We're Out of Time - Meet the Youngest Radio DJ In History with an Inspiring Story Shadoe Stevens

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Get inspired by the incredible story of Shadoe Stevens, who became the world's youngest DJ at age 11. Listen to his journey on the "We're Out of Time" podcast with Richard Taite as they discuss overcoming struggles with addiction, finding success in the entertainment industry, and, most importantly, success as a family man. For all things Richard Taite, the We're Out Of Time podcast, and Carrara Treatment Wellness & Spa: https://linktr.ee/richardtaitehttps://www.1callplacement.org/For more on Shadoe Stevens:https://www.mentalradio.net/ http://www.shadoeart.com/Key moments from this conversation with Shadoe Stevens & Richard Taite. Intro 00:00How did Shadoe become the youngest Radio DJ in the world? 02:11When did substances enter Shadoe's life? 04:00When did Shadoe first explore a life without drugs, and what led him back to substance use? 06:57Substance use and a psychotic break? 13:02Why has laughter been imperative to Shadoe's recovery? 16:10Meditation- why it's the most important discovery Shadoe has made in life? 18:49What is the impact of substance abuse on the family, and how did Shadoe meet his wife? 26:14Why does Shadoe know that the love for his family is his greatest success? 31:30Shadoe shares advice for parents who have a child struggling with substances. 39:49What inspired Shadoe's passion project, Mental Radio? 42:18

When I was 10, I built a radio station in my house. And when I was 11, I was discovered by a local radio station. And they put me on the air as the world's youngest disc jockey. And my parents didn't drink or smoke or use drugs or curse or fight in front of the kids. Didn't want to drink. drank once. Projectile vomited. My fourth year of college, I discovered doctor prescribed prescription.

And I had my own company called Shadow Vision. And we were doing things like the Blues Brothers. And fast times at Ridman High. and 48 hours. You did those? Countless convulsions later. I had an overdose in my studio. I was walking my first daughter down the aisle, kind of tremble a little bit. I see myself in convulsions on the bathroom floor, and I thought, I almost miss this. Find these things that you believe in, the greater your ability to turn your will in your life over to the care of this something that you can't begin to comprehend. Thank you for listening to the We're Out of Time

podcast with Richard Tate. If you haven't already, please follow the podcast. rate and review. And if you're getting value out of where out of time, share it with someone else you know. Everyone, I wanted to introduce you to somebody who I saw in probably one of my first AA meanings ever. Shadow Stevens, the legend, the voice of television and radio when I was younger and just an absolute icon man, like the most beautiful voice, most talented man. Please stop, stop, stop, stop, no more, please. I was telling you before this, you started talking to me, and the only thing I could think of, I couldn't hear what you were saying.

And the only thing I could think was, oh my God, he's got such a beautiful voice. And that's clear. So you can't, you kind of like a pretty girl, right? Like, she can be as smart as sharp as attack, right? And you just can't hear her. So it's kind of like that. Sucks for you. Well, thank you.

Yeah, it's good to be here. Or anywhere for anything matter. Let me ask you a question, man. You were such a massive success. One of the biggest voices in America. How did drugs and alcohol fit into that? and were you using while you were working or was it just an off-the-clock thing? Well, that's a long story.

I don't know how much you want to hear of it. I'll tell you in a nutshell. I grew up in Jamestown, North Dakota. I'm the oldest of five children. And my parents didn't drink or smoke or use drugs or curse or fight in front of the kids. My dad was very entrepreneurial. He owned clothing stores and toy stores and go-kart tracks and fireworks stands on the 4th of July. And all of the kids would run a different firework stand.

When we had fireworks displays, they were at our house. It was Norman Rockwell, and I had go-carts, I had motorcycles, I had, I worked early. I was very aggressively enthusiastic, and I built a radio station from a kit in my house when I was 10. And when I was 11, I was discovered by a local radio station. And they put me on the air as the world's youngest disc jockey. And I did rock and roll on Saturday morning on K-E-Y-J. and then I stayed doing radio most of my high school part-time in the summers and went through five years of college. Didn't want to drink.

