now. Remember it like I can look on my iPhone and see the picture of my daughter. Like that clear. Like, oh, yeah, that guy was like, hey, why don't you just give this a shot? Like, you know, when they said they were in recovery, I'm like, I never heard of that shit.

Like, I never heard of rehab and like all that weird shit. It's very commonplace now. Now it's like, oh, I went to Coachella and then I went to rehab. And it's like bragging rights. Right, it's like having wheatgrass juice or something. Yeah, exactly. Oh yeah, I went to rehab and I was like, oh great.

So you took up a bed for somebody who's probably going to die because you know it's basically become a lot of them have turned into this is simply my opinion you know like parents who are like they don't know what the fuck the bad parents and they're like here like they're sending them to summer camp right or like going to drug camp or like law school law school or rehab yeah i don't know what to do with my life law school's cheaper now yeah well there's you know sobriety inc you know there's a lot of problem i mean we see look i live in malibu there's more rehabs like per capita and anywhere on the planet and these these are real estate plays. They're money-making grabs. And because it's very profitable to get a mansion, fill it with a bunch of beds, charge people an unbelievable amount of money per week or per month and staff

it with people that maybe are okay, maybe not, and just house these people for a while and get them through 30 days and bank a bunch of checks. Which is also the same thing. If you look at this model, it's the same thing like Child Protective Services does now because all of these things used to be government supported. They all got destroyed in the 80s when they pulled all the funding.

Same thing with mental health facilities and the disabled. all it's all private it's all insurance it's all profitable and some of it's good look i went to rehab it saved my life like i'm not disparaging the idea but i think there's a lot of it is a business and you know i'm sure there are scumbags at walmart and there are scumbags in the rehab world. There are scumbags on Wall Street, and there are scumbags in McDonald's corporate. Like, you know, that element, you're always going to find somebody who gets greedy and figures out how to turn. You know, it's almost like just another insurance scam. And we live in L.A.

I mean, remember, there were all these people doing these staged fucking car accidents all the time right and then like oh yeah insurance claims like there's always going to be somebody good looking for a fast buck just here it usually ends with a corpse well yeah it's kind of distasteful right right without there's you know this whole industry that's cropped out of of sobriety with all these ancillary ways of making a living, like you can be a sober living companion, or you can work in a rehab, or you can rent a house and turn it into a sober living, all these sorts of things that didn't,

I mean, did this even exist 20 years ago? I saw an ad with like some dude from some kooky show from the 70s. It's satellite university of fill in the blank. And their big thing was like, train to be a drug counselor. Like, you know, work from home. Like that kind of shit. And I was just like, are you fucking kidding? It's like, be a therapist online you know i'm like i

guess if you're gonna be a phone psychic you could work in a rehab what do you what is the the difference between in your mind and the the difference between somebody who is able to grab onto sobriety and make it work and the person that falls by the wayside and just can't get it? I don't know. That's the billion-dollar question. I was lucky. Guys laid the thing out to me straight, and they were like, listen, this is a really fucked-up problem, and it looks like 49 other problems.

But if you treat it like it's this one problem and treat it like it's life or death and do this stuff, and they're like, you know know we have to live a spiritual way of life and i'm like what the fuck is that like i'm from the south like we don't do magic and all that fucking weird shit and they were like call it what you want but try it if it doesn't work and you know i had nowhere to go so how did you wrap your head around that spiritual component i did it and it fucking happened to me which is weird i didn't get saved or anything but my entire mind got rearranged to where it worked and i was having problems with that so for me it just i'm able to do things that i wasn't able to do and i didn't

go to class like i was still starving i weighed 130, but something in me shifted and I can't explain it. And people are like, what happened to you? I go, I still don't know other than I was this way. And now I'm that way. But I remember clearly who I used to be and I'm nothing like that guy anymore. But I can be, if I take one drink, which a lot of people are like, oh, that's dramatic. I'm like, you want to see dramatic? Like, let's go out drinking

they get dramatic quick when things go crazy why don't you go oh i thought it was safe for you just to have one i've watched people try that experiment i won't i the the good thing was when I had this weird shift, I was able to look back from that first time, 12 years and nine months old, to 13 and 14, 15, and I just saw example of example of example of example. Like, that stuff is magic to me. And the reason it's magic to me, and it's not magic to most of the people, is I already had some kind of internal damage or something. Like alcohol and drugs hit me the way they're not,

they don't hit other people. I still feel like when I watch people without this thing drink, like they're getting ripped off. I'm like, they must be drinking water because, I mean, I don't spend a lot of time doing that, but there's a huge difference between me. And I just don't put myself around people who are like trying to encourage me. I never let people know that I don't drink.

I never announced that I'm in. Ever since I've been around, which is, you know, over 18 years at this point, you know, I remember seeing you, you know, I've been around the rooms for years before we got to know each other, but you've always been around, you've always been front and center and very invested. And, you know, I myself, and I see this with a lot of people kind kind of vacillate in their level of emotional and physical investment in their own personal sobriety and recovery. It's something that I've dealt with.

I'm kind of on the other side of that now and very much invested. But I see you as somebody who's never lost sight of the fact that this has to be number one every single day of your life. Like, how do you remain connected to that as a priority when it's been so many years? I mean, how many years?

So it's been 20 some, how many years at this point? 26, 26 years now. Yeah, which is weird. But I don't know. It just, for me it it worked like it didn't turn me into some big spiritual seeker but i really went down and tried to logically approach this and objectively look at it and it's just like i don't know i'm able to look at things objectively at times and just kind of see with no emotion what how the pieces go together it's like

putting together an engine or a transmission or taking your sim card out of your phone if you do it emotionally you're going to break the phone or throw it on the ground or drop something or cut your finger if you're just like oh how do i get that out and read some instructions they're like put a little thing in click you'll feel the gentle click pull it out oh all the instructions have already been written for everybody on the planet i just didn't find an instruction book until i almost died and somebody showed me an instruction book that one works for me and you know there's something magical really magical and fantastical about being a hundred percent based in reality and taking 100 self-responsibility i think that at least for me is one of the keys to a very happy life that doesn't look humdrum and typical and on and on.