Drink once. Projectile vomited. I thought this is like my dad says, why do you want to drink? Makes you loud and stupid. So I didn't until my fourth year of college, I discovered doctor-prescribed prescription. of desbutal. Desbutal was a brilliantly subtle combination of a wide

variety of intoxicants, mainly meth and barbiturate. So it gave you the energy and it allowed you to stay thin and get a lot done while taking the edge off at the same time. It was

widely abused and is no longer available. But that was the gateway. So now I have an acceleration that made me, because I was always busy. I worked full-time in radio, and I went to school full-time. And by the time I got to the University of Arizona,

I was working full-time at the radio station and doing school and doing plays. And getting a lot done. Guy says, you want to try some weed. I says, you should try it. I mean, it's a plant. It's not like it's heroin. and so they had it all set up and it was a great big hookah and the hookah had these tubes and there was black light posters

and they dimmed the lights and they turned up the sound system and it was a great sound system i remember the music when i first got high it was mini ripperton suddenly i was elevated into the ceiling and i was moving at one with the universe and i saw it in colors on the left and on the right and i understood oh no wonder you can't explain this. It's like trying to explain the color blue to a blind man. It's experiential. I know it's really thirsty. And that night, I bought my first ounce. And within a month, I bought my first pound. Then I moved to Boston. And in Boston, we were smoking every day, and we shared our vibrations. We laughed for no reason at things that weren't funny. And the guy said, you want to try some acid? What's acid? It's like grass, more intense.

So I try it. I have a terrifying experience. I could go into this in great detail because it's wildly funny, but horrifying. Let's not do that. But funny and horrifying. Funny the funny. Horrifying. Don't do the funny.

Please don't do it. Well, you know, in retrospect, it is actually kind of funny. So then I get a prescription doctor in Los Angeles because I had a lot of responsibilities, you know, a lot of people are responsible for. They had to keep going. And I saw him for many years. but it was elevated little by little. And I always wanted to be up.

I wanted to be working. I want to be trying things. I want to be doing art. I want to be writing. I want to be productive all night into the next day, you know, five-day runs. And along the way, I had an LSD experience that was out of the body. and I thought I've got to find a way here without drugs.

And so I started studying comparative religion and quantum physics and auto body experiences and the occult and meditation. And I learned to meditate. And I started and I gave up drugs and alcohol. And for a year, things got better. And then a guy came in. and I had left radio and went into production, and I had my own company called Shadow Vision,

and it was a production company, and we were doing things like the Blues Brothers movie, and Fast Times at Ridman High and 48 hours. You did those? Yeah, I did all that. Those are fantastic movies. Yeah, they're great movies. And we were really on a role,

and then I, started doing television commercials. But about that time, about the time of the Blues Brothers, a guy came in and he laid down an ounce of Peruvian flake. And it was crystal pure, and it was pretty. And he said, have as much as you want. And I thought, I have really been good. Clearly, I can pick it up or put it downstop any time I want.

What would a little needle line hurt? Well, I did two because you have two nostrils. and then I do two more to balance the hemispheres of my brain. And pretty soon I'm arcing and we're getting a lot done. And we work through the night and through the next day and through the next night. And we worked and worked. It got a lot done. I think we did 50 commercials.

And then I bought my own ounces. And that opened up the door. And now I'm back 100%. And it was me and the team because I had this great team. I was doing television commercials, the federated commercials. I love those. I forgot about those. Those were the best. Yeah, there's a video on YouTube called Bludgeon Advertising that we did years ago.

And it's the whole story of Federated and me and in this campaign that I created. And we did 1,100 commercials. This was going really well and they were getting really fun. But I was losing it as it was growing. I gained a lot of weight. I gained actually 50 pounds, but because they didn't stop eating either. The only person I've ever known who got fatter while on cocaine was Sarge. I know, Sarge and I have a lot in common.

Okay. And I got big too. And people would say, you're big-boned. I went, no one guy once. So I knew, I knew. But there's video. So we did this thing called Fear and Loathing in Big Sur. And what I did is I bought motorcycles for all the guys.