I mean, I literally feel every day like when I was 10 and 11 in the weather, or maybe 12 before I started taking drugs and just surfing and skating and like, you know, there really wasn't a lot to worry about. And even though I'm an adult now, well, I'm fucking going to be 54 in a few months and I have bills and a family. I just had another baby six weeks ago. I have a three and a half year old daughter.

I have a wife, I have a home, I have a dog, you know, you have cars. Every time I see you daughter. I have a wife. I have a home. I have a dog. You know, we have cars. Every time I see you, you have all these things. And also, it should be noted that, you know, you've gone through quite a bit in recent years. And every time I see you, you're like, I'm great.

Life is awesome. You know, it's like, oh, you know, I'm a little tired. I'm going through. And then you would explain kind of what you're navigating at the moment. And I'm like, how are you like, how do you have a smile on your face right now like you stuff seems to like run off your back like you're able to kind of have perspective on things in a really unique way which i get from this magical world you know i i like i'm like they're like dude you can go to jail shit has to happen for that to happen i can be committed to an institution

not visit one but be committed to one i can die from this or i can accept that i have a really fucked up problem that some other people found a way out and it's a spiritual way of life luckily i didn't have to turn religious or wear gowns or creepy shit like that. But it's something for me, like I intellectually understand that in my own life, but maintaining that in the forefront of my consciousness on a daily basis as I butt up against whatever obstacle

or issue that I'm dealing with during the day, like that's where it becomes difficult and challenging. Like, cause I forget, or, you know, I don't want to believe that it's that stuff in that moment. Sure. I don't know. It works for me. Right. Maybe I was so close to death and out of ideas that I was like, fuck it. I'll try it. I mean, maybe I was like such an empty vessel, like just a couple of drops of what they had did the magic. I don't know. I don't take credit for it.

I'm a lucky motherfucker. I'm like a dude that are like, here, get in this little canoe and go down this gentle river where there are no rocks no waterfalls no snakes jumping out of the fucking branches no bears jumping on you and it's just a fucking gentle lazy river and like you know stop here if you want oh chocolate mountain like how about over here books you might be interested in here's all all this. I mean, I've learned to become fascinated with a lot of stuff. I've also really, since I didn't realize I had this fucking problem, apparently I'd had my whole goddamn life,

and it never crossed my mind, like, ooh, I shouldn't do 32 hits of acid or be shooting coke all summer when I live on a goddamn island where it is sweltering hot but I'm wearing long sleeves all the time when I'm not in the water surfing or I'm trying to tan my forearms because I have so many needle marks on me none of that registered like dude you have a problem it never fucking crossed my mind not a not once so i gave up on diagnosing myself with anything else because i suck at it like if i missed that i don't have the right to be like oh maybe i'm'm a little ADHD or whatever the fuck's going to be on Time Magazine next week. Because especially in LA, everybody's got it that way.

Yeah, I mean, speaking of that, and this is something that's come up on the podcast frequently, every couple of years, somebody has recovery 2.0 or some new spin on how to get to the bottom of overcoming addiction, whether it's pharmaceutical-based or some new kind of healing methodology. Like how do you process all of that? What's your perspective on that? Whether it's plant medicine or some new therapy technique. If that person has done it, I'll investigate it.

If they haven't, like experts writing opinions for people that have problems that the expert doesn't have is like i mean you're like the fittest motherfucker on the planet and i'm sure there are fat dudes who tell you oh yeah dude you got to do like 12 reps that's when you really feel the burn. And you're like, dude, you just ate 100 hamburgers this weekend. Like, shut the fuck up. Like, it's hypocrisy, it's advice, and it's fucking poison that I think other people have to get you to agree with them to justify them not looking at themselves and going,

you're insecure and full of shit. You're trying to get attention from someone else, so you're trying to act like you know what you're talking about so if somebody hasn't been through something you know it's it's advice it's theory conjecture it's opinion and i can't apply that to feeding my family i can't apply advice like you know experience like i got kids so i call my buddy who's got kids i'm like what the fuck's up with them like making noise all night long he's like well i called my doctor and he's like they're called growing pains because they're fucking growing and i'm like oh it makes sense now it just sounds cute i'm not alarmed right well baby's always making noise and doctor's like yeah they're growing i'm not alarmed right well babies always making noise doctors like yeah they're

growing i'm like oh so my buddy shared his experience of that with me so now i don't have to flip out that's somebody because i've gotten lots of bad parenting advice just like i'm sure you know you're like mr finding ultra super healthy guy dude who's your guy doug doug evans with the juicero right which is going to change the planet i'll bet you a hundred dollars cash some fucking idiot's going to come out or a well-meaning human being let me not rush to judgment is going to come up to him and be like couldn't you made that button a little smaller well of course right that's the nature of doing anything and doug will be like i don't know motherfucker why don't you go in a warehouse and hide out for three and a half years and basically redesign what nasa had to do to get to the fucking moon and then tell me about a

smaller button after you raise all this money feed these people's families right live on a cot whatever you had to do the same with so if somebody hasn't been through it they're outsiders and you know i think a lot of people they mean well i think everybody's coming from a good place everybody's coming from a good place but if you haven't been through this like if you haven't witnessed personally a bunch of deaths of your friends or at least seen them disintegrate into complete fucking madness and not get better you know it's kind of like i mean that's an experience you've had a lot of those experiences well i hang out with interesting people yeah i mean you've had a lot of friends die yeah most of them why they're here and i'm here you know i don't know i can make up witty anecdotes in my head but

you know it could happen to me in a minute so how do you one of the things that i've that i've noticed that you're incredibly good at is this really fine tune, like laser perception of what's ailing somebody, particularly somebody who's new in sobriety and who's confused, like somebody will say something and you're able to just like lock in and always say like this amazing thing that gets that person to shift their perspective.

Like, especially people that are like, you know, have seven days or 30 days of sobriety. Well, half of it is like, I just look everybody in the eye and then you can tell where people are at. Because people who can't look you in the eye really got a lot of shit going on. And they're just like,

so I'm like, well, there's something in there. And then the other half is i can't let like what john joseph was saying like hanging out with negative people it's like i can't be around i have to be particular and careful about what i hear so if some crazy guy is spouting crazy he's trying to convince everybody around him that his crazy's okay and we're just like him. And I can be like, ah, sorry, fucker. Look at all of us.

Two shoes. How many you got on? One. One of these kids is not like the other. You may want to take a look at yourself. And if it is a spiritual problem and it's pretty obvious obvious the symptoms are pretty typical and the answer what am i trying to say i don't know stuff occurs to me like i'm not a doctor like after ninth grade like i didn't go back to college or school or anything like i have no education i read a lot i enjoy reading i

listen to your podcast all the time. But you're incredibly observant. I've seen this a million times where at the right moment, you always tend to say this amazing thing that will shift the energy of whatever room we happen to be sitting in. And that stuff occurs to me. I don't have a script in my head. No, it's totally spontaneous. It's my intuition.

Like half the time, if I'm thinking about stuff. That is a, you know, this idea that you just have this intuition. Like you know in the moment, you know, what the right thing is to say to somebody to throw that lifeline out, or the insight that you have into your own recovery and this level of self-awareness stands in such incredibly dark, profound contrast to the lack of insight that you have when you were out. Like the idea that it never occurred to you

that you had a drinking problem or that when you were completely out of your mind that this might be something you were out, like the idea that it never occurred to you that you had a drinking problem or that, you know, when you were completely out of your mind, that this might be something you need to like, sort of deal with. Ever. It's shocking to me. Like, how could you not know that?

Like that lack of self-awareness to this point now where you have this incredible intuition about, you know, what to say and a lot of, in an incredible level of self-awareness about where you stand and where you're at. Well, I think the having to face myself and really look at all of my foibles and realize, I mean, I could have gone two ways. I could have killed myself out of shame and embarrassment, or I can just fucking laugh at it and be like, there was a quote that I read that said,

nothing is more vile than being conquered by oneself. And I think the opportunity, which is exactly what fucking happened to me. I was there the whole time and just destroyed my life. I wasn't a victim of shit other than bullying by myself. It sounded like friendly chitchat. So I think now I'm like, well, let me conquer myself. Not, not talk shit about myself or hurt myself or do any of that stuff. But if I really look at myself and be like, eh, you know what?

Might not have been the wisest choice I ever made. Let me not do that again. What would be the mechanics under that? I seem to be free from all that stuff. And when I'm free from all that stuff, I don't have to carry everything around. And I really have the freedom from learning because I'm like, okay, if there's a spiritual world, then fuck it.

Make me as empty as possible. I'll be a vessel or something without... A lot of that stuff sounds religious, but I think religion uses that stuff because that's the same ideal, if that's the proper word if that's a proper word that i just empty myself and whatever's something made a fucking octopus and a coconut and it wasn't bill nye the science guy so it kind of puts all human beings in perspective so if there is something keeping gravity working and water molecules like why

doesn't water fly up in the air just randomly like everything works except me so i'm like how about whatever's running that you run me let me get all of my bullshit out of the way and happily that seems to work i don't know if it'll ever work for anybody else. I doubt I'm the last guy to stumble into something like this. But I did stumble into it. It was a privilege to be exposed to this. I did it out of desperation. But there's a payoff.

It really does work. I've learned to be gentle and kind at least in my actions toward other people because only because i remember what that kindness and gentleness felt like to me but i can also recognize in other people's eyes and their voice the damaged human being that I was. And I'm like, wait, I was that fucking bad. And the guy said a couple of these things to me and it changed my life. So, you know, I don't think I'm supposed to

take all this stuff I learned and just fill my pockets. Right. And be greedy with it. Right. No, you're constantly giving it away. And, you know, just to put it in perspective, I mean, you live a pretty amazing life these days. You're married.

You have a brand new baby. You've got, I don't even know. Like, every time I see you, you have some new, crazy entrepreneurial venture that you're working on. Like, you've got, I don't even. Yeah, this used to be one big square room. I'm like, what do you do, Chris? I don't know, dude. Honestly, it just, stuff drops on me. And I'm like what do you do chris i don't know dude honestly it just stuff drops on me and i'm

like okay okay i don't i don't think about like large scale uh images of space for nasa like one yeah and then they're actually supposed there's two four foot by ten spots up there uh-huh that are supposed to have these new nasa images I was just learning this new photo stitching thing on Photoshop last night. I love Photoshop. But for years, you worked in production for years, right? A lot of commercials and a lot of music videos. Right.

Which was fascinating and interesting. And, you know, it was great. Like, I made good money. I traveled. I got to see cool stuff. But there's a point where it was great like i made good money i traveled i got to see cool stuff but there's a point where it's just like dude we're selling fucking sweaters like you know that's it and i started being around people who thought they were really a lot fucking more important than they were like they're curing cancer they're feeding starving people in some

other country they've never been to. And I was like, ah, you know. Then the economy dropped and all the budgets went down. But all of these same slaves were like calling me up, like trying to talk me into doing a favor for Pepsi or Ford. And I'm like, ah, I've kind of jumped ship. to jump ship and my brother who who went to college studied real estate has worked in real estate through good times and bad times has stuck with it raised a family really been an asset to his community he's like wow production's smart like these production companies and movie companies like you guys are like a bunch of fucking dock workers. And like, you know, when the going's good, they pull in, you hop on the boat.

And they're like, and when the going gets bad, they just stop in the harbor. And they're like, oh, we only have so many jobs. And we only have so much. And like, you fuckers don't move. Maybe one or two people will leave. And I'm like, oh, okay. And there's a term in the production called the golden shackles. Because you're like, you're working 19, 20 hours a day.

And when you're working, the money's really good. The money's really good. Yeah. In perspective at the time for that kind of job. Right, but it's that Kearney lifestyle. It really is. And for a while, I loved it. But a part of me changed, and I didn't anymore.

So how did you reinvent yourself like how did you figure out what you were going to do next i got fired off a couple jobs with friends like i just couldn't get out of bed and do it and show up i worked on this fucking weird puppet show it was awesome and i was just late and i was like that guy waking up late and i'm like i'm not tardy i'm not a late guy show up early i do what i say i'm gonna do i try to be enthusiastic and i couldn't do it and i was like this is beyond me like it's time to go and i was like i got i had to consider life outside of that and then when i do like weird shit occurs and I'm like, Oh,

I'll try that. Like I, I worked in the mail room. When you have that, when you have that courage to just jump and like, not, not know where the net is. The courage is almost like I can't fucking stand not doing it.