So we all had motorcycles. And we put them in a big truck with all the equipment, the cameras and the lighting and everything. And we had a sober driver and headed off for Big Sur. And we had an RV. And in the RV, we were loaded up with cocaine and magic mushrooms from the Amazon. And I mean, on and on. I'm just like we were well packed. And we got up there.

And part of that was to open stores in Sacramento and Fresno. So we do live appearances. And Fred would show up. And people would stand in line for two hours to meet Fred. Fred Raiden? Yeah. That was my character. Fred Raider for better.

It was all in all alliteration. It was like Fred Radio for Federated, Fred and Friederated for Federated, Fred and Fraterated, my dog, Vera, Verifered. You know, so listen fast and I don't have a lot of time of talk. I've been irritated and frustrated. He had frustrated. You know, it's like, Bob, I'm a bit of a bar.

And, um, dude, he should do a commercial for something for us. Like, seriously, he's a genius. So, go on.

That's a, that's a, that's a, that, you don't understand what these commercials were like. I mean, at a time where, you know,

you'd have my dad doing commercials, 993, 9999, right? Custom craft carpets. And then the next, on television would be

this guy, Cal Worthington and his dog spawn. And then federated. So those are the three commercials that you would see all the time. Well, the difference were... Is that where commercials were good? Well, no commercial ever went longer than 10 days.

We did five to seven, eight commercials a week. Turn them out. We meet on Monday. We would figure out the writing on Monday. We would get it prepared on Tuesday. We would shoot on Wednesday. we would edit on Thursday and turn him in Friday for six years. Oh, Miss Apprehension.

I will have all in this call. My client was denied her rights to selection and freedom of choice. I was a victim of underchoice. But she couldn't have been underchoiced at Federated. We have everything in audio, video, TV, and tape. Now an NEC 26-inch color monitors save $100 now at Federated 749. Whether the question is, if she didn't go to Federated, where did she get undercharged? Saucat circus.

What is the obvious the case of artificial intelligence? Mistra! You'll see the, he had a VHS camera, so he was videotaping, Fear and Loathing and Big Sur, and we're in the band on the way, and I'm amped, and you'll see it. It's funny and crazy as can be.

And then it, there's a point in the video that shows, and then he went into rehab, because it was like, clearly out of control. But I mean, I was using, I lived in Malibu Canyon and I used into convulsions regularly. I had guns because I thought people were trying to kill me. I could hear, I could hear whispers outside the window. It's so much. Sheets over the windows and the doors. And I put quilts over the sheets and the windows and the doors because you can see silhouettes through sheets. And then I

realized you can see around the cracks of ground quilts. So I put nails at one inch interval. and I sat with my 12-gauge short-barrel double-odd buck and I thought either there's somebody out there or I've gone insane I need to confront my destiny

and I went outside and I sat beneath the window with my 12-gauge and waited and I heard a rustle in the bush and then I jumped up screaming now you die motherf and I chased them through the brush and they got away

So I went back to the bathroom to celebrate, lock the door, put the towel under the door, ran the tub, had another hip, and then rock back on the floor in convulsions. And when I came to, I thought, I should take a breather. Not I should stop, I mean, because stopping wasn't clearly an option.

When I got a, my doctor saw me and I had a physical, and he said, if you're lucky, you're going to die. I don't think you're going to die. I think you're going to have a heart attack or a stroke any minute. And you've got to stop or you're going to lose your ability to talk. You're going to lose the left side of your body.

Something awful is going to happen any minute. And you've got to stop. And I knew he was right, but I couldn't. I was humiliated. I was so ashamed of what had become of me. I thought, I'm insane. What's wrong? with me? I can't do that. And I didn't. So countless convulsions later, I had an overdose in my

studio, and my guys that worked for me came and found me at 4 in the morning, and they got afraid. And they called my family, and my family ganged up on me and talked me into going into recovery. and I went to Betty Ford and there was no room so they said come back in a few weeks I went please come back in a few weeks but no

and he said well let's make a call and they found me a room in scripts in La Jolla and that's where I went the worst day of my life I'm sure that I would never laugh again I'd never be creative again I was like going into a mental

hospital and then I Talk to the counselor in admissions, and he said, you know, this isn't a mental hospital. You can leave any time you want, but clearly things aren't going well for you, and maybe you should give it a day. Okay. So I did, and then my roommate turned out it was just like me. He was a want to be up all the time. Crystal meth Coke user, he was ready to leave. that wasn't working for him, and then we talked and we laughed, and he made me laugh.