Right. I'm not a brave dude. But having the trust that if you make that move, that something will show up and fly back out. Well, I haven't died from it yet. So I'm like, well, maybe this is the time, but I doubt it. I try not to call my own shots. It's part of the overall surrender equation though, right?

Yeah, I don't want to be conquered by myself and if i'm talking to myself i can usually tell when i'm talking to myself the voice is familiar but also there's never anything positive in it my intuition is always positive it's like hey why don't you say hi to that guy i'm like what guy oh that guy over there my head's always like that's not gonna work out not super negative but the tonality of it is always it's like bleak with sprinkles on it it kind of looks like a good idea but when you really look at it it's just despair and death what your head what your head is telling you versus like your higher consciousness deeper instinct yeah the

higher consciousness the subconscious i don't really understand that stuff i've looked at it a lot i know my intuition is always fucking right and it doesn't require thought it presents ideas to me it's it's almost like pictures i see little movies i'm like oh that'll be cool and up here basically on a bad day it's second guessing and self-doubt it's like halfway to the car and it's like are you gonna wear those pants right and i'm just like now i'm just like dude shut the fuck up like now we're gonna listen to really loud devo in the car like just shut up like i've just learned like maybe i'm insane but my life doesn't look insane it doesn't like i you know you're not good you have a good life you have you have a good setup luckily like i fell in love with a great woman who's a great wife you know way beyond

what i deserve smarter than me which is awesome i hate being the smartest guy in the room because there's pressure all of a sudden to know stuff and i'm like i don't know anything this is the tough life you live with that level of self-awareness though with that kind of acute you know uh radar if you could go back and you know chat with yourself at age 20 what would you tell that guy i would have gone back to 13 i'm like don't pick up that beer in that joint we got to find some money and basically buy the city of charleston and the surrounding beaches for probably at that time eighty thousand dollars right and then i could have bought kiowa island seabrook island hilton head all of that shit was undeveloped they were just dirty islands there's nothing there i'd go back

because my nature you go back and make a big real estate deal that's it yeah not help people but you've seen it in the twilight zone all that stuff when you try to imagine going back with good intentions it always ends you're the guy that's when you try to imagine going back with good intentions it always ends you're the guy that's like dude they're gonna kill abraham lincoln they're like shut up you crazy man witch there's a play going on yeah and then bam and they're like hey that guy knew it kill him no every domino had to fall for a reason to get you to this place i just like going along for the ride now what i try to do is stay out of the way or pick my path because I was with me the whole time picking my path on the way here,

and it was dicey. It was like, oh, yeah, I've learned to do a really beautiful swan dive into a wood chipper. It's like there's a point where like, whoa, what great form. Holy shit. Why did he do that in the next morning i'm like i bet i could do a gainer uh-huh you know and you never hear the noise of the grinder i i just i found a freedom of just just taking a look at myself and be like am i being greedy?

Am I being petty? Am I being selfish? And like, it's really easy to be a victim. Like everybody in this country will support you in being a victim, you know? And for me, sympathy is like fucking cyanide and compassion is like the Red Cross. There's a huge difference.

Like one is poisonous. You know, and those things, misery loves company. The company and the miserable person don't know they're miserable. But if you walk by, they're like, did you ever see Dumbo? All those mean, fat lady elephants that were making fun of Dumbo and then his wife or his mom mom and she got locked up and she's crazy and look at those ears like Alice in Wonderland when she falls into like flower land and they're like what kind of flower are you and she's like I'm not and they all start talking

shit it's the like Walt Disney knew it like everybody I'm sure the stories in that bible and the quran it's all the same like like the gossip, the people. There are some of us who feel a bit outside of the world, but to get picked on for it, it's a little strange because if you look at this, I don't know where this idea occurred to me. I did not come up with this on my own. I heard it one day, but I realized like from a fucking ant up to a fucking blue whale or sperm whale. I don't know which one's the bigger. They're big. The animal kingdom, they're all fucking different sizes and shapes and colors. And you get mankind, human beings, we're all the same.

It's the same cookie cutter little different you know frosting little different sprinkles same fucking animal so i don't think my deal is to separate myself from the pack by justifying oh i'm republican or democrat i'm this or that or the other and if you really look at it objectively that's what goes on and i'm like so i don't participate in that and i don't get subjected to it so i try not to rant against the system i just ignore that there is a system the system is human beings some are going to mess up the ecology of the planet some are going to ecology of the planet some are gonna help a lot of people some are gonna murder people so they can get a gold you know so you're saying essentially what you're saying is you try to stay out of judgment and just focus on keeping your side of the street clean and dealing with dealing with

people with compassion yeah unless like somebody has like some really fucked up shoes or something or a bad haircut then i can't help it i won't say it to them but in my head there's a fucking routine so what is what is the daily routine of chris davis like how do you keep yourself in check i get up i kind of review what i'm going to do for the day. I meditate for about four or five minutes. You do that every day? Yeah. Is there any kind of method to the meditation? I just do it.

The Chris Davis method? No, there's not. Yeah. I have an unfiltered cigarette. I sit out on my porch. And while I'm smoking, I just go over my day and i'm like okay what am i gonna do today what are my plans whatever's out there i'm like hey i'm here i'm your little canoe again you want to put supplies in me that need to go across the river whatever

the fuck i'm down with it like i don't i try to strip myself of me and just see what is out there and i volunteer for you know i volunteer for the army i volunteer for the swim team for fucking soccer and baseball i just do the same thing you know and i feel like i'm part of some team i don't have to carry all the weight but i'm willing to share the weight like if 10 guys pick up a fucking oak tree they can do it one person tries it's a comedy routine their brains gonna explode right but you enter into into life from this perspective of service and there really is a there's a spiritual world there. There really is like, there wouldn't be that many books written about it if it didn't occur. So I opened myself up to that and I'm like,

I'm willing to be a part of it again. Let's see where it goes today. And so far so good. That's all I can say. If it turns on me and things outside of me start demanding I light fires or kill people or steal from people, then I'm going to turn my back on that and go elsewhere. I would do that with people or institutions that would suggest I do harm and things like that. But that shit doesn't come up to me. So I don't know.