And that was my key. I laughed my way into sobriety. I sat there. We had a lot of opinions. And I say this when I share. We had a lot of opinions for you alcoholics. Because, you see, we were the elite of the mentally ill. We were drug addicts.

And they weren't talking about drugs. we're talking about steps or something that made no sense at all. And I couldn't relate to. So the counselor comes in a couple weeks in and he said, you know, you guys should try listening. We were voted least likely to succeed because we had so many opinions about this whole program thing. And he said, this is the only thing that's worked. It's worked for millions of people, but you got to know what you do it. and maybe you should figure out, listen to how it works.

And then he turns and he said, you've got some anger issues. So if I were you, I'd get a sense of humor. If you don't have a sense of humor about who you are, what you've done, where you've been, and where you're going, you're in for a rough ride. This life gets tough. You better be able to laugh at yourself.

And for me, a bill went off in my head. And I got up the next morning, half hour before everybody else and started meditating. Tell me about the meditating, because that's what you're doing now as part of your, well, that's what you would give a lot of credit to the way you feel and walk through life right now. I don't see you struggling through life, is what I'm trying to say. I see you colliding through life based on the work. and the maintenance that you do all the time. I wish I could say that it was gliding.

Everybody has things happen that are really difficult, and that includes failure in work and aspirations and health issues and all kinds of things. But meditation is the only important thing I've discovered in life. and I enthusiastically suggest that everyone take it seriously. And the whole step work... Before we get to the step work, tell me about the benefits of...

Well, there's a couple... They're in different kinds of meditation and people get comfortable with just something that's easy, like guided meditation or mindfulness. Mindfulness is you go, sit in the park and you smell the fresh cut grass and you listen to the sounds of children and you hear the birds

and you think of different kinds of birds and you watch a butterfly go by and you get out of projecting into the future or reflecting on the past, you're in the moment and you are basically saying, thank you, life is good. And that works. And so it is guided meditation

where you kind of turn your thinking over to a narrative delivered by someone else. And they tell you, and you see this movie in your head, and you get out of the future and out of the past, and you don't think of traumas, you're thinking about, I feel calm. I feel calm.

It's good. But true meditation is focused, mantra-based meditation. And basically, you take control of all of it yourself. And in yoga, they teach you, and they say watch your breath. And that's fine, except it's really hard to watch your breath. The problem with all these things is that you, the critic in your head steps in.

And you're listening to this voice, and it really works and you feel calm sometimes. And then you go, wish you had a different voice, maybe a female voice. No, I've heard this thing, travel down from walking down the path, and there's the river off to the right and the sounds of crickets and the thing about, I've done this, this is not working.

And you go and you try to be mindful in the park, and you know, I smell the fresh cut grass. And I've, this isn't working. It's like, I got things to do. I forgot to send that email. I should take a shower and I've got to get to and you're in your head. Your head chatters.

When you're watching your breath, that's all well and good. But there are supportive kinds of focus that contribute to being able to watch your breath so that your mind doesn't have time to interject and to go, because, for example, if we were to sit here and you want to sit upright always

and have your spine straight because all the energy is in your spine, and you want to, for your body to go into a deep sleep-like state, which is beyond calm. Calm is one thing, but when you get into the body getting so quiet that it gets numb

and your body feels like it's out here, kind of like the skin of a soap bubble, and you are consumed in pure consciousness. And that's the I am, the witness, the soul, the spirit, the bubble of consciousness in an infinite sea of awareness. And you realize that the deeper you go, the deeper there is to merge into, and this is the high that we're all looking for.