I really can't explain it other than i go along for the ride so in the morning i basically it's kind of like a lazy river but i just picture myself on this giant cliff and i just jump off and something catches me i'm like i'm gonna jump catch. And if you don't, fuck it. It's been a good run. And so far, you know, I don't even hit like terminal velocity where I'm like, oh, freaking out. I just, I jump and something catches me. And I end up in places that I wouldn't normally put myself. Internally, mentally, emotionally. It's very strange i mean i'm as bewildered as the people who don't like me are

like how things keep unfolding and that guy's life keep getting better yeah and i'm not doing anything to make my life better i bust my ass to make my wife and my children's life better i'll do anything i can to help my friends lives lives get better. But, you know, I don't give a fuck about it. I mean, I have a really thin closet. You know, I've got an old car. Like, I'm not rocking anything. But I really appreciate and enjoy the stuff that I have. Well, that's that, you know, the cliff, the cliff jumping thing is, is kind of a beautiful allegory for surrender. And the idea that you're looking at situations from the perspective of how can you serve or provide, you know, gets back to what we initially were talking about with respect to ego, right? Like keeping the ego in check, delivering yourself in service to other people.

I do jihad on my fucking ego. Taking yourself out of the equation is the secret to improving your own life. And if I take myself out of it, there's no risk of my ego showing up. Now when it tries to show up, I can tell. I'm like, ah, motherfucker motherfucker you did nothing i just ripped me

off i just realized the title for this podcast is going to be chris davis goes jihad on the ego i like that what are some of the books that you've read that have had the biggest impact on you there's this woman that i discovered do you remember the bode tree yeah i used to go down there all the time because i'm like i'll fucking read some of this hippie shit like yeah it's like a new age bookstore that was right next to uh it's now gonna get turned into fucking forever 21 or some horrible super weren't they reopening the Bodhi tree somewhere else? Well, not that one. I just went by. They're tearing it down.

Wonderful bookstore. You know, it smelled like Nag Champa. Is that how you pronounce that? Yeah, the incense. All these kooky calendars. They had everything, every type of spiritual practice or religious practice. And I would just go in there and read.

And a friend of mine said, you should go check that stuff stuff i think i was talking shit about all that we're making fun of the bodhi tree he's like why don't you go down there and just like browse through and like buy a book like invest in it so i went down and looked you know i bought a couple of things like little teeny small things and i'm like this is all advice for like smart people like i don't want advice and i'm not smart so fuck these things and i but i would go in i got into no practice of going down there and i discovered this woman oh i had this really weird experience like i was driving down the street and i was going down santa monica boulevard in west hollywood i was coming up on a car wash and something literally said like,

turn in there and get your car washed. And I'm like, I want to go home. And I'm like, I'm talking out loud to myself to something that I really heard. And I was like, great. I guess this is the point where I go crazy. So I pulled in, got the basic car wash. And I was like, okay.

Nobody was around. So I was like, sitting on basic car wash, and I was like, okay. Nobody was around. So I was like sitting on this bench smoking a cigarette. And this dude came in that I recognized. And he's like, what's going on? I just had a breakup with this girlfriend who didn't know we were in a relationship. It was kind of one of those like I fell for this chick. And she was like, oh, yeah, no, I can't do that. And it was like, now I see it was like one of these break-open things.

It was like, you know, my ignorance will only go so far, and then it has to break. And this guy's like, oh, you know what? He's like, what's going on? I'm like, blah, blah, blah. You know, not a sob story. Just tell him where I'm at. And he's like, you know what?

I live right over here. Hold on. He grabbed his clothes out of the back of the car. Just tell him where I'm at. And he's like, you know what? I live right over here. Hold on. He grabbed his clothes out of the back of the car. He walked over, he came back and he lived like right on the other side of this fence from the car wash. And he handed me this book and I open it and it's a fucking case for a book on tape and there's no tape in it. And I was like, what, what is this parable and he's like oh shit i thought that was the book so and then my car was ready and i was like can i hold on to this and he goes yeah he goes it really helped me so i got in my car it was washed i drove the boaty train i'm like do you have this book it was called the game of life and how to play it by this woman named florence

by this woman named Florence Scovel Shin, who was part of the new thought movement, I guess in the 20s or 30s in Manhattan. She was like a teacher. She taught, who wrote Sermon on the Mount? Emmett Fox? Is it Emmett Fox? Some listener will be screaming right now. It's not Jeopardy.

I don't give a fuck. But he was one of the people who she taught right and i opened this book and it went right to a section about love and heartbreak and it was like boom boom boom and it was like the pain i had was gone and i was like holy shit what is this magic and then I found I read that book and she's like life's a game like you just got to play it you got to show there are certain rules and if you say these things you're going to get these things and I was like this is crazy and then I found she had three other books and then I found the bonus volume that all four books were in one book which cost about a third of me buying all four books.

So I bought that book, and I've just been reading that on occasion. So this is recent? So this didn't all happen recently. 20 years ago. Oh, you just go back to these books. 20 years ago. Anyway, when this happened, when I found this book by Florence Shinn, I'd already been going to the Bodhi Tree for like two years.

So I'd read and investigated a lot of stuff and like all the spiritual shit it just kind of got wispy and ethereal and there was a lot of maybes and kindas and her shit was just like bam practical objective application to this magic world that exists and i was like well maybe it's bullshit and i try it and it's like oh it's bullshit. And I try it and it was like, oh, it's real. So you actually implemented it and it had practical like representations. Yeah, I didn't know about metaphysics. Like they don't teach that in ninth grade

in South Carolina, you know. I never even fucking heard of it. Teach that in ninth grade anywhere. I'd never heard of it. So I started looking into it and I really dig dig it like it's i practice it's just funny it's like there's all what would be like one of the one of the things you would practice out of that well if you have um resentment or anger at somebody you're basically not basically, you are precisely encouraging sickness in yourself. Some form.