It's beyond calm, it's beyond peace of mind. It is the confirmation of everything you believed or listened to or thought was reasonable about faith. which is why I bring up to people that I think they should find their own body of evidence, you know, spend a little time. Looking at the poetry of Islam or the Buddhist cones or the teachings of Indian masters or Native American powwows, what are the spiritual beliefs of people of great faith, the articulate ones, the physicists who

I found dozens of quotes by brilliant people. And every time I find one, I write it down. And then I try to commit it to memory. And it becomes part of my personal body of evidence that has nothing to do with mythology or dogma. Mythology is always the stuff that atheists buy into. Yeah, he's part of the Red Seas. Yeah, right.

change water to wine maybe or dogma which are the rules and regulations of how to get to the infinite what and then we get into the question of what is God and why do we use the word God so why and if you don't need to

don't if that makes you uncomfortable the almighty mover the original source the original operating system that's something that's infinite incomprehensible formless absolute that created all of this cause and effect, this universe of order. And the more you find these things that you believe in, the greater your ability to turn

your will in your life over to the care of this something that you can't begin to comprehend. But when you meditate, it's the confirmation of all of those words and ideas. when you have the experience of going within of transcendental consciousness, it affects everything. It opens up living in possibilities. It gives you ultimate hope. It gives you an idea of an infinitely perfect universe

beyond the physical universe. So that was graduate school. Yeah. Everybody just got a doctorate on what it's like to be really self-care. That's what that is. It's self-care. It's not wanting to suffer.

What? It's not wanting to suffer. Yeah. I don't want to suffer. I'm not going to go out. You know, I got sober with a guy that was young, handsome, articulate, had his own business. Great. He owned a flower shop.

And we saw him at meetings all the time and stopped seeing him. And one day I was walking down Melrose, and this carcass started walking toward me. A carcass? Yeah, a carcass. And as it got closer, I realized it was my friend. And I went, hey, how are you doing? And he said, you know, well, you know, I got it. You know, I went to these meetings all the time, and it was like, oh, you just don't take her use no matter what.

So, you know, I didn't see the reason to go to meetings anymore because, you know, they were kind of boring. And I was going to church and I went to communion. And part of it was just a little shot of wine. And I had it and nothing happened. Nothing happened. I'm good. So a couple of weeks later, a friend of mine was being promoted at a law firm and everybody's having shot. So I had one shot and nothing happened.

I was good. A couple weeks later, there was another one and other shots. I had a couple of shots. And then pretty soon I started drinking again. And then pretty soon I was drinking, you know, pretty much all the time. But I needed a lift. So I started doing a little cocaine. And then, you know, I, well, you know, snorting it wasn't good enough. And I started smoking it. So he says, yeah, so then I started shooting it. And then I was drinking so much that I got gutt. and my ankles were swollen purple and black. And my best thinking was to shoot the cocaine into the gout. That's a bad idea.

Now, I would have that idea. It's funny and horrifying, and he died a few weeks later. Okay, not as funny. Not as funny. Yeah. Yeah, it's stark out there. And as you know, after you've been around a long time, you hear really terrifying stories.

You know, you think you... But why is it that the public sees them as horrifying? But when we sit in a room in AA and we're listening to this, we're hysterical. Truly, truly, well, you better keep your sense of humor. You know, Scott, you know, what else have we got? It's like, if we could have done any better, we would have. But we didn't know better at the time. We were doing the best we could.

We were just trying to get by. It was like, want to have a little fun. I just want to fit in. I just want to not feel uncomfortable and self-conscious and afraid. And I want to be like the cool people. And I, you know, that's what I want. I want to be like the cool people from, you know, from the big cities. I grew up in James Town, North Dakota.

Were you using when you met your wife? No, no, no. No. Again, backstory. I was married twice before. Were you using when you met your first wife? Yes. Well, we used together, and then she had the good sense to stop.

And she left me because I was doing too many drugs, and she didn't want to be in Los Angeles anymore. So I'm saving myself and got away. And on the rebound, I married somebody else, and it seemed like a good idea at the time. And it was we fought every day for five years. Right. And then I got sober and went, I don't want to fight anymore.

In fact, I don't want a relationship anymore. Clearly it doesn't work for me. I didn't grow up like this. My parents didn't fight. They didn't scream. I'm not, what have I become? And so I got happy being myself. When I got sober, I went, oh, I've got an active mind.

I've got to get busy. So I took up martial arts. I took up yoga. I took up running. I went on a doctor-supervised fast and lost 50 pounds. I changed my life completely in mere months. And I meditated. And I meditated every day.

And I went to meetings. Now nine months sober. My life has changed. I'm happy. I'm up. I'm doing things. And a guy that worked for me went to the bank. And he was standing in line next to this beautiful model,

black woman international model. started talking, he flirted a lot. He said, well, now come over and hear the music we're doing over at our studio. She goes, sure, I go walk into the studio, and there he is playing music for her. And she's the most beautiful person I've ever seen in my life. It's like, I tried to be cool. I'm like, so, what are you playing here? I'm catching glances and glimpses.

And she got uncomfortable and left. She said later that I saw this aura around you, and it was like too intense. I had to get out of there. So I say, I say, Ron, who was that? He goes, ah, it's this model. I met her in the bank. And went, does she sing? Yeah, I think so.

Get her back. So the very first thing we ever did together, I had sold a show called Shadow Vision, which is very crazy, kind of like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy at 100 miles an hour. And I sold it to HBO, and we were working,

on it at the time. And one of it was a little piece of music called, oh, you perspire. And it went like this. Oh, you perspire. Yeah, you perspire. Uh-huh. Oh. She go, uh, you perspire. Uh, uh, uh, uh, oh. And we did this about 50 times because it was so sexy and so funny. And to make a long story short, we're still together. and we've never had a fight. I've never raised my voice. I mean, we've disagree. We've gotten edgy with each other a few times, but nothing, it's blessed.

It's a fantasy land marriage. I told you. I told you. And he's proof. She's as good as it gets. And then, of course, my children look like her and are gorgeous, stunningly beautiful. Yeah.

And now I have three grandchildren. who also basically look like her, or variations, and they're gorgeous. And I pinched myself, and I think, you know, I walk my, I have two daughters. I have a son for my first marriage as well,

and we have a great relationship, and he's amazing. And I was walking my first daughter down the aisle some years ago, and it was Hollywood. It's like the most beautiful people on the left and on the right. candlelit, I mean, just like it should have been filmed. And I'm walking her down the aisle, and she's like, she looks like, she's like Beyonce, you know, she's just beautiful. And I,

and I tell this story all the time. I'm walking long and I kind of tremble a little bit because I see myself in convulsions on the bathroom floor and I thought, I almost miss this. there have been countless moments like that of, I almost miss this, these grandchildren. I mean, it's on and on and on. And how did I get so lucky? How come I didn't die coming out of a blackout in Topanga Canyon at 4 in the morning

with my car spinning in circles right up to the edge of a cliff? It's like a Hollywood movie. That really happened. and at the time, I go, where have I been? I don't know what time is it. Where have I been for three hours? I don't know what I've been.

So I get out of the car and I'm catching my breath and it's four in the morning and it's dark out and I'm in Topanga Canyon and I don't know how I got there. And my best idea is to take out my gun and shoot it into the air as a symbol of my commitment to never use again. Ah! Nope. I got in my car and I drove slowly home, got some rest. I was heading into town to the studio the next day and I was falling asleep. So what could I do? I had to call the dealer.

And he was there. And so I'm back on the treadmill. I'm not going back to that. I'm not going back. Life is good. I always tell that to people. I always say and everybody does, but it's the truth. if it was a better deal to get loaded,

then I would be loaded. You know, in AA, we both love A.A. I love A.A. But I haven't been in 20 years. I haven't been. I said something the other day in a room full of doctors and psychologists. They were saying something I remember what they were talking about,

but I said, look, unless you can give someone a life that is better or more valuable than the life they had when they came into treatment, they can't stay sober. The end. Yeah. And, you know, a lot of those people were in AA, and they didn't like what I had to say. And they didn't like what I had to say because it was. wasn't one of the things that they've heard over the last 30 years in a room from a podium or from the shares. And I was like thinking to myself, man, the problem with alcoholics is that everyone who's sober thinks they're an expert on alcoholism and recovery. And they're not. They're only