I mean, she breaks it down into like, you know, the gallbladder and all that. But like I said, I haven't been to school. I don't know where any of that shit is. I know where my liver is because I had liver cancer. Although when I was having chemo, I was looking on the monitor because I had this weird new chemo done. And I saw this thing on the monitor. And I was wow my liver kind of moves and i kept looking at it and this doctor's like that's your lung dude and so i would be like and see my lung get big and and i was like throughout liver cancer

you thought your liver was where your lung was well that one time my first bout of chemo and then i got so annoying to the doctor he's just like told the anesthesiologist he goes could you help chris out a bit and then i woke up and i was like and i don't want to like cavalierly skip over the fact that you had liver cancer but but i don't anymore but i had it yeah i wasn't even sure that was something that you wanted to talk about when i said earlier like you know you've gone through some stuff that's kind of what one of the things I was alluding to. But I would see you, you know,

throughout that and you'd be like, you'd never would say, oh, you never played the victim throughout that whole thing. Just like, yeah. Except in the days

right after chemo. Right after chemo. Because it was like being squished between two garbage trucks hitting each other like 60 miles an hour. It was brutal, but it worked. And fully in remission now.

Gone, gone, gone, gone, gone, gone. And I also changed my diet. I went super plant-based. I went disgustingly plant-based. But it worked. I went to go see this healer lady, and she's like, eat this, but do the Western medicine. Don't be that guy.

And the combination, I still go back, and that was a couple years ago. So I go to UCLA every couple of months to get fully scanned and checked and blood tests and CT scans. And they're just like, what's up with you? And I was like, I practice wiccan or you know whatever they're just like you're so fucking weird and you cuss all the time i'm like well i wanted you to know me because all those gray fuckers out in the lobby they don't give a fuck they're gonna do whatever you tell them or they're not gonna do what you tell them and that one orange guy nobody

wants to sit next to like i don't see those guys in the lobby anymore and now when i visit they're just like oh you just had another child when they told me i was going to be dead in 14 months is that what they told you yeah i had to kick my wife out of the room i go listen fucker straight up what's the deal he's like you got to get your affairs in order i go i've seen that shit on tv what does that mean he goes like a win in my ant in a casket and he's like 14 months tops so i was like okay yeah you didn't i didn't know it was that dire the funny thing was you know they always talk about centimeters like in the south when they tried to bring the metric system people were like fuck europe all that stuff so i have no idea what a centimeter a millimeter is so i thought it was

small and i'm like so when they told me what size it was like i was like so like you know like a ping pong ball he was like like a fucking grapefruit and i was like it was that big wow yeah and i was like oh thank god i don't know math because that might have been too heavy for me i may have been like i'm gonna blow my brains out luckily i only get enough information so when they gave you that news though but i mean you can't get you can't get around 14 months get your affairs in order i mean how do you how my wife could process that she could get it how did you you know how'd you wake up, my wife could. Process that. She could get everything in order. How did you wake up the next day and move forward?

I was like, I got to find... I do this metaphysics stuff. So I'm like, let me channel this stuff. Let me tap into it. I'm like, look, I don't want to die. I will if I'm supposed to, but I don't want to. And then my wife told a friend of hers who said, oh, I know this nurse.

She knows Chris really well. I swear to God I'd never seen this woman in my life before I met her. She worked at UCLA, and, like, just everything unfolded, and I was getting in front of these doctors that week who were like, how the fuck did you get in here? And I'm like, don't worry about it, dude. Like, we got to go take care. I met this young hotshot guy who does radiology.

So I didn't know what the fuck that was. I thought he was like an x-ray guy. But he's like super, apparently the cancer I had is only fed by arteries. So they went through an artery, up the artery into the cancer filled it with like these time release little bombs of chemo and then they cauterized the arteries so when the guy was telling me what he was doing i was like so basically it's like when yosemite sam swallows a stick of dynamite and it blows up and smoke just kind of pours out of his ears and nose for a couple of days. And he goes medically.

Exactly. Exactly. Except close your mouth and plug your nose. Exactly. Which is exactly what it felt like. But he went in and I was like, listen, I'm probably going to die from what I hear. So let's not tell my wife this, but you get as close, you go dangerous. Like you put more of that chemo in me than you feel comfortable with

like let's just try to blow this shit out once like nuke it and he's like he got as much as he could in wow and i regretted that shit for nine days and then i went back and did it two more times and like it was it was dead by the beginning of the second thing and completely gone. And then the third time was just like for shits and giggles, basically. Target. Wow. So two sessions and it just exploded at the right time. But I also ate nothing.

But I was basically like a Norwegian Viking in 1200 eating shit in his front yard. Just like mung beans, kale, no salt, no sugar, nothing processed, nothing. That sucked. And I would drink like two gallons of water every day. And it worked. I flushed out my system. I learned about the alkaline. I mean, nothing on the level of what you guys know. every day and you know and it worked like i flushed out my system you know that i learned about the alkaline i mean nothing on the level of what you guys know but i was like i'm gonna die if

i don't and you know my daughter we were pregnant also with my son who ended up eight months down the road like we got the news we were pregnant with a son the day before I got the call where the dude's like, dude, you got a tumor and you're going to fucking die of cancer. And then eight months into that, our son died during pregnancy with the umbilical cord around his neck. And that's a bummer that you never prepared for. But it's weird. There's this weird river of comfort that I don't pretend that shit didn't happen,

but I don't go to, like, the secret place and hide from it. I just face it. And it's weird because I'm watching myself go through it when I know I don't have the capacity to handle this shit. They don't show that shit on TV. And that's pretty much where I've learned everything. Yeah. Here you just sort of, you know, Yeah, I hear you just sort of, you know, once again, like in semi-casual fashion, like grace over the fact that you, you know, basically had a stillborn son. Alive, dead with the umbilical cord. And that was going on. I remember you talking about in that same kind of tone, which struck me because anybody else would be like, oh, this thing happened. I don't know what I'm going to do. You know, like that's never been.

But then you turn into a victim. Right. And then you get sympathy. And that shit is like acid rain. Like I avoid it at all costs. I can't fucking have it because I'll believe it. I can't do it. Can't do it.

So I don't set the arena or the opportunity for that even to come near me because i'm not strengthening myself to battle negativity i just make sure it doesn't fucking exist around me and do you have the same facility for recall that you do with sobriety in other words like you're able to keep like what it was like when you were sleeping on that bench in front of the Long Beach Library. Napping. Like in the forefront of your consciousness to kind of inform your recovery. But do you do the same thing for your health?