an expert on their own recovery. Well, you know, I don't entirely agree with you. That's why I said it. I really like hearing the stories, and they are miraculous. I've had a series of people speak for this meeting that I'm secretary of, a cocaine anonymous meeting, that are jaw-dropping. and it is a life beyond, that whole thing about a life beyond your wildest imagination

is absolutely true. It doesn't mean that you still don't have trouble. You still don't have failures. You still don't have stuff you have to get through. But by being among others who are wired like we are, we get a support system, and somebody has been through this already who's had that operation.

who's done something, who's recovered, who, you know, you need a job. All of a sudden, a job comes up out of nowhere just because you were present. And those stories are the heartbeat of it. It's what happened, you know, what it was like, what happened and what it's like now. Basic, the hero's journey, none of us should be alive. You know, everyone in there has come in broken. and terrified and weak and ashamed. And all they do is take direction

and then learn to help others. Do you know what I learned from AA? I learned. And it was intuitive. I learned the difference between AA and treatment before I got into treatment was when you walked into treatment, it was tough love.

And when you walked into treatment, it was tough love. walked into AA, whether they knew it or not, it was all love. Right? Because you walk into AA, it is the worst day of your life. No question. In that moment, you're a loser and your life came to this. Right. And you are full of nothing but shame.

Yeah. And intuitively, these guys just knew, come on, get over here. You're going to be fine. I promise. And that's what I took from A.A. Into our place. Because these people are so shame-based coming in

that to kick a horse when they're down makes absolutely no sense to me at all. None. Love is everything. And I got that from A.A. when I walked into AA, nobody wanted me around. I was such an

when I got to AA because my model was so bad. I didn't have me friends. I had to make you feel bad in order to make me feel good. Polar opposite of what they teach us in the AA community and one guy walked up to me

and he said, hey, baby. said, yeah. He said, you don't need to make that guy feel bad and make yourself feel good. You're perfect just the way you are. Come here. Gave me a hug. Handed me a cubid cigar.

We smoked. Bought me dinner because I didn't have so poor I couldn't pay attention. Right? A is the best thing that ever happened to me because I've got two children that I'm in love with, thank God. Mm-hmm, right?

What would you say to parents that have children that are using with the dangers on the street right now. There's a study in New England this last year of all of the cocaine that was seized and they did tests on it and found that something like 97% of it had fentanyl in it. And something like 30 or 40%

I remember the numbers of xylasein, of Trank. The zombie drug, yeah, well, who wouldn't want that? The flesh-eathing drug. It's like, oh, no, it's horrifying. And yet it's happening. And, you know, we've got to reach out to people, anybody that's going like, maybe I have a, well, just, if you don't think you have a problem, don't do any for,

a couple of weeks. See if you can do that. You probably can't. Everybody thinks they're special, they're different. I'm smarter. I don't use that way. You know, I was that way.

So is I. And until it gets really bad, you don't do anything. You can't. And you have to be broken down in order to get to it, unfortunately. Yeah.

I tell people to seek treatment right away. I don't care where they get it. If they're younger and it's just started, I tell them to get a therapist right away. Okay, once a week for their kid and once a week for their kid with the parent that they're most aligned with.

Okay. Yeah, man, I'm scared. I'm scared. It's different now. Mm-hmm. You know, 15 years ago, you're having a conversation with me about this. I don't really care.

And I owned Cliffside because I didn't have a child yet. The second you have a child, you know what love is, right? You don't know what love is before you have a child. You think you do, but you don't really know. Right? What are you working on now? Well, my passion project started at the beginning of COVID, and it was a lockdown, and the whole world thought, it's the end of the world, and was terrified. And I'm sitting there with my studio.

And I thought, well, I've got to write something funny and uplifting. And so I started writing mental radio. It's mental radio.net. And it started with me doing everything. I did all the production, all the writing, all of the sound design, all of the marketing, all of everything. And then I started attracting enthusiastic support. And the first one came from the guy was the director, of my federated commercials.