Like, do you remember, like I had a, you know, the doctor told me I had 14 months to live. And so I have to, on a daily basis, rearrange my priorities or my lifestyle choices to reflect this reality of temporal mortality. Yes, but when the cancer goes away and my wife and I were arguing about something, whatever we argue about, and she was not getting my point and i just like my brain exploded i went down to the 7-eleven i drove and then there's one literally a 400 feet from my house i drove over there i got a pack of cigarettes went got a mountain dew my favorite and i had salt sugar nothing nothing but mung beans

for you know well over a year maybe a year and a half and i'd gotten used to it and then when i was leaving this donut was like hey there was a cinnamon bun and i was like you're coming with me and then like totally just blew up my diet. It was really strange to watch. I was like, wow, this is, like, some weird. It showed me I wasn't perfect and I wasn't this spiritual fucking guru. It's like, I'm a human being. And, you know, when shit goes too crazy, and it may have been just, like, going through cancer, losing the baby,

you know, being scared to death i was gonna die at any time they're gonna be like no the cancer's in your elbows or you know whatever the fuck you know i've grew up watching tv so i've seen every delivery of bad news that you could ever write or create so that's what i go on you know i't watch too much ER, but I've watched all these other weird shows. So I imagine bad things are going to happen. So I had just for me, I was like, oh, shit, I'm just like everybody else. Like, I can't be cocky. I can't be special.

You know, and I was like, this fucking cinnamon bun is good. Right. And I didn't die the second I had a cigarette. And I was like, it's weird. But now trying to hop back off that train, I'm paying the price. Once again, it's like. That's the thing. So, you know, I got my own struggles.

But they're fun. Right. You know, they certainly keep me right sized. We got to close it down here. But I got to ask you one more thing before we go yes and that is you know you could probably see this coming but it's really to i have no idea what you know oh come on man i don't i want to speak to you know the alcoholic out there who's still suffering you know and if there's something that you could say, you know, offer up some words of

wisdom that might be helpful to somebody who feels stuck in their addiction, whether it's substance or behavioral or it doesn't matter what, you know, what is the path towards, you know, working your way out of something like that, that prison of the mind and the body? I think it only, in the body. I think it only, it will only work if somebody asks for help first and doesn't dictate

what type of help they want. Somebody taught me that the word humble meant I have to acknowledge I have a problem. I have to ask for help for it. And I have to do the fucking help exactly the way it is offered to me which inadvertently shatters my ego it takes me out of the game it takes all the fucking pressure

off of me but you know I mean in the modern civilization and free Western world everybody's like self-help be your own man be a millionaire like you know money is very misconstrued with power and a lot of people use money to have power i realize i don't fucking have any but i'm able to tap into one that is there whatever's keeping gravity going and making dolphins and fucking you know shrimp those things are cool like i've never met a dude who's like yeah i'm gonna give it fucking eight legs and a spike and weird tail and and they'll be delicious sometimes you know if you choose to eat those but all of that everything that's happened to me was because my pathetic utterance of help was like simply saying, I don't know what to do.

You know, I was banking on dying and I didn't. And when I didn't, it took a couple days, but I had no choice. I really was like, fuck, I don't know what to do. So until somebody asked for help, like it never crossed my mind. Like I've talked to people in the mass. It was like, like, dude, you were so out of control.

We tried to help you. And I'm like, I remember the barbecue you're talking about. I remember what Cindy was wearing. I remember Skinner, Freebird, the big guitar part was playing, but I don't remember that part of the conversation.

I remember afterwards, you know, we went over here and listen to that. Like, I remember all that stuff. Clearly. I never remember anybody like, you've got to stop taking drugs. Or like, you're getting out of control.

Once I asked for help, all that stuff got clear. It's this weird, like, a kaleidoscope. Or maybe not a kaleidoscope. It's like, I don't know. It's this weird inversion. Does that make sense? I don't know. It's this weird inversion. Does that make sense? Well, I think what it is, is this bizarre spiritual equation that bends the time-space continuum in some kind of strange way.

Where that shift where you flick that switch and you click into willingness, you tap into something outside of yourself that, you know, and I described it in my book as the universe conspiring to support you. Like something happens where when you tap into that desire to improve in a very genuine way, and you're able to kind of shut off the chatter of the thinking mind. Under the threat of potential death or terminal homelessness. It doesn't even matter what motivated you to get there. But once you're there, stuff happens. Oh, yeah. And that is a fact.

That's been my experience. I've heard you talk about it a million times. I've heard it come out of the mouths of so many people that you and I both know. And it's just, it's true. And none of it is self-manufactured. That's what I like about it. Like, I'm not into self-help. I am fucking self-helpless.

And once I remember that, then I'm open to other things helping me. But, you know, I wasn't raised in an environment or in a nation where asking for help, it's not even fucking mentioned. It's not like, oh, here's how you do it when it's awkward. It just doesn't fucking, it never came across my radar. Nobody teaches you how to ask for help. But if you are drowning, the Boy Scouts teach you to go help and wave your fucking arm in the water.

So it is there. It's just, you know, everything says, oh, when you're in trouble, call 911. Yell for help. Scream for help. And that does bring people toward you. But that butts up against this kind of masculine prerogative that to ask for help is to imply weakness. Or to become a corpse. All those tough motherfuckers, like once they die, they've never come back and been like, bro, it ain't so bad. It's like whatever mulch,

like that's what I look at, the grim reality of it. And I almost fell into that a number of times for no reason. I was never hell-bent on harming myself. There was no reason for it. But life would get frustrating and kind of pointless and kind of meandering and boring. But the second I asked for help, I mean, it's unreal. Unreal. Like, I fucking got got it there really is something i'm sure there's somebody like picturing me in like some dirty old worn out like wizard costume right now i'm sure we sound no you look like you you look like

you just walked off stage with social distortion you know you have this sort of like skater punk you know it's weird because i'm totally in a new wave yeah but uh no you're hip you look like you you know you look like you spend time in long beach or maybe laguna that you spend time on a surfboard but also you know in the punk scene which i never did i saw the clash in nashville in 83 but that was for the let's the the rock what was it called combat rock tour which was a dance tune with just new waivers but i saw the show and i was mortified i was like what the fuck is not for me it's punk rock well that's so funny because that's that's how i feel about like john joseph comes from that like the super hardcore but like

i can't tap into that music emotionally for some people it's everything like the crow mags are it and that's that's their jam and for me i can't i can't get i love john personally he's one of my closest friends oh yeah that's awesome i can't connect emotionally with the music i don't know that much about i just got turned on bad brains five years ago which is awesome which it's weird because i really like them and john said those are the people who turned him on to right yeah it was all about bad brains for him yeah and they're great and i just heard them five years ago but i can tell you every fucking remix the cure and depeche Mode and New Order and all of them. Dude, I love that shit. Craft work.