And he's also a world-class composer. And I said, Chuck, do you have any music that you own the publishing to that I could use for my stories? And he goes, yeah, I've had all these movies I was paid to do that never came out. And you can have whatever you want.

The library. It's like John Williams and Maraconi and, you know, like the Who's Who. It's really world-class music. And this opened up my, and mental radio is all audio theater. It's stories, adventures, tall tales, serials, and parody and sketches. And it all has a mythology behind it that gives it weight. And it's all dedicated to, you know, optimism and hope and big ideas.

and it's grown. And pretty soon I've got people saying, you know, I do voices, I do voice work, you know, if you got any characters, and then I would write these things, then I'd have them do it, and we'd do it like an animated movie, and they would send me their pieces,

and I'd stitch it together to make it sound real, and it grew. And now there are 26 episodes, and each episode would take weeks to do. It wouldn't be like, an interview where you sit down like now and maybe edit it together. This is like highly produced like doing a movie. And so some episodes would take a month, six weeks, it would take as long as it would take. And now there are 12 hours of stories and a little over a half million downloads.

It's got a bit of a following. It's got great reviews. My favorite is it, it, is audio acid and spiritual crack. If you listen to the stories with headphones, sounds come from behind you, they move around in your head. It's very cinematic, and it takes you away from the world. About a year and a half ago, the president of the Montaubon Theater in Hollywood, Gil Smith, was married to Ricardo Montaubon's daughter for decades, and she died just before COVID. And he called me and he said,

one of the things, as I sat alone in my house during COVID, one of the things that got me through was listening to mental radio and feeling laughing and feeling uplifted. And he said, what do you think about doing it is live theater? I think it's the greatest idea I ever heard in my life. You think we can. He goes, yeah, I'm thinking giant screens,

immersive 360 degrees surround sounds. So the kind of sound that you do in your shows actually happens in the theater, hard left to write, things coming from behind, things that is really an immersive experience. So we've been working on it for about a year and a half and hope to have it up this year.

The last nine months I've spent, I wrote and produced 16 songs. So it's not a real musical because characters don't break into song, but there's so much music in it. And the music is pretty fabulous. It's very uplifting and funny. There are songs like there's always someone to blame.

In fact, I have a little piece of that if you want to play it. Yeah. But there's always someone to turn on, someone behind all your pain. I think that sounds fantastic. Is that coming out? Yeah. Well, see, what we're doing, we're trying to do the legal now. and the legal part is like always cumbersome.

Sure. But we're in an advanced state of development. The scripts are done. We've done run-throughs in the theater. The music is just finished in rough mixes, but the rough mixes are really fabulous. There's a song called, Don't You Know Who I Am.

I'm a self-made overachiever. You know, it's pretty, I don't know how to explain some of these things. They're all different. The music is based on New Orleans second line music meets 1930s swing meets gospel. And the gospel is badass. It's real big. There's so much recovery in this show.

I mean, yes, we're learning to laugh at ourselves. Yes, we're laughing at being afraid. Yes, we're laughing at who we think we are. There's a song called, you've got to keep your sense of humor when it is. getting the van, sung by teenagers, and it's really fun. Did I leave anything out? Do you have anything you want to say? I would like to say mentalradio.net, and my art site is called shadowdart.com.

S-H-A-D-O-E-A-R-T, shadowart.com. Mental radio.net. And watch the skies, because... We should be able to roll this out sometime this year. That's such a great thing. I wish you nothing but the best and I can't wait till it comes out. See you next Tuesday. Seriously.

If you were a loved one is struggling, we have a number that you can call and we'll help you find the best treatment that is right for you. Our company, One Call Placement, is dedicated to helping you and we'll find the best treatment that is right for you. Call now at 8888808-6159. Again, that's 8888-808-6159. We're out of time. Please subscribe on YouTube, click the thumbs up, and leave a comment.

Please subscribe on Apple Podcast and Spotify, and leave a rating and a review. And share the We're Out of Time podcast with others you know who will get value out of it. See you next Tuesday.