I like that stuff too. All of it. I love it. That's like happy music. Plus, punk rock to me was fuck the government, basically that. And I'm not going to do what you say. And I'm like, well, I never got out of school, and the government gave me an M16 and a check and food and a bed and

clothing i mean it's all the same clothing but she didn't have that yeah fuck you government's doing okay by me i mean i didn't realize until years later i was a sucker and but that was my choice but once i saw what it was i i got out of that once i saw what production was to me i got out i don't go back and talk shit about those worlds i will relate the experiences i've had in there it's just always something in me is like okay time to change gears which is exhilarating instead of frightening like i don't get filled with self-doubt about it. I'm like, fuck it. Why not? Let's try something else. Yeah. You seem to always have that kind of operating system. You're never like, oh, I'm really, I'm not sure what to do. I'm scared. You're not like that at all. You're just like, yeah, I'm going to do this new thing. We'll see how it goes. You know,

you're just open. Yeah. Until something kills me. I mean, then I'm like, oh shit, maybe I should have thought about that but so far it's good look i met you i met john jones like all this stuff my life keeps getting enriched like i'm the one going along for the ride people are like oh dude you're you know i get it i'm weird as fucking shit but i don't make apologies for it it's not an act i am who the fuck i am i know what i'm bringing to the table i try to be kind and nice to people. I have a weird sense of humor. I listen to weird music.

I dress weird. And you've helped a ton of dudes get sober and stay sober. Some dudes help me. It just seems the most natural. I would never even question whether or not I'm going to help somebody, which is weird because I wasn't that guy before. I was not that guy.

I didn't want anything from any, I wanted nothing to do with people. I'd always felt a bit like a weirdo outsider. Very strange. And there's no book, there's no class, there's no clinical clinical psychologist there's no um whatever you call those people in high school guidance counselors like i didn't know the questions to ask to even get fucking answers it was just like oh self-contained this is weird let me try walking over here that's weirder let me go back there this is frustrating let me try this just kind of that luckily you know i stumbled into this i mean so far like you and i've never been in an argument no we never i don't owe you

any money i haven't borrowed anything from you uh-huh you haven't showed up at my house at three in the morning knocking on the door i don't even know where the fuck you live you have my address which is rare i don't give that thing out but you have been a gigantic positive influence on my life and my sobriety and you've been massively of service to me and uh and i greatly greatly appreciate that and i feel very fortunate to have you in my life and i love you man and it was a privilege to share your story here today yeah i was wondering did you ever see that documentary seinfeld did called comedian i think maybe i saw parts of it they pair up this guy named

orion williams or something like that and jerry seinfeld jerry retired all of his work and said i'm going to work on getting a new 45 minutes of material right and they're going to pair along with this other guy and the whole time jerry's working his ass off in these horrible clubs where people are heckling and like you know it's just a pain in the ass and he's grinding and grinding and this other guy's like when do we get famous when do we get famous and seinfeld's like it's not about the money it's not about the fame you show up and at one point they're in canada and this guy comes in I think the club owner and he goes oh look there's I guess Seinfeld has some super agent who's also Larry David's agent he goes oh and this guy's here he's like oh he was uh Larry David's agent I may be getting that part wrong but he was Seinfeld's

agent and now he's Orion Williams agent like who's next the parrot from beretta and he's like and arian's face just cracked so when that just kept echoing in my head i'm like oh yeah ariana huffington like the dude who wrote chicken salt 500 million books john joseph and then like me i'm like who's next like are you gonna have like andy dick's acting workshop for Shakespeare? I got to keep it diverse and eclectic. Well, you have because the eclectic-ness really threw me. I'm like, there's no rhyme or reason. I'm like, this dude's batting it out of the park.

Mind, body, green. What's the guy's name? Doug, who's doing Juicero? Doug Evans. Dude, I got a man crush on that guy. Yeah, he's amazing. That dude is awesome. And I get it.

And, you know, Russell Simmons. I mean, dude, those dudes dropped the fucking Beastie Boys. Licensed to ill. What a great record. Yeah, Russell's a special guy. And, you know, it's been... And then me. Yeah, but look, your message is beautiful. I think it's been me it's been yeah but but look your message is beautiful i think it's impactful and i love you know being i love the privilege of being able to shine a light on

somebody that is important to me and uh and i'm glad that you came here today and allowed yourself to be open and vulnerable i'm still mystified but i said i would show up and do this like i love you i'll support you don't whenever. How do you think it went? No one's crying. We're good. The phones haven't been ringing for us to get off the air. There's no phones. I thought it was good, man.

I dug it. I enjoy it. I love you, man. It was good. It was a nice break. And it's 5 o'clock. Time for me to go home. Let's go. Peace, brother. Plants. So what'd you guys think? I just love that guy. He's so solid. He is like a rock.

And I'm so appreciative of him coming by and being so open. He is just a tremendously inspiring example of service. The level of service that this guy exudes and practices in his daily life is really something to behold. And he's been of tremendous help in my life, in my sober adventure and journey. So I appreciate him tremendously and I hope you guys enjoyed our conversation. This is the part of the show where I tell you guys to go check out the show notes. There's not a ton this week because like I said at the outset,

Chris isn't a guy who has tons of articles written about him. He's just a dude. But I have included a few interesting links as well as some links to related podcasts if you enjoyed this one. And also, like I said, I always write like a few interesting links as well as some links to related podcasts if you enjoyed this one and also like I said I always write like a pretty interesting blog post

about all the guests so please check that out and if you haven't already subscribed to my YouTube channel make a point of doing that youtube.com forward slash roll I've been having fun vlogging it's incredibly creatively gratifying to share an aspect of my life in that medium

what else? I want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. Jason Camiolo for audio engineering and production, Sean Patterson for graphics, Chris Swan for production assistance and show notes, and of course, theme music by Analema. Thanks, you guys. I love you. I'll see you next week. Thank you